PREFACE:
This is the first of three volumes concerned with the lay out and execution of mandalas, mystical psychocosmograms of esoteric Buddhism. The author of all three texts which have been here reproduced and illustrated was the great 19th century Khampa master of Buddhist art and iconography, Rong-tha Blo-bzang-dam-chos-rgya-mtsho. This illustrious teacher's general work on the principles of shilpashastra has already been published in India under the title 'Thig gi lag len du ma gsal bar bshad pa bzo rig mdzes pa’i kha rgyan'...
To comprehend texts on the design of Buddhist icons, especially mandalas, however, is no easy matter: the vast technical vocabulary is inadequately known even to an educated Tibetan. It seemed, therefore, to be an act of merit to reproduced the text of Rong-tha's little treatises on three popular Gelukpa mandalas with illustrations representing the successive stage in the construction... |
