Five Hundred Arhats No.118 · The Venerable Lamp of Dharma | Traditional Hand-Painted Chinese Ink Zen Buddhist Figure Painting | 100×50cm

Five Hundred Arhats · No.118 The Venerable Lamp of Dharma

'Lamp of Dharma' takes the Dharma as a bright lamp that illumines the long night of ignorance and, further, continues the Buddha's wisdom-life in an unbroken transmission of lamps; the name marks one who is himself a lamp and also lights beings with the Dharma. The venerable is like one holding a lamp against the night, bright-eyed, possessing the charge to pass on the flame and break darkness with the light of 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