The History of Thangka Painting

Thangka painting is usually called a Tibetan art, but its history is shared with Nepal from the very beginning. Newar artists from the Kathmandu Valley worked in Tibetan monasteries for centuries, carrying Indian Buddhist styles north and shaping early Tibetan painting. Over time, Tibet developed its own schools, drawing on Chinese landscape painting, while the Newars continued their related paubha tradition. This article follows that history from the Tibetan Empire of the 7th century, through the Newar-inspired Beri style and the great Tibetan schools, to the upheavals of the 20th century and the thangka workshops of Kathmandu, Dharamshala and Tibet today.

The Kathmandu Valley sits on one of the main routes between India and Tibet. For more than a thousand years, merchants, monks and craftspeople moved through it, and the Newar people of the valley became known across the Himalayas as skilled painters, metalworkers and builders.

Tibetan patrons invited Newar artists to decorate monasteries, cast statues and paint scrolls. Newar merchants kept a trading community in Lhasa for centuries.

The result is that early Tibetan painting and Newar painting are hard to separate, and even the Tibetan term for one early painting style, Beri, is understood to refer to Nepal.

So when you see thangkas described as "Nepali" or "Tibetan" today, both labels point back to the same long exchange.

Buddhism reached Tibet during the Tibetan Empire, which rose under King Songtsen Gampo in the 7th century.

Tibetan tradition credits two of his queens with bringing Buddhism to the court: Bhrikuti from Nepal and Wencheng from China. Historians debate how much of the Bhrikuti story is historical, but the tradition itself reflects something real: Nepal's early role as a source of Buddhist art and craftsmanship for Tibet.

Tradition also connects Newar craftsmen to the building of the Jokhang temple in Lhasa.

In the 8th century, Samye, often described as Tibet's first monastery, was founded with the involvement of Indian teachers.

Very little painting survives from this imperial period in central Tibet. The best evidence for portable Buddhist painting of the time comes from Dunhuang, the Silk Road site that was under Tibetan control for part of the late 8th and 9th centuries, where painted banners and silk paintings have been found in the Mogao caves.

The empire collapsed in the mid-9th century, and organized Buddhism in central Tibet went into decline for more than a century.

While Tibet was just beginning to adopt Buddhism, the Kathmandu Valley already had a mature Buddhist and Hindu artistic culture.

Under the Licchavi kings, from roughly the 5th to the 9th centuries, the valley produced fine stone sculpture and temple architecture influenced by Gupta and later Indian styles.

Newar painting from the following centuries survives mainly in illuminated palm-leaf manuscripts and painted wooden manuscript covers from around the 11th and 12th centuries.

These show the same jewel-like colors, graceful figures and ornate detail that would later appear in both Newar paubhas and early Tibetan thangkas.

From the late 10th century, Buddhism revived in Tibet in what Tibetans call the later diffusion.

Tibetan translators travelled to India and Kashmir, Indian teachers came to Tibet, and monasteries were built or restored.

Painting revived with them, shaped by several neighboring traditions at once.

Western Tibet and Kashmiri Artists

In the western kingdom of Guge, the translator Rinchen Zangpo is traditionally credited with bringing artists from Kashmir.

The murals of Tabo, in today's Spiti, India, and Alchi, in Ladakh, preserve this Kashmiri-influenced style, with elegant figures, rich textiles and a distinctly Indian character.

Central Tibet and the Pala Influence

In central Tibet, the strongest influence came from the Pala-period monasteries of eastern India, such as Nalanda and Vikramashila.

The Bengali master Atisha, who arrived in Tibet in the 1040s, is one of the best-known figures of this period, and the Kadampa tradition he inspired commissioned many early paintings.

Around 1200, the great monasteries of northern India were destroyed. Monks and artists fled, many of them to Nepal and Tibet.

The Kathmandu Valley became the main surviving center of Indian-style Buddhist art, which made Newar artists even more important to Tibet.

The Earliest Surviving Thangkas

The oldest surviving thangkas in a recognizably Tibetan form date to around the 11th and 12th centuries.

Many show a figure in a central arch or shrine, surrounded by smaller deities in rows of boxes, painted in strong reds and blues.

This layout comes straight from Pala and Newar painting.

Finds from Kharakhoto, a city of the Tangut kingdom in present-day Inner Mongolia, include Tibetan-style Buddhist paintings from around the 12th and 13th centuries.

They show how far this style had already spread.

From the 13th century, a Newar-derived style became the dominant manner of painting in much of central Tibet.

Tibetans call it the Beri style. It's especially associated with the Sakya school, whose monasteries employed Newar artists extensively.

Beri paintings are easy to recognize once you know them:

• A large central figure, often in a richly ornamented arch
• Deep red backgrounds
• Dense floral scrollwork
• Rows of smaller figures along the borders
• Very little landscape

Arniko and the Sakya-Mongol Connection

The Sakya school had close ties to the Mongol rulers of the Yuan dynasty.

In 1260, the Sakya lama Phagpa, advisor to Kublai Khan, called for Newar craftsmen to build a golden stupa in Tibet.

Among the group sent from the Kathmandu Valley was a young artist named Arniko, also spelled Araniko.

Arniko impressed Phagpa so much that he was taken to the Mongol court, where he became a leading artist and architect.

He is credited with designing the White Stupa at Miaoying Temple in Beijing, completed in 1279.

His career shows how Newar artistic influence travelled through Tibet and on to China, and he is still honored in Nepal today.

In Nepal itself, Newar painting flourished under the Malla kings, who ruled the Kathmandu Valley from around the 13th to the 18th centuries.

The three Malla cities of Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur were major centers of art, and painting was largely the work of the Chitrakar caste of Newar painters, often working with Vajracharya priests who guided the iconography.

The Newar scroll painting is called a paubha.

Paubhas were painted for both Buddhist and Hindu patrons, often to mark a religious vow, a ritual or the memory of a family member.

Many include a band at the bottom showing the donor family and an inscription, often dated in the Nepal Sambat calendar.

These inscriptions make paubhas an unusually valuable source for dating Himalayan painting.

The Malla period ended with the conquest of the valley by Prithvi Narayan Shah of Gorkha in 1768 and 1769.

Newar painting continued, but the old royal patronage of the Malla courts was gone.

By the 15th century, Tibetan painters were building styles of their own.

The murals of the Gyantse Kumbum, a great stupa-temple built in the 15th century, show Newar foundations blending with growing Chinese influence and distinctly Tibetan ideas.

Soon after, three major schools took shape.

Menri

Menri was founded by Menla Döndrup in the 15th century.

It introduced more open landscapes and a calmer, balanced style, and became the most widely followed tradition in central Tibet.

Khyenri

Khyenri was associated with Khyentse Chenmo, also in the 15th century.

It is known for powerful figures, especially wrathful deities, and strong color.

Karma Gadri

Karma Gadri developed in the 16th century in the circle of the Karma Kagyu school and is associated with the painter Namkha Tashi.

It drew heavily on Chinese painting, with spacious compositions, soft colors and flowing landscapes.

In the 17th century, under the 5th Dalai Lama, a refined form known as the New Menri style developed, associated with the court painter Choying Gyatso.

The regent Desi Sangye Gyatso commissioned the famous series of medical thangkas in the late 17th century.

In the 18th century, Situ Panchen Chökyi Jungne, based at Palpung Monastery in eastern Tibet, was both a leading scholar and a painter who helped revive and shape the Karma Gadri style.

By this point, the Tibetan thangka had become clearly distinct from the Newar paubha, with landscape, open space and Chinese-influenced detail playing a much larger role.

The two are closely related, but experienced viewers can usually tell them apart.

These are general tendencies, not strict rules.

The two traditions borrowed from each other for centuries, and many modern painters in Nepal work in both.

The 20th century was the most disruptive period in thangka history.

After 1959, many Tibetans went into exile in Nepal and India, including painters and lamas who carried their training with them.

Inside Tibet, the Cultural Revolution of 1966 to 1976 brought widespread destruction of monasteries, religious art and traditional practice.

Revival followed in several places at once.

In India, Tibetan exile communities re-established painting traditions, and the Norbulingka Institute near Dharamshala became known for training painters in traditional methods.

In Nepal, the Tibetan communities around Boudhanath and Swayambhu, together with Newar painters and painters from communities such as the Tamang and Gurung, helped build a large thangka industry, supported by the growth of tourism from the 1960s onward.

In Tibet itself, painting recovered from the 1980s, and the Regong arts of Rebkong in Amdo were inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009.

Today, thangkas are painted in Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Ladakh, Sikkim, Mongolia and Tibetan communities worldwide.

Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur remain important centers, where many workshops paint in Tibetan styles while Newar painters also keep the paubha tradition alive.

The market now ranges from quickly made pieces for visitors to master-quality paintings made with mineral pigments and real gold.

The long history described here is one reason buyers encounter both "Nepali" and "Tibetan" thangkas: the two traditions have always been intertwined, and they still are.

Did Thangka Painting Start in Nepal or Tibet?

Thangka painting as a Tibetan Buddhist scroll tradition developed in Tibet, but it grew from Indian Buddhist painting carried largely through Nepal.

Newar artists from the Kathmandu Valley shaped early Tibetan painting so strongly that the two histories can't really be separated.

What Is the Beri Style?

Beri is the Tibetan name for the Newar-derived painting style that dominated much of central Tibet from around the 13th to 15th centuries.

It is known for large central figures, ornate arches, deep reds and little landscape.

Who Was Arniko?

Arniko was a Newar artist from the Kathmandu Valley who travelled to Tibet in 1260 and later worked at the Mongol court in China.

He is credited with designing the White Stupa at Miaoying Temple in Beijing, and he is remembered in Nepal as a national cultural figure.

What Is the Difference Between a Paubha and a Thangka?

A paubha is the Newar scroll painting tradition of Nepal, used in both Buddhist and Hindu contexts.

A thangka is the Tibetan Buddhist scroll painting.

They share roots and subjects, but paubhas tend to be denser and more ornamental, while many Tibetan thangkas use open landscapes.

When Did Chinese Influence Enter Thangka Painting?

Chinese influence grew gradually from around the 15th century and became especially strong in the Karma Gadri style that developed in the 16th century.

It is most visibly reflected in landscapes, clouds and the use of open space.

Why Are So Many Thangkas Made in Nepal Today?

Nepal has a centuries-old painting tradition of its own, a large Tibetan community that settled there after 1959, and a strong tourist market.

Together, these have made the Kathmandu Valley one of the world's main centers of thangka painting.