Stevan Davies: The Miniature Paintings of Mongolian Buddhism.

Fig. 1

In the winter of 2004 it occurred to me to look on eBay, the internet auction house, to see if anyone was selling Tibetan thangkas of high quality for low prices. I discovered that every week hundreds of thangkas were being offered for sale on eBay by Chinese and Chinese-Tibet based dealers. But I quickly learned that around 95 percent of the Tibetan thangkas for sale on EBay were recently made Chinese factory productions with little to recommend them. The other 5 percent were older and more interesting thangkas or recently made thangkas of quite high artistic quality. I purchased several of each and am happy to have done so, but two things happened rather quickly. My available wall-space was used up, and the 5 percent that were inexpensive items of good quality began to decline toward zero percent. Today, apart from high priced offerings from established antiquities dealers and the rare piece of plain good luck, there are virtually no large antique thangkas of quality appearing on eBay.

Fig. 2

However, just when these trends became obvious to me, in the winter of 2006 to be precise, a new sort of thangka began to appear. These were usually extremely small, as few as three centimeters in length although most were 5 to 15 centimeters on their longest side, and some were larger. They were inexpensive, and for the most part had obviously been well used for a considerable time; some were nearly black from smoke. None of them appeared to have been made recently. Most were thangkas with single figures instead of an array. The quality of the artistic craftsmanship ranged from splendid to dreadful, indicating that their original purchasers were from a wide range of economic statuses. Most of these miniature thangkas depicted deities who would be familiar to anyone well acquainted with Vajrayana Buddhist iconography, but I had never seen an example of such miniature thangkas before. Once they began to appear, they arrived on eBay in significant numbers. All of those miniature thangkas were being sold by dealers in Mongolia.

From about February 2006 to the present day Mongolian dealers have been making their inventories of miniature thangkas available to the world through eBay. As they do not have any idea of what a worldwide market might want from them, they put up for sale items ranging from museum-quality to pieces hastily dashed off. And there were lots of them; around 40 new items appeared each week on EBay. I found them very interesting and, to date, have purchased about one hundred. But I could find virtually nothing in print discussing Mongolian popular Buddhist painting, and not very much about Mongolian Buddhist art at all. Such comments as I came across presumed that Mongolian miniature Vajrayana paintings were just the local form of Tibetan Buddhist tsaklis. Apart from a handful of examples in Treasures of Tibetan Art: The Collections of the Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art most books on Vajrayana iconography have no examples of Mongolian miniatures at all. [1]

Fig. 3

Fig. 4

Fig. 5

Fig. 6

It occurred to me in April of 2007 that I had overlooked the obvious, that week after week eBay was presenting a fine selection of Mongolian miniatures and that any interested party could make a record of those items, and so I did just that for the next two and a half years. I recorded all the miniature thangkas listed on eBay, eventually over five thousand examples, setting myself only one selection rule, to exclude any that were over twenty centimeters (eight inches) in length. All the dealers whose photographed inventories I recorded and categorized were Mongolian. [2]

Recently the eBay market has changed. Mongolian dealers are beginning to sell newly painted pictures, to relist pictures that they failed to sell earlier, to offer for sale a plethora of fascinating printed folk-religious apotropaic pictures and amulets (some with clear references to Vajrayana symbolism), to sell drawings of shamanistic spirits, and to reduce the number of Buddhist icons for sale. [3] It seems a good time now to end collecting and to begin analysis of what I have accumulated. I think it’s fair to say that I have recorded well over 90 percent of all Mongolian miniature thangkas offered on eBay from April 2007 to January 2010.

I believe that these constitute as good a random sampling of Mongolian Buddhist painting of this type as one could hope to obtain. [4] The dealers who have been selling on eBay have tried to sell whatever inventory they could obtain in Ulaanbaatar or from agents sent into the countryside because they have no idea what products the foreign market might desire. They take what they can get from their sources and, since they have no prior contact with their potential worldwide customer base, they have no motivation to be selective on the behalf of those customers. They put what they can obtain up on eBay and hope somebody somewhere will be interested. This economic situation means that they are collecting randomly and selling a random assortment and so, accordingly, one can analyze what they have made available with confidence that selection bias has been minimal. Even if one went out to Mongolian gers or yurts in the countryside or knocked on doors in a Mongolian city and if one found hundreds of individuals willing to allow the recording of the miniature thangkas in their possession one might still find oneself with an unrepresentative collection due to regional or economic-status considerations. [5] The collection of five thousand items I have recorded from eBay is probably as random a sample as one is likely to get.

But what have I collected? I have been calling them miniature thangkas but they are, insofar as they are discussed in print at all, generally called tsaklis (alternatively tsagali, tsak-li, sakhui, sakali, tsogli, etc.). While they are thangkas in the most general sense of being instances of portable Vajrayana Buddhist painting in the Tibetan tradition, they do not function as thangkas do. They cannot be rolled up, they are not to be hung on walls, they are not framed in brocade and they are quite small. Obviously they derive from the same iconographic tradition, but they are different in function than thangkas are.

At first glance they might appear to be tsaklis. But they are not tsaklis. [6] Tibetan tsaklis are usually somewhat larger than the typical Mongolian miniatures, they are made of primed cloth or, most commonly, from thin sheets of paper glued together to produce a stiff cardboard. The central images are surrounded by a much wider red border than is ever found on the Mongolian paintings. Tsaklis come in sets containing considerable numbers of examples of different deities or of the same deity in various forms. Each item in such a set is recognizably similar to the others and probably was painted by the same artist. Tsakli sets can contain both icons of deities and separate representations of the principal symbols of the deity, and of offerings particularly appropriate to the deity.

Tibetan tsaklis are used as portable substitute temples to allow a wide range of initiations, consecrations and offerings to be performed outside a temple building. Tsakli sets are for the use of monks in their ministrations, not for laypeople to use in the course of daily life. Accordingly, Tibetan tsaklis are thick and substantial, designed to be repeatedly physically handled, moved, placed, and held up for inspection. Because of this repeated handling, used tsaklis have well-worn rounded edges; this repeated usage and wear is the reason that Tibetan tsaklis have wide red margins surrounding and protecting the central painted image. As a further protective device, Tibetan tsaklis are often glazed to protect the painted surface.

Fig. 7

Fig. 8

Fig. 9

Fig. 10

Fig. 11

Their use in Tibet is explained in a succinct manner in Treasures of Tibetan Art: “A set of tsak li would be commissioned by a lama or by a monastery primarily for use during initiations into the practice of a particular deity. The small painting would be placed in an offering bowl with wheat or rice in it, or else put on a torma, a special sculptural offering made of roasted barley flour and butter, the shape differing with each deity. At the same time, the lama giving the initiation invites the deity into the little painting. The lama then places the offering and the painting on top of the initiate’s head while he recites the ritual for that deity. After being used, the tsak li are put away until the next initiation is given. Tsak li can also be placed inside charm boxes.” [7] Juan Li informs us that “Tsakli paintings are employed in numerous ritual situations such as empowerment, ritual mandalas, transmission of teachings, substitutes for ceremonial items, visualization aids and funerals.” [8]

Mongolian miniatures have no standardization in size whatsoever except (by definition) to be small. They are painted on cloth usually and paper occasionally but they are not made of stiff cardboard material and the cloth they are painted on may or may not be sized. They never have rounded edges from ritual use nor do they have the wide red margins of Tibetan tsaklis and they are never glazed. Tibetan tsaklis generally are rendered with extremely thin lines and do not look like small thangkas, while Mongolian miniatures are more thangka-like in their painted style.

Fig. 12

The only tsakli-like sets of Mongolian Buddhist miniatures, i.e. related items painted by the same artist to be purchased as a collection, that I have come across are sets of eight paintings representing the eight auspicious symbols, or eight special offerings designed as ritualized substitutions for the physical offerings that they represent. This is a function akin to the function of Tibetan tsaklis. Dealers do put such sets up for sale regularly and this proves that if there were sets of deities in the manner of Tibetan tsakli deity sets, or sets of offerings appropriate to specific deities, Mongolian dealers would put them up for sale too, but this has almost never happened. Painted offerings to protector deities occur occasionally on the Mongolian market, but usually as stand-alone items rather than multi-item sets. Below there is an excellent example of this type of Mongolian offering tsakli; it is a suit of armor along with animals, gers, an offering of the eight auspicious substances, and other materials. It is probably designated for the martial protector deity Dra Lha, who appears in the data set 83 times, either alone (44) or with his eight associates (39).

Fig. 13

Tibetan tsakli sets are frequently sold on eBay, but never by Mongolian dealers. [9] I have never seen an example of a set of Mongolian tsakli properly-so-called, but I am sure that they once did exist because, since Mongolian Vajrayana originated from Tibetan Vajrayana, and is closely related to it in theory, tsaklis of the Tibetan sort surely were sometimes used by Mongolian monks in the Tibetan manner.

Since Mongolian miniatures are not thangkas except in the broadest possible sense of the word, and as they are certainly not tsaklis, we need to have another term for them. The Mongolian generic term for paintings of Vajrayana Buddhist deities is burhany zurag (alternatively, burhani zurag, borhany zuraag, etc.) which means “god painting” or “Buddha picture” or “deity picture.” Therefore I will use that terminology henceforth.

In Mongolia burhany zurags were used by both Mongolian laity and Mongolian monks for devotional purposes and to attract the favorable attention of the deity represented in the painting either to bring benefits or to protect from inimical forces. They were usually placed in a frame or gau that was worn around a person’s neck or in a gau that was placed in the altar space of a ger. Often a gau functioned as a container for a set of magical amulets and printed portions of sutras and icons of deities with the favored deity depicted in a burhany zurag that was framed and facing outward. [10]

Fig. 14

Fig. 15

Fig. 16

Particular deities, and hence particular burhany zurags, were assigned to individuals through astrological chance, for each person’s time of birth placed them in relationship to specific deities. Further, individuals in Mongolia who encountered particular problems in regard to finances or sexuality or health could, after consultation with astrologers and monks, purchase burhany zurags of deities whose influences were especially relevant to their problems. An individual may have accumulated quite a few burhany zurags throughout the course of his or her life as problems arose or as circumstances developed that required the assistance of different deities. Burhany zurags, then, are devotional icons symbolizing the presence and helpful assistance of deities, icons that were purchased by individuals for their particular needs. Like Roman Catholic holy-pictures of saints and of the Blessed Mother and of Jesus Christ, burhany zurags were as much or more a part of the religious life of laity as of the religious life of monks.

During the period of Mongolian communism beginning in 1924, but especially the period from 1937 - 1990, Buddhist practices were outlawed, monastic life was forbidden and monks returned to lay lifestyles, monasteries were destroyed, sutras were burned and burhany zurags could not safely be displayed or produced. “In 1938, 760 monasteries were either forcibly closed or demolished. The MPR [Mongolian People’s Republic] government confiscated the monasteries’ buildings, their remaining livestock, and statues and ritual implements made of silver and gold. During this period of aggression, 6,000 monks were imprisoned, 2,000 were executed, thousands of others went into exile, more than 18,000 lower-ranking monks fled to remote areas of the countryside, and tens of thousands were forcibly secularized. By 1940, Buddhism as an institutional religion had entirely disappeared from Outer Mongolia.” [11] Buddhism was practiced in secret. This devastating fact of recent Mongolian history means that virtually all of the burhany zurags that were not made in the past few years were produced and principally used more than 70 years ago.

Fig. 17

There are few monasteries active today in Mongolia and those few are primarily devoted to ensuring that individuals’ problems in daily life and their astrological difficulties are overcome by the efforts of monks who are paid to chant sutras appropriate to those problems. [12] Today the type of Tibetan Buddhism that some Europeans and Americans prize is being brought to Mongolia by Western Buddhist missionaries, but Mongolians are not as enthusiastic about this missionary activity as their American and European and Tibetan tutors wish they were. [13] Johan Elverskog writes that the “vast majority of Mongols today” take it for granted that “the Manchus used Buddhism in order to rule the Mongols. This sentiment is found not only among western academics and Mongol writers, but throughout the population” and “for many Mongols, Buddhism is not a religion of liberation and enlightenment, but the handmaiden of imperialism.” [14] He points out that Mongolian Buddhists are no more interested in their religion being thought to be a variety of Tibetan Buddhism than, say, Thai Buddhists are in having their religion understood to be a subcategory of Sri Lankan Buddhism. Ironically, however, while the non-Mongolian Buddhist missionaries to Mongolia encourage the use of Mongolian in chanting and liturgies, the native Mongolian samgha insists on maintaining the use of the Tibetan language in liturgy and for apotropaic chanting because it is a language over which they have a functional monopoly and, therefore, their use of Tibetan can effectively separate educated clergy from laypeople. The use of Latin and Sanscrit in Catholicism and Hinduism serves a similar purpose.

Elverskog’s discussion of the conflict between native Mongolian Buddhism and the current importation of transnational Tibetan Buddhism into Mongolia concludes that while a new native Buddhism may emerge from a synthesis of the two types, at the moment Mongolian Buddhism is principally a matter of laity paying monks to perform apotropaic rituals and sutra-readings on their behalf, a matter documented in detail in Zuszsan Majer’s recent dissertation. [15] But it is surely important to remember that “even though many outside observers rarely see the local [Mongolian] Buddhist samgha in a positive light, preferring instead to highlight their undisciplined, and even lackadaisical nature, the Mongolian samgha still receives the support of the laity. It is their Buddhism.” [16] We who are interested in Vajrayana Buddhism will be wise to avoid the simple identification of Mongolian and Tibetan Buddhism and, as the cliché goes, let the Mongolians be Mongolians.

Fig. 18

My record of photographed burhany zurags, drawn from the eBay offerings as discussed above, is a more representative census of popular Buddhist devotion to various deities prior to 1937 than of folk Buddhist practice in Mongolia today. Through analysis of the collection, which I will henceforth call the “data-set,” we should be able to determine which deities were most important in Mongolia and to what degree they were important and we should be able to do so with reasonable statistical reliability instead of doing so by anecdotal evidence, personal experience, general impression, or official Tibetan doctrine.

Mongolian deities are both Vajrayana Buddhist and shamanistic, but I will have nothing to say about the latter category in this essay. Vajrayana Buddist deities are divided into two broad categories: Peaceful Buddhas and Wrathful Protectors although there are also deities of significant importance called Worldly Protectors who do not properly fit into either of those categories. I will turn my attention to those deities later on.

I have copiously illustrated this essay so that the reader can enjoy and appreciate a form of religious art with which most will be unfamiliar; I have made a deliberate effort to include examples that are artistically excellent and examples that have no artistic merit at all, for both types are icons of Mongolian Buddhism and were important to the people who purchased and utilized them.

Fig. 19

One might assume, in a manner common in western thinking, that since Mongolian Buddhism is a type of Tibetan Buddhism, and since we have a good bit of information about Tibetan Buddhism and excellent information about Tibetan iconographic theory, and the Tibetan categorization of deities, and about Tibetan use of religious images, we can confidently apply that knowledge to the Mongolian case. [17] But Mongolian Buddhism is not Tibetan Buddhism, and Mongolians are generally not pleased with the idea that their Buddhism is “really” the Buddhism of another nation entirely.

Rather than assume that Mongolian categorization of deities is Tibetan and so turn to Tibetan sources for information about Mongolian religion, one might better infer Mongolian categorization from Mongolian iconography itself. I will analyze three particular small Mongolian thangkas in sequence: first a thangka of the Peaceful Buddhas, second a thangka of the Wrathful Protectors, and third a thangka of Worldly Protectors. It may be the case that Mongolian iconographic categorizations are the same as Tibetan, but I think it would be better to discover that than assume it from the outset. I will discuss the categorization of icons as they are found on the three thangkas mentioned above using the burhany zurag data-set as a census of Buddhist deities so as to discuss the percentages by which particular Buddhist deities appear and, therefore, the degree of importance that those deities have had in the practice of Mongolian Buddhism.

This essay will primarily be a compilation and organization of data that may be of use to interested scholars. In addition, I will provide some discussion of how deities are iconographically categorized by Mongolian Buddhism, but I cannot possibly analyze in depth the various aspects, symbols and powers of each principal deity present in Mongolian Buddhist iconography.