Crimson & Purple & Violet

Crimson is the deity body — the deep vivid crimson of the most important Tibetan Buddhist wrathful deity painting. Tibetan thangka tradition: the thangka (ཐང་ཀ — the most specifically Tibetan portable devotional painting — developed from approximately the 11th-12th century CE — at the same time as the most important Tibetan Buddhist canonical texts were being translated, compiled, and systematized — and reaching the most artistically complex and the most iconographically sophisticated form in the 15th-17th centuries CE during the most flourishing of the Tibetan Buddhist monastic culture) is the most comprehensively and the most precisely codified visual art form in the entire Buddhist world — every element of the composition being determined by the most specific iconographic traditions (iconometry — the precise measurement system for the proportions of the Buddha figure and all other deities), the most carefully prescribed color conventions (each deity having the most specifically assigned body color, specific symbolic attributes, and the most precisely prescribed hand gesture — mudra — configuration), and the most carefully selected mineral pigments (the most important being: vermilion red — cinnabar — HgS — for the crimson body of wrathful deities; lapis lazuli blue — lazurite — for the most important Buddha bodies and sky areas; pure gold for the most important line work and the most significant divine elements; and malachite green for the lotus throne and the most important landscape elements). The crimson deities: the most important Tibetan Buddhist wrathful deities depicted with the most vividly crimson body color include: (1) Mahakala (Wylie: Mgon-po — the most important and the most universally revered protector deity in Tibetan Buddhism — depicted with a most vividly deep blue-black body in most forms — but in the most specifically important 4-armed Mahakala form of certain Tibetan Buddhist schools: with the most vivid crimson body); (2) Hayagriva (Wylie: Rta-mgrin — the most important horse-headed deity — the most vivid crimson body with the most specifically rearing horse head emerging from the crown — the most dramatically and the most immediately startling of all Tibetan wrathful deity iconographic forms). Purple is the silk border — the rich medium purple of the Tibetan thangka frame. Thangka mounting: the complete traditional Tibetan thangka (the most completely mounted and the most fully equipped for devotional use) consists of: (1) The painted panel (the most precisely prepared and the most carefully sized cotton or linen ground — coated with the most smoothly applied gesso — chalk-glue mixture — the most carefully burnished surface for the finest mineral pigment application); (2) The silk brocade mounting (the most important single framing element — traditionally using the most carefully selected Chinese silk brocade — from the most important Chinese imperial silk workshops of Suzhou and Hangzhou — in the most specific and the most prestigious colors — the most characteristic mounting colors being rich crimson, the deepest gold, and the most specifically sacred medium purple — the combination of the most vivid and the most immediately beautiful Chinese silk brocade with the most precisely painted thangka panel creating the most completely magnificent and the most immediately devotionally appropriate portable sacred object in the Himalayan Buddhist tradition). Violet is the amethyst crystal — the deep vivid violet of the Tibetan Buddhist ritual mineral. Amethyst in Tibetan Buddhism: amethyst (from Greek: ἀμέθυστος — amethystos — 'not intoxicated' — the most specifically protective and the most immediately spiritually clarifying of the crystal gemstones in the Western tradition — and, in the Tibetan Buddhist context, the most directly associated with the most important devotional practices of the Violet flame tradition — the most specifically spiritually purifying of all the crystal colors in the most important Tibetan Buddhist mineral healing tradition) appears in the most important Tibetan Buddhist ritual contexts as: the most important mala beads (the Tibetan Buddhist prayer rosary — 108 beads — the most precisely counted and the most continuously handled ritual object in the entire Tibetan devotional tradition — with amethyst mala beads being the most specifically appropriate for the most important purification and the most direct clarity-promoting meditative practices).