News

A new outline page has been added for the form of Avalokiteshvara known as Simhanada 'Lion's Roar.' Originally taught by the Indians Chandragomi and Suvarnadvipa, it entered Tibet in the 11th century with Rinchen Zangpo, Jowo Atisha, Bari Lotsawa and others. The deity form and meditation practices are now found in all traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. A stone sculpture relief of the deity can also be found carved on a rock face in Hangzhou, China, at the edge of the Pacific Ocean. Simhanada Lokeshvara was popularized in Mongolia and China by Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyaltsen (1182-1251) when he cured Godan Khan of leprosy using the special healing techniques of Simhanada.

The Himalayan Art Resources website was certainly a participant in the successful Rubin Museum of Art exhibition Mandala, The Perfect Circle. HAR provided scholarship and essays both for the catalogue publication and wall text on the gallery floor. But what does this all have to do with yaks and mandalas, and what do they have in common? Well, familiar with both the art and the exhibition we have come up with five interesting facts that touch on both the lighter side and the more serious side of the exhibition and Buddhist Tantric art in general. To pursue the yak question see the Five Interesting Facts of the Rubin Museum exhibition. (Also see the Five Myths About Mandalas).

It has become obvious that the subject of mandalas is too large for the current navigation on the site. A new Mandala Resource Page has been created to help navigate and also to highlight examples of the different types of mandalas, their elements, iconography and meaning. More example pages will be added....

Representations of Deity Mandalas are created for many different reasons and probably least of all as 'an artistic aid for meditation' as is commonly believed by many Western scholars. The primary reason for the physical creation of a mandala is to have a visual presence when preparing and conducting a ritual initiation for Tantric Buddhist devotees into a deity yoga meditation practice. Initiations, sometimes called ceremonies or empowerments, require a physical depiction, as stipulated in the Tantric texts, either two dimensional or three dimensional in form, of the deity, the celestial palace and the surrounding lotus petals, vajras and five coloured flames. Sand mandalas and painted wooden mandala plates are good examples of objects used for this ritual function.

Yama Dharmaraja Mandala
Yama Dharmaraja Mandala Elements
Yama Dharmaraja Schematic - Quick Study
Yama Dharmaraja Outline Page
Yama Dharmaraja Main Page

(See an essay on Mandalas: An Introduction, Painting & Sculpture based on the Rubin Museum of Art exhibition Mandala, The Perfect Circle).

Do you think a specific image needs to be greyscaled and numbered? Let us know. We only greyscale and give special attention to images we are working on. We would love to hear what you are working on. How can we help with your studies? Your interests may help us and help the field in general. There is a world of iconography, art history and religious studies out there, let us know.

Greyscale has been used throughout the HAR site to create a clear image composition with written names and numbers to improve navigation and identification. Important iconographic subjects, architectural features and composition sequences have been labeled either directly with names on the image or as numbers corresponding to an identification key in the body of explanatory text. There are four basic types of composition where greyscale numbering is most helpful: [1] Cityscapes, [2] Narratives, [3] Figure Compositions and [4] Lineage Compositions.

Yes, Vajramrita is a rare and unusual form and not commonly represented as a central figure in art. The deity mostly appears as part of an iconographic compendium such as the Vajravali of Abhayakaragupta, Bari Gyatsa, Sadhana-samucchaya, or in the group of Ten Wrathful Ones. There are four forms of the complex deity that have the name 'amrita' in common and they are all grouped together in the Vajravali literature. Each is described with a retinue of deities and a complex mandala. Several other forms of the deity, usually in a more simplified form, appear in other traditions. There are two deities similar in appearance that can cause confusion in identification: Humkara and Avalokita Samvara. (See the Vajramrita Outline Page).

The Mitra Gyatsa is a collection of one hundred and eight Tantric Mandalas compiled by Mitra Yogin in the 12th - 13th century. It has remained a popular collection and is still current today especially in the Kagyu and Gelug Traditions. It is an important early collection that ranks with the Vajravali, Bari Gyatsa, and Sadhana-samucchaya as one of the most significant iconographic resources describing the deities and mandalas that appear in Himalayan and Tibetan art.

Mitra Gyatsa:
Outline Page
Mandala Contents List
Initiation & Teaching Lineage

Amoghapasha is a complicated deity subject in Tantric Buddhist iconography. He is easily mistaken for Avalokiteshvara in most artistic depictions. The two deities are frequently conflated together by Western scholars. Sometimes Amoghapasha is described as a form, or emanation, of Avalokiteshvara and again at other times, such as with this mandala of Amoghapasha, a retinue figure while Avalokiteshvara is the central deity in the mandala. It begs the question, why is this mandala called the Five-deity Amoghapasha if the central deity is Avalokiteshvara?

New Outline Pages:
Amoghapasha Outline Page
Amoghapasha: Forms & Traditions Outline

1. Yogi Appearance in Himalayan art with an Outline Page and an Image Sets Page.

2. Female Teachers Outline Page: the teachers represented as main figures in art from India and Tibet.

3. Petroglyphs Outline Page: the beginnings of an outline distinguishing types and regions.

More Buddhist art treasures have been unearthed from the sands of the Gobi desert in Mongolia and taken to the Danza Rabjaa Temple. See other previously unearthed objects at the Danza Rabjaa Museum in the town of Sainshand. Also see the BBC news article.

The HAR Newsletter for May, June and July is ready for mail-out. In the future we will not be doing a separate page for the newsletter but rather relying more on the 'New on the Site' page (blog) along with more frequent e-mail notifications. There are too many changes going on all the time to wait three months for an announcement of changes and additions. To stay on top of things we need to announce changes as they happen.

One of the most difficult to recognize iconographic forms represented in art is the Pancha Raksha - Five Protector Goddesses. The difficulty arises from the fact that there are numerous traditions originating in India and later moving to Nepal, Tibet, Mongolia and China. Each of these traditions describes the five goddesses differently. The colours can be different, the numbers of faces and arms can be different, the postures and what they hold in the hands can be different. These five figures are commonly created as both sculpture, painting and wall murals. In paintings they are both central subjects, figures or mandalas, as well as minor figures in a composition with an unrelated central figure.

General Traditions:
1. Vajravali, 13 Deity Mandala (Abhayakaragupta)
2. 56 Deity Mandala
2. Bari Gyatsa (Bari Lotsawa)
3. Nartang Gyatsa (Atisha)
4. Sadhana-samucchaya (3 systems. Edited version of the 9th Je Khenpo)

A page of Selected Masterworks has been added and can be accessed from the Pancha Raksha Main Page or the Outline Page.

A new outline page, Deities: Multi-coloured, has been added to the How to Identify a Deity Outline Page.

- Kurukulla: Goddess of Power
- Krishna Yamari: the Black Killer of Death
- Rakta Yamari: The Red Killer of Death
- Vajrabhairava: Wrathful Manjushri (updated)

It seems that the more popular a deity becomes, more and more forms are created. Tara along with Lokeshvara and Manjushri have many score if not hundreds of different iconographic depictions both described in the Tantric literature and found in paintings and sculpture. Some of these iconographic forms of Tara belong to groups or sets such as the Twenty-one Taras. Three of these groups were created approximately 1000 years ago or more; the Suryagupta, Atisha and Sadhana-samucchaya systems. The first two are named after the Kashmiri and Indian teachers that popularized the systems. The third is named for the Sanskrit text in which a unique system of the Twenty-one Taras is described. The most recent of the systems are the Longchen Nyingtig developed by Jigme Lingpa in the late 1700s, based on the inspiration of Longchenpa, and the system of Chogyur Lingpa from the mid 1800s.

Tara:
1. Solitary Form
2. Three Deity Configuration: Tara, Brikuti and Ekajati
3. Five Deity Configuration
4. Tara and the Eight Fears
5. The Five Systems of the Twenty-one Taras
6. Tara Seventeen Deity Mandala
7. The One-hundred Names (and depictions) of Tara

In the Links section of the HAR website there is a complete annotated list in a linear format of all Topic Outline Pages. This list has just been updated with the twenty or so Outlines made in the last six weeks or so. If you have time on your hands and don't know what you want to look at on the site, then go to the linear Outlines List and wander around - see where it takes you.

The main Mandala Outline Page has been updated and several new detailed and expanded mandala outlines have been created. A new Mandala Technical Glossary has been added to the site. It can be found on the Glossary Page or found linked to the various mandala pages and outlines.


Mandala Art Topics Outline
Mandala: Sets & Traditions Outline
What are Mandalas?
Mandala-like Circular Forms Outline
Mandala Technical Glossary

Each deity figure has six principal characteristics necessary in identification: [1] gender, [2] mood, [3] colour, [4] body configuration, [5] posture, [6] gestures & hand attributes.

How to Identify a Deity Image
What is gender?
What is mood?
What are the colours?
What is body configuration?
What are the postures?
What are gestures & hand attributes?

The Buddhist Tantric meditational deity Chakrasamvara is a popular subject in Himalayan style art. There are many forms of the deity from a one face, two armed, blue, solitary standing figure, to a seated white figure with a consort. The forms become more complicated with three faces and six arms, four faces and twelve arms and then over a thousand arms with over a thousand retinue deities inhabiting the mandala. Even though the central figure can be identical between two different mandalas, the number and appearance of the retinue figures in the mandala can be different. All of this adds to the great difficulty in correctly identifying a particular Chakrasamvara, painting, sculpture or mandala.

New pages created:
Chakrasamvara Outline Page (updated)
Chakrasamvara Deity Forms Outline (new)
Chakrasamvara Art Topics Outline (new)
Paintings Page (new)
Sculpture Page (new)
Mandala Page (new)

Selected Masterworks:
A Selected Masterworks Page has been created to look at the very best examples of the Chakrasamvara form in painting and sculpture from both an art and aesthetics, i.e. Art History point of view and from a Religious Studies point of view. A chronology page will be added later along with a further analysis of the different forms of the deity, most of which are now represented on the HAR site as central figures or minor figures.