Maitreya Thangkas

A Thangka, diversely referred to as Thangka, Tangka, Thanka, or Tanka, is a Tibetan Buddhist painting on cotton, silk appliqué, usually depicting a Buddhist deity, scene, or mandala. Thangka is also known as scroll painting. Roughly translating to “recorded message” in Tibetan, it is an ancient form of Buddhist art that originated within Tibet around the 11th century. These are densely illustrative, and painstakingly detailed, and serve as a striking centrepiece that can be appreciated by all admirers of Asian art. Buddhist thangka paintings are visually captivating and impressive — but there is more to them than meets the eye. Thangkas often focus on a specific deity and scene, and their form and surrounding details are often rich with symbolism, turning them into a medium for religious storytelling. Because of this, extracting all the intricacies and meanings from the paintings requires training. Tibetan thangkas were originally created for the purpose of helping the viewer or Buddhist practitioner on his journey to enlightenment. A thangka\'s characteristics like organization and juxtaposition of figures, repetition of figures, and size contribute to the storytelling of the painting.

Before he was universally known as Buddha, he was born Siddhartha Gautama. His first name, Siddhartha, means “he who achieves his aim.” While there is debate about the exact period in time when he was born, it is commonly believed to be somewhere around the sixth to fourth century B.C. Siddhartha was born Lumbini, which is the present-day Nepal, to a wealthy and aristocratic family. It is believed that his father was a chieftain or oligarch of the large Shakya clan and that his mother had passed away just a few days after he was born. Aside from Siddhartha, he was also frequently called Sakamuni, which translates to the “Sage of the Shakyas.”

According to Indian tradition, statues and icons do not only possess aesthetic value, representing the image of an idol. They are also, in fact, a physical vessel that carries with it the intangible qualities of the idol. The Indian ceremony of Pran-pratishtha recognizes the bequeathal of life on the lifeless icon of an idol. However, long before the ceremony, from the moment the craftsman begins to create the statue, the sacred process of bestowing both the physical and spiritual attributes of an icon begins. The beauty of statues, such as the Buddha head statue, is in both the accurate representation of physical features and in the artistic interpretation of the idol’s spirit.