Situating the presence of Tibetan Thangkas

Title: Situating the Presence of Tibetan Thangkas

Tsering Zangmo

Advisor: Dr. Urmila Mohan

Bard Graduate Center Object Study Paper, Fall 2017

December 29, 2017

In the poem Tibetan Thangka, Shakbar Tsukdrak, Buddhist meditator says during a praying practice, “One must remain in the vastness, alert and lucid” towards a Tibetan scroll, the Thangka. This poem invokes the role of the Thangka as an object of worship and my object study will discuss the different application of the Thangka starting with a Thangka from my domestic altar. This Thangka displays the main god, the image of Bonpa, a Tibetan protector deity in the center, recognized in other cultures as Mahakala. My paper emphasizes that the Thangka has a function, that the embodied image of the God is a focus, a direct visual source of physical support in front of a practitioner. The Thangka will have to express this role in different spaces, public or private, whether applied in Buddhist teachings in a domestic altar or to demonstrate appreciation in a Western non-religious setting such as a museum.

This particular Thangka is in use in my household and is artistically detailed (Figures 4 and 5). The pigments of the Thangka range from an array of earthy colors. Bonpa, the being with blue skin at the center has two arms, two legs and is clad with green inner garments and patterned outer robes. There is a significant consistency of softer color gradients in different sections of the paintings which could symbolize the accentuation of energy. In esoteric Tibetan Buddhist art, colors have certain association: the being’s skin tone of blue is mostly applied to male deities and indicates some masculine features including wide girth and facial hair. The figure is curvilinear with a contrast of soft and sharp features: sharp claw-like fingers, teeth, toenails, and a blue object with gradient that is connected to his raised arm. This is framed by the mount of the canvas which provides a decorative edging (Figure 1). The frame uses three colors: red, blue, and yellow, all of which have positive connotations and are uplifting. The frame has floral designs, and the leaf patterns are repetitive against a backdrop of blue.

        

Figure 1: Detail of decorative frame for a Thangka. Photo by author.

The connection of Tibetans to their religious practice and Thangkas is continued at community temples as well as at home, whether those of people who travel in nomadic tents in Tibet or the diaspora scattered around the world. Generally, during the early morning, practitioners rise to circumambulate around their temples with sacred objects such as Thangkas and idols to enable religious rituals. Also, worshipers enter these spaces with meticulous habits to honor the Gods such as removing outer wear like shoes and jackets so as to not draw in uncleanliness. A temple is a center where community members will visit and come together to participate in events and rituals and make donations. One Tibetan Thangka artist, Samten Dakpa is a self-taught Tibetan artist and skilled in various crafts, currently residing in Queens, New York. In my interview with Mr. Dakpa, he recalls that, growing up unaffluent, his nomadic family in Tibet moved to follow the animal herd, yet they chose to carry their shrine of a few simple religious objects. At a young age, Mr. Dakpa also practiced making pigments for Thangka paintings by crushing elements such as plants from the earth. The Thangka is one of many in a collection of religious objects for practitioners like Mr. Dakpa and offers bodily support and visual aid to dedicated practitioners.

The intention of, and interaction with, Thangka varies when the users are a demographic of observers, not practitioners. In the Rubin Museum of (Himalayan) Art’s series of exhibits titled “Sacred Spaces” the “Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room” was exhibited from June 9-October 16, 2017. The shrine room was a mise-en-scène of Tibetan worship culture and the design of the exhibit strived to be an “encyclopedic” one, where the display platform encapsulated the body of a Tibetan sacred ritual space. (There was also a contemporaneous exhibit on the role of sound.) There were many religiously ordained objects including bells, decorated furniture and cushions, religious statues, candles, prayer books, and an outstanding number of Thangkas, which is uncommon to pack into such a small space. There was a lack of space for people on the platform (other than the cushion for the imaginary monks) and hence congregated objects overlapped in a frontal view in close proximity, clashing with the order of value in religious objects. In an actual setting, the likelihood is they would be held in a similar order and arrangement but with greater distance so that objects with honor, such as a Thangka, are not visually displaced or overshadowed.

For worship by the lay practitioner all the objects must be fully viewable. For example, two Thangkas that flanked the centerpiece of 14th century copper Buddha statues were blocked by more decorative 19th century deity statues: one made of alloy, another of cold gold, gilt copper, turquoise jewelry and silk. As previously mentioned, the Tibetan shrine room was part of the Rubin’s seasonal theme of “sound” and this was echoed in the design of the exhibit in the form of two recordings of religious chanting by two different groups. This created an experience that was very rich and diverse for such a small shrine room.

          

Figure 2: View of the Shrine Room. Photo by author.     Figure 3: View of khata, a ceremonial cloth. Photo by author.

This space provides an impactful experience for the visitors by stimulating their senses. The faint scent of incense tickles the air, the sight of the vast collection of ritual objects comes alive as candles flicker artificial light, and one can listen to two chants of either deep throat monks or a school of nuns. An offering of incense is left wrapped in khata, a blessed ritual cloth,  on the altar as a suggestion of worshipful action. The limitation on touch is already in place for Tibetan practitioners who would not just go up and rub the holy statues. But the new limitation on touch in this exhibit is the inability of a worshiper to bring forth offerings to place on the altar.

 Overall, there are an unusual quantity of valuable objects from different eras tightly positioned together. The museum’s shrine room was a public space but more closed off than a monastic shrine or domestic altar since this was not a space for practice. This was an inverse of the intended use of a shrine room indicated by the fact that the seats were actually outside the shrine’s platform. Visitors were generally led to observe and appreciate as outsiders rather than be involved directly in the practice. This simulation of a shrine was also lacking in other important ways. The shrine room was a self-proclaimed “sacred space” on the lower west side of Manhattan, open daily from 11 am-10 pm, but it is very possible that real practitioners would rather go to “unsacred” spaces that do not have visiting hours for praying, and rules on offerings or security. Shrine rooms in domestic homes, nomadic tents and monasteries have a feeling of intimacy and accessibility that is absent in the Rubin Museum exhibit. An encyclopedia cannot live out the application of objects; the function of these objects are the most important element of their presence.

Citations

1. Tibetan thangka paintings conserving a living religious heritage in Australia, 8 Jan. 2016, www.researchgate.net/publication/265751301_Tibetan_thangka_paintings_conserving_a_living_religious_heritage_in_Australia.
2.  Pal, Pratapaditya. Tibetan paintings: A study of Tibetan thankas. Time Books International, 1988.
3. Ahmed, Monisha. From Benaras to Leh—The Trade and Use of Silk-brocade 1.
4. “The Life of Shabkar.” Google Books, 25 Oct, 2017 books.google.com/books?id=u3C6AwAAQBAJ&pg=PT993&lpg=PT993&dq=shabkar%2Bquotes&source=bl&ots=TE3eufPX5q&sig=bcCzYaEOP4xp_DpiUp7kiSImUXs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjx6tzxquXXAhUCwiYKHYbyB5oQ6AEIRDAF#v=onepage&q=thangka&f=fals
5. Robert E. Fisher.  Thames and Hudson Inc.1997,  Art of Tibet

Figure 4: A frontal view of the Bonpa Thangka. Photo by author.

                       

Figure 5: A detailed view of the Bonpa Thangka. Photo by author.

                           

Figure 6: The back of the Bonpa Thangka gives an idea of the blank canvas that will be subsequently painted.

Note the hand sewing around the center piece. Photo by author.