Buddhist essence on canvas

The art of Bhutanese thangka illustrates legends, stories and deities from Mahayana Buddhism. Thangka serve as important teaching tools depicting the life of the Buddha, various influential lamas, and other deities and bodhisattvas. The composition of a Thangka is highly geometric. The process seems very methodical, but often requires deep understanding of the symbolism involved to capture the spirit of it,” says curator Arjun Sawhney, who along with Tania Lefebvre and Sharan Appa Rao, has put together ‘Tara: 21 Avatars of the Goddess’.

The exhibition, which is in collaboration with master Buddhist artist Zeiko and his team of five members from Punakha village, showcases this Bhutanese art form, which is slowly declining. It delves into the dying art form, which is an effort to present homage to Tara, the female deity of Buddhism. Tara is a tantric meditation deity who is believed to originate as a form of goddess Durga. The show presents 21 different forms of Tara, such as Tsugtor Namgyalma (golden Tara), Zhengyi Mithubma (blue/black Tara), and Dugkarmo (white Tara).

While there are no reports or statistics to prove the art form is on a decline, curators say that “the general scenario is a proof of the same”. “The fact that there are very few good artisans practicing this art signifies its diminishing rate. Young artist’s don’t want to pursue the Thangka art school because most of it is for monastery paintings. They are slowly drifting away from the traditional art forms and practices. There is a significant drop in the number of people getting enticed towards learning the traditional art forms as it is tedious, tiresome and requires lot of patience. Also, despite this being time consuming, the pay scale is very low and it takes ages to master it,” says  Sawhney.

Adding, Lefebvre says that extracting the colours that are used is a painstaking process, which is another reason. “Thangkas are created using paints from minerals gold and silver linings and natural pigments. To create these pigments is back breaking work and to achieve each shade, many elements have to be meticulously mixed. The brushes too are special. The summer hair from a cow’s ear makes the finest brushes. The craft itself is meticulous and time consuming, so what you see now is poster colours and thicker strokes,” she tells Metrolife.

Talking about the show, Zeiko, who started practising the art form in 2003, says that the forms of Tara remain the same, and only the colour of her body and symbols she holds, changes. “The energy of Tara completely becomes different. The theme is its depiction of Tara, her energy and goddess. These works have been painted over two years,” he says. The show is on until December 10 at The Lodhi, Lodhi Road, from 10 am to 6 pm.