Samantabhadra The Primordial Buddha, representing the Dharmakaya (truth body of enlightenment) according to the Nyingma Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Samantabhadra Buddha and Samantabhadra the Bodhisattva are unrelated and not the same subject or entity. The first is a special buddha unique to the Nyingma Tantric Tradition. The second is a bodhisattva that arises from the Mahayana Sutra literature.

Samantabhadra is a bodhisattva known from the Mahayana Sutras. He is most often depicted in art as a member of the group known as the Eight Great Bodhisattvas which include the famous Manjushri, Avalokiteshvara and Vajrapani. Unlike those three figures Samantabhadra never gained the same popularity and was not elevated in the Tantric literature to the level of a meditational deity (ishtadevata). Samantabhadra the bodhisattva is unrelated to Samantabhadra the primordial Buddha of the Nyingma Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.

The Milarepa Main Page has been updated with additional images and information.

Another type of Bon Refuge Field (Field of Accumulation) places the teacher Nyamme Sherab Gyaltsen at the center of the composition. All scroll paintings and murals of Bon Refuge Fields so far identified are creations of the late 19th and 20th centuries.

The circular Refuge Field (Field of Accumulation) compositions of the Bon religion that use the deity Shenlha Okar as the central figure are believed to have been designed by Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen (1859-1933) in the early 20th century based on a dream or vision. 

The Painting Gallery on the HAR website for the Los Angeles County Museum (LACMA) has been expanded and updated. See the LACMA Main Page.

The Sculpture Gallery on the HAR website for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has been updated and expanded. See the LACMA Main Page on HAR.

In the painting collection of the Royal Ontario Museum there is a black ground composition depicting Shadbhuja Mahakala. It was generally believed that this painting was created as a single composition. Recently another painting by the same artist, also depicting a variant and less well known form of Shadbhuja, was identified. It is very likely that these two compositions were created as a set, or a series of compositions, depicting each of the seven main forms of Shadbhuja Mahakala. The iconographic descriptions for these two works is based on the writings of Kedrub Geleg Pal Zangpo, one of the foremost students of Lama Tsongkapa. Tsongkapa is depicted at the top left of both works and Kedrub is depicted at the top right.

The paintings in this gallery depict the first three Karmapas. The works were all created in the 13th and 14th centuries and depict the Karmapas wearing a black hat. Granted, the hat is not as ornate as the black hat created by the Yongle Emperor of China and given to the 5th Karmapa Deshin Shegpa (1384-1415). Regardless of that, the paintings clearly show that the Karmapas had a tradition of wearing a black hat prior to the gift of the Chinese Emperor.

The Himalayan Art Resources website was established in 1997. The 15th Anniversary has actually passed as of several months ago without fanfare. At that time the HAR staff were extremely busy with new collections and cataloguing and did not have the opportunity to make announcements or celebrate.

Today, for the record, we announce our belated 15th anniversary. We have put together a list of 15 Interesting Facts about HAR and the 15 Major Improvements that have happened over the previous 15 years.

The future is bright for HAR with the participation of many more museums and private collections. Research and cataloguing is always ongoing along with many improvements for usability, search functions and the database. Tibetan and Chinese language navigation, indices and glossaries on the site are nearly complete.