Tibetan Qing inked Dragon
This somewhat elaborate rendition of a dragon, in delicate tonal washing of ink and refined detailing, was inspired by the highly evolved style of the Qing Dynasty. As Chinese art influenced East Tibetan art, this developed the gracious painting style known as the Karma Gadri tradition, of which Tashi trained in as a young monk.
Consequently, there are elements of this dragon artwork, such as the face, which are more Gadri in style and therefor arguably placed more of a typical Tibetan dragon. Though it can be difficult to distinguish the difference to what is a Chinese dragon and a Tibetan style dragon, within mergers of cultural arts between these two great nations, geographically and through the history of time.
Indeed, dragon embellished calligraphy scrolls, officially endorsing particular eminent Lamas, as well as silken embroidered dragon robes and brocades, where often gifted from the imperial palaces of China, who’s Emperors of many Dynasties looked toward Tibet for their personal spiritual guidance.
For the Far Eastern philosophy, the Dragon is considered the most powerful of all mythological beast. Symbolic of the elemental forces which govern the changing seasons, and fashion the changing earthly forms of nature, through water, wind and fire, to hide or reveal precious substances.
The word for dragon འབྲུག་ in the Tibetan language is pronounced druk, which has the literal meaning of thunder – The mighty roar of the dragon, who spits a swirling pearl, often flaming with lightning like licks of fire, which dance across the sky.
It is for this reason a dragon is traditionally depicted amid clouds, which vary in form and colour. Often stylised, to lend well embroidered or woven as heavy silk brocades, of which found their way across Tibet along the well-trodden tea and silk routs of the past.
This artwork is consecrated with a piece of Tibetan calligraphy, appropriate in meaning and for the elegant scriptural style of this 15th century cursive script. This translates as:
“The sound of your voice, mightier than the roaring of a thousand dragons,
Thunders out the sound of the profound mantra teachings,
To your speech, which has melodious of Brahma, we pray!
To the Lotus-born Guru of Orgyen, we pray!
A prayer requested to Padmasambhava by Khandro Yeshe Tsogyal.
འབྲུག་སྟོང་ལྡིར་བས་གསུང་གི་གདངས་སྐྲ་ཆེ༔ གསང་སྔགས་ཟབ་མོའི་ཆོས་སྒྲ་དི་རི་རི༔
ཚངས་པའི་གསུངས་དབྱངས་སྒྲོགས་ལ་གསོལ་བ་འདེབས༔ ཨོ་རྒྱན་པདྨ་འབྱུང་གནས་ལ་གསོལ་བ་འདེབས༔
To mark the 30-year anniversary of Maharishi clothing – on the auspicious year of the wood dragon. This Anniversary-Dragon artwork will soon be available as a limited edition art-print exclusively from the Maharishi website and at their flagship store in Soho, London.
On of several pieces specially created as part of the guest-artist collaboration with Maharishi street-wear for their spring summer collection 2024.
A superb quality limited edition art-print of this particular Dragon piece, is also exclusively available online and from the Maharishi store in Soho, London.
