Nepal, July 27 -- More than 1,300 years ago a unique devotional art form evolved in Kathmandu Valley's unique Hindu-Buddhist civilisation.
Called paubha, the scrolls were painted with natural pigments on white cloth, with intricate portrayals of Hindu and Buddhist deities, rendered with precise iconometry as recorded in traditional texts. When Princess Bhrikuti was married to Tibet's King Songtsen Gampo, she is said to have taken along paubha scrolls, and the thangka style evolved from them into purely Buddhist scrolls.
Even while tourism has prompted galleries across the Himalaya to mass produce thangka, there is a movement in Kathmandu to preserve the paubha's original motifs and styles so its sacred aspects are not corrupted.
Foremost...