Refuge Tree Thangka – 75×103 cm, Master Grade

Padmasambhava sits at the centre of a great tree in his lotus hat and orange and grey-blue robes, a vajra in his right hand at his knee, a skull cup in his left hand in his lap and a staff topped with heads and a trident in the crook of his left arm, framed by a green halo among peonies, with a small temple on either side.

Above him, nine lineage masters, among them monks in red hats, a yogi and a white-haired teacher, sit in three rows of haloes rising to blue Samantabhadra in union with his white consort beneath a fan of coloured streamers, with a rainbow arching behind and offering goddesses on the clouds at either side.

A circle of golden Buddhas sits on the branches to the left and a circle of monks, bodhisattvas and deities to the right, and rows of winged wrathful deities and protectors in flames fill the tree below him.

At the foot of the tree, monks and lay people pray at the shore of a lake with lotuses and cranes, a temple stands at the lower left and a seated lama at the lower right, and a white elephant, a horse, yaks, a dog and a white snow lion rest among the trees, inside a red border.