Tibetan Art

A brief survey of inscriptions on tsha tshas found in Western Tibet, mainly based on those now in the collection of LI Yizhi. In: XIONG Wenbin & LI Yizhi (eds.), Art of Tsha tshas from Guge, Tibet, Beijing: China Tibetology Press, 2016, pp. 14-56.

载熊文彬、李逸之主编：《西藏古格擦擦艺术》，北京：中国藏学出版社，西藏文化博物馆丛书第6种，2016年，第14-56页。

In historical terms, the acceptance of the Chinese martial deity Guandi (關帝) into the pantheon of Geluk protectors, closely mirrored the extension of Qing military power in Inner Asia during the 18th century, and in particular, the establishment of Guandi garrison temples in the Mongolian and Tibetan regions. The Tibetan name for this deity was Trinring Gyelpo  or Long-Cloud King (Tib. sprin ring rgyal po, a Tibetan rendering of Lord Guan’s courtesy name Guan Yunzhang 關雲長). The deity was often equated by both Mongols and Tibetans with Gesar/ Geser, the eponymous hero of the Inner Asian epic tradition. The majority of Geluk ritual texts composed for the Long Cloud King in the 18th century were written by Geluk lamas with connection sto the Qing imnperial court. Of particular importance in the process of adoption and adaptation of this deity was the 3rd Thu’u bkwan Lobzang Chökyi Nyima, the main disciple and successor of Changjia Rolpé Dorjé. However none of the Tibetan-language Geluk ritual texts devoted to this deity, nor the “histories” of this deity, make any mention of Gesar, raising some interesting questions about the origins and nature of that superscription.

Un clásico que cumple veinte años y sigue siendo un libro de referencia. Una obra maestra revisada que te dará una visión nueva sobre la muerte y el universo. En este exhaustivo trabajo, que Urano recupera en su colección Vintage a petición de los lectores, el maestro de meditación budista y conferenciante internacional Sogyal Rimpoché presenta unas sencillas y poderosas prácticas de la tradición tibetana, asequibles a cualquier persona sea cual sea su religión o tradición cultural, para que pueda transformar su vida, prepararse para la muerte y ayudar a los moribundos. El libro tibetano de la vida y de la muerte expone con claridad y un rigor sin precedentes la majestuosa visión que nos ofrece el Libro tibetano de los muertos y combina la milenaria sabiduría de Tíbet con la moderna investigación sobre la muerte, los moribundos y la naturaleza del universo para comprender, encarnar e integrar las enseñanzas budistas a la vida cotidiana. Sogyal Rimpoché nos ofrece no sólo una obra maestra espiritual, sino también un manual, una guía, un libro de consulta y una fuente de inspiración sagrada.

This article deals with an important festival in Tibet dedicated to the future Buddha Maitreya. It was held on three days in summer when three giant thangkas showing Buddhas Amitābha, Śākyamuni and Maitreya were put on public display. Introduced in the seventeenth century, it became a defining feature of the monastic life in the Dge lugs monastery of Bkra shis lhun po, the seat of the Panchen Lamas. It attained a supra-regional importance, which even extended to Mongolia. Based on a number of textual sources, this essay examines various aspects of this festival, how it was funded, who participated, and which rituals and ceremonies were conducted. It also analyses the history and iconography of the three giant textile thangkas by discussing in detail the contributions made during the reign of each respective Panchen Lama from the past to the present. In sum, the article argues that this festival has to be seen in the context of a special bond the Dge lugs school of Tibetan Buddhism maintained to have with the future Buddha Maitreya

The teachings of the tantric lineage of the Zur clan, which flourished in West Tibet during the early second millennium, have remained a missing element in the history of the “ancient,” Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. While the historical importance of the clan is well known and significant lines of transmission are attributed to it, few authentic works stemming from the Zur and detailing their tradition have appeared. The recent discovery of a major synthetic treatise, The All-Encompassing Lamp of Awareness, by a 12th century successor to the Zur and treating all major aspects of their doctrinal heritage, permits us for the first time to consider their contribution in substantial detail. The present article examines the provenance and authorship of this remarkable work.

The concept of Original Artistic Intent is difficult to apply to Tibetan thangkas. Thangkas are composite objects produced by painters and tailors with differing intents, skills and training. Iconographic specifications, regional and doctrinal differences in style, changes in form from harsh treatment and altered mountings all complicate the issue. 2008

This paper outlines the fundamental precepts and practices of East-West spiritual counseling, which combines therapeutic approaches and theoretical frameworks found in Jungian depth psychology and Tibetan Buddhist Tantra. Emphasis is given to fostering direct, experiential contact with manifestations of the sacred, and imaginal exercises such as active imagination play an essential role in this process.

This magnificient thangka was an abbatial  commission of the late 16th century at the Ngor monastery, portraying at center two Buddhist hierarchs, the 9th and 10th Abbots of the Ngor monastery, respectively Lha mchog sengge and Dkon mchog lhun grub, surrounded by numerous eminent scholars and lamas of the Ngor and Sa skya lineages.

Celem niniejszego tekstu jest ukazanie zasadności stosowania perspektywy fenomeno-logii egzystencjalnej Sondry Horton Fraleigh do analizy tybetańskiego tańca sakralnego. W pierwszej części artykułu przedstawiam filozofię Fraleigh, ze szczególnym uwzględ-nieniem koncepcji ciała doznającego (lived body), problemu doświadczenia tanecznego i terapeutycznego wymiaru tańca. W drugiej części dokonuję porównania fenomenologii egzystencjalnej Fraleigh z buddyzmem i rozumieniem tańca czam (ʹcham) w kulturze tybetańskiej. Wskazując na łączące je podobieństwa, uzasadniam słuszność wyboru tej metodologii do analizy tybetańskiego tańca sakralnego.

Joint Winner of the Best Anthology Prize for 2014: The Art Association of Australia and New Zealand.
http://aaanz.info/prizes/

"How has Asia been imagined, represented and transferred both literally and visually across linguistic, geopolitical and cultural boundaries? This book explores the shifting roles of those who produce, critique and translate creative forms and practices, for which distinctions of geography, ethnicity, tradition and modernity have become fluid. Drawing on accounts of modern and contemporary art, film, literature, fashion and performance, it challenges established assumptions of the cultural products of Asia.

Special attention is given to the role of cultural translators or 'long-distance cultural specialists' whose works bridge or traverse different worlds, with the inclusion of essays by three important artists who share personal accounts of their experiences creating and showing artworks that negotiate diverse cultural contexts.

With contributions from key scholars of Asian art and culture, including art historian John Clark and anthropologist Clare Harris, alongside fresh voices in the field, Asia Through Art and Anthropology will be essential reading for students and scholars of anthropology, art history, Asian studies, visual and cultural studies."

A comparative analysis of Jungian depth psychology and Tibetan Buddhist Tantra reveals a fascinating array of similarities, which are united in their most essential form through the manner in which mythic imagery is employed in both disciplines as a powerful agent of inner transformation. Various forms of creative engagement with sacred symbols-including mandalas-are enacted in each tradition as a vehicle through which latent spiritual potentialities can be brought forth into consciousness, a process that is greatly enhanced through a number of dynamic artistic techniques and contemplative practices. It should be emphasized from the outset that both disciplines represent complex systems that include sometimes widely varying notions of a higher spiritual order or ultimate reality. However, despite any differences in ontological postulations or metaphysical precepts, they share a number of surprising and sometimes striking characteristics. For example, both emphasize the mind, or psyche, as the foundational basis of existence and the primary means through which liberation (in the tantric tradition) and psychic wholeness (as in Jungian psychology) are pursued. Each also emphasizes the realm of dreams (e.g., dream analysis in depth psychology and dream yoga in Tibetan Tantra), contemplative and creative visualizations (such as the focus on wisdom figures and sacred symbols), and an assortment of other practices that are designed to effect a reconciliation of opposites and the attendant union of masculine and feminine principles. Their respective methodologies thus represent essential avenues through which to deepen an understanding of human nature's far-reaching spiritual capacities while demonstrating the vital role that mythic imagery-and in particular the mandala-plays in the process of healing and inner transformation.

This article focuses on a specific iconography of the dGe lugs pa school. This iconography is known by the name of tshogs zhing (a spiritual field for the accumulation of merits), here analyzed in its 18 th century form. The images described here are an essential tool for the religious practice prescribed by the dgGe lugs pa's bla ma mchod pa tantric literature. As an esoteric literature, the bla ma mchod pa is based on an "essential instruction" (man ngag) which gathers teachings on the main tantras of the so called niruttara classes. This paper will discuss the oldest iconography of the bla ma mchod pa tshogs zhing, directly related to the root text of the first Paṇ chen Bla ma Blo bzang Chos kyi rgyal mtshan (1567-1662). Among the many images of tshogs zhing I have analyzed 1-almost identical in the representation of this specific subject-I present here a xylograph (Fig. 2) and a thang ka (Fig. 1). The xylograph, realized in the style of the 18 th century's woodblocks of sNar thang, 2 is an uncatalogued item of the Tucci Tibetan Collection (IsIAO Library, Rome). The thang ka is property of a Tibetan private citizen living now in Bodhgaya, in the Indian state of Bihar. 3 Within the dGe lugs pa order, the bla ma mchod pa literature stems from essential tantric and esoteric instructions (man ngag) related to the guru devotion liturgies and practices prescribed by guruyoga literature. 4 In order to receive these particular man 1 Research has been done in the dGe lugs pa monasteries of Ladakh, McLeod Ganj and the Kathmandu Valley. Further sources of comparison were several catalogues on Tibetan art (see below) and the web site www.himalayanart.org. As primary sources, I also studied and translated two texts, Sangs rgyas ye shes's Bla ma mchod pa'i cho ga dngos grub kun 'byung, and Ye shes rgyal mtshan's Bla ma lha'i rnal 'byor gyi khrid dmigs kyi bsdus don snyan rgyud gter mdzod 'byed pa'i lde mig (see the bibliography for complete references). 2 A monastery located 15 km west of Shigatse, in gTsang (Central Tibet), which is famous as a printery. 3 I wish to thank the former President of IsIAO, the late Professor Gherardo Gnoli, and Mr. Thinlay Nepali for allowing me to study and show the xylograph and the thang ka presented here. 4 Bla ma mchod pa translates the Sanskrit term gurupūjā. Concerning the meaning of mchod pa, see Makransky 1996.

I reconsider the identifications of the sMin grol gling Lamdre sculptures attributed to Khentse Chenmo that I also mention in my book A Revolutionary Artist of Tibet: Khyentse Chenmo of Gongkar. (Masterworks of Tibetan Painting Series, 6) New York: Rubin Museum of Art, 2016.

The story of how Situ Panchen’s Paintings of the Eight Great Siddhas were first designed and bestowed by Si tu upon his great patron the king  of Derge. This theme I treated in more detail in my catalog Patron and Painter (Masterworks of Tibetan Painting Series, 1), chapter 7.

This project investigates the materials and techniques used by Tibetan artists. Six Tibetan thangkas were analyzed by infrared reflectography, energy dispersive x-ray fluorescence, Fourier transform infrared microspectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive spectroscopy, and high-performance liquid chromatography. The analysis has suggested that three thangkas of the eighteenth-nineteenth century have a traditional palette, which includes azurite, vermilion, orpiment, bronchantite, red lead, dolomite, magnesite, organic red with calcite or magnesite substrate, and alumino-silicate clay minerals. Another late nineteenth or early twentieth century thangka shows the use of Western pigments such as emerald green, ultramarine, calcite, gypsum, chrome yellow, gold color from brass powder, and red and yellow dyes with barium sulfate substrates. Two twentieth century thangkas made for the tourist trade revealed a twentieth century palette such as titanium dioxide, phthalocyanine blue, phthalocyanine green, and other pigments such as red lead, chrome yellow, barium sulfate, and gypsum.

В статье представлен обзор традиционного музыкального инструментария тибетцев. Классификация основана на сочетании традиционной тибетской типологии с описанием по системе Хорнбостеля — Закса. Характеристика каждого инструмента содержит информацию о его морфологических особенностях, способе изготовления, сфере применения, приемах игры, символическом значении (если таковое имеется). Материалами для работы послужили тибетские письменные источники разного времени: музыкально-теоретические сочинения, тексты тантрического характера, словари, исторические и энциклопедические труды, а также исследования зарубежных музыковедов.

Tibetan Thangka Painting is the only detailed description of the techniques and principles of the sacred art of Tibetan scroll painting. It is the distillation of research carried out over a period of ten years, collected during five journeys to Nepal and India, and compiled from some twenty traditional painters. This book presents, step-by-step, the techniques used to make a thangka from the preparation of the canvas to the final application of the sacred syllables behind each completed figure. Separate chapters introduce the reader to the basic principles of composition, color, and figure proportions. Included are descriptions of the pigments and how they are mixed and applied. A wealth of drawings and photographs illustrates each step and the many line drawings of symbols and motifs drawn by Robert Beer will greatly aid artists and serve as unique resource for designers. Robert Beer has also contributed a section which includes valuable guidelines for those who wish to paint thangkas using modern techniques and commercially available materials.

A French edition exists with preface by Gilles Béguin: La Peinture Tibetaine. Paris: Peuples du Monde. (with has 24 new color plates!)

A Japanese translation also exists: Tibetan Thangka Painting: Methods and Materials:
Chibetto kaiga no gihō to sozai チベット絵画の技法と素材 [book and DVD]. Translated into English by Seto Atsurō 瀬戸敦朗, Tagami Misao田上操, and Onoda Shunzō 小野田俊蔵. Kyoto: Bukkyō daigaku Ajia shūkyō bunka jōhō kenkyūjo 佛教大学アジア宗教文化情報研究所 [Bukkyo University Research Institute for  Information on Asian Religious Culture; currently renamed as Bukkyo University Museum of Religious Culture], 2008. 

Reviews: (1) Francoise Pommaret-Imaeda and Yoshiro Imaeda, The Journal of the Tibet Society, vol. 5 (1985), p. 100–102. (2) David Snellgrove, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, vol. 48 (1985), pp. 580–582. (3) Hugh Richardson, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland, v 117 n 01 (1985-01): 116-117. (4) J. W. De Jong, Indo-Iranian Journal ,vol. 31-1 (1988), p. 49. (5) Hugh Downs, Himalayan Research Bulletin, vol. 9-1 (1989), p. 29–34. (6) Yin Peet, Himalayan Research Bulletin ,vol. 14, nos 1-2 (1994), p. 49f. Several other reviews appeared, including in Parabola and the Christian Science Monitor (ca. 1985).

Introduction

In 1631, the Jesuit missionary Francisco de Azevedo, one of the very first Westerners to enter Ladakh, visited Hanle, in the remote highlands of Chang-thang. Whereas currently Hanle is restricted to foreigners due to its location near the disputed Indo-Chinese border, the aristocratic Portuguese was then able to report that there lived the highest and much revered spiritual authority in the kingdom: “the Pope of Ladakh.”  This was a Tibetan contemplative Drukpa (‘brug pa) yogi, the First Taktsang Repa (Stag-tshang Ras-pa, 1574-1652). 

His authority in the region was granted by the Dharma King (chos rgyal) Senge Namgyal (r. c. 1624-1642), the ruler who evolved as the most powerful and cherished king of Ladakh, brilliantly protecting, expanding and developing the kingdom and asserting his authority over all Ngari Korsum.  Under his patronage, Taktsang Repa founded a yogic centre in 1630 at Hemis in Central Ladakh. Whereas he also established several other shrines, Hemis eventually became the seat of his incarnation line and the symbol of religious authority in the region, growing over centuries as the biggest and richest monastery of Ladakh, and probably of the whole western Himalayas. Today it is still connected to several hundred Drukpa shrines in Ladakh and beyond, in West Tibet and Indian Himachal Pradesh.

A Museum was created in Hemis in 2007. In the midst of its stunning collection stands an extraordinary painted silk scroll document from 1943, which deals with the Sixth Taktsang Incarnate (1941-present). Hemis monks introduce that scroll as his official recognition by the 14th Dalai Lama, but this Tulku (sprul-sku, incarnate master), which they traditionally call Kyabgon (sKyab-mgon or “Protector and Refuge”), is yet an elusive figure. Forced to remain in Tibet since the Chinese crackdown of 1959 over 60 years ago, he is hardly known to the present generations of Ladakhis. The supreme significance of his successive incarnations is therefore fading in Ladakh, and has been little investigated by international scholars.

This article is primarily a study of the Hemis silk scroll and the stories it tells, presented at the IALS Conference in Kargil in 2015. However, an earlier document from 1896, a copy of which is preserved in the British Library, appears to be very related. Both authored by the Dalai Lama of their time, these texts express retrospective praises of the incarnation line of Taktsang Repa and list special honorific titles and attributes bestowed to the living incarnation—the Fifth Incarnate in 1896, the Sixth in 1943. Yet although Taktsang Rinpoche is essentially a spiritual leader, both also deviate in chorus to mention military cooperation and official missions instituted by the Peace Treaty between Tibet and Ladakh signed in 1684: the Lopchak (lo phyag) mission from Leh to Lhasa, and the Shungtsong (gzhung tshong) mission from Lhasa to Leh. Probably based on earlier exchanges, these missions linked diplomatically and commercially the two countries until 1959.  The documents in praise of the Taktsang incarnation lineage thus reflect in unison the relationship history of two major Himalayan Buddhist countries in the intricate matters of religion, politics and trade.

Some of the most important Tibetan Buddhist monuments to have survived the Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976 are located at Gyantse (rGyal rtse) in Tsang province of Central Tibet. For the study of Tibetan art, the temples of dPal ’khor chos sde, namely the dPal ’khor gTsug lag khang and dPal ’khor mchod rten, are for various reasons of great importance. The detailed information gained from the inscriptions with regard to the sculptors and painters summoned for the work testifies to the regional distribution of workshops in 15th-century Tsang. The sculptures and murals also document the extent to which a general consensus among the various traditions or schools had been achieved by the middle of that century. Of particular interest is the painted cycle of eighty-four mahåsiddhas, each with a name inscribed in Tibetan script. These paintings of mahåsiddhas, or “great perfected ones endowed with supernatural faculties”, are located in the Lamdre chapel (Lam ’bras lha khang) on the second floor of the dPal ’khor gTsug lag khang. Bearing in mind that these murals are the most splendid extant painted Tibetan representations of mahåsiddhas, one wonders why they have never been published as a whole cycle. Several scholars have at times intended to study these paintings, but it seems that difficulties of identification were the primary obstacle to publication.  Although the life-stories of many of the eighty-four mahåsiddhas still remain unidentified, the quality of the works nevertheless warrants a publication of these great murals.
A siddha is a tantric adept who, through practice, has attained perfection and is endowed with special powers. Most renowned among these Indian tantric adepts, who lived mostly during the 9th and 10th centuries, are the mahåsiddhas, who were often listed as a group of eighty-four. The siddhas were a class of ascetics who practiced outside the institutional discipline of the monasteries. Instead of metaphysical speculation, they practiced an existential and unorthodox way of life. Coming from diverse social backgrounds, the mahåsiddhas included the entire variety of human experience. In addition to brahmin priests, monks and nuns, there were also lay practitioners, kings, ministers, merchants, farmers, servants, beggars, thieves and people from every walk of life. Each had a teacher who initiated and instructed him into the practice of meditation of a particular tantric lineage. Whereas scholastic tantric Buddhism was especially practiced in the monastic centres of North-Eastern India, the siddha movement touched all parts of India. The metaphysical content of the siddhas’ practice was based on texts known as tantras. About the origin of the tantras one can only speculate, but they seem to have their roots in very ancient ritual magic associated with fertility cults. After being transmitted orally, sometimes for hundreds of years, the tantras were only written down later. The life-stories of the siddhas at Gyantse provide fascinating insight into a wide range of tantric practice. The purpose of this publication is not to present a general study of mahåsiddhas, but rather to make these wonderful wall paintings of Gyantse known to a wider public. Of the eighty-four mahåsiddhas only fifty-seven could be identified with reasonable certainty. The identification of the individual siddhas should be regarded as preliminary, as further studies will certainly reveal more about their often still-obscure identities.

Mariahalden, 2006                                                                                                                                                              U.v.S.

Winner of the 2018 Edward Cameron Dimock Jr. Prize in the Indian Humanities

"A profoundly innovative and engaging study of cosmological thinking in texts, rituals, imagery, and architecture across the Buddhist world of the Himalayas."
-Catherine Becker, author of Shifting Stones, Shaping the Past: Sculpture from the Buddhist Stupas of Andhra Pradesh

"Offers a new perspective on the depictions of cosmological imagery. A timely topic that makes major contributions to the field of art history."
-Christian Luczanits, David L. Snellgrove Senior Lecturer in Tibetan and Buddhist Art, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

Buddhist representations of the cosmos across nearly two thousand years of history in Tibet, Nepal, and India show that cosmology is a rich language for the expression of diverse religious ideas, with cosmological thinking at the center of Buddhist thought, art, and practice.

In Creating the Universe, Eric Huntington presents examples of visual art and architecture, primary texts, ritual ideologies, and material practices—accompanied by extensive explanatory diagrams—to reveal the immense complexity of cosmological thinking in Himalayan Buddhism. Employing comparisons across function, medium, culture, and history, he exposes cosmology as a fundamental mode of engagement with numerous aspects of religion, from preliminary lessons to the highest rituals for enlightenment. This wide-ranging work will interest scholars and students of many fields, including Buddhist studies, religious studies, art history, and area studies.

http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/HUNCRE.html

I know of no other country in the world that sparked the Western popular interest, sympathy, and imagination in such a deep and enduring way as Tibet has done over the last couple of centuries, making it into a mythical, mystical, utopian country. If the man in the street were asked today to name the main characteristics of Tibet that spring to mind, he would probably come up with some clichés like: the Dalai Lama, monks in dark mysterious monasteries, snow-capped mountains in a remote and inaccessible country, levitation, reincarnation, ritual implements, secret initation ceremonies and so on. The prevalent idea of Tibet is that it is remote, mysterious, impenetrable, forbidden, esoteric, pure. This conception does not seem to wane even now that our knowledge of the real life and history of Tibet has dramatically improved, also thanks to the many Tibetans living abroad offering us an opportunity to take a hard look at the reality of Tibet. But first of all we should clarify what is meant by Tibet. In the introduction to her In the Image of Tibet, Clare Harris writes: " It could be argued that Tibet no longer exists—or that if it does, it is only as a utopian vision in a virtual world. " This is certainly true today, with Tibet reduced to an Autonomous Region (TAR) within the People's Republic of China, but the concept is also applicable, to some extent at least, to historic Tibet. The political area of Tibet has hardly ever been the same as its cultural area, which has tended to be much larger than the country itself, and we should not forget that Tibet was never involved in the Western concept of State. 1 To the Western imagination, things are even more blurred, and Sikkim, Ladakh, Bhutan, or certain areas of Mongolia or southwest China can all be part of the Western idea of Tibet. In the present article I will be dealing with a purely cultural concept of Tibet, free of any political or geographic implications. The subject of how Tibet came to be perceived in this way by the Westerners has developed into a new and vital branch of Tibetan studies, mainly supported by Martin Brauen, Donald Lopez, Peter Bishop, Charles Allen, Edwin Bernbaum, Jamyang Norbu, to name but a few. It is largely on the foundation provided by these authors that I will outline a general summary of Western ideas of Tibet, how they came to be formed, and why they still persist. Apart from Marco Polo, who in the late 13th century provided some descriptions of Tibetan customs without ever actually getting into Tibet proper, the first accounts of Western travellers in Tibet are those of some Jesuit missionaries in the 17th/18th century. It is in these accounts that the seeds that will fuel Western views and projections of Tibet are planted. The Jesuit father António de Andrade is the first Western traveller to reach Tibet (1624). As anybody confronted with a foreign, totally unknown culture, he tries to organise this culture in terms of differences and similarities with respect to his own world. He thus notices that the Tibetan religion seems to have many points of contact with Roman Catholicism (the trinity, heaven and hell, exorcisms, rosaries, the Dalai Lama as a Pope etc.) while barbarous customs, or the backward state of society, idol-worship, sorcery etc. are estranging factors. This duality of familiar / alien, comforting / shocking will last at least until the birth of a scientific Tibetology in the 19th century, and will be an important element for the formation of Western perceptions of Tibet. De Andrade is followed by the Italian Jesuit Ippolito Desideri, who will stay in Lhasa from 1716 to 1721 and will take such a serious interest in the Tibetan religion and language that he might well be considered the first Tibetologist. Desideri provides the first, usually correct, understanding of some basic Buddhist concepts and ideas. 1 The fact that Tibet escaped Western colonialism in the 19th century implies that it never adopted the typical institutions of the West, like the idea of state. A Tibetan will always say where he is from in terms of region, rather than say he is Tibetan. Thus a native of Kham would hardly identify himself as a bod-pa (a native of central Tibet, the provinces of dBus and gTsang), but as a khams-pa.

This paper analyses the values and uses of Tibetan sacred artefacts in their original contexts as well as the transformation of meanings once placed in museums. It discusses the perception of statues, paintings, ritual instruments and books from a Tibetan Buddhist perspective, examining the iconographic and iconometric functions of the images, and asserting that a primary purpose is as a ‘support for practice’ (tib. sku rten, ‘body-support’). Sacred images represent the embodiment of the Buddhas, deities and masters and, once consecrated by lamas, are considered to have the power to confer blessings. Despite the instrumental function of such artefacts, however, it is also possible to identify and delineate a complex Himalayan concept of aesthetics. The text moves on to analyse the effects of the transition of Tibetan Buddhist images into different museological contexts, comparing the display of Tibetan material in the consecrated spaces of Himalayan monastery museums with their exhi...

The medieval arts and history of western Nepal remain poor relatives of Himalayan studies. In 1994, Ian Alsop published in this magazine the first study ever dedicated to the metal sculptures of the Khasa Malla kingdom (Alsop, 1994). His contribution to the field is of the greatest value as it brought to light an overlooked 12th- to 14th-century central Himalayan empire, stretching from Uttarakhand to Mustang, and demonstrated its appeal to Buddhism and Buddhist art. The purpose of this paper is to further Alsop’s study by focusing on Ripu Malla, a particularly active Khasa Malla ruler of the early 14th century. By doing so, the metal sculptures attributed to the period of the Khasa Malla kings will be contextualized with the artistic heritage of western Nepal, where the rulers had their capitals.

Introduction, translation & edition of Ch. 7 of the Black Pillar, root text of the Bon Phurpa tantras. Examining its indigenous deity binary, Hawks and Wolves, we consider Bon influence on Tibetan Buddhist Heruka iconography. Pages 153-170 of "From Bhakti to Bon. Festschrift for Per Kværne", ed. Charles Ramble and Hanna Havnevik. The Institute for Comparative Religion in Human Culture/ Novus Forlag, Oslo 2015.