Tibetan Painted Scrolls, Volume 1

A new edition of Tucci's seminal work on Tibetan Buddhist painting, first published in 1949, original copies of which have long been unobtainable. Based on his prodigious linguistic skills and pioneering field research throughout the Himalayan kingdoms, Tucci virtually rewrote the history of Tibetan Buddhist painting with the original postwar edition of this book and created a foundation upon which all later historical studies, particularly on western Tibet and Nepal, now stand. Tucci commences the study (text vol. I) with surveys on the literature, lineages and traditions of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism and supplements this with descriptions of a number of major Tibetan monastic complexes which no longer survive, as a result of the ravages of Mao's Cultural Revolution. He then explores the thangka painting tradition in detail, covering such topics as origins, evolution, symbolism, iconometry, consecration ceremonies, as well as artistic influences from neighboring Nepal and China. The second part of the study (text vol. II) includes detailed analyses of the 195 thangkas illustrated in some 256 plates in the folio volume, and includes many insightful essays on such topics as regional variations on painting style, the lives of early Buddhist saints and Jataka tales.