Takla Membar

Takla Membar, the Flaming Tiger-God, is an important deity of Bon, a religion indigenous to Tibet. Although his primary role is that of a meditational deity, Takla Membar is also considered a doctrinal weapon because practitioners employ him in meditation against Buddhists whenever the Bon religion is suppressed. While Bon imagery draws heavily on Buddhist tantric imagery, unique iconographic features, such as the weapon of nine crossed swords, indicate that this is a Bon painting. Bon coexisted with Buddhism for centuries in some communities, and local painters created works of both religious traditions, thus drawing on the same visual vocabulary.The deep, flat blue and gray hues suggest this painting might be from southern Amdo or northern Kham Province, where the Bon religion flourished in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.