Buddhist Figure Names in Thangka Art: A Careful Crosswalk

Rebgong Thangkas is a commercial store, and this educational page links to works that we offer for sale. Those links are product disclosures, not independent scholarly endorsements. The museums, research projects, and scholars cited here have not examined, authenticated, appraised, or certified our current works.

Our catalog names are recorded subjects: they report the subject attached to an individual seller record and the image offered under that record. A museum comparison may help a reader formulate better questions, but it cannot prove the maker, date, workshop, region, lineage, ritual status, consecration, materials, provenance, authenticity, or value of a different object.

The evidence is separated into three practical levels. An institutional object or authority record is strong evidence for the terminology and visible details of that particular object. Institutional research, a specialist catalog, or a peer-reviewed study can clarify a name or form within its stated context. A current product record establishes what the seller calls an offered object and which public facts belong to that record; it does not turn the label into independent authentication.

The table distinguishes direct cross-language names, alternate romanizations, broad and narrow forms, and terms that are merely related. Use the stable subject anchors to move to the detailed evidence below. The final column is as important as the name match: it records the point at which a useful comparison would become an unsupported claim.

The British Museum authority record places Avalokiteshvara and Chenrezig in the same wider name field. In Tibetan-context English, Avalokiteshvara is the familiar Sanskrit-derived name and Chenrezig the familiar Tibetan name. Four-Armed Avalokiteshvara describes an arm count within that field. Shadakshari Lokeshvara is an important four-armed form associated with the six-syllable mantra, but four arms alone do not prove that narrower classification.

A seated bodhisattva appearance, crown and ornaments, lotus seat, central hands joined near the chest, and outer hands carrying attributes can support comparison with familiar four-armed forms. The complete composition still matters: surrounding teachers, protectors, inscriptions, hand objects, posture, and regional conventions may narrow or change the reading.

Four arms do not establish a specific mantra practice, lineage, consecration, region, age, or authorship. RT-2026-002 and RT-2026-010 are seller records whose recorded subject is Four-Armed Avalokiteshvara (Chenrezig); the wording is not an independent museum attribution.

Tara names a figure with multiple peaceful and wrathful forms. Green Tara is a specific and widely represented form, not a generic label for every female bodhisattva or every green-painted figure. Project Himalayan Art distinguishes green and white forms, while The Met catalogs Green Tara beside White Tara in a Western Tibetan painting.

Institutional examples often show a peaceful female figure seated on a lotus, with one leg pendant or extended, a lowered hand in a giving gesture, and lotus blossoms. These are comparative clues only when the relevant details are genuinely visible and considered together.

Green color, a pendant leg, lotus, or giving gesture cannot identify the exact form by itself or establish a lineage, place of production, artist, date, or spiritual effect. RT-2026-004 records Green Tara as the seller-recorded subject of the offered miniature.

Jambhala is used for a Buddhist wealth-deity field that includes several colors and iconographic forms. Himalayan Art Resources documents yellow, black, white, red, and green forms, including more than one grouping under Yellow Jambhala. Yellow Jambhala is therefore narrower than Jambhala but still not one invariant composition.

One documented form combines one face and two hands with a fruit, a jewel-producing mongoose, and conch or treasure imagery. A Rubin Museum object also emphasizes the mongoose and conch shell. A substantial jeweled figure, yellow coloring, and those attributes can form a useful cluster of clues.

No single mongoose, fruit, yellow body, conch, or wealth association establishes the exact text, lineage, regional form, ritual use, or any financial outcome. RT-2026-003 records Yellow Jambhala as the subject of the offered miniature; the historical comparisons neither authenticate nor appraise it.

Acala and Achala are English romanizations for the figure often rendered as the Immovable One. Himalayan Art Resources uses Achala in headings while preserving Acala in translated source wording. The British Museum authority record connects Acala with Japanese Fudō Myōō. The names share a broad identity field, but regional depictions and religious classifications are not interchangeable in every detail.

Wrathful appearance, a sword, lasso or rope, and flames recur in institutional records. Specialist records also show standing and kneeling forms, different colors, and variations with or without a consort. Attributes and posture must therefore be compared as a group.

A sword, flames, blue body, fierce face, or kneeling posture alone cannot prove Acala, much less a specific Himalayan, Chinese, Korean, or Japanese form. RT-2026-005 records Acala as the current seller-record subject without assigning the object to a particular practice or regional tradition.

Akasagarbha, Akashagarbha, and scholarly Ākāśagarbha are transliteration choices for the same Sanskrit name. Japanese collections may use Kokūzō or Kokuzo Bosatsu. The British Museum links Kokuzo with Akasagarbha, and Japan's national e-Museum titles a Tokyo National Museum painting Akasagarbha while discussing Kokūzō in the record.

Those museum objects show a seated bodhisattva on a lotus before a moon disc and describe a jewel, lotus, crown, and hand gestures in their particular paintings. A full moon disc, lotus, jewel, and bodhisattva appearance can support comparison when an inscription or reliable record also agrees.

No single jewel, lotus, moon disc, crown, or hand position proves Akasagarbha. Resemblance to a Japanese ritual image does not transfer its region, period, ritual context, or promised benefit. RT-2026-006 uses Akasagarbha as its recorded subject and Akashagarbha as a search spelling.

Vairocana and Vairochana are common English spellings for the same broad Buddha subject. The Met uses Vairocana for an early Chinese sculpture, the British Museum uses Vairocana in its authority record, and Project Himalayan Art uses Vairochana for a visualization album. Mahāvairocana, Dainichi, and narrower forms such as Sarvavid Vairochana require more specific doctrinal or regional evidence.

Institutional examples show considerable variation: a teaching gesture in one object, a central Buddha with the Eight Great Bodhisattvas in another, and a particular visualization sequence in the album. Central position, hand gesture, crown, robes, mandala arrangement, and retinue are clues to compare collectively rather than a compulsory checklist.

One hand gesture, white color, crown, or central position cannot establish every Vairocana form, a specific mandala, lineage, consecration, or spiritual result. RT-2026-007 records Vairocana as the subject and Vairochana as an alternate spelling without claiming a narrower form.

Padmasambhava and Guru Rinpoche refer to the same revered master in Tibetan Buddhist naming contexts. A British Museum object record expressly gives both names. Project Himalayan Art explains the figure's historical and legendary context and the later formalization of eight manifestations. Lotus-Born is an associated translation or epithet; it does not identify every lotus-seated teacher.

A named British Museum bronze holds a vajra and skull cup and sits in a posture of royal ease. Other institutional examples show why dress, hat, implements, posture, attendants, manifestations, and narrative context must be read together.

A moustached teacher, lotus hat, vajra, skull cup, staff, or seated posture alone cannot identify Padmasambhava or one of the eight manifestations. RT-2026-008 pairs Padmasambhava and Guru Rinpoche to connect two established names, not to claim an independent determination of a particular manifestation.

This is the least suitable entry for a simple equals sign. Our current records use Zaki Lhamo as the stable English rendering of their existing subject label. Himalayan Art Resources uses Drashi Lhamo for a wrathful female figure associated with a Lhasa temple. Daisuke Murakami's peer-reviewed field study uses Trapchi Lhamo for Tibetan Grwa bzhi lha mo and explains that Drapchi is common in written sources while Trapchi reflects local pronunciation in his study.

The evidence overlaps around a modern Lhasa cult and related naming discussions, but it does not justify treating Zaki, Drashi, Trapchi, Drapchi, Palden Lhamo, and Shri Devi as ordinary product-title synonyms. Murakami also reports that some informed locals do not, strictly speaking, regard Trapchi Lhamo as a Buddhist deity despite the monastery setting; this name field therefore sits at the boundary of the crosswalk rather than being forced into a universal taxonomy.

A dark wrathful goddess, extended tongue, skull ornament, mirror, claw-like feet, or three eyes can form a comparison cluster, but no one feature proves the identity. The Met's four-armed, mule-riding Palden Lhamo is a useful contrast, not proof of equivalence. RT-2026-001 and RT-2026-009 retain Zaki Lhamo as transparent seller-record terminology.

Start with the record, not a search-result thumbnail: confirm which object, photograph, dimensions, and stable item number are being discussed. Then decide whether two names are direct cross-language equivalents, alternate romanizations, a broad and narrow form, or merely related terms.

Compare clusters rather than one feature. Count faces and limbs, then consider posture, hands, attributes, retinue, inscriptions, and overall composition together. Keep museum context separate from product facts: a museum record establishes facts about its own object and does not transfer its date, material, region, lineage, quality, or authority to a work for sale.

Ask for the evidence that would change a purchase decision. A sharper real photograph, reverse or edge view, readable inscription, source note, or qualified iconographic opinion is more useful than a confident but unsupported story.

This page does not authenticate any object, certify a religious identity, appraise quality or value, or guarantee that owning an image will produce protection, healing, wealth, memory, wisdom, luck, merit, awakening, or another personal result.

It also does not infer an artist, workshop, date, precise origin, materials, consecration, lineage, antique status, investment value, or provenance from subject matter. The useful conclusion is narrower: names can be matched at an appropriate evidence level, visible details can be described without overclaiming, and a buyer can ask better questions before purchasing.