approached master Penpa Dorjee and asked him to take up the teacher’s post of the school, explaining him that the Department of Finance will open the school soon. Not long before the Education Kalon also rushed to him with a plan of setting up a Tensheng school.
Finally the Department of Education is to set up the ‘Tensheng School’. The Tensheng School was born in 1976 to promote and preserve the Tibetan metal sculpture in the nursery of exile. He worked as the chief instructor till he reached his retirement age. From 1976 –1992, he served sixteen years and six months. During his career as a master sculptor, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) conferred upon him a position of secretary.
As his ancestors in Tibet lived under the protection of Sakya Gongma Rinpoche, and therefore one of his wishes was to serve the Sakya lineage. So he worked for Sakya Gongma Rinpoche to whom he had already given his word to serve before he took up Tibetan Government’s offer, but however he felt that his service to the Tibetan government in exile is far more important than working for any lama or a monastery. He served Sakya Gongma Rinpoche for two years before His Holiness the Dalai Lama once again called him back. His Holiness told him that letting him to work under individual lama would send wrong signal to the Tibetan public that the Tibetan government was not taking care of the skilled artist.
He was called back from Rajpur and assigned to run Norbulingka under the Department of Religion and Culture in 1994. He worked as a teacher and chief instructor in both Tensheng School and Norbulingka Institute, over about eighty students enrolled to learn the art and heritage under him during his entire career.
However, most of them were school dropouts and those who have none to turn to. Naturally they lack intellectual acumen, commitment and as it happened only four students were able to pass out successfully during his entire twenty-nine years of career as an instructor.
At the height of his career, the yeoman realized painfully that there was no standard text guideline for future sculptors. Sensing the urgency and imminent threat to the survival of the art, he embarked on a journey to study, gather all the scriptural texts and compiled them into one standard manual text guide. He started the compilation work in 1990 and on some cases he even visited Tibet for materials he failed to find in India.
The two volumes of canonical treatise dealt on the definition of style of the traditional Tibetan sculpture. It took exactly ten long years of research to compile all the related versions. He authored some of critical chapters and essays in the book. Due to his sheer exhaustion and overwork, he fell ill and it almost took his life. A timely diagnosis and treatment saved him.
In 2001 after stupendous hard work, he completed the book. His book has come to become the bible of Tibetan sculpture and what he claims the manual for future generations of sculptors. It is no doubt an immeasurable contribution to our heritage. Today at seven-nine he still instructs and works at Norbulingka when most of us would have resigned from life in a quiet silence.
His living legacy is being continued by his students who are building most of statues in monasteries in exile community. The history of Tibet will remember him forever with great respect and gratitude.
Qualities of the patron
The intention of the patron shouldn’t be such that he or she wants to commission a statue of holy beings simply because his or her neighbour has one. It should also be stressed that he or she should commission a statue without a slightest expectation of gaining a worldly name and reputation.
The noble patron is he or she, who is adorned with a supreme motivation or Samaya, the intention to make a statue of holy beings in rendering help to the existence and continuity of the Buddha Dharma as well as to help other sentient beings to realize happiness and harmony, and more so through the statues to achieve the ultimate liberation.
Qualities of the sculptor
In other arts or professions the people from all walks of life, be it caste and creed can do whatever they wanted but not so in the case of devoting life to making Buddhist idols. The sculptor cannot come from an ordinary background or from a low birth, on contrary he or she has to come from either from a Brahminical descendent or of a noble birth.
In ancient India the Brahminical caste was considered as the highest and noblest birth. Such an artist should be neat and clean or a person from a noble caste, the same is the case of our Tibetan Buddhist idol making. According to his or her clan and caste that the sculptor should stand by their vows.
The supreme and the best person is one who holds the vow of Gelong, the next best is one who holds the layman’s vow and the least one is one who observes vows on auspicious dates. The artist should at least be one who observes strict vows during important dates according to the scriptural pronouncements.
The artists should read, listen, study and practice the teachings of the noble doctrine of the Lord Buddha Dharma. He or she should be one who can hold and protect the Tantric esoteric tradition, one who practice the way of the Boddhisatvas, one who offer alms and gifts generously to poor and needy people, one who has a compassionate and loving nature, sharp witted, intelligent and well versed in the art of making Buddhist sculpture and artifacts.
Moreover he or she should be one who can work hard to hold and practice the ten virtuous deeds and refrain and restrain from the ten non-virtuous deeds. He or she must not yoke under the will and order of others, he or she must enjoy freedom and liberty to make idols of different natures and postures as he or she prefer like peaceful nature, wrathful ones, or in short he or she needs freedom to make what ever is needed according to the situation. Such statues and idols will have lots of positive virtues in it.
The Buddhist sculpture tradition follows a strict scale and standard stressing immense importance on minute details of the idols. It has so many elements and features that stand completely different from the metal sculpture from other religious traditions or even in non-Tibetan Buddhist traditions.
Following the prescribed and standard measurement and the scales are immensely crucial. The statues and idols of Buddhas and deities made with proper and standard craftsmanship as prescribed in Buddhist scriptures will remain blessed forever and therefore who ever come to see, hear, think of such statue and idol will accumulate immeasurable positive virtues and meritorious karmas in their life time.
If a Buddhist metal sculpture lacks the standard features and qualities it should possess, then instead of earning a positive merit and karma, it would only accumulate demerit and downfall, to be born in the lower realm of Lokas.
Further more, the presence or keeping such statues or idols in monasteries, altars for refuge and worship will have enormous negative karmas and consequences on the adherents. The dire consequences according to sutra pronouncement speak of the natural minerals and resources in the country deplete and shrink. The land will be cursed by drought and famine. The starvation and famine will ravage the land; scorching summer season will parch the fields.
Therefore it is very important for artists to follow the prescribed qualities and features of any Buddhist metal sculpture.
Commercialisation and Negative Consequences
Basically doing or involving in business and commercial activities with statues and idols are not allowed. According to Master Penpa, he explains that there is a saying where if a shadow of a person who indulges in statue and idol business falls on you, you will be born in the bad rebirths of miserable realms. Such are the heinous sins and karmic demerits of undertaking a commercial and profiteering business out of selling and buying Buddha statues and artifacts. One should not ever treat the holy and reliquary Buddhist statues as objects of trading and greed. Resorting to such act is unspeakable, shameful or karmically speaking, a sheer personal disaster.
In fact, it is a strict instruction that artists are not allowed to make and erect statues purposely for business and acquiring wealth. Instead, the strict practice or the tradition of the metal sculpture vocation is that the sculptor receives order from a patron to make a statue. It is in this context that a holy statue is erected and made between a sculptor of noble birth and conducts and a virtuous and dharma loving patron. From the sculptor’s part, he or she is only allowed to charge a reasonable rate just to sustain a livelihood. His or her life is one of strict karma yoga practice.
Difference between the Buddhist sculpture and other metal art
The Tibetan Buddhist view categorizes the physical action of sculptor into three levels. There are white, black and neutral. White art refers to art and vocation of making and erecting Buddhist statues and idols. It is considered as the supreme amongst all the three levels of art and craftsmanship.
Black art refers to black smiths, artisans who make and produce metal products, which will then be used in killing and taking lives of human beings and animals. According to the Buddhist view as much as it was the case during the ancient Vedic Indian society belief that the artisans indirectly involved in committing the ten non-virtuous deeds.
The neutral art refers to those artisans who make jewellery for people. In this case, unless artisans indulge themselves in unethical and non-virtuous practices of mixing, adulterating and mixing alloys, artisans do not commit non-virtuous acts or sins. However, on the other hand, they also do not earn any positive and meritorious karma.
What Tibetan Buddhist Metal Sculpture is all about?
In the traditional Tibetan sculpture there are two methods, (a) specialization only in one stage of idol making alone, (b) the single sculptor who will attain expertise in making a full set of an idol.
Under the specialization method, there are seven stages:
1st Drawing {dri}: Teaching a student to draw different kind of Buddhas, their jewellery, different postures, different sizes and colours. This student will only master the drawing aspect.
2nd Minute inscription {tsag}: The student is taught to copy the drawing on copper metal.
3rd Repoussé {dung}: Here the student learns only repoussé with the help of hammer.
4th Sample master copy {jimsok}: The student here specializes in making sample statue of any Buddha by baking clay.
5th {lug}: Here the student specializes in pouring liquid gold or silver in to the master sample made out of baked clay.
6th Assembling {drigkhen}: the student learns to assemble the parts into a complete statue by welding. This process is normally done through Dungpa. They also do the primary gilding. The primary gilding is done by giving an acid bath to the copper statue and then rubs with a sawdust and mercury until the colour of copper changes from red to shinny silver.
7th Gold gilding {sertang khen}: The student specializes under gold gilding where they first heat the small pieces of gold with mercury. Then cooled the hot mixture in water to form amalgam. Which is in a stone pouch with small white stones until it becomes a smooth paste. This paste is applied to the statue. During this process, the colour of the statue changes to matt gold. The statue or parts will then be immersed in cooled water and flaws in the gold layer again covered with mercury-gold paste and burnt off. This process is repeated until the gilding is impeccable over the entire surface.
The matt surface is polished to a shinny finish. Later the face of the statues is then covered again with matt golden paint. The eyes, eyebrows, mouth and hair are painted. Specialized person does ornate crowns inlayed with precious stones. Under this method seven skilled artisan, skilled in his or her own field come together to make one statue.
II. One sculptor mastering the making of a full set statue.
In the second method, a single sculptor will master the expertise of making a full set of idol. Here the student is taught in all the seven stages of idol making one after another. The master Penpa Dorjee belongs to this school of sculpture tradition.
Under this tradition there are five stages:
1st grade: During the first year the student will learn intensive drawing skills where the student learns drawing of different Buddhist images.
2nd grade: In the second stage, the student learns the measurement of different statues of Buddhas, the colouring of face, nose and the ornament on the paper for six months.
3rd grade: From second year till the fifth year the student learns minute inscription of images on the copper. It will take three and half years to learn this skill.
4th grade: After that the student will be taught repoussé for next three years. That is from sixth year to eight year.
5th grade: during the first six months of the eighth year students are taught of making sample master copy from baked clay. After that the following six months will be spent on learning Lug.
After completion of the nine years of intensive training, the student is now a full fledged sculptor. Still then few years of final polish on thier skill will be needed for which the teacher will closely watch his or her progress. If a progress is found, the student will be promoted to the next level. It will last three years. Norbulingkha today follows this method of imparting the art to the pupil.
The Master’s Last Will
“The few of factors that contributes to the abject state of the art has been the misconceptions that surround it such as social stigma of labelling the profession as a ‘blacksmith’ in Tibetan society although it isn’t. Secondly the profession demands stupendous discipline, hard work and long years it takes to master. Thirdly the brightest and the best students today opted for other careers and in end only less gifted students ended up in this vocation,” says the master Penpa Dorjee.
Unless and until these three evils are removed, the unique tradition of Tibetan sculpture faces a grim future of disappearance and extinction. As the famous poet Coleridge wrote, “Albatross on my neck was hung”. I hope and pray this doesn’t happen, at least, not in my lifetime to write an obituary for death of an art |
