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Didactic Art is art created as visual compositions, generally paintings, depicting information and knowledge often in sequential order for the purposes of teaching and instruction. In some cases the composition will have both visual information and textual explanation side by side.

The most well known example of didactic art are the ever present Wheel of Life paintings and murals. Other examples are the Meditation Instructions for Calm Abiding and the Bon Dzogchen Instructions of which there are several known examples (a painting, a mural, and an illuminated manuscript).

Three Main Types:

- Wheel of Life Paintings

- Meditation Instructions

- Bon Dzogchen Instructions

An Outline Page for the life story painting set of Shakyamuni Buddha has been added. Take special notice of the wonderful detail images that accompany four of the five paintings.

This complete set of five paintings depicting the life story of Shakyamuni Buddha is very unique in late Tibetan art because of its selection of narratives stories that the artist has chosen to highlight and represent the Buddha's story.

The selection of individual stories and the over-all composition depicted differs greatly from the standard traditional painted accounts of Shakyamuni Buddha which are primarily focused on the Twelve Deeds of the Buddha with each of the twelve having equal importance and representation in the composition(s).

The central composition of this particular set depicts Shakyamuni Turning the Wheel of Dharma in Sarnath.

The style of painting, drawing and colour follows very closely with other compositions commissioned in association with Palpung Monastery in East Tibet (Dege, Kham province) in the 18th and 19th century.

The details images are masterfully done and require some knowledge of the Buddha's life story to be able to understand and navigate in following the narrative as imagined by the very skilled master artist that created this painting set.

Paintings:

- Turning the Wheel of Dharma (center)

- Prochecy & Birth (right first)

- Youth, Excelling in Sports (left first)

- Austerities, Defeating Mara (right second)

- Fifteen Days of Miracles at Shravasti & Death (left second)

The over-all subject and context of these two bodhisattva paintings are not yet identified which makes it difficult to suggest how many compositions would make up the complete painting set. The central figure in the two compositions is likely to be Avalokiteshvara or Maitreya. It is also possible that the paintings belong to a set depicting the Eight Great Bodhisattvas.

Although strikingly Chinese in style, the two paintings here are very similar in many ways to the Dalai Lama Painting Set dated to the early 1800s.

According to the life story of Shakyamuni Buddha he once stayed at Shravasti in Northern India and over the course of fifteen days performed fifteen miracles or magical displays. This painting is from a set of at least five compositions depicting all fifteen miracles - three miracles per painting. Along the bottom of the composition are three four-line verses identifying the day and the miracle - one for each of the episodes portrayed above. It is possible that this painting belongs to a much larger set of compositions depicting in great detail the life story of Shakyamuni Buddha. No other paintings from this set have so far been identified.

A painting depicting the life story of Tangtong Gyalpo, along with details, has been added to the Tangtong Gyalpo Main Page. This composition along with three others from the same set are currently the only known examples of the subject. A large mural painting of the life story is known to have existed in Tibet and it is very possible that other mural depictions might be identified in Bhutan.

Tsangyang Gyatso, the 6th Dalai Lama, is certainly the most controversial of the Dalai Lama incarnations. Was he wrongly chosen? Was he the previous abbot of Shalu Monastery? Was he the illigitimate son of the 5th Dalai Lama? Was he murdered by the Mongols, or did he live a long life according to what is written in the secret biography?

Pema Lingpa is one of the most famous Nyingma Terton's of Bhutan. His legacy extends throughout Bhutan, Tibet and the Himalayan regions. The murals located on the third floor of the Lhukang Temple situated behind the Potala Palace in Lhasa are believed to depict tantric systems based on the writings of Pema Lingpa.

Cityscapes & Monastery Plans are a specific subject of Himalayan and Tibetan style painting. The most common cities, or towns, reproduced are Lhasa, Shigatse, Samye Monastery in Central Tibet and Labrang Monastery in Amdo. Other locations can be found but are not reproduced as often. Sacred sites and pilgrimage sites depicting the route of circumambulation can also be found reproduced in art.

Ragavajra Ganapati originates in Tibet with the tradition of Jowo Atisha in the 11th century. In general, Buddhist forms of Ganapati function as wealth deities within the Tantric system. This specific form of Ganapati is clearly the most sexually explicit and possibly the most 'pornographically outrageous' in all of Tantric Buddhism. The best work is certainly the sculpture with clear distinctions between the three faces along with detail and movement in the limbs seen from the front and back. Three images of a mural have also been added from one of the smaller chapels in the Gyantse Kumbum.

Tsatsa Molds are created for a variety of religious or community purposes. Sometimes the tsatsa clay is mixed with the ashes of holy teachers. Tsatsa can be made from a number of different elements but clay is the most common. The pieces exhibited here are mostly Indian in origin yet found in the Dungkar Cave of West Tibet.

Diagrammatic Art is art, primarily paintings and murals, intended to convey large amounts, or portions,  of highly codified information to the viewer. The principal categories of Diagrammatic art are:

(1) Charts

(2) Mandalas

(3) Refuge Field

(4) Wheel of Life

(5) Meditation Instructions
(6) Demoness of Tibet

Nechung Monastery is located just West of Lhasa below the much larger Drepung Monastery. It is most famous as the home of the Nechung Oracle. The images are predominantly of the fabulous large format brightly coloured murals depicting the retinue figures in the entourage of the worldly deity Pehar Gyalpo. The images have been added to the Ariana Maki Photographic Archive.

A separate building at the Samye Monastery complex houses the special protector named Tsi'u Marpo. Although a worldly deity by definition, he was placed as the guardian of Samye in the 17th century after the 5th Dalai Lama moved the previous Samye protector, Pehar Gyalpo, to Nechung Monastery (located immediately below the huge Drepung Monastery complex on the outskirts of Lhasa).

The Tsi'u Marpo Ukang is filled with masks and sculpture along with one monkey (who stays outside). It is said that in the collection of Tsi'u Marpo retinue figures the monkey is the secret messenger for the protector deity.

In one of the larger side buildings at Samye Monastery a series of murals can be found that depict the Thirty-five Confession Buddhas according to the System of Nagarjuna. They are very unusual because of the iconography - specifically in how each Buddha holds or displays their hand attributes, the manner of the clothing, along with uncharacteristic shirts covering the upper torso. (Also see the Confession Buddhas Main Page).

Samye Monastery is a complex of buildings encircled by a wall. In the main temple there are a number of floors and various rooms filled with murals and some sculpture.

Samye Monastery is acknowledged as the first Buddhist Monastery built in Tibet under the direction of Shantarakshita, Trisong Detsen, and with the help of Padmasambhava. These images are landscape views and architectural images. The photos were taken during the summer of 2007.

Basic Buddhist Meditation Instructions for Calm Abiding have very cleverly been created as a visual narrative. The idea of relating the mind to an unruly elephant along with the monkey and other elements in the visual example of Calm Abiding meditation originates in the writings of Asanga and then later in the meditation commentaries of Je Tsongkapa. It is thought that the artistic depiction of the practice is relatively late and possibly first arose in the 19th century as a wall mural. The image above is of a poster published in India in the early 1970s. An original Tibetan version of the painting has not yet been located. Images of a Bhutanese mural from Thimpu Tango Shedra have been added.

At the time of King Songtsen Gampo Tibet was believed to be a supine Demoness prone to sudden and violent movement and unwelcoming to Buddhism. Songtsen Gampo with the help of his Chinese bride mapped the form of the demoness and then constructed temples at all of the key locations above the principal organs and joints. (See Re-Assessing the Supine Demoness: Royal Buddhist Geomancy in the Srong btsan sgam po Mythology. Martin A. Mills, University of Aberdeen. JIATS, no. 3 (December 2007), THL #T3108, 47 pp. (c)2007 by Martin A. Mills, IATS, and THL).

The temple of Lhakang Chenmo in Sakya Town, Tibet, is famous for it very large and massive pillars. There are four principal pillars in the main temple of Lhakang Chenmo. Each of the pillars are named and have a special story relating their symbolic meaning and how they came to be in the main temple of Sakya.

- Yellow Pillar

- Tiger Pillar

- Wild Yak Pillar

- Black Blood Dripping Pillar