Thursday, April 2, 2009

The Twenty-One Taras of Jowo Atisha

Some say there were 10,000 people but I think that is exaggerated. There were easily 5 to 7,000, but my number could be off as well. Today was the day of the Tara initiation at the Sakya Nunnery which turned out to be a shortened version of the Twenty-one Taras of Atisha. We arrived at 8:00 in the morning and finally left the Nunnery at 2:00. It was another long day and it was only half over. I returned to Manduwalla and napped. The weather has gotten a lot warmer in the last couple of days.

I will be busy tonight preparing CDs of images to present to Sakya Trizin tomorrow morning. I have also been asked to lecture tomorrow afternoon at Sakya Center. The topic will be Sakya History and Art.

The painting above is from a set of Tangkas depicting all twenty-one Taras in groups of three. This is the only known painting from this set of approximately nine paintings. I only know of one other set in this configuration and again it is only a single painting in the Rubin personal collection.

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