In Buddhist practice the art of painting is regarded
s one of the important constituents of the five great subjects of learning.
According to Acharya Asanga, every practitioners of the Bodhisattva path
should learn five subjects: Philosophy, Art, Grammar, Logic and Medicine.
Furthermore, the discipline of Art has many branches, namely painting,
sculpture, carving, engraving and so forth. Painting is said by Nagnajit
to be the best of these arts.
Buddhist painting may have begun
in the lifetime of the historical Buddha. While some scholars maintain
the view that it took shape a couple of centuries later, there are some
textual materials, which suggest that, the painting of Buddhist themes
began during the Buddha's lifetime. But according to some other scholars,
after a couple of centuries later of Buddha's death, when people have
started to go to pilgrimage, they need to carry a statue along with them
for Puja which was very uncomfortable because of it's weight. So they
have started to paint Buddha and other deities figure on cotton canvas,
which became more convenient for them in comparing to carry one metal
statue.
These days Thanka paintings are very essential for
every Buddhist family as well to every practitioners of Buddhism. Every
Buddhist family keeps one painting of Buddha or other deity at home and
prays on it. Monks use it for their practice and also for meditation.
There are also many Thanka paintings hanged on the walls of every monastery.
Thangkas are portable paintings
or , more rarely, embroideries depicting mainly Buddhist deities( Buddha,
Bodhisattvas, and protectors) and venerated lineage teachers (lama) in
a highly symbolical landscape. These figures are typically seated or standing
on lotus thrones, holding or surrounded by their characteristics emblems-
from vajra (dorje) symbols, a hand bell, cymbals, conch, begging, bowl,
canonical manuscript to staff, ritual sword, dagger, trident, and bow
and arrow. The landscape itself either represents one of the heavenly
realms or a transfigured earth at the intersection between material and
spiritual reality. It is populated by puffy clouds "like white curd",
mountains, valleys, trees and other vegetation, lakes, monasteries, pagodas,
birds, fish, land animals, auspicious signs (of which there are eight),
,offering bowls, and not least disciplines in a prayerful attitudes. Buddhas
and Bodhisattvas , as well as lineage masters have halos and often also
body nimbuses, whereas fierce protector deities such as Mahakala of Kalarupa
are surrounded by a circle of flames.
Some thangkas features mandalas or circular sacred
spaces occupied by the main deity in the center, protection deities in
the four direction, and often a host of other essential beings outside
the inner circle of the geometric construct. A mandala is a Cosmo gram,
an idealized map of the larger universe. Psychologically speaking as Carl
Jung Taught us , it is tool for integration. Spiritually speaking, it
is a device for focusing the mind in meditation, All thangka imagery shares
in this mandalic quality and function.
The Tibetan word thangka means "rolled up",
which refers to the fact that art is painted on flexible material- cotton
or silk that can easily be rolled up for convenient transport. Thangkas
are used in procession, and monks carry their personal thangkas with them
when visiting other monasteries. Their purpose is not a to decorate otherwise
empty walls but to serve as aids to ritual worship and meditative visualization,
which is at the heart of Tibetan Buddhist spirituality. The finished painting
is usually but not always placed in a frame of brocade, which further emphasizes
the scared nature of a thangka.
The main deity is always painted in the center.
With lesser deities and scared entities surrounding it in hierarchical fashion.
Thus the gurus are painted directly above the head of the central figure,
,with Buddhas and Bodhisattvas is what would be the sky and lesser deities
in teh lower half of the picture. Sometimes in a bottom corner, a humble
practitioner is depicted in an attitude of supplication.
