Style1½ inches thick (3.75 cm) Product Details Artist grade canvas, archival inks, wooden stretcher bars, and UVB protective coating
AvailablityUsually ships within five business days. ArtistMihir Shah CollectionKashmir
Description This Floor Painting style is a part of Tibetan Tantric Art tradition. The Tibetans call it dul-tson-kyil-khor, which literally means 'mandala of colored powders.' Millions of grains of sand are painstakingly laid into place on a flat platform over a period of days or weeks. The heartbreaking part of this ritual is that after days of determined hard work and perseverance the very monks who work on these paintings have to destroy them. The beginning of mandala sand painting is an auspicious occasion which is marked by a ceremonial ritual. In this opening ceremony the lamas, or Tibetan priests, gather in front of the painting the site and call forth the supreme power of goodness. This is done by the means of chanting, music, and mantra recitation. In the first day of the painting process the outline of the painting is drawn on a wooden board. In the consequent days the outlines are layersed with different colored sands. The sand is poured from a metal funnel called chak-pur. This funnel is an important part of the tradition too. The monks involved in the apintings hold a funnel in their hand and run a metal rod on its surface. The vibrations caused by the metal rod makes the sand flow like water from the funnel mouth. These paintings follow the prescribed Mandala motifs. A Mandala is a symbolic geometric pattern, which is a metaphysical or symbolical representation of the cosmos, a microcosm of the universe from the human perspective. The center of the Mandala can be used as the focal point of meditation. In fact the complex but symmetric web of structures around the center draws ones eyes towards the focal point.
Mihir Shah, Mumbai Member Since June 2007 Artist Statement Another enthusiast amongst millions others who have discovered the joy of photography is what I believed myself to be. But, as time passed, the no. of clicks on my Canon Powershot digital camera jumped into thousands and as I started losing count of various nooks and corners of India that I had visited, I realized that I had a passion. A passion for capturing moments, storing memories of interesting people and mesmerizing locations that I had come across. It went beyond mere photography. For me, my camera became my view of the world as well as a well documented memory of the part that I had played in it.
Still a student by profession, this mass communication graduate is seeking to pursue new adventures and visit more spectacular places on planet earth. In the meanwhile, he’ll keep clicking.