A presentation on the Tibetan Buddhist path to enlightenment, through the lens of an artist's eye and experience. The sacred arts play an essential, intrinsic role in Tibetan Buddhist practice. Here, one of the great practitioners and master artists of our time presents a guide to the Tibetan Buddhist path, from preliminary practices through enlightenment, from the artist's perspective. With profound wisdom, he shows how visual representations of the sacred in paintings, sculptures, mandalas, and stupas can be an essential support to practice throughout the path. This work, based on the author's landmark Tibetan text, The Path to Liberation, includes basic Buddhist teachings and practices, clearly pointing out the relevance of these for both the sacred artist and the practitioner, along with an overview of the history and iconography of Buddhist art.

Religion in its most authentic part is an art form. Religion does what art does. This idea is richly illustrated and supported by materials of diverse origin. The vast range of the author's experience in the arts and in religious texts and works of aesthetics allows him to lay hold of a great mass of disparate material and to bring out new dimensions in all of it. He always has just the example he needs at his fingertips, a Tibetan Buddhist text next to a French impressionist painting and a remark about early Banogu counterpoint, and each example is seen in a new and interesting way. Through this gentle yoking together of heterogeneous materials, common roots are discovered. Most studies of art and religion describe and explain them as data. Thomas Martland identifies them as expressions of ideals and asks what they are when they are authentic rather than merely what they are when they are self-identified as art and religion. This is an identification through assessment, not an Aristotelian classification, and the means of assessment are provided.

A complete introduction to Tibetan art presented in the context of Tibetan Buddhism. Amy Heller places the artwork within its historical social and religious context utilizing in situ photographs from Tibet. It spans 1400 years of art history.

The rich artistic heritage of Tibet reveals the depths of meditations of great masters, translated into the majestic abundance of iconic symbols that take the form of three-dimensional images or two-dimensional thankas. Tibetan Art is a comprehensive introduction to the complex iconography of thankas. It provides a glimpse of the mindground of this art and the land where it flourished. Although Tibetan Art portrays the historic Buddha Sakyamuni, the arhats, spiritual masters, great lamas, and founders of different religious lineages, the preponderance of its images depict supramundane beings. Predominantly these are: the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, female deities, protectors or tutelary gods (yi-dams), defenders of the faith, guardians of the four cardinal points, minor deities and supernatural beings.

An informative overview of the intrinsic relationship of Buddhist deities to Tibetan art and well-captioned illustrations: temple paintings, books, wood blocks, ritual objects, robes, masks, metal work, more. 92 black-and-white illustrations.

Sacred art presented as coloring templates for contemplation and creativity—stunning and detailed artwork from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Drawing on his brush paintings in The Encyclopedia of Tibetan Symbols and Motifs and other works, Robert Beer has selected 50 images meant to be used as templates for coloring. The book features figures spanning centuries of the tradition, including spiritual adventurers, rebellious saints, and enlightened Tantric masters. The detailed artwork is elegant and meaningful—drawing on Buddhist teachings to give each piece greater depth.

* First systematic review of Tibetan ritual art* Never-before-published Buddhist art objects* Written by expert on Tibetan art, Michael HenssTibetan Buddhist art is not only rich in figural icons but also extremely diverse in its symbols and ritual objects. This first systematic review is an abundantly illustrated reference book on Tibetan ritual art that aids our understanding of its different types and forms, its sacred meanings and ceremonial functions. Over eighteen chapters, several hundred different implements are documented in detail, in many cases for the first time and often in their various styles and iconographic forms: altar utensils and amulets, masks and mirrors, magic daggers and mandalas, torma sculptures and prayer objects, vajras and votive tablets, sacrificial vessels and oracle crowns, stupas and spirit traps, ritual vases, textiles, furniture, and symbolic emblems. These are accompanied by many historical and modern text sources, as well as rare recorded oral material from high-ranking Tibetan masters. This long-awaited handbook is a must-have for all those with a profound interest in Buddhist art and religion.