| At Tashilhunpo Monastery in Tsang Province |
Continued from here.
The Eighth Dalai Lama’s thangka was not the first neither was it the largest ‘brocade image.’* It may be interesting to sketch out the earlier history of the construction of the most monumental of these objects of worship.[1] Smaller sized fabric images were being made for Tibetans in earlier centuries, but they will be overlooked for the time being. Instead we will start with what was very probably the first one that was of a monumental size. It is said that this huge one was made, under the inspiration of a dream, by a princess who had the Indic name Puṇyadharī, although she was located quite some distance from India, in the region of the former Tangut Kingdom, I believe.[2] She dreamed of an image of Buddha the size of a neighboring mountain, and decided to have one made in memory of her brother who had recently died. The 4th Karmapa Rol-pa'i-rdo-rje traced the outlines of the image on the mountainside using the hoof-prints of his horse.(*Göku, or gos-sku, is the usual Tibetan term.)
Completed by the year 1363, the Fourth Karmapa brought it back to Tibet with Him. It was so large it had to be carried on the backs of twenty-two mdzo (the female counterpart of the yak or g.yag), although another 22 mdzo were needed so they could take turns bearing the load.[3] We find the statement that the main central image contained in it measured 11 fathoms from its right to left ear, which means that the brocade icon as a whole must have been amazingly or even impossibly large. It was at first kept at Zho-kha Temple,[4] then divided into as many as three parts, although the main part remained in Zho-kha. It would seem that it was lost during the wars in the time of the Fifth Dalai Lama and can no longer be seen[5] although there is a slight possibility that some pieces of it could have been preserved somewhere.
In 1416, Chamchem Chöjé (Byams-chen Chos-rje),[6] the same teacher who would found Sera Monastery in 1419, returned to Tibet from China with a tapestry thangka (just how large is not stated) of the sixteen Arhats. This was later kept at Ganden Monastery and displayed there every year during the sixth month.[7]
In 1418, the King of Gyantsé (Rgyal-rtse) by the name Rabten Kunzang Pag (Rab-brtan-kun-bzang-'phags), had made what has been said to be the largest brocade thangka ever, and the first of its kind to be entirely constructed inside Tibet proper. It was named ‘Great Silk Icon Purposeful Sight’ (Gos-sku Chen-mo Mthong-ba Don-ldan), or alternatively ‘Silk Icon Great Liberation through Seeing’ (Gos-sku Mthong-grol Chen-mo).
The central Śākyamuni Buddha figure was 80 cubits in height. He was flanked by His two main disciples Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana, with further images including Maitreya, Dīpankara and the Sixteen Arhats. The lower part included the Great Kings (the Dharma Protectors of the four directions). The entire piece, including the framing brocades, measured 190 cubits in height. Thirty-seven tailors completed it in twenty-seven days.[8]
In 1468, the First Dalai Lama (1391-1474) invited the “king of the brush holders” Menla Döndrub (Sman-bla Don-grub)[9] and his students to erect a giant brocade thangka, which they completed in three months. Donations for it were already being accepted two or three years earlier. The completed icon measured eighteen by twelve fathoms.[10]
A year later, the leftover silk offerings were used to make a silk icon of Tārā which measured eight by six fathoms.[11] The circle of hair (mdzod-spu) on Her forehead was studded with over a thousand pearls,[12] and inside were placed various relics of holy persons. A variety of semi-precious stones — corals, pearls, amber and the like — were used for Her jewelry. In 1471, a silk icon of Avalokiteśvara, eight by six fathoms, was made, and in the following year a group of four, each measuring three by two fathoms.[13]
Sometime during the reign of the Rinpungpa (between 1480 and 1512), a huge silk brocade hanging, a “curtain” (yol-ba), depicting all 25 of the Kulika Kings of Shambhala was made. In 1642 it was offered to the Fifth Dalai Lama, and is said to be still in the treasury of the Potala Palace.[14]
In 1634, the sixty-fifth year of First Panchen Lama (Blo-bzang-chos-kyi-rgyal-mtshan, 1567-1662), a giant thangka was constructed. It was in the form of a kind of triptych. At the center of the central piece was Amitābha, with Mañjughoṣa and Vajrapāṇi on either side. In the two upper corners were Atiśa and Tsongkhapa, while in the two lower corners were Akṣobhya and the Medicine Buddha. The piece to the right had Avalokiteśvara as its central figure, while the piece to the left had Tārā. The same Panchen Lama made still another giant thangka in the same year. Later He also made a huge thangka depicting Maitreya. Work on it was started in 1649, the second Tibetan month, when its outlines were drawn by the celebrated artist Chöying Gyatso (Chos-dbyings-rgya-mtsho).[15]
It was finished within five months, and it was first shown the following year, on the fifteenth day of the fifth Tibetan month. Finally, when the First Panchen Lama was in His ninetieth year, in 1659, He had the artist Chöying Gyatso once again construct a huge thangka, this one depicting Avalokiteśvara.[16] Many more huge thangkas were made by subsequent Panchen Lamas.
These thangkas were mainly meant to be displayed on the holiday of the full moon of the fifth Tibetan month, by being unrolled down the side of Tashilhunpo's giant tower, said to be about 12 fathoms high (20.4 meters?), built for this purpose by the First Dalai Lama in 1468.[17]
From 1992 to 1994, a huge thangka was made at Tsurpu (Mtshur-phu), chief monastery of the Karmapa school. With Śākyamuni as its central figure, it measures 23 by 35 meters.[18] It is supposed to have been made to replace a similar thangka made in the seventeenth century by the Tenth Karmapa Chöying Dorjé who was Himself a remarkably original artist with a style of His own. Indeed He has been called “one of the most versatile and idiosyncratic artists in Tibetan history.”[19] In fact, however, this icon was begun in 1585 (by the year 1590, it had already been completed) by the Ninth Karmapa Wangchuk Dorjé.[20] In the latter’s biography we learn that the silks were donated by the Chinese Emperor, while the Ninth Karmapa Himself did the preliminary sketches for it. By comparing sources, we may see that the modern thangka[21] and the 16th century one[22]were quite different in their subject matter. In any case the modern thangkadoes have a piece of the original sewn into it, which assures its ritual continuity. This is the thangka that is supposed to be unrolled annually on a hillside near Tsurpu on the twelfth day of the fourth Tibetan month.
In 1683, soon after the actual death of the Fifth Dalai Lama, the Regent had made a giant thangka with the red Buddha Amitābha as the central figure. It is a well known story how the Regent concealed the death of the Dalai Lama from the public, as well as from foreign governments. This is the larger of the two thangkas that were always displayed on the front side of the Potala Palace during the Great Worship Assembly holiday, held on the 30th day of the 2nd Tibetan month.*
(*See now Michael Henss’s Monuments of Central Tibet, pp. 132-133 for the Potala fabric thangkas. It has a lot of information about stitched thangkas in general, but I haven’t made much use of it here.)
This holiday was instituted by the Regent as an annual memorial for the Fifth Dalai Lama.[23] In the Regent’s biography of the Dalai Lama, he gives the measurements of this thangkain terms of finger-widths (sor-mo): 2,598 by 2,208 finger-widths.[24] These measurements have been converted into the metrical system by Dagyab Rinpoche as 55.08 by 46.81 meters.[25] The second, smaller brocade thangka, with Buddha Vairocana as its central figure, measured in at 1,299 by 1,081 finger-widths.[26] Before long both thangkas became worn and had to be replaced. The Rdo-ring Paṇḍita biography informs us, in its account for the year 1787, which was during the time of the Eighth Dalai Lama, that they were exchanged for new ones.[27] In the first years of the 1940’s, following the enthronement ceremonies for His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, the two thangkas were replaced yet again.[28] So it is no surprise that the thangkas to be seen today[29]do not seem to quite match the descriptions of the divine figures found in the original.
Of course, many more huge brocade thangkas have been constructed down to the present day. It was not my intention to supply a complete inventory.[30] Especially in biographies of prominent figures of the 16th through 18th centuries there are numerous testimonies on their construction and display.[31] The significant points for now are that they were probably first ‘dreamed up’ by a Buddhist noble woman, that they subsequently continued to be made in great size, in a certain degree of abundance, and that they were used in acts of public worship in monasteries on annual holy days. They were usually explicitly made in memory of a famous teacher who had died a short while before. And, although we haven’t yet said much about this aspect, certain religious practices of both monks and laypersons were associated with giant thangka displays.
