TIBETAN BUDDHIST THANGKA PAINTINGS (MASTERPIECES)

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.

"One enters Nepal as a traveler, and leaves as a pilgrim... Nepal is the ideal place to rise above the theoretical... textbooks, and see the twin strands of Tantra and Shamanism... rooted in the eternal and faithful depths of Hinduism, and tempered by the sobering influence of Buddhism... the gods of Nepal do not represent a forgotten era of the past. The deities here are living, and participate in the ordinary existence of everyday life as much as we mere mortals do..."

"\'The Wheel of Life\'...serves as a powerful inspiration to spiritual aspirants...to look deeply into their own inner beings...it is an attempt to convey spiritual insights behind our \'physical existence\' in purely visual terms...(It) symbolically represents how...beings, who have not practiced the Dharma and liberated themselves, are bound in a cycle of existences whose very nature is suffering...One should intently and seriously contemplate the meaning of this wheel...Once this happens, the wish to be free of this mindless suffering is spontaneous and constant"