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Tsewang Norbu (1698-1755) wrote a long description of the pureland of Shambhala, associated with the Kalachakra Tantra, along with a short text listing the name of each of the seven Dharma Kings and the following twenty-five Vidyadharas, their number in the series, and from which bodhisattva or deity they are an emanation.

In general, these Shambhala Kings are commonly depicted in art either in a single composition containing all thirty-two figures or in sets of paintings with one figure, three, four, or eight figures per composition. Their are also two different traditions, or ways, to depict the Shambhala Kings: [1] Royal Appearance and [2] Deity Appearance.

The short text of Tsewang Norbu listing the names and emanation sources for all of the kings of the Deity Appearance system is essential for understanding the differences between the two systems and their differing depictions of the kings.

As time allows all of the Shambhala King paintings on HAR, from the various Palpung Composition sets, will be identified and listed (linked) next to the appropriate name in the list of Tsewang Norbu.

With the ever increasing number of art collections, museums, and image objects added to the HAR website it actually becomes more and more challenging to find the specific objects looked for along with relevant related information. These five tools are the most important on HAR for finding specific objects. To understand how objects relate to each other, and to general subjects or concepts, then look to the extensive Outline Pages.

Five Most Powerful Tools Outline Page
1. Search
2. Indices
3. Glossaries
4. Bibliographies
5. Links

The Himalayan Art Resources website will be down for a short period of time Monday afternoon, July 6th between 2:00 and 4:00 p.m. The web technicians are updating certain key components of the database architecture to improve the search, cataloguing and speed of the site.

Thank you for your patience.

Fourteen new images of paintings from the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco have been uploaded to the HAR site. Write-ups accompany most if not all of the images. Some Asian Art entries in the database have write-ups but no images as yet. In those cases we are using a place card holder thumbnail image.

After talking about it for nearly two years the HAR Team finally has their first linked image map of the Central Tibetan region of U-Tsang. This is the first go at making clickable geographic image maps. We hope to improve them with practice and add more links as we acquire new images of important art and architectural locations in Tibet and the other Himalayan art regions.

We have chosen the linked locations because those are the locations that we currently have images for. As we acquire new images we will add new locations to the maps. The next map will be of Lhasa City and the immediate surroundings followed by West Tibet with its extensive temple murals and cave complexes.

Maps Index:
Map of U-Tsang
Map of Lhasa Region
Map of Samye & Tsetang Region
Map of Tsang Region

New Collections, Additions & Updates:
Guimet Museum, Paris, France
Painting Set: Sakya Monastery
Sculpture: Masks (Private I)
Collection of RMA: Book Covers
Collection of RMA: Avalokita (Sculpture)
Collection of RMA: Avalokita (Painting)

New Outlines:
Eight Fears Outline
Shambhala Kings Outline
Shambhala Kings: Royal Appearance Outline
Shambhala Kings: Deity Appearance Outline
Kalachakra Outline (Updated)

Avalokiteshvara Updates:
Buddhist Deity: Avalokiteshvara (Eleven Faces, Namka Gyalpo)
Buddhist Deity: Avalokiteshvara: Eleven Faces (Eight Fears)
Buddhist Deity: Avalokiteshvara (Eleven Faces, Lineage)
Buddhist Deity: Avalokiteshvara (Four Tatagatas)
Buddhist Deity: Avalokiteshvara (Eight Hands)
Buddhist Deity: Avalokiteshvara (Drigung Kagyu Tradition)
Buddhist Deity: Avalokiteshvara (Bhikshuni Shri)
Buddhist Deity: Avalokiteshvara (Eye Holding)

Miscellaneous Additions & Updates:
Painting Sets Index
Eight Fears List
Lhasa Greyscaled & Numbered (1)
Lhasa Greyscaled & Numbered (2)
Lhasa Greyscaled & Numbered (3)
Initiation Cards: Rinchen Terdzo (Ka)
Buddhist Protector: Nechung Chogyong
Buddhist Worldly Protector: Vaishravana
Teacher: Panchen Lama Incarnation Set (Textile)
Buddhist Deity: Hevajra (Sculpture)
Teacher: Lodrag Khenchen Lekyi Dorje
Painting Set: Indian Adepts (Ford)
Indian Scholar: Atisha (Life Story Paintings)

Shambhala Kings Additions & Updates:
Kings: Shambhala (Set 3, Palpung Composition)
Kings: Shambhala (Set 4)
Kings: Shambhala (Set 5)
Kings: Shambhala (Set 6)
Kings: Shambhala (Set 7)
Kings: Shambhala (Set 8)
Kings: Shambhala (Set 9)
Kings: Shambhala (Set 10)
Kings: Shambhala (All in one painting)
Kings: Shambhala (Palpung Misc.)
Kings of Shambhala - Names List

The eight fears are a common theme represented in Himalayan and Tibetan Buddhist art. The fears are generally associated with Avalokiteshvara, Amoghapasha and Tara. Protection from the fears can be represented by a single deity figure with eight hands, or a central deity accompanied by eight retinue figures each protecting from one of the eight fears. In the case of the Eleven Faced Avalokiteshvara of the Atisha Tradition the attendant deities are all wrathful in appearance.

An outline page has been created in the process of organizing the various sets of paintings that depict the Shambhala Kings. It soon became clear from the amount of art and number of different sets that there needed to be more than one Outline Page to fully contextualize the material. In general there are two different systems for depicting the Seven Kings and Twenty-five Vidyadharas: Royal Appearance and Deity Appearance. The Royal Appearance system is older and found throughout Tibet and the Himalayan regions. The Deity Appearance was popularized in the Kham region of East Tibet by Katog Tsewang Norbu in the 18th century. It is possible that the Deity Appearance system originates from an earlier Jonang textual tradition. Further research is required.

Shambhala Kings Outline Page
Shambhala Kings: Royal Appearance Outline Page
Shambhala Kings: Deity Appearance Outline Page

Google Alert: "Himalayan Art Resources"

In the twelve year history of the HAR website there have been four major additions, or changes, to the site that have improved it tremendously; a quantum leap forward in how the site is used. The first (1) was the extensive use of Thematic Sets, the grouping of related thumbnail images into various sets. Currently there are over two thousand Thematic Sets. The second (2) great improvement was the addition of extensive Outline Pages to contextualize the subjects and topics of Himalayan art. Currently there are approximately three hundred Outline Pages. The third (3) great improvement was the addition of the Google Search which has revolutionized navigation on the site and made everything easier to find and faster. The fourth (4) great innovation on the site is the addition of Visual Images of Sets to represent the full and complete composition of an art work, whenever it is known. More than half of all Himalayan and Tibetan art was created in sets of paintings and sculpture.

See examples of sets of paintings both complete and incomplete:
Eight Mahasiddhas Set (Palpung)
Eight Bodhisattvas Set (Palpung)
Eighty-four Mahasiddhas (Jonang)
Eighty-four Mahasiddhas Set
Jataka Painting Set
Panchen Lama Incarnation Set

Images of paintings and sculpture from the gallery floors of the Guimet Museum in Paris have been added to the HAR site. The images are snap shots and of a poor quality for the most part, but it is better to have a bad image than no image at all. The Guimet has one of the finest collections of Himalayan art in Europe, if not all of the Western world.

Over the last month or so we have been having intermittent problems with the HAR image server. This is the software that creates the thumbnail images and allows for zooming and enlarging of those images. We believe that the problems have been identified and fixed for now. New monitoring software has been installed that will keep better track of all aspects of the HAR website. The software will automatically inform us when there are server shut downs and user requests that are not completed. At this time we are also changing and upgrading certain parts of the database architecture so as to improve the functionality of the site. For now most of these changes won't be seen by the users and mostly have to do with how information is accessed by the database. The changes will also allow the HAR team to catalogue large numbers of images more efficiently and most importantly - quickly.

Several of the Lhasa cityscape paintings have been converted to greyscale and numbers have been added to the images identifying the important architectural structures, monasteries and temples.

Additional detail images have been added to the monumental Mongolian painting of Lhasa. New images have been added to the Tashi Lhunpo, Shigatse set along with two early 20th century drawings by European travelers or British surveyors.

The Avalokiteshvara Outline has been updated and expanded to include an Art Topics and Eleven Faced Outline. Many new sub sets have been added along with new images.

Avalokiteshvara Outline
Avalokiteshvara Art Topics
Avalokiteshvara Eleven Faces

Outline Pages:
Art Subjects Outline Page (updated)
Padmasambhava Outline (updated)
Padmasambhava: Eight Forms
Padmasambhava: Meditational Forms
Ritual Objects (updated)
Parnashavari: Forest Goddess
Initiation Cards

Image Sets:
Padmasambhava: Eight Forms (Sculpture)
Padmasambhava: Medicine Buddha Form
Buddhist Worldly Protector: Rahula, Retinue Figure
Buddhist Worldly Protector: Ta'og Sengshon
Subject: Samye Monastery Paintings
Charts: Poetry & Calligraphy
Teacher: Do Kyentse Yeshe Dorje
Subject: Cityscapes, Unidentified
Initiation Cards: Rinchen Terdzo Volume NGA
Initiation Cards: Rinchen Terdzo Volume NYA
Initiation Cards: Bodong Sengdong (Simhamukha)
Initiation Cards: Jatson Sengdong (Simhamukha)
Initiation Cards: Chogling Choto Dregpa
Initiation Cards: Longsal Sengmar (Simhamukha)
Initiation Cards: Tagsham Sengmar (Simhamukha)
Initiation Cards: Nyangter Choto Dregpa
Initiation Cards: Rinchen Terdzo Master List
Initiation Cards: Peling
Buddhist Deity: Parnashavari (Yellow, Three Faces)
Buddhist Deity: Parnashavari (Blue, Four Hands)
Buddhist Deity: Parnashavari (Green, Two Hands)
Buddhist Deity: Parnashavari (Sculpture)
Ritual Object: Long Life Vase

Longchen Nyingtig Treasure Tradition Outline Page:
Images and art associated with the Longchen Nyingtig Treasure Tradition of Jigme Lingpa have been organized into a simple outline page. Many new image sets were created and a number of previously uncatalogued images have been identified during this quick study.


Cityscape & Monastery Paintings Outline Page:
More and more cityscape paintings are turning up in museum and private collections. They are interesting and maybe even fascinating. Some are more accurate than others and at least one appears to be painted from a photograph. Many are easily identified as Lhasa, Tashi Lhunpo or Samye Monastery. A few of them remain unidentified.

Hell, Subjects and Depictions:
Hell
Hell Beings Set I
Hell Beings Miscellaneous
Wheel of Life: Bon Religion
Six Buddhas of the Six Realms
Padmasambhava: Six Realms (Peling)

Miscellaneous Subjects:
Vajrabhairava Retinue Figure
Bookcovers, Ranjana/Lantsha Script
Manuscripts, Title Page
Bon Protector: Dragpa Sengge
Vajrapani, Sculpture
Stupa: Dhanyakataka

Nyingma Painting and Initiation Card Sets:
Padmasambhava: Vaishravana Form
Twenty-one Taras of the Chogyur Lingpa Tradition, Initiation Cards
Ngar Pan Yontan Terdzo Initiation Cards
Padmasambhava: Ngar Pan Yontan Terdzo Paintings
Padmasambhava: Terma Forms & Transference Paintings
Longchen Nyingtig Painting Set
Longchen Nyingtig Field of Accumulation Paintings
Yutog Nyingtig Initiation Cards(Set II)
Karling Shitro Initiation Cards
Deling Shitro Initiation Cards
Shigling Zab Dun Initiation Cards
Lama Gongdu Initiation Cards
Jangter Tugdrub Kagye Initiation Cards
Miscellaneous Initiation Cards (Rinchen Ter Dzo, Vol TSA)

A HELL Outline Page has been added to the site. It is a work in progress with more images and image sets to be linked. With luck those images will be uploaded tomorrow and more content and context added over the weekend.

The Initiation Card Sets page has been updated and doubled in size. There are now 35 sets of both Bon and Buddhist initiation cards with the latter being in the majority. The bulk of the sets are drawn from the Rinchen Ter Dzo collection of Revealed Treasure teachings of the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. More sets will be added over the next few months.

The lists for both the European museums and the Asian museums have been updated. There are still many more to add and some have been listed without proper links. If you can think of any that we have missed then please e-mail us and let us know so that we can add them. For Mongolia only the main museums have been added. There are, possibly, twenty-three provinces and each has a provincial museum. India has many more museums with collections of Himalayan art than what we have listed. Documenting all of the Himalayan art in the world that resides in museum collections is an enormous and ongoing project.

So far, in the United States, there are sixty-two (62) museums in twenty-one (21) states that have been identified as having collections of Himalayan & Tibetan style art. It is very likely that there are a number of other museums out there not yet identified. Twenty (20) of these museums with images from their collections are currently represented on the Himalayan Art Resources (HAR) website. The HAR staff are continuing to contact and work with other museums in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia, to encourage their participation in this global cultural endeavor.

Google Alert: "Himalayan Art Resources"