News

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.

There are a number of miscellaneous elements other than the standard [1] inscriptions, [2] stupas, [3] hand prints and [4] mandalas, that can be found on the backs of paintings. The miscellaneous elements can include thumb prints, seals, sketches, drawings and large mantra monograms such as for the deity Kalachakra.

There are several categories of inscriptions that can appear on the back of a painting. In order of occurrence there are three standard elements and two elements relating to the subject of the painting and the wishes of the donor:
1. Three Syllables: OM, AH, HUM (standard),
2. Auspicious Mantras (standard),
3. Auspicious Verses (standard)
4. Miscellaneous Extra Verses (donor added),
5. Dedicatory Verses (donor added) 

Hand Prints: impressions from life, of famous Buddhist teachers, predominantly Kagyu, Gelug and Nyingma placed on the backs of paintings. 

The most common additions to the back of a painting are:
[1] Mantras/dharanis,
[2] Auspicious verses,
[3] Stupa Drawing (or the inscriptions in the shape of a stupa),
and [4] Hand Prints.
(The images in this gallery are only a selection of hand print examples).

Drawings of Stupas along with inscriptions in the shape of a stupa placed on the backs of paintings are a common form of blessing and sanctification. The most common additions to the back of a painting are: [1] mantras/dharanis, [2] auspicious verses, [3] stupa drawing (or the inscriptions in the shape of a stupa), and [4] hand Prints.(The images in this gallery are only a selection of stupa examples).

Mandala images either diagrammatic or created from letters are sometimes found on the reverse of paintings. When the front subject of a painting is also a  mandala then the reverse can have letters or words that mirror the shape of the mandala on the front. (The images in this gallery are only a selection of mandala examples).

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.

A small group of 20th century Bon Paintings have been added to the database.

Page illuminations are commonly found in Tibetan religious texts. The seven examples represented here depict lineage teachers of the Taglung Kagyu tradition.

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.

Sipai Gyalmo (Queen of the World) is the principal protector of the Bon Religion. She is the wrathful form of Sherab Chamma. As Sipai Gyalmo she functions both as a meditational deity and a protector. There are six common manifestations (white, yellow, red, black, blue and dark brown) and twenty-eight attendant retinue figures. The Sipai Gyalmo Page has been updated with additional links to less common forms of the deity.

Eleven paintings have been selected to represent the best of the collection from the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University. Only two paintings in the selection are single compositions while the rest are all part of greater sets of paintings numbering a dozen or more. The three most unique paintings are #31757, a Panchen Lama Life Story composition, #31770 a Six-armed form of Amoghapasha and #31763 a Karma Kagyu Lama, likely to be either Trehor Tulku or the 2nd karma Thinlepa.  

A collection of approximately seventy Himalayan art paintings from the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University, has been added to the HAR Website. The compositions vary greatly as to regional origin but are primarily from the broad areas of Nepal, Tibet, China and Mongolia. 

A gallery for Brahmanarupa Mahakala has been added to the Masterworks Page.

A gallery for Bhurkumkuta has been added to the Masterworks Page.

A gallery for Akshobhya Buddha has been added to the Masterworks Page.

The Five Topics on Colour with regard to Iconography are: the [1] Four Ground Colours, the [2] Four Activities, the [3] Five Buddha Families, the [4] Four Directions & Quadrants of a Mandala and the [5] Multiple Faces of Deities & colour schemata. (A work in progress).

Multiple Faces: The majority of Buddhist Tantric deities only have a single face. Even deities that are commonly known for having multiple faces will most often have a simple form of the deity with only a single face, two arms, two legs and the like. However, many of these deities have a number of different forms which include peaceful appearances, wrathful appearances and multiple faces. (This is a work in progress).