Five Hundred Arhats No.340 · The Venerable White Fragrant Elephant | Traditional Hand-Painted Chinese Ink Zen Buddhist Figure Painting | 100×50cm

Five Hundred Arhats · No.340 The Venerable White Fragrant Elephant

'White fragrant elephant' is like the white fragrant elephant of great power, fully tamed, the mount of bodhisattvas (as Samantabhadra rides the six-tusked white elephant): white is purity, fragrance the virtue of precepts, elephant great sustaining power; the name marks one with the elephant's great power, tamed and able to bear the load. The venerable has a weighty presence and a tame, gentle look, possessing the gravity of the white elephant's power, the fragrance of pure precepts, tamed endurance, bearing the true Dharma with an elephant's strength.

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