Religious and cultural art seen inside Punakha Dzong
Here are some pictures from interiors of Punakha Monastery. Unfortunately, I do not know what they mean, but if you do, please please leave a comment and let us know.
Update: Thanks to my friend Odzer who commented below, now we know more:
@ Priyank : The first image is just calligraphic text written in the Siddham Script, on the top is a Buddhist representation of the sun and the moon, also found on the flag of Mongolia.
The second image seems to me to represent one of the forms of some malevolent demi-god. It could have been a Dhammapala but I do not think it is one. It seems to be a lesser god.
The third just seems to be art work 🙂 Those type of borders are commonly seen in most art in the Himalayan region.
The fourth (and fifth) is one of a part of the “Tashitag Gya” or “The Eight Lucky Symbols”. This particular one is the “Terchen-pahi Bumpa” or what is commonly known as the Kalash. It is said to contain the innumerable qualities of Buddha’s bodies and is the collection of wisdom and spirituality. Usually these symbols are also present on Bhutanese coins. If you have a few you can view all of them there. My favourite is the endless knot.
The fifth is again siddham script the first one reads ཨོཾ, the second one reads མ. So basically it makes Om-Ma, and as you can guess it would read further I guess in to “ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པ་དྨེ་ཧཱུྃ” or “Om Ma-Ni-Pe-Me-Hum”. Was it an incomplete picture?
I hope it makes things a bit more clear.
@ Priyank : The first image is just caligraphic text written in the Siddham Script, on the top is a Buddhist representation of the sun and the moon, also found on the flag of Mongolia.
The second image seems to me to represent one of the forms of some malevolent demi-god. It could have been a Dhammapala but I do not think it is one. It seems to be a lesser god.
The third just seems to be art work 🙂 Those type of borders are commonly seen in most art in the Himalayan region.
The fourth is one of a part of the “Tashitag Gya” or “The Eight Lucky Symbols”. This particular one is the “Terchen-pahi Bumpa” or what is commonly known as the Kalash. It is said to contain the innumerable qualities of Buddha’s bodies and is the collection of wisdom and spirituality. Usually these symbols are also present on Bhutanese coins. If you have a few you can view all of them there. My favourite is the endless knot.
The fifth is again siddham script the first one reads ཨོཾ, the second one reads མ. So basically it makes Om-Ma, and as you can guess it would read further I guess in to “ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པ་དྨེ་ཧཱུྃ” or “Om Ma-Ni-Pe-Me-Hum”. Was it an incomplete picture?
I hope it makes things a bit more clear.
Odzer, many thanks. I thought of asking you before posting this because I had a feeling that you know this stuff. Very nicely described.
I like the endless knot too
Ah endless knots, I must see a picture now!
Beautiful colorful pics.
Thanks Amit!
I love the colorful designs. Very good camera fodder.
hehehe, indeed!