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All Art Considered Presents: Closer look at Thangka Artist Shashi Dhoj Tulachan
Shashi Dhoj Tulachan, called Guru Nawang Chhogyall Tenzin, is the spiritual leader of the Chhairo gompa, of Nyingma Tibetan Buddhism, having been given responsibility for the Gompa by the current incarnation who is not a practising lama. He is also responsible for three gompas in Tukuche, his home village on the right bank of the Kali Gandaki, and in the Annapurna trail:
Contents
- All Art Considered Presents Closer look at Thangka Artist Shashi Dhoj Tulachan
- Family heritage
- Mustang monasteries
- Statuary
- International exhibitions
- Japan mandalas
- References
Family heritage
Lama Shashi is a master in Buddhist thangka painting and is committed to re-establishing residential monk community at Chhairo gompa. The Tulachan family is from the neighbouring village of Tukuche, to the south and comes from a long line of Buddhist artists. His father, Kamal Dhoj Tulachan, and grandfather are responsible for many wall paintings and statues to be found in gompas, chortens and private household shrines in villages of the Thak Kola (upper Kali Gandaki) area.
Shashi began by assisting his father and elder brother, Krsna Dhoj Tulachan, aged 9, accompanying them to villages around Mustang. By the age of 18 he had received his first solo assignment to paint the Mani Lha K'an of Gemi village, Mustang.
Mustang monasteries
Evidence of Shashi Dhoj's work in monasteries and gompas of the Mustang area are recorded extensively in RK Rai's 1994 inventory of monasteries in Mustang.
Statuary
Lama Shashi’s statue work can be seen at Lumbini and he designs many of the Buddhist statues produced at Karma Samtenling monastery in Kathmandu. A number of his buddhist paintings have been exhibited internationally.
International exhibitions
Nine oversized thangkas drawigng from the Tibetan Karma Ghadri school of religious painting were exhibited at the Bowers Museum in 2013.
Japan mandalas
Mandalas painted by Shashi Dhoj Tulachan and his brother Cakra Dhoj Tulachan, are the centrepiece of the Toga Meiso no Sato meditation centre in Toga mura, Japan. Four 4 metre by 4 metre Mandala Thangkas were painted in Toga mura (Toga village), Toyama prefecture over 18 months in 1988 and 1989. The themes of the four mandalas are of:
Shashi Dhoj returned to Toga mura, a sister village of Tukuche; Shashi Dhoj Tulachan's home village; in April 1991 for the opening of the meditation centre. He returned again in 1994 to paint a Mandala of the Two Realms, combining Japanese and Tibetan styles.