Emperor Qianlong in Buddhist robe and yellow hat assumes a palyaṅka gesture, with both hands making Dharma-Teaching Gesture (right) and Meditation Gesture (left) Moreover, his left hand supports a Dharma Wheel. Both shoulders have lotus-hearts, where Manjusri's sword and book are placed separately. Those two items denote that the Emperor is the embodiment of Manjusri and Cakravartin. Around the Emperor are portraits of all sects’ patriarchs in Tibetan Buddhism. Each patriarch's bottom features a Tibetan inscription in gold: འཇམ་དཔལ་རྣོམ་པོ་མིའི་རྗེ་བོར།།རོལ་བའི་བདག་ཆེན་ཆོས་ཀྱི་རྒྱལ།།རྡོ་རྗེའི་ཁྲི་ལ་ཞབས་བརྟན་ཅིང་༎བཞེད་དོན་ལྟུན་གྲུབ་སྐལ་བ་བཟང་༎ (Manjusri is the Lord of the human realm; Cakravartin is the King of the dharma. As the embodiment of them both, the Emperor sits in the full-vajra posture; then the empire will be imbued with benevolence and bliss.) Now there are 6 extant scrolls of portraits of Qianlong in Buddhist robe kept at Palace Museum, Potala Palace and other venues. This is the earliest of those thangkas. (Yang Hongjiao)

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