A Look at the Art of Zigar Monastery, Chokyi Lodro, Deer Park Institute in Comparison to Their Indo-Tibetan Predecessors

October 21, 2013

At Rewalsar, visitors may circumambulate the famed Lotus Lake and see the many monasteries built around it today. It is a pilgrimage site for Tibetan Buddhists who revere Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche), the Indian tantric master who is said to have performed a miracle here which you can read about in my previous post, Miracle at Lotus Lake and the Secret Caves of Rewalsar.

The most noticeable monastery in Rewalsar these days is Zigar Orgyen Choekorling Monastery because of its 138 feet high golden statue of Guru Rinpoche.

Quite unexpectedly, inside Zigar Monastery’s main temple this morning, I saw three large sculptures and was struck by how they had sculptural backgrounds attached to the wall highly reminiscent of Indo-Tibetan ones from the 11th century in ancient Western Tibet.

I immediately saw these background sculptural reliefs as contemporary versions of the below artforms. The following are central altars of circa 11th century Lamayuru Monastery’s Senge Lhakhang in Ladakh, and Lhalung Monastery’s Serkhang (Golden Hall) in Spiti.

The first similarity was the use of relief sculptures attached to the wall. Other key similarities include central figures within a tri-lobed halo, surmounted by the Hindu mythical garuda, ornate scrollwork with figures and animals, in particular the Indian-derived makara, a crocodile-like sea creature. Both ancient and modern sculptures are all made of clay. The contemporary presentation as multi-colored wall reliefs is largely the same as the Indo-Tibetan, even while stylistic handling and some content are different.

This is the second figure also in the main temple of Zigar Monastery, a Green Tara.

And lastly, the third figure, Shakyamuni Buddha in his earth-witness mudra.

Above the Zigar Monastery main temple is a smaller temple dedicated to Chenrezig, also known as Avalokiteshvara, deity of compassion.

This sculpture, as are the three in the main temple, is by the same artist, beautifully painted and detailed.

I learned that the master sculptor was named Tashi Norbu. I was able to contact him and visit him later in the day. Wow, it was total chance that he was in India and happened to be nearby. He would have been out of the country were it not for an unfortunate recent event which prevented him from going. I was so excited to be able to ask the artist technical and aesthetic questions!

Tashi Norbu is Bhutanese, as are many of the artists commissioned by monasteries today to create artwork. In Rinchen Zangpo’s time, 10th-11th centuries, it was Kashmiri artists who were considered the finest artists to give expression to Buddhist concepts, and they were largely the ones responsible for the art of 10th-12th century monasteries in the Himalayas during the Great Second Transmission of Buddhism from India to Tibet.

Tashi Norbu was invited to make numerous sculptures in the area. In addition to Zigar Monastery, he created works for Deer Park Institute in Bir, and Dzongsar Khyentse Chokyi Lodro Institute in Chaundra. We went together to visit these sites as I learned about his process.

His account about how Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, who commissioned him for both Deer Park and Chokyi Lodro artwork, was so exacting about getting the face of the Deer Park Manjushri to look “right” (according to its original divined appearance) was so interesting. According to the artist, this required no less than eleven tries–that is, eleven fully sculpted, completed, then discarded heads–and many meditation retreats by the artist together with lamas in order to get it correct. Wow, this was the first time I’d ever heard of this working method.  Be in meditation communally for aesthetic guidance, in order to “see” the work together for the artist to create it.

Another rinpoche, on a later separate unrelated occasion, told me this same thing. He said, rather than strategize conceptually to create a “successful” work of art, as he believes many contemporary artists do, instead, an artist should use mindfulness to connect with inner realities and then create from that vision.

It would be interesting to see Tashi Norbu’s sculptures in progress, from beginning to end. As a painter who has never sculpted, I can’t fathom how one constructs monumental Tibetan Buddhist statues.

He said the underlying forms are wood and iron with wire mesh, concrete, and then final layers are clay.  The clay is made from Tibetan paper mixed with clay and water until the right consistency is achieved.  Then the work is air-dried, carved, primed, painted and gilded. The faces and hands are usually painted in a special pure gold paint made in Nepal.  You can burnish this to bring it up to a luster, but burnishing usually mars the clay surface a bit and affects the details, so this is not done on the faces and hands.

The finished statues have hollow interiors where prayers written on rolled paper and katas (ritual scarves) are placed.

When I returned to Dharamsala, I told my photographer friend Frederic Martin Duchamp about my trip to Tso Pema, and learned that he happened to have also met Tashi Norbu a few years ago when the artist was sculpting the now completed statues for Zigar Monastery. AND he had photographs of some of them in-progress. What serendipity–or, as the Tibetans say, auspicious coincidence!

So the following are before and after photos of all the main Zigar Monastery statues, thanks to Frederic who has generously shared them with me. Click here to see a short video transition of the first example.

All photos © 2013, Eva Lee.
Except where otherwise credited