Mysterious Thangka from Tibet (English-Chinese Edition): The Hidden Meanings Behind the Paintings

This is not a coffee-table book of thangka images, and it is not a general history of Tibetan painting. It is a bilingual guide to reading thangkas—what they show, who the deities are, and what those deities stand for in Tibetan Buddhism. Luo Wenhua, a specialist in Tibetan Buddhist artifacts at the Palace Museum, takes a selection of thangkas and works through them one by one: the lineage of gurus, the faces of compassion, the terrifying forms of wrathful deities, the hierarchies of the Buddhist pantheon, and the thangkas given as royal gifts. The title says “invisible” because what matters most in a thangka is not always what you see at first glance—it is the religious meaning layered into every figure, gesture, and color. If you want to understand thangkas as religious documents rather than decorative paintings—this is it.