Arniko

Aniko, Anige or Araniko (Nepali:अरनिको, Chinese: 阿尼哥)(1245 - 1306) was one of the key figures in the arts of Nepal, and Tibet and Yuan Dynasty of China, and the artistic exchanges in these areas. He was born in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, during the reign of Abhaya Malla. He is known for building the White Stupa at the Miaoying Temple in Beijing. During the reign of Jaya Bhim Dev Malla, he was sent on a project to build a golden stupa in Tibet, where he also initiated into monkhood. From Tibet he was sent further to North China to work in the court of the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan, the founder of Yuan dynasty (1279–1368), where he brought the trans-Himalayan artistic tradition to influence the Chinese art. Years later in Mongol-ruled China, he returned to laity and married a Mongol girl. He married seven other women from whom he had a total of 6 sons and 8 daughters.

Due to some confusion in translation, his name is variously written as Arniko or Araniko in old texts. A mistake made by Baburam Acharya ascribed his Sanskrit name as Balabahu. However, later he contends that Aniko might possibly be the Chinese pronunciation for Sanskrit name Aneka.

Aniko was born in 1245 in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, when it was ruled by King Abhaya Malla (1216–55). While Nepalese history does not have any record of Arniko and everything that is known of him comes from Chinese accounts, Chinese history and historian Baburam Acharya opines that Arniko could possibly be from Patan, a place famous for sculptures and fine arts. As such, he would have been from the Newa people and a Buddhist. However, it is known that Arniko lived in Kathmandu Valley during the reign of Jaya Bhim Dev Malla, the successor of Abhaya Malla.

In the Chinese records the name of his grandfather is given as "Mi-ti-rha" and grandmother as "Kun-di-la-qi-mei", Chinese pronunciation for Sanskrit names Mitra and Kundalaxmi respectively. His father's name was "La-ke-na" (Laxman) while his mother's name was "Shu-ma-ke-tai".

As is often told in stories about professional artists, Aniko was an artistic prodigy even in his early childhood. An anecdote from his epitaph relates that when he was three years old, his parents in took the child to a temple to pay homage to the Buddha. Looking up at a stupa, he asked "who made its wooden stambha, bhumis, anda?" Greatly surprised, the people around realized that he was a born artist. When he was about seven, his temperament was sober like an adult. At school, he mastered his textbooks and became a good calligrapher in such a short time that even the venerable elders acknowledged their inferiority. He could memorize treatises on art as soon as he heard them read. Before he left Nepal for Tibet, he was already an expert in painting, modeling, and casting images.

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