Notes on Antique Textiles, Folk Art & Timeless Traditions – Jaina Mishra
As I open the packet of manuscript folios from Mongolia, the scent of the monastery infused into the centuries-old paper hits me before the vision does.
Manuscripts, most often contain some model story, knowledge or some preaching – some way to transmit the wisdom that offers a prescriptive way of life for the unenlightened reader. Then there are those that contain some musical representations of chants or some scientific drawings.
Some like this one – look like drawings that are just patterns.
The drawings looks familiar!
If only I could read the script and understand the words! What are they talking about here?
As I dwell upon the pictures my mind begins to scan all my past experiences to identify these forms [similar to the computer scanning of fingerprints to find a match that we see on CSI]
And within seconds I realise that these are drawing of Yak Butter Art that Buddhist Monks that I have seen in Sikkim.
These manuscripts are pattern-books for butter art of Buddhist Lamas!!!
How exciting to find such manuscripts! They offer templates for inexperienced or student monks enabling them to create their devotional art.
A note on the Yak Butter Art written long ago Here