News

Tonpa Shenrab, the founder of the Bon Religion, has two typical depictions commonly found in art. Aside from those two, he has numerous forms that appear as deities with multiple heads, arms, various colours, along with peaceful and wrathful moods - these however are much less common. (See Tonpa Shenrab: Iconography Sub-sets Outline).

Typically, Tonpa Shenrab appears seated in a cross-legged meditation posture with the right hand extended over the right knee - often holding a yungdrung scepter - and the left hand in the lap with the palm facing upward. In this standard appearance there are two basic versions. The first version is (1) Tonpa Shenrab as he is represented when depicted as one of the group of the Four Transcendent Lords, adorned with a crown, silks, jewelry and ornaments. He will either hold a yungdrung scepter or have a yungdrung staff behind the right shoulder. Some consider this form to be the original, or traditional, way of depicting Tonpa Shenrab. The second version (2) is as Tritsug Gyalwa capturing the moment when late in life Tonpa Shenrab renounces the householder life and takes on the ascetiscm of a religious mendicant and becomes a monk - along with two of his sons and two principal students - often depicted to the right and left sides.