{"id":2758,"date":"2009-11-26T19:25:29","date_gmt":"2009-11-26T13:55:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/travel.paintedstork.com\/blog\/?p=2758"},"modified":"2014-06-08T23:42:24","modified_gmt":"2014-06-08T18:12:24","slug":"ladakh-glossary-of-terms-in-buddhist-iconography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paintedstork.com\/blog\/2009\/11\/ladakh-glossary-of-terms-in-buddhist-iconography.html","title":{"rendered":"Ladakh: Glossary of Terms in Buddhist Iconography"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continuing my series of stories on Ladakh, I will be writing in upcoming posts about monasteries that I visited. It would be useful to know a few terms often associated with Ladakhi Buddhism and Tibetan iconography before reading them. I will be using these terms very often in the posts about monasteries. More terms may be added as necessary. Come back to this post for references where needed.<\/p>\n

Avalokitesvara. <\/strong>The Buddha of compassion with thousand arms to help the sentient beings.<\/p>\n

Chorten. <\/strong>A Chorten or a Stupa is a holy structure with three parts – a square bottom, a circular middle section and a thin cylindrical top portion. On the top of it will be a crescent moon and a disc. Chortens are installed on the approach to monasteries and outside the village. They are meant to ward off evil.<\/p>\n

\"chorten\"<\/p>\n

A series of Chortens.<\/em><\/p>\n

Drukpa<\/strong>. A sect of Tibetan Buddhism, also referred to as Red Hat. The monasteries in Lamayuru and Hemis are among the prominent monasteries of this sect.<\/p>\n

du-khang. <\/strong>The prayer hall of the monastery, often with richly decorated interiors and murals along the walls.<\/p>\n

\"du<\/p>\n

The du-khang in a monastery in Ladakh<\/em><\/p>\n

Gelugpa<\/strong>. A sect of Tibetan Buddhism, also referred to as Yellow Hat. The monks of Gelugpa sect wear a tall yellow hat during special ceremonies and festivals. Most monasteries in Ladakh belong to this sect. Dalai Lama belongs to Gelugpa order.<\/p>\n

Gompa.<\/strong> Ladakhi term for a monastery. Celibate monks (lama) live here and study the religious scriptures and meditation. Usually every village will have a gompa on a crag overlooking the entire village. Villagers use religious services of lamas from the monastery and often donate in cash or kind in return.<\/p>\n

gon-khang<\/strong>. Gon-Khang or the room of guardian deities is a place of worship in the monastery that houses many demonic figures. Sometimes the deities are veiled. Some monasteries do not permit women inside gon-khang.<\/p>\n

Mani wall. <\/strong>A thick wall built by loosely bound stones, often seen along the roads in a Ladakhi village. The stones will have ‘Om Mani Padmeham’ or other Tibetan mantras inscribed on them. One must always walk keeping the Mani wall to the right.<\/p>\n

Manjushri.<\/strong> Manjushri is a Bodhisattva (emanating enlightened being) associated with awareness.<\/p>\n

Tara. <\/strong>A female deity. Tara is usually painted in prayer halls as Green Tara or White Tara.<\/p>\n

\"tara\"<\/p>\n

A statue of Tara<\/em><\/p>\n

Torma<\/strong>. <\/em>A material for worship made by kneading tsampa(barley flour) in to conical shape and decorated with Yak butter and other materials.<\/p>\n

\"torma\"<\/p>\n

Tson-ka-pa. <\/strong>The lama who founded of Gelugpa sect. His statues and paintings can be seen in many monasteries that belong to Gelugpa sect.<\/p>\n

\"tsonkapa\"<\/p>\n

A statue of Tsonkapa<\/em><\/p>\n

Wheel of Life. <\/strong>A complex painting often seen on the walls of monasteries, representing various levels of life according to Tibetan Buddhism.<\/p>\n

\"wheel<\/p>\n

Yab Yum. <\/strong>A Tibetan Buddhist deity with multiple hands, always portrayed in union with a female deity. Paintings of Yab Yum can be seen in the prayer halls of the monasteries.<\/p>\n

\"yab<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continuing my series of stories on Ladakh, I will be writing in upcoming posts about monasteries that I visited. It would be useful to know a few terms often associated with Ladakhi Buddhism and Tibetan iconography before reading them. I will be using these terms very often in the posts about monasteries. More terms may […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10,27,1],"tags":[177,521],"class_list":["post-2758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-ladakh","category-uncategorized","tag-buddhism","tag-ladakh"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xrJt-Iu","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paintedstork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paintedstork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paintedstork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paintedstork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paintedstork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2758"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.paintedstork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9899,"href":"http:\/\/www.paintedstork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2758\/revisions\/9899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paintedstork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paintedstork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paintedstork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}