Master's Life on Canvas

$495
Item Code: TR68
Specifications:
Tibetan Thangka Painting
Dimensions Size of Painted Surface 24.5 inches X 31.5 inches
Size with Brocade 34.0 inches X 46.5 inches
Handmade
Handmade
Free delivery
Free delivery
Fully insured
Fully insured
100% Made in India
100% Made in India
Fair trade
Fair trade
This thangka depicts sweet faced Shakyamuni Buddha, seated in vajraparyankasana on a lion throne in the centre of the painting. There is a jewel on the top of His head. His half closed compassionate eyes, smiling face convey the expression of love and compassion. The Buddha is draped in monastic garments, covering both the shoulders with bare breast. The right hand of the Buddha is in bhumisparsha-mudra, and the left hand, held in meditation position, holds a pinda-patra. The aureole of the Buddha symbolizes that he has perfected the six-paramitas (transcendences). These six paramitas are represented by six animals – the Garuda at the top is the first paramita of charity (dana) . The two young nagas stand for moral excellence (Shila-paramita) . The two makara is the symbol of forbearance (kshanti-paramita) . The two dwarfs on sheep represent endurance (virya-paramita) . The two elephants stand for meditation (dhyana-paramita) . The two lions on elephants are the highest perfection of wisdom (prajna-paramita) . The Buddha is attended by his two chief disciples, Shariputra and Maudgalyayana. The scenes of important events of his life are surrounding the central image. In Tibetan thangka, a series of twelve major events of the life of Buddha developed. The iconographic sequence is standard, but the location of the scenes in the paintings may vary. Sometimes scenes are added or omitted. In this painting following scenes from the life of Shakyamuni are depicted:

1. The Vow to Manifest as a Guide for the Sentient Beings of the Dark Age: It is said that when Shakyamuni reborn in Tushita heaven as Svetketu, he perfected the ten stages of Bodhisattva path in according with the aspirations and prophecies made in previous lives, and was enthroned as the Dharma-guru of the diving beings in that realm. Once he heard some verses of music in the heavenly palace which reminded him of the prophecies made about him by the past Buddhas, Dipankara and Kasyapa and he nobly resolve to take re-birth, attain perfect awakening, refutes heretics and spread the Dharma in the dark age of the human world. Thus the Buddha here makes up his mind to take re-birth in the human world to relieve the people from their sufferings. He transmits his lineage to Maitreya in Tushita heaven. Svetketu is depicted here making vow in the presence of the Buddhas and Bodhisattva and gods of Tushita Heaven. This scene is depicted in upper center, just below the primordial Buddha in yab yum.

2. The Scene of Mahamaya’s Dream: When the time came for Shakyamuni to manifest himself on earth, He descended to earth in the form of a White Elephant. Queen Mahamaya of Kapilavastu dreamed of a White Elephant that flew through the air in clouds and touch her right side with its trunk. Subsequently she became pregnant. Mahamaya is shown here sleeping in her palace and a white elephant is approaching her in dream. This scene is depicted in upper left corner.

3. The Scene of Nativity: When Mahamaya’s time was approaching she took a trip to parental home, Devadaha to have the baby there with her mother. When she reached the park of Lumbini and grabs hold of shala tree and bends a branch down, her son was born from her right side in standing position. This motif is common in ancient Indian art. If a young woman grasps a tree branch this way, it is said that the tree will burst into bloom. Taking this image one level further, it means that she herself is bursting into bloom, which indicates fertility. Brahma and Indra were present at the birth. On the left of this scene, baby Siddhartha is shown being bathed by celestial beings.

4. Raising the Young Prince and the Life at the Court: The child was then brought to Kapilavastu and named Siddhartha. Queen Mahamaya died seven days after giving the birth. Siddhartha’s aunt foster-mother Prajapati Gautami brought him up. A Sage Asita had visited Kapilavastu to have the glimpse of the newborn child and after seeing child he prophesied that the little Siddhartha was destined to be either a universal monarch or a Buddha. Fearing the latter alternative, king Suddhodana brought him up isolated in the luxuries of the palace. He went to school with boys from his kingdom and excelled at his studies. He confounds his teachers by exceptional knowledge for his age. When he came of the age and assumed royal duties. Below the scene of nativity, Siddhartha is shown holding the court.

Prince was married to Yasodhara whom he won in a contest. It was customary at that time that girls decided for themselves who they would marry. Therefore a tournament was organized and made it known that Yasodhara would choose the one who excelled in courtly and military arts. Siddhartha went to the competition in the company of His cousin Devadatta and half-brother Nanda and others. An elephant had been placed inside the city gate to test, who among them was the strongest prince. Devadatta killed the animal with one hand and Nanda pulled it to the side. Afterwards Siddhartha showed up. He saw the senselessly killed animal, tossed it in an arch over the city wall, and the elephant instantly came to life again. At the tournament, Siddhartha excelled in all games and consequently Yasodhara selected Him as her groom. Siddhartha is shown here with three elephants and among them one is lying down. This scene is depicted below the scene of Siddhartha holding the court. It is said that prince Siddhartha had a retinue of sixty thousand queens, principally Yasodhara and Gopa. With the discriminative wisdom of a Bodhisattva, he engaged in the sensual pleasure of worldly life only to experience them as illusory, and he consorted with his queens, and fathered of a son, named Rahula. But Siddhartha never felt satisfied with this life, and thirsted for knowledge and fulfillment.

5. The Renunciation of Worldly Life: After a time prince had a strong desire to see the other places surrounding the palace and asked his charioteer to drive him outside the palace. On three trips through the gates he encountered with the world of sufferings for the first time in the form of an old man, a sick man, and a corpse. On his fourth trip he saw a man dressed in orange clothes and carrying a bowl, looking very calm and peaceful. The charioteer told him that this was a person who renounced the world with all its luxuries and was looking for truth and peace, that this person had no desire or anger, and that he lived by begging for his food. This scene is depicted on the right side of the painting, just below the foreground. These sights made him ponder over the miseries of existence and also on a way of escaping from them. Thereafter after Siddhartha decided to leave the worldly life and he secretly left his royal palace and finally went to the forest, where he removed his royal garments and jewelry and cut off his long princely hair against a stupa and wrapped himself in a simple monk’s robe. He subsequently sat under a tree and meditated as a hermit for six years. This scene is shown in the middle ground of right side. Gautama had five mendicant companions in the forest. He seeks one teacher after another. He imbibed all that they had to teach him, but as his thirst for truth, remained unquenched he moved on and ultimately reached a place, near modern Bodhgaya, which was surrounded by luxuriant woods through which ran a gentle stream with banks of silver sand.

6. The Six Years of Austerities: Siddhartha practiced rigid austerities and resorted to different kinds of self-torture. It is that he ate a single grain of rice for each of the first two years, drank a single drop of water each of the second two years, and took nothing at all during the last two. In this manner he reduced to a skeleton and yet real knowledge eluded him. Finally, as the Buddha of ten directions and hosts of Bodhisattvas and Devas appeared, praising him calling on him to arise, it dawned on Siddhartha that physical austerity is one of two extreme, and that the ‘Middle Path’ between the two extremes leads to the perfect awakening of Buddha-hood. Siddhartha then slowly rose, and went to bathe in the river. He crossed over to the far bank and after drying his clothes, started to walk into the forest where he met a village girl, Sujata who had come to offer him a bowl of milk rice. It was the first food he had accepted in years and instantly restored his body to lustrous good health. After walking a little further into the forest, he met a grass-cutter, Svasti who offered him a bundle of soft grass; Siddhartha spread the grass for his seat beneath a great Pipal tree in the forest, sat in meditation and vowed thus, “skin sinew and bone may dry up as it will; my flesh and blood may dry in my body; but without attaining complete enlightenment shall I not leave this seat.” This scene is depicted on the right side just above the middle ground.

7. The Defeat of Mara:The tree which sheltered Siddhartha was the ‘tree of Bodhi’ and the earth he sat upon was vajrasana, diamond throne. Mara tried to prevent Siddhartha from coming to the ultimate understanding, but in vain. Mara first sent his armies of monsters, but their weapons and fired arrows transformed into flowers. Mara then sent his daughters who tried to seduce him with their charms. Siddhartha was unmoved and just asked them to go away. When Mara’s all attempts were failed to prevent Siddhartha becoming a Buddha, then he said that no body would believe that he had succumbed to their tricks and techniques. At this, the solitary Siddhartha called the earth goddess to be his witness, by earth-touching gesture. The earth opened and the earth goddess confirmed that he had remained steadfast. Mara backed down and slunk away. During the last quarter of the night, He discovered the Law of Causation, a cycle of twelve causes and effects conditioning the universe. Any philosopher had not thought of this Law before. Its authorship raised Siddhartha from his status of Bodhisattva to that of a Buddha. He spent four weeks in contemplation under the Bodhi-Tree, after which he set out on His travels. The newly awakened Buddha met two merchants, Tapussa and Bhallika, who offered him some gruel of barley and honey. These two came to be the first lay disciples of the Buddha. This scene is depicted on the right side below the middle ground.

8. The Turning of the Dharma-Chakra: In the first week after enlightenment, the Buddha remained in meditation at Vajrasana and received insight into both his former and present lives. He was in doubt whether he should preach the Dharma to the people of the world given to material attachment. While he was thus hesitating, Brahma and other gods came and begged him to preach the Dharma, which would show mankind the way to salvation. They also remind him of his previous vow, and urged him to beat the drum and blow the conch shell of the Dharma. Indra praised him, saying, “your mind is liberated like the full moon released from the grasp of Rahu”, and implored him to “dispel the darkness of the world with the light of awareness”. Brahma presented him with a thousand-spoked wheel, and the Buddha then hesitantly agreed, but the Blessed One began to wonder to whom he should first reveal the Dharma, since his own teachers Adara Kalama and Udraka Ramaputra who could have understood the Dharma were already dead. He then set for Banaras to preach to his five mendicant companions who had left him in despair and had settled there. When they saw him approaching they were determined not to show him any respect. But as he drew near they were overpowered by the radiance on his countenance and involuntarily rose to offer him a seat. He then preached his First Sermon to them, thereby setting in motion the wheel of the Dharma (Dharmachakra-pravartana). He explained the Four Noble Truths three times and in twelve ways, and the Noble Eightfold Path. After listening to his teaching, the five ascetic requested ordination, and became the first member of a great monastic community. This event and related scenes are depicted on lower right corner.

9. The Descent from the Tushita Heaven: It is said that when the Buddha was forty one years old, he saw that the divine beings of the Tushita heaven had potential to be trained in virtues, and that his mother queen Mahamaya had reborn amongst them. Leaving Maudgalyayana as his representative on earth, he journeyed to that realm and decided to spend the annual rains retreat there in order to teach the Abhidharma to his mother. After three months period there, he descended to earth. There was a grand reception by all the major kings of the day including Brahma and Indra. This scene is depicted in upper right corner.

10. The Passage into Parinirvana: The Buddha spent forty-five years in wandering and teaching in northern India. He had many followers, irrespective of birth or caste, and established monasteries and centers for the Sangha. When Master was at Pava, Chuna or Chunda, a blacksmith of town, invited him to a meal of rice, cakes and sukaramaddava. There is no agreement among scholars about the meaning of the last word. It may be either a boar’s tender flesh or some kind of edible herb. Whatever it might have been, it was difficult to digest and the Buddha was taken ill with dysentery. His illness, however, did not prevent him from going on to Kushinagar along with his disciples. When the Buddha reached Kushinagar he asked Ananda, his personal attendant, to spread a cloth on ground (here he is lying on a couch) between two sala trees. He lay down like a lion and gave his last admonitions to his disciples and lay folk, who had assembled to have a last glimpse of him.

Although Shakyamuni had a perfect form of a Tathagata who had thoroughly defeated Mara and gone beyond birth and death, but at the age of eighty, Gautama Buddha decided to manifest the passing away of his physical body into parinirvana in order to stir the majority of his followers, who still clung to the illusions of permanence and the inherent existence of phenomena, out of their complacency. He handed over responsibility for protecting the teachings to Mahakashypa, and guided his last disciples, the Gandharva Pramoda and the mendicant Subhadra, to liberation, and announced his impending departure from the world. He thereafter gently consoled Ananda, who was lamenting bitterly, and said, “O Ananda, the doctrine I have preached to you is your master.” The following were his last words: “now, monks, I have nothing more to tell you but that is composed is liable to decay! Strive after salvation energetically.” This scene is depicted below central image

This description is by Dr. Shailendra K. Verma, whose Doctorate thesis is on “Emergence and Evolution of the Buddha Image (From its inception to 8th century A.D.)”.

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Unveiling the Divine Art: Journey into the Making of Thangkas

A Thangka is a traditional Tibetan Buddhist painting that usually depicts a Buddhist Deity (Buddha or Bodhisattva), a scene, or a mandala. These paintings are considered important paraphernalia in Buddhist rituals. They are used to teach the life of the Buddha, various lamas, and Bodhisattvas to the monastic students, and are also useful in visualizing the deity while meditating. One of the most important subjects of thangkas is the Bhavacakra (the wheel of life) which depicts the Art of Enlightenment. It is believed that Thangka paintings were developed over the centuries from the murals, of which only a few can be seen in the Ajanta caves in India and the Mogao caves in Gansu Province, Tibet. Thangkas are painted on cotton or silk applique and are usually small in size. The artist of these paintings is highly trained and has a proper understanding of Buddhist philosophy, knowledge, and background to create a realistic and bona fide painting.
The process of making a thangka begins with stitching a loosely woven cotton fabric onto a wooden frame. Traditionally, the canvas was prepared by coating it with gesso, chalk, and base pigment.
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After this, the outline of the form of the deity is sketched with a pencil or charcoal onto the canvas using iconographic grids. The drawing process is followed in accordance with strict guidelines laid out in Buddhist scriptures. The systematic grid helps the artist to make a geometrical and professional painting. When the drawing of the figures is finalized and adjusted, it is then outlined with black ink.
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Earlier, a special paint of different colors was made by mixing powdered forms of organic (vegetable) and mineral pigments in a water-soluble adhesive. Nowadays, artists use acrylic paints instead. The colors are now applied to the sketch using the wet and dry brush techniques. One of the characteristic features of a thangka is the use of vibrant colors such as red, blue, black, green, yellow, etc.
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In the final step, pure gold is coated over some parts of the thangka to increase its beauty. Due to this beautification, thangkas are much more expensive and also stand out from other ordinary paintings.
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Thangka paintings are generally kept unrolled when not on display on the wall. They also come with a frame, a silken cover in front, and a textile backing to protect the painting from getting damaged. Because Thangkas are delicate in nature, they are recommended to be kept in places with no excess moisture and where there is not much exposure to sunlight. This makes them last a long time without their colors fading away. Painting a thangka is an elaborate and complex process and requires excellent skills. A skilled artist can take up to 6 months to complete a detailed thangka painting. In earlier times, thangka painters were lamas that spent many years on Buddhist studies before they painted.
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