The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume Seven (47 page)

8
. From “The Vajradhatu Anthem,” unpublished poem.

9
.
Journey without Goal,
p. 140.

Selected Chronology

V
ISUAL
D
HARMA

The Buddhist Art of Tibet

Introduction

T
HIS EXHIBITION OF
Tibetan art presents the visual dharma of tantra according to the Buddhist tradition. The practice of Buddhism has begun to develop in this country in the last fifteen years. Scholars and practitioners have been inspired by the teaching and it is gradually becoming a living tradition rather than a mere anthropological study. People have heard of the existence of tantra, but it is still something only vaguely understood that has yet to take root.

The outlandishness of the tantric images suggests something alien, superstitious, perhaps having to do with demon worship. This is not the case. The Buddhist spiritual approach is nontheistic. The figures of the tantric iconography do not stand for external beings; they are not deities in the ordinary sense of but represent aspects of transmuted ego. Ego is the pervasive confusion of appropriating energy in a self-centered way. Transmutation is learned through meditative training, both through sitting meditation practice and in everyday life, through cultivating clear awareness and genuine relationship with the situation of life. It is a process which accommodates the energy of confused mind and arouses its innate clarity and precision.

The awakened mind is characterized by compassion, perfect action, fearlessness, luminous intelligence, etc. These aspects of enlightenment are what is embodied in the tantric iconography. The terrifying qualities of the wrathful figures portray the awakened energy which devastates the confusion and hesitation of ego.

Buddhism has been uprooted from Tibet. Particularly tantric Buddhism was unique to the Tibetan tradition and is in danger of being lost. The tradition is a treasury of insight into human psychology and it seems worthwhile to attempt to convey a genuine understanding of it, since it is so readily liable to misunderstanding.

This exhibition is part of the general work of transmitting the wisdom of Buddhism in which we are engaged. It gives me pleasure to be able to share this occasion with you.

I would like to express my appreciation to the Office of Exhibitions, its Director, Bruce K. MacDonald, and Susan E. Cohen, Administrative Assistant, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for cooperating with our foundation in making the exhibition possible.

Visual Dharma: The Buddhist Art of Tibet

B
ACKGROUND AND
H
ISTORY

T
HE ART OF TIBET
is entirely based on the spirituality of Buddhism. The pure native Tibetan art of the Bön (Tt.: bon)
¹
tradition was lost with the coming of Buddhism to Tibet from India in the ninth century. The main source of the Tibetan art that has flourished since then is the iconographical art of India with strong influences from China and Persia.

One of the first examples of Buddhist art in Tibet was produced in the time of King Songsten Gampo (Tt.: srong btsan sgam po; reigned 608–649
C.E
.), well before Buddhism was generally known in the country. Songsten Gampo married Nepalese and Chinese princesses, both Buddhists. They each brought their family shrines with them to Lhasa, the seat of the monarchy, and the king built temples there to house them. These first landmarks of Buddhist art survive until the present day. It was King Trisong Detsen (Tt.: khri srong Ide btsan), the great-grandson of Songtsen Gampo, who invited to Tibet Padmasambhava (better known as Guru Rinpoche, “precious guru”) and Shantarakshita, the great spiritual masters who converted the Tibetan people, learned and ordinary, and established Buddhism as the national religion. These two also, with King Trisong Detsen, founded Samye (Tt.: bsam yas) monastery, Tibet’s first, which was to become the fundamental monument of Buddhism in that country.

In the process of expanding his kingdom in the direction of Persia, Trisong Detsen visited and sacked a religious establishment there at a place called Batra. From there he brought back Persian art and ritual objects as well as Persian master craftsmen. Along with the objects came Pehar, the guardian spirit of the temple at Batra. Pehar was tamed and converted by Guru Rinpoche and became then the guardian deity of Samye.

Chinese influence also entered Tibet during this period, especially in the form of Ch’an Buddhism, the Chinese precursor of Zen. Eighty Ch’an masters came to teach in central Tibet and attracted many Tibetan disciples. This strongly implanted the influence of Chinese Buddhist ritual and generally provided inspiration in the newly converted country.

The monasteries which began to be built were modeled on the palaces of Tibetan royalty. Even the interior designs and seating arrangements were copied from the audience halls of Tibetan kings. Iconographical subjects were painted on the walls as frescoes and three-dimensional shrines were built and sculptured images of deities placed upon them.

Thangkas or scroll paintings were, from the first, religious in nature. The first thangkas originated in India and depicted the wheel of life, a sort of diagram showing the world of samsara and how to get out of it. Pilgrims carried them on their backs and unrolled them in village squares along their way for use in illustrating their talks on the basic truths of Buddhism.

Thangkas developed much wider use in Tibet, a country where for a long time a large portion of the population was nomadic. In nomadic Tibet, it was the practice of local rulers to travel about their regions setting up their princely camps in various places and holding court in great, richly appointed tents. The Tibetan religious orders adopted this pattern from them. Groups of monks moved over the country, pitching camp in the highlands in summer and in the lowlands in winter. The abbots, as they rode in the caravans, went like kings, wearing high gold hats of office and surrounded by attendants carrying banners. The monks were great in numbers and carried with them everything necessary for a full-scale religious establishment. According to the
Book of the Crystal Rosary,
when the seventh Karmapa, Chötrag Gyamtso (Tt.: chos grags rgyamtso, 1454–1506) traveled, it required five hundred mules to carry the Kanjur (Tt.: bka’ ’gyur; S.: Tripitaka) and other religious books. He was accompanied by ten thousand monks with fifteen hundred tents. Portable shrines were brought and full ritual paraphernalia, so that what amounted to complete monasteries could be set up in the tents. Thangkas, being portable, were used instead of frescoes. This nomadic monasticism was a fundamental part of Tibetan spiritual life; one of the Tibetan words for monastery,
gar,
in use to this day, means “camp.”

As the traveling monasteries were offered land and forts by local kings and landowners, they hung their thangkas in the shrine rooms of the permanent buildings. Ceilings and columns were painted with decorative work. Manuscripts were illuminated. Large mandalas were painted to place under the shrines. There were also small card paintings to be used in rituals.

The word
thangka
comes from the Tibetan
thang yig,
which means “annal” or “written record.” The ending
yig,
which means “letter” and carries the sense of “written,” is replaced by the ordinary substantive ending
ka.
Thus the word
thangka
has the sense of a record.