Dharmapala Thangka CentreSchool of Thangka Painting

Once the succession of Tibetan gurus and disciples had reached significant proportions, it became a popular custom to represent such spiritual genealogies in the form of a cosmic world tree uniting all the saints, buddhas, and deities of the order concerned. This special kind of Thangka is called in Tibetan language "krung rabs".

A refuge host field tree is a form that Tibetan Buddhists visualize as present in the sky of inner vision when they meditate at any level of the path.

In the centre Padmasambhava is seated on a lotos throne. Up at the top of the picture we saw the blue colored Buddha Samantabhadra with his female consort Samantabhadri [white].

The brown colored goddess with bow and arrow in the bottom row is called "Rahu, the Planet". He has a snake´s body with a large, gaping mouth in his belly, which emits an effluvium of illness. His torso and four arms are covered with eyes [one thousands is the number given in texts].

The fierce, winged deities [blue and red colors] in the row above him are five different manifestations of the fierceful Heruka.

Above the center Heruka manifestation we see three of the five Dhyani Baddhas [from left to right: Amoghasiddhi, Ratnasambava and Vairocana].

This icon is thus a major tool of practice as well as an object of veneration and worship.