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 Thangka painting by grets
A tangka is a religious painting which has been mounted on brocade and rolled up between two sticks for portability. They were often used by preachers and doctors as a virtual learning aid, not unlike a book. There are other, enormous tangkhas, some the size of a small building, which are unfurled during festivals.
The production of a thangka follows a strict schedule: Linen, stiffened with glue and coated with a mixture of lime and chalk (called gesso), is stretched on a wooden frame. A grid is drawn onto the thangka controlled by strict mathematical measurements, then outlines are sketched in charcoal, starting with the main deity and moving outwards.
Starting with the background, colours are added one at a time, ending with the shading. Traditional pigments would be used, such as red from cinnabar, blue from lapis and yellow from sulphur, as well as gold being added to the thangka. The finishing touches consists of the eyes being painted, which takes place during an ‘opening the eyes’ ceremony. Once that all is completed, the brocade backing, which is usually three colour, is added as well as a curtain to protect the thangka. Leave a Comment
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 thangkas by sachara
You can buy new thangkas at the market, for example at Barkhor in Lhasa, but you can see also antique ones in the monasteries. The first day In Tibet on our way to Lhasa we saw a cavalcade of colourful horsemen, bearing a unrolled thangka on a standard with them.
We visited the Drepung monastery a day before a annual festival. About twenty chanting monks came out of the monastery, bearing a huge rolled thangka like a long twisting serpent. The thangka has to be unrolled at the immense thangka wall just beside the monastery. A pity there was not enough time for us to see that part of the ceremony. Leave a Comment
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 Mandala by grets
The mandala is associated with Tantric Buddhism, and is in effect a three-dimensional picture featuring an imaginary palace using various media such as paint, sand, models or even complete monasteries. Two-dimensional manadalas, such as paintings, can be perceived as three-dimensional through meditation. Manadalas are used during a ritual called sadhana where the devotee meditates on, invokes and identifies with a specific deity, before dissolving into emptiness and re-emerging as the deity itself. There are many different mandalas, each with different lessons to teach.
Mandalas will typically include a central deity with four or eight smaller deities surrounding it, all of who are aspects of the inner image. These four or eight deities are often accompanied by a consort, frequently seen in several circles totalling many hundred deities. A devotee would hope to be able to visualise 722 deities with such clarity that he is able to see the whites of their eyes and maintain this for four hours. The ultimate aim is to enter the three-dimensional world of the mandala and to merge with the deity at the centre of that world.
Temporary mandalas are constructed at the beginning of the rituals of tantric initiation, out of grains of coloured sand carefully placed on a specially prepared platform. They are deliberately destroyed at the end of the initiation, with the sand swept up and poured into a nearby stream or river to symbolise impermanence. Before a monk is permitted to work on constructing a mandala he must undergo a long period of technical artistic training, learning how to create all the various symbols and studying related philosophical concepts. Leave a Comment
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 Our "friend" and side
temple "guide"! by jadedmuseLeave a Comment
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 women with prayerwheels at the
Barkhor by sachara
At the same moment the pilgrims round the holy places clockwise. They told us, that the pilgrims believe, that they by their own circumambulation and the spinning of their prayerwheels evoke the movements of the planets in the heavens, the dance of the electrons around the nucleus and the recurring circle of life. Leave a Comment
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 postrating pilgrims by sachara
Tibetan Buddhists believe, that the making of one hundred prostrations is the first step to acquiring a vast number of merits and will bring a profound purification. Leave a Comment
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 The Wheel of Life by grets
The Wheel of Life is an intricate symbolic representation of all evil and its effect and how desire ties us to samsara, the endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth. Yama, the Lord of Death, holds a disk to symbolise the impermanence of all existence. The circle leads the viewer from picture to picture along the black path or the white path, through the twelve interwoven causes and their consequences to rebirth. The inner circle shows a cockerel (representing desire) sinking his teeth into a pig (symbolising ignorance) who again is gnawing on a snake (standing for anger or hatred). The six inner sections represent the six realms of rebirth – gods, battling anti-gods, humans, hungry ghosts, demons from hell and animals. All beings are reborn through this cycle depending on their karma. Outside the wheel is an image of Buddha, showing his release into a state of nirvana. The images are there to remind us that everyone is responsible for their own fate, because, according to karma, causes and effects are fruits of your own deeds. But the meaning of the Wheel of Life is to show us the way out of these sufferings and into a better world.
The Wheel of Life is often pictured on thangkas. Leave a Comment
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 pilgrims in front of the
Jokhang Temple by tremendopunto, 4 more photosLeave a Comment
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 dharma wheel at the Jokhang
temple by sachara
At the left side of the picture you can see the so called gyeltsen or victory standard with pages of the holy scripture inside. Leave a Comment
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 Prayer Flags by grets
Prayer flags come in five different colours, indicating the following representation:
Blue = Sky
Green = Air
Yellow = Earth
White = Water
Red = Fire
They are positioned anywhere wind can get hold of them and distribute the blessing which are written on them by the sheer flapping movement. They are also known as Wind Horses (lungta) Leave a Comment
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