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The heavens of an ethereal blue colour. Pale green clouds and the Himalayas in all their ice-blue beauty. Within a mandala of Mahayana Buddhist deities, an aureole of bejewelled gold. Floating about it is a luscious curve of mythical flora and fauna, infused with rich colour and imaginative detail. At the centre of all that surrounds Him is the gentle Bodhisattva Manjushri with the green-and-crimson halo.Dressed in fine velvets fit for a spiritual ruler, the Bodhisattva Manjushri is seated in a perfect padmasana on the pristine bed of a thousand lotus flowers. His hands are in the dharmachakra mudra and His torso is flanked by a pair of delicately flushed lotuses. Balanced on His serene brow is a resplendent crown that matches the kundalas dangling from His earlobes. He looks on at a world of illusions with supreme equanimity and compassion.
A thangka such as this one would be a fine addition to the space of any Buddhist yogi. The foreground of the composition is a seat of traditional Buddhist offerings. Blooming lotuses, cherry blossoms of seductive red colour, conchs, and coconuts. A pair of lions of the mountains crouch at the base of the Bodhisattva’s throne in all their iconographic wrath. Each creative aspect of this composition is in keeping with the elements of the traditional thangka art of Nepal.
