Canvas and Human Skin: The Compassionate and Cruel History of Thangka Culture

📜 Normal Thangka (Status: Normal) • Material and Production Process: Over 99.9% is made of pure cotton cloth or silk. The canvas needs to be stretched on a frame, coated with ox bone glue, applied with plaster powder, and repeatedly polished with a conch shell until it's as smooth as paper, before it can hold mineral pigments. • Precious Pigments: Traditional Thangkas exclusively use natural mineral gemstones like gold, silver, turquoise, lapis lazuli, coral, and malachite, as well as plant-based pigments such as saffron and rhubarb. This makes the colors of Thangkas extremely brilliant and eye-catching, and even after centuries, they remain bright and unfaded. • Cultural Significance: Hailed as the 'Encyclopedia of Tibet,' its themes cover Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, history, and medicine. It is a sacred object for daily practice, contemplation, and worship by monks and lay believers, symbolizing solemnity and compassion. • Diverse Crafts: Besides the most common hand-painting, there are also various styles such as embroidery, Kesi (cut silk), brocade, appliqué (patchwork), and block printing. 😰 Human Skin Thangka (Extremely Rare Exception) • Material and Origin: Made using human skin. It primarily originates from the 'body self-sacrifice' (voluntary donation of skin to paint protective deities) by a very small number of high lamas in Tibetan Buddhism before their passing; or it is a product of cruel punishments inflicted by the ruling class on criminals under the old Tibetan serfdom system before the 1950s. • Cultural Significance: Religiously, it symbolizes the ultimate practice of detaching from the attachment to the physical body and being vigilant of the impermanence of life and death; historically and politically, it is often seen as a brutal historical testament to the barbarity and class oppression of the old era.