"Thangka Types"
Green Tara
 (Sanskrit: "Syamatârâ", Tibetan: "sGrol
ma ljang gu")
is the embodiment of the activity of all Buddhas. She offers us a hand to lift us up to a mountain
of enlightenment qualities. Tara belongs to the Karma family of unobstructed compassionate activity.
She is known as the Swift One, due to her immediate response to those who request her aid. Furthermore
she is known as the great liberator, specializing in overcoming obstacles in whatever form they
manifest in our lives. No deity in the Buddhist pantheon is more popular than Tara. She is especially
known for her power to overcome the most difficult situations, giving protection against dangers
and all kinds of fear.
White Tara
 Often referred to as the Mother of all the Buddhas; she represents the motherly aspect of compassion.
Her seven eyes (three on her face, one on the palm of each hand, and one on the sole of each
foot) symbolize the vigilance of her compassion. Seated in the meditation posture, her right
hand is in the gesture of supreme generosity and her left holds the lotus of compassion with
the mudra of the three jewels (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha). White Tara brings the devotee long life
and protects against all dangers.
Manjusri
Smooth, glorious, melodious- is the embodiment of all
the buddhas’ infinite
wisdom. He is golden orange in color and holds the flaming sword of wisdom in his right hand
and in his left the stem of lotus flower upon which rests a volumes of the perfection of wisdom
sutras. The artist had depicted Munjusri as manifesting in the sphere of limitless space as a
way of symbolizing the clear, unobstructed nature of this deity's omniscient mind.
All the attributes of Manjusri point to the wisdom that he personifies. His double-edged sword
cuts through obscuring layers of misconception and discriminates accurately between the independent
way they actually do exist. The perfection of wisdom sutra he holds, treasured as buddha’s
most profound statement on the ultimate nature of reality, is a further indication that Munjusri’s
penetrating insight is of the highest order. It is said that the two most powerful ways of developing
wisdom oneself are to study these profound sutras and to meditate upon Manjusri. It is the custom
of Tibetan school children and also of monks and nuns, to recite mantra of Manjusri the first
thing each
Kalachakra
Mandala Tantra
 Classified as a mother tantra of anuttaryoga tantra.
The tantra is presented is five chapters and discusses the three Kalachakras; External Kalachakra,
Internal Kalachakra and Alternative kalachakra.
- External Kalachakra: it is an external cosmos, the universe and the being within. In discusses
the inter-dependence of the universe and its dependence on the internal cosmos. Environmental
awareness which is now slowly being understood was its fact a part of this ancient wisdom. Our
inter-dependences stretches throughout all space and through all time. Because of this inter-dependences,
the suffering of others is our own suffering, we are ordinarily only able to see and feel for
brief moments when others is also our own is painful, so we often turn away; but this discovery
is in the end the only path leading to the uprooting of the deepest of our sufferings. This
is what the young Siddhartha, the Buddha to-be, learned when he stepped out of his glittering
protected palace.
- The internal Kalachakra: the internal cosmos deals with the understanding and central of
nerve centre, life force and energy. Through the proper training and use of these techniques
the total personal environment is purified, and the innate Buddha nature is awakened.
Alternative Kalachakra: deals with the ultimate nature of the cosmos. This deals with ultimate
truth while the other two are on the level of truth. The alternative Kalachakra also gives
us the practices and methods to realize the ultimate truth, which cannot to understood with the mind
such only with the wisdom. This wisdom is experienced when the ceases. The above diagram of the Kalachakra
Mandala signifies the above mentioned facts. The fingers stretched but within the Mandala is the symbol
of three cosmic universes through which the human being is passed after being delivered from the suffering
of psychic pain.
Mandala
 (Four-armed
Avalokitesvara Mandala) literally meaning a circle, is a tantric meditation device. It is a visual
aid for concentration and introversive meditation leading to the attainment of insights and
to activation forces culminating in ‘siddhi’ supernatural forces. The Mandala
graphic representation of the process. It is not only theoretical but practical as an operation
scheme involving a clear plan practical realization of the process within oneself. It becomes
as instrument (Yantra). There are many types of Mandala depending on nature so central deity.
The first Mandala was designed with dhyani Buddha in the centre .the manual represents palace
of purity, a magic sphere cleaned of spiritual obstacles and impurities. The square of the ‘sacred
palace’ proper is
enclosed in multiple circles of flame, vajra, cemeteries (appears only in wrathful deities),
lotus, then the inner square to reach of the deity of the Mandala.The Dalai Lama explain that
the image of Mandala is said to extremely profound because meditation on it serves as an antidote
quickly eradicating the obstruction to liberation and obstruction to omniscience.
 Four-armed
Avalokitesvara
(Ceresin) is the bodhisattva of infinite loving kindness and compassion
for all beings. Next to the historical Buddha, he is probably the most revered of all Buddhist
figures. He is known as Avalokitesvara in Nepal and India, Kuan-yin in China and Kannon in Japan.
As Avalokitesvara, he is the patron bodhisattva of .he is often depicted with multiple arms and
head symbolizing his ability to work simultaneously with a myriad of being. The mantra associated
with Chenresig is OM MA NI PAD ME HUM
The wheel of life
 Considered an endless life cycle of human being, it is
believed to have been drawn first by Buddha himself.
As seen in the picture, a minister demon, usually identified as yama the god of death, clutches
the whole wheel. In the smallest circle at the center a pig, snake and pigeon symbolize the three
cardinal sins of ignorance, anger and desirous attachment (jealousy and greed).
In the narrow cercle around the innermost circle the light half at the viewer's left shows figures
ascending to higher levels of existence, the dark half at the right shows figures descending
to lower levels. The six men segmented of the wheel depict the six world of existence. In the
upper half are the relatively happier realms of the gods (in the centre), the demigods (at the
right) and human being (at the left). In the lower half are the more wretched realms of the animals
(at the left) hungry ghost (at the right), hell-beings (at the centre). In the outer rim of the
wheel twelve scenes depict the chain of cause and effect.
- a blind man - ignorance
- a potter - deeds, formation karma
- a monkey - restless consciousness
- name and form - a man rowing a boat
- the six senses - a house with five windows and a door
- contact - a man and a woman embracing
- feeling - a man shot in his eye
- thirst and craving - a man drinking alcohol
- a monkey grasping fruits - clinging to desired objects
- a pregnant woman - a new process of becoming
- a birth of baby - rebirth in a new existence
- aging to death - a man carrying a corpse
But, all of the forms of existence shown in the entire wheel, even that of the gods
at the top are transient, and that is why the whole is held in his claws by the god of death.
Methods of Thangka :: History of Thangka
Paintings :: Other Thangka Images
Click images for enlargements |
types
of thangka paintings