Female Buddhas: Women of Enlightenment in Tibetan Mystical Art - Hardcover

Mullin, Glenn H.; Watt, Jeff J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1574160672 ISBN 13: 9781574160673

Publisher: Clear Light Pub, 2002

Synopsis

Any visitor to a Tibetan temple will be impressed by the large number of female images that appear in wall frescos and tangka paintings, as well as in the form of sculptures and other mediums. This strong role of the feminine in Tibetan mystical art is common to the chapels of monasteries and nunneries alike as well as communal meditation hermitages and stands in sharp contrast to the predominance of male images seen in the temples of most other Buddhist countries. But who are these female buddha forms and what do they represent? What is their place in Tibet's rich spiritual, philosophical and artistic worlds? This book is a pioneering attempt to find answers to these important questions. It includes over a hundred full colour plates of Tibetan masterpieces from the Shelley and Donald Rubin Collections. These stand as testimony to the exhilarating beauty of the tankgas and other works as well as to the amazing skill and transformative vision of the traditional master artists. Part One also features photographs of Tibet by acclaimed photographer Marcia Keegan. The book includes an appraisal of the feminine in Tibetan Buddhism and an overview of its prominence in Tibetan art by Tibetologist Glenn H Mullin. The book appears in conjunction with the world premiere of the art exhibit, 'Female Buddhas: Women of Enlightenment in Tibetan Mysticism', which opened at the Oglethorpe University Museum of Art in Atlanta and is traveling to several locations around the country.

About this title

About the Author

Glenn H Mullin is one of the world's foremost Tibetologists. He has published approximately twenty books on Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism, including a series on the lives and teachings of the early Dalai Lamas. Mullin is an internationally renowned Buddhist scholar, an acclaimed translator of Tibetan classics, a well-known speaker on the international lecture circuit and a popular teacher of Tantric Buddhist meditation. As a youth, Mullin studied engineering at Mt Allison University, Canada, and then travelled to the Himalayas to join the Tibetan Studies Program at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, a small college for Western students that had been established by the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala. Mullin remained in Dharamsala for twelve years, where he completed the rigorous training in Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and meditation, first at the LTWA and then at the Tsennyi Labtra Monastery. After this he joined the Research and Translation Bureau of the LTWA. Jeff Watt is a curator of the Rubin Art Museum in New York City and is one of the world's foremost experts in Tibetan iconography.

From Publishers Weekly

Whereas the art of most Buddhist countries features a preponderance of male images, the art of Tibet has traditionally emphasized what the authors call "the strong role of the feminine." This book, one of the first Western titles ever to analyze this unique artistic tradition, is the companion volume to a touring art exhibit about female buddhas. Mullin, a Tibetologist and Buddhist scholar, writes that feminine imagery in Tibetan frescoes and tangka paintings reinforces the notion of the personification of wisdom and meditative consciousness. In Part I, Mullin explores the historical importance and symbolic significance of female buddhas, while the accompanying full-color photographs and illustrations demonstrate their role in daily devotion and meditation. Part II is devoted to the art and its interpretation, with dozens of reproductions of Tibetan masterpieces, drawn from the collection of the Rubin Art Museum that is slated to open in 2004 in New York.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Clear Light Pub
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1574160672
• ISBN 13: 9781574160673
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 176