Five Hundred Arhats No.355 · The Venerable Candana | Traditional Hand-Painted Chinese Ink Zen Buddhist Figure Painting | 100×50cm

Five Hundred Arhats · No.355 The Venerable Candana

Here candana is Sanskrit for sandalwood, the king of fragrant trees, with a nominal ending; the name means his virtue is fragrant as sandalwood, its scent far-reaching, one fragrance surpassing all others; the name marks one whose fragrance of precept-virtue spreads like sandalwood. The venerable looks clear and gentle with a subtle fragrance in his air, possessing the gentleness of precept-fragrance like sandalwood, virtue-scent far-heard, richly aromatic, perfuming the world with the fragrance of pure precept-virtue.

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