Medical Thangkas of the Blue Beryll

Dharmapala Centre
School of Thangka Painting


Tibetan Medical Paintings from the Blue Beryll

Dharmapala Centre started 1992 the first creating of Medical Thangkas based on the original paintings from the 17^th century of the Blue Beryll. Our artists have finished the first complete set of 77 pieces in the year 1997.

You can order every plate from the set. Please consider that it will take approximately one year to finish one Medical Thangka .The price starts from USD 500 and ranges up to USD 1,500, for an A3 paper size Thangka. The price quoted for any Thangka is governed by its size, quality of paint employed and intricate details. This sacred art must appear as lively as to generate much faith on the beholder.

For every Thangka sold, 20% of the proceeds will go to the charitable funding of an orphanage home in Kathmandu. Please view the "Big Heart" photos, (Children longing for your Loving Kindness and Compassion), under the URL : Kinder.htm

The book "Tantra of secret instructions on the Eight Branches, the Essence of the Elixir of Immortality", better known under the title the "Four Tantras" is the fundamental text of the Tibetan medicine. The original set of 77 medical paintings were composed in Lhasa/Tibet from 1687 until 1703 under the aegis of the regent Sangye Gyamtso. It based partly on an old Tibetan text from Rinchen Zampo (958 - 1055). The mainreason to create this illustrations was to avoid confusion when interpreting this old text. The paintings illustrate the entire contents of a seventeenth century commentary on the most fundamental treatise of Tibetan medicine.

Sowa rigpa (gso-ba tig-pa), the Tibetan science of healing, can be numbered among the other great learned medical traditions of the world, alongside those of ancient Greece, China and India.
The Four Tantras can not be considered as a translationof a lost Sanskrit text. It appears to be the magnificent work, highlystructured, of a Tibetan author of creative and original intelligence.

Thefirst painting occupies a privileged place among the others which, in acertain sense, derive from it. It represents the celestial city of the Buddha Bhaisajyaguru, Master of Remedies "Surdasana". The cityis surrounded by four "mountains". Further more it is squarewith the palace at its centre. The palace, like the whole locality, is an emanation of Buddha Bhaisajyaguru. Its plan evokes that of a Mandala, with its square enclosure and its four gates oriented in the cardinal directions.

In the medical forests of the four mountains grow various species of plants and trees. In the trees of the medical woods growing o the slopes of these four mountainsnest beautiful birds, and the woods are inhabited by various beasts which provides precious remedies to supplement the plants and minerals. Twenty-one Thangkas of the original series are devoted to more large human figures illustrating anatomical structures, the "topographicallines" of the viscera, and the application points for moxibustion, bloodletting, or minor surgery. Most of these figures are standing.

This text bases on "Tibetan Medical Paintings"from Yuri Parfinovitch, Gyurme Dorje an Fernand Meyer published by Serindia Publications, London

Overview about all 77 Medical Thangkas

with Samples for Medical Thangkas from Dharmapala Centre:

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