The Little Red Volume

The Little Red Book is a Lamdre text compiled by Ngorchen Kunga Zangpo. See the TBRC blog entry for more information about this important text.

Sakya Refuge Field Identification Key

The Sakya Refuge Field poster created for the 1980 Puruwalla Lamdre has been colour coded on the Himalayan Art Resources website and the lineages differentiated. The next step is to separate the different lineages and sections and to create another image of only that section along with a numbered identification key for those parts individually. Each figure will be numbered and a Romanized transliteration of the name provided for the lineage teachers and the Sanskrit name provided for all of the deities. This has already begun. See the earlier post from September Sakya Refuge Field Poster.

Hevajra Mandala: More Visuals

Here is another page to help with navigation for the Hevajra Mandala discussed below (HAR #87225). The two Himalayan Art Resources visual key pages have been placed alongside the main mandala image with the identification keys for the numbers and colours located below - all on one page.

See Mapping a Mandala: Hevajra - A Visual Model.

Hevajra Resource Page

A new Hevajra Resource Page has been added to the HAR website. Additional new pages have also been created and added to the Hevajra section. See the new Hevajra Masterworks Page and the Hevajra Deity Forms Page. The many scattered and miscellaneous Hevajra pages have been brought together under the Resource Page. The main topics of the new page are mediums, mandalas, reading a mandala and deity forms.

The Masterworks page on the HAR website is based almost exclusively on art and aesthetics while maintaining a standard of iconographic accuracy. From a religious perspective, a Sakya perspective, or a Lamdre perspective, the Masterworks Page would change and reflect predominantly iconography and the chronology of small changes in iconography that reflect changes in the teachings and commentaries that have taken place over the last millennium. A religious Masterworks page might also include unique and rare subjects that pertain to Hevajra in general, or to the specific Lamdre system such as the Hevajra Balimta Offering painting.

Mapping a Mandala: Hevajra - A Visual Model

Paintings of the Hevajra Mandala are quite numerous and at times of a very high artistic quality. This painting from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is one of the finest and best preserved in the world. It was painted in 1461 as recorded by inscription on the reverse of the composition and very likely commissioned at Ngor Monastery in Tsang Province, Tibet. Ngor was founded by Ngorchen Kunga Zangpo (1382-1456) and this painting was likely commissioned by a principal student or nephew less than five years after the founders passing.

Aside from the artistic qualities of this Hevajra mandala it is perhaps the best, or clearly one of the best, iconographic examples of a Hevajra Mandala in the world. Anybody who is interested in the practice of Hevajra or engages in the practice should know this painting and should study this painting. Every figure depicted in the mandala is clear, iconographically detailed, and correct. Two mandala elements stand out as being particularly detailed, the Eight Great Cemeteries and the Eleven Wrathful Ones. Each of the Wrathful Ones is correctly coloured and holds the correct object, or mudra, in the right hand.



Reading a mandala is often very difficult without insider knowledge and the benefit of the explanatory literature. Painted mandala compositions are generally read from the center out and then all of the figures immediately outside of the mandala circle, followed by the top register, and then finishing with the bottom register. The important sections of the MFA Hevajra painting have been divided into colours; blue for the essential deities, red for the Eight Great Charnal Grounds, yellow for the lineage teachers and green for the miscellaneous deities added by the donor or artist. Click on the image to see the greyscale/coloured Numbered and Names Key for this painting.

Lamdre 1975 Group Photograph Missing

In March 2009 when I went to visit Sakya Trizin Rinpoche in Dehradun, and as I was patiently sitting in the waiting room prior to an audience, I noticed that all of the group photos of past Lamdre Teachings, given by Sakya Trizin, were framed and hung on the walls of the rather small room. They were not in any chronological sequence and not all were labeled. It was a guessing game. All that I could be sure about was which Lamdres and in which years that I personally had attended. The 1980 and 2000 group photos were accounted for but there was no sign of a photo for the 1975 Lamdre, the 2nd Lamdre that Rinpoche ever gave, after giving his 1st Lamdre teaching at Sarnath in the late 1960s. Also, there did not appear to be an obvious blank space or gap on any of the walls where a framed photo might have hung. It was a mystery!

Only minutes after that, during my time with Rinpoche I asked him why there was no group photo of the 1975 Lamdre hanging on the wall in the waiting room. He turned to me and said "There is no photo of the Rajpur Lamdre?" He also seemed puzzled. He left the room that we were in to go and look, I followed. Indeed, there was no 1975 group photo on the wall in the waiting room. We looked at other photos and reminisced for a minute or two; it might not have been that long. We left it at that, having more interesting things to talk about, rather than spending time with nostalgia and brief trips down memory lane.

Later however, this waiting room experience got me thinking about where my old photographs from India in the 1970s were. Well, a few days ago and five months later, in Vancouver I found the 1975 Lamdre group photograph and a number of others from the same time period and event. All of course are in black and white as was the standard for India at that time.

So, here it is, the missing photograph, not nearly as refined and elegant as those later Kodak and Fujichrome group photos. But it didn't need to be, remember, it was at this Lamdre where most of the young Sakya Lamas, prominent today, such as Luding Khenpo and Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche received their first Lamdre teachings and empowerments. The first Sakya College students from Mussoorie, the original location, were in attendance. Many of the young monks seated in the foreground of the photo are today the ones in charge of Sakya Monastery in Rajpur, or have gone on to become graduates of Sakya College, or become abbots, or have built, or become leaders in, other monasteries and centers throughout Asia and the rest of the world. It was a Lamdre full of promise, and a Lamdre to remember!

The top left photograph is the full group shot. The close-up is of Sakya Trizin with Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche standing to the left (on the right of Sakya Trizin) and Luding Shabdrung below that to the left (now he is Luding Khenpo). Directly behind is Chiwang Tulku with Zimwog Rinpoche at the lower right and Sherpa Tulku again to the right. In the upper right corner is Gyalse Rinpoche who unfortunately passed away unexpectedly in Australia some years ago.

The lower photo is a detail of me with a very white complexion. Slightly below and to the left is Sangye-la, dressed in lay attire and wearing a turtle-neck sweater. He was the main attendant of Sakya Trizin for as long as anybody can remember. So there you have it, the missing Lamdre group photo of 1975, but where is the group photo from the first Lamdre in Sarnath?

New Book: Hevajra and Lam-'bras Literature

Hevajra and Lam-'bras Literature of India and Tibet as Seen Through the Eyes of A-mes-zhabs. Jan-Ulrich Sobisch (2008), (Contributions to Tibetan Studies 6), Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, Wiesbaden, ISBN 978-3-89500-652-4, clothbound, 264 pp., 12 b/w illustrations. 68,00 € (http://www.reichertverlag.de/default.asp)

"The Hevajra Tantras and teachings of the 'Path with Its Fruit' (lam ‘bras) that originated in India have been central practices of Tibetan tantric Buddhism for a millenium. The Tibetans translated eight Hevajra transmissions with their tantras, commentaries, rituals, and instructions and authored countless scriptures in the context of the tantra and the 'Path with Its Fruit' that originated with the Indian Mahasiddha Virupa. Drawing on title lists (dkar chag), colophones, and commentaries authored between the 11th and 17th centuries, the author attempts a reconstruction of the Indian and Tibetan corpora of these transmissions, its literary history and relations to one another."

"Contents (key words): Part I, Chapter 1, focuses on the Hevajra literature of India and Tibet (Four Great Transmissions, Hevajra Tantras, Six Great Chariot Systems, the Hevajra cycles of Dombiheruka, Saroruhavajra, Krsna Samayavajra, Ratnakarashanti, Yashobhadra [?sNyan-grags-bzang-po], and Avadhutipa), the two systems of pith instructions, and a description of several categorizations of the Hevajra writings. Chapter 2 deals with Hevajra literature mentioned in A-mes-zhabs’ records of teachings and his other works; chapter 3 with the main lineages of the transmissions."

"Part II focuses on the Path with Its Fruit literature of India and Tibet. Chapter 1 deals with the title list of the Yellow Book and the various categorizations of the Lam ‘bras writings (Extensive Path, Actual Path, Twenty-three Further Clarifications, Medium and Abbreviated Paths, Four Great Fundamental Instructions, Five Teachings to Produce Realization, and the Four Authenticities). Chapter 2 deals with the title list of the (Little) Red Book and the Four Authenticities (of the Guru, Experience, Treatise, and Basic Scriptures), the Four Profound Dharmas conferred to Sa-chen by Virupa, the Dharma Links with the Six Gates, and the Nine Supplements. Chapters 3 and 4 describe the Lam-‘bras teachings mentioned in the records of teachings of A-mes-zhabs, the Black Book, the tradition of rDzong and Kha’u-brag-rdzong, the Eight Later Path-Cycles, and the Lam-‘bras writings of the most important Sa-skya-pa authors."

"Four appendices provide a title list of all the Hevajra and Lam-‘bras related works mentioned in the book, ten rare title lists, the translation of the notes of Chos-dpal-bzang-po on Ngor-chen’s teachings on the Hevajra transmission, and the Tibetan text as edited by A-mes-zhabs. The book also contains an Index of Names and a Bibliography." (Publisher)

Lamdre Lineage Art Sets

Most of the paintings and sculpture depicting individual, or several, Sakya Lamas in one composition are invariably from Lamdre lineage sets. And as all of you will know, it is best when requesting Lamdre to be taught that the host organization also commission a new set of Lineage tangkas (painted or appliqué). At any given time sets of paintings in total number are likely to account for more than half of all Himalayan and Tibetan style art. Needless to say, there are many paintings that belong to Sakya lamdre lineage sets scattered around the world in museum and private collections. I have attempted to put as many of these paintings back together in the Lamdre Lineage Outline Page. There are many more images that I know of but haven't yet been able to acquire the required permissions. There are also Lamdre images waiting to be uploaded onto the HAR website.