Cleveland Museum of Art

Portraits of Two Lineage Masters of the Kagyu Order: Phagmo Drupa (1110–1170) and Tashipel (1142–1210)

Date

c. 1236–1310

Medium

Gum tempera on sized cotton

Culture

Central Tibet

Department

Indian and Southeast Asian Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

High-level leaders of Buddhist monastic institutions were frequent portrait subjects of early thangka painting (devotional cloth scrolls) in Central Tibet. The lama (Tibetan monk) on the right founded Taklung Monastery in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, which became an important institutional center of the Kagyu order. He is shown in discourse with his predecessor, whose teacher Gampopa (1079–1153), in turn, is the tiny gray-haired lama centered above them, between the colorful stylized mountain ranges. Their halos, lotus pedestal, and thrones with spitting elephant-trunked crocodiles and rearing griffins elevate them to the level of Buddhas and bodhisattvas. Despite their deification, they are still depicted with individualized facial features. The Five Cosmic Buddhas in their six-armed forms are aligned at the top.

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