Five Hundred Arhats No.413 · The Venerable Illumining the World | Traditional Hand-Painted Chinese Ink Zen Buddhist Figure Painting | 100×50cm

Five Hundred Arhats · No.413 The Venerable Illumining the World

'Illumining the world' means lighting the world with wisdom, understanding its formation and dissolution, knowing the worldly and transworldly, universally illumining the world with light-wisdom, breaking beings' darkness; the name marks one whose wisdom lights the world, clear without hindrance. The venerable makes an all-illumining gesture with a broad, bright look, possessing the radiance of lighting the world, understanding formation and dissolution, unhindered universal light, awakening the world with wisdom.

Painted by Li Zongyi in the freehand Chinese ink (xieyi) tradition, the brushwork is fluent and the ink tones layered from dense to pale, capturing the arhat’s spirit in a few assured strokes. The blank paper itself breathes Zen; figure and spirit are one, blending monastic solemnity with the literati’s ease. Each of the Five Hundred Arhats bears its own name and practice, uniting faith, art and collectibility — an original, non-reproducible hand-painted work.

Size: approx. 100×50cm (4.5 square chi) | Traditional hand-painted Chinese ink Zen Buddhist figure painting | On paper