Handbook of Tibetan Iconometry - (Brill's Tibetan Studies Library) (Hardcover)

About the Book

The Handbook of Iconometry (ca. 1687) reproduces, in facsimile, a lavishly illustrated treatise describing the iconometic principles and measurements at the heart of the 17th-century art of Tibet. It includes over 150 drawings of buddhas, bodhisattvas and divinities, 70 script types and 14 stupa models from the rich world of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism.

Book Synopsis

The Handbook of Iconometry (Tibetan title: Cha tshad kyi dpe ris Dpyod ldan yid gsos) constitutes a lavishly illustrated treatise laying down the iconometic principles and measurements at the heart of the 17th-century art of Tibet. The book was produced in ca. 1687 at the instigation of the famous scholar and statesman sde srid Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho (1653-1705). Today, the original is kept in the Tibet Autonomous Region Archives (Lhasa). The Handbook includes more than 150 meticulously prepared drawings of buddhas, bodhisattvas and divinities, 70 script types and 14 stupa models all extrapolated from the rich heritage of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist art. These are accompanied by an introduction charting the production of the Handbook in the 17th century and the scholarly profile of its principal author Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho. In the appendix, it reproduces passages from the Vaiḍurya g.Ya' sel that provide valuable additional information about the illustrations.

Review Quotes

'the work so well reproduced in the present volume must henceforth serve as a veritable pierre de touche. In some three hundred precise illustrations, we find here a detailed catalogue of iconometric standards, including divinities of all types, their attributes, stupas and other architectural details, and, most interestingly, less well known aspects of Tibetan iconometrical convention including rare styles of calligraphic script. All of this merits close study in relation both to textual sources and evidence of actual artistic practice.(...) admirably high quality of the reproduction of the manuscript itself (...) a virtual substitute for the original text. The publisher, Brill in Leiden, must be congratulated.'
Matthew T. Kapstein, Arts Asiatiques, 68 (2013)

About the Author

Christoph Cüppers studied Indology and Tibetology at the University of Hamburg, following seven years at the Düsseldorfer Kunstakademie. From 1983 to 1988, he served as Deputy Director and Director at the Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation Project. Since 1995, he is Director of the Lumbini International Research Institute. In his research, he focuses on the history of 17th century Tibet, Tibetan law and state administration, as well as on cultural exchanges between Tibet and Nepal.
Leonard W.J. van der Kuijp studied at the University of Saskatchewan and Hamburg University, where he received his D.Phil. He worked for the Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation Project from 1980-1984, taught at the Freie Universität Berlin from 1985-1987, at the University of Washington from 1987-1995, and, from 1995 to the present, is Professor of Tibetan and Himalayan Studies at Harvard University. His research interests focus on Indo-Tibetan Buddhist intellectual history, Tibetan Buddhist intellectual history, and Sino-Mongol-Tibetan relations during the Yuan and Ming dynasties
Ulrich Pagel, PhD (1993) in Buddhist Studies (London) is Reader in the Languages and Religions of Tibet and Central Asia at the School of Oriental and African Studies. He has published on Mahāyāna Buddhism (1994, 2006, 2007) and more recently in the field of vinaya studies (2012). Since 1999, he serves as head of the International Tibetan Archives Preservation Trust.