Early Paintings of Teachers
A gallery of early paintings of Buddhist teachers spanning the 11th to 14th centuries. In later paintings primarily after the 14th century when large central figures are facing to the right or left it most often implies that the painting belongs to a set of compositions depicting a series of lineage teachers. In those cases the entire set of compositions is intended to be displayed together as a unit - a single work of art made up of many individual compositions.
The images in this gallery appear to be essentially single compositions intended to stand alone. In the Taglung style paintings of Kagyu themes for example the secondary figures at the top are uniformly the early Dagpo Kagyu Lineage. The secondary figures at the sides and bottom register are also fairly uniform and generally include the following figures: miscellaneous lineage teachers, Eight Mahasiddhas, Four Guardian Kings, Chakrasamvara, Vajrayogini, Hayagriva, Aparajita, Jambhala, Mahakala and Shri Devi Dorje Rabtenma.