What is going on?

Himalayan art is not about ordinary experience. Its domain is the extraordinary.

• Beings often have multiple heads, arms, and legs.
• There are wrathful animal-headed figures armed to the hilt.
• Scenes are outside of ordinary time—people from the past, present, and future appear together.
• Portraiture conjures the presence of teachers and their teachings.
• Space is alive with activity.

These images challenge ordinary habits of mind and propose images to guide spiritual development, according to the beliefs that they serve.

What can i expect to find?

Portraits of people and stories of their lives

• Religious teachers and accomplished masters
• Kings, queens, and donors
• Cultural heros

Images of deities and their realms

• Idealized forms representing virtuous qualities—those that comfort and those that destroy
• Personifications of texts (tantras)
• Abodes of tantric deities and a coded reference to teachings of the texts they embody (mandalas)

Charts and other diagrams, as well as assemblies of symbols

Symbols are ways of summarizing ideas, events, and references in an image. Himalayan art uses many symbols, including gesture, costume, and color.