Guru Rinpoche with Yeshe Tsogyal and Mandarava Thangka

Description

Guru Rinpoche with Yeshe Tsogyal and Mandarava Thangka is handpainted in Nepal.

Guru Rinpoche is in the center of the Thangka. Yeshe Tsogyal and Mandarava are in the button of the thangka.

Guru Padmasambhava

Padmasambhava was a history teacher who is said to have converted Tibet to Buddhism. He was a renowned scholar, meditator, and magician, and his mantra suggests his rich and diverse nature.

Padmasambhava, Means The Lotus-Born, was a sage guru from Oddiyana who is said to have transmitted Vajrayana Buddhism to Bhutan and Tibet and neighboring countries in the 8th century.

In those lands he is better known as Guru Rinpoche (“Precious Guru”) or Lopon Rinpoche, or, simply, Padum in Tibet, where followers of the Nyingma school regard him as the second Buddha.

Guru Rinpoche Padmasambhava said:

“My father is the intrinsic awareness, Samantabhadra. My mother is the ultimate sphere of reality, Samantabhadri. I belong to the caste of non-duality of the sphere of awareness. My name is the Glorious Lotus-Born. I am from the unborn sphere of all phenomena. I consume concepts of duality as my diet. I act in the way of the Buddhas of the three times.”

The iconography of Guru Padmasambhava

The khatvanga, a danda with three severed heads denoting the three kayas (the three bodies of a Buddha: the dharmakaya, sambhogakaya, and nirmanakaya), crowned by a trishula and dressed with a sash of the Himalayan Rainbow or Five Pure Lights of the Mahabhuta is a particular divine attribute of Padmasambhava and intrinsic to his iconographic representation.

His two eyes are wide open in a piercing gaze. On his body, he wears a white vajra undergarment and, on top of this, in layers, a red robe, a dark blue mantrayana tunic, a red monastic shawl decorated with a golden flower pattern, and a maroon cloak of silk brocade. He has one face and two hands.

In his right hand, he holds a five-pronged vajra at his heart; and in his left, which rests in the gesture of equanimity, he holds a skull-cup in the center of which is a vase of longevity filled with the nectar of deathless wisdom. Cradled in his left arm is a three-pointed khatvanga representing the consort Mandarava. On his head, he wears a five-petalled lotus hat.

Wrathful and smiling, he blazes magnificently with the splendor of the major and minor marks. He is seated with his two feet in the royal posture.

The mantra of Guru Padmasambhava

Om Ah Hum Vajra Guru Padma Siddhi Hum

Meaning of the Mantra