Mountain God Kula Khari

0:00:05.1 Dr. Beth Harris: We’re in the galleries at the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art, and we’re standing in front of the figure of a mountain god. We see both the mountain and the god, but in so many ways, they are one and the same thing.

0:00:18.7 Dr. Karl Debreczeny: Kula Khari inhabits and personifies a mountain in Lhodrak. It’s about 24,700 feet, so quite a majestic mountain. Kula Khari is a god in Tibet’s Indigenous Bon religion, who was later absorbed into Buddhism, and he is still revered by both traditions.

0:00:34.4 Dr. Beth Harris: And Kula Khari is actually said to have been subdued by a magician, and then becomes a protector of the land and a protector of Buddhism.

0:00:44.2 Dr. Karl Debreczeny: Padmasambhava, who’s a great tantric master, saint, and magician, subdued the land of Tibet for the conversion to Buddhism and converted the local divinities and spirits to serve as protectors of the faith.

0:00:58.7 Dr. Beth Harris: This figure is riding a yak.

0:01:02.2 Dr. Karl Debreczeny: Many of the deities that came in with Buddhism from India tend to be associated with animals that one finds in India. However, the yak, which is indigenous to the Tibetan Plateau, the Himalayas, and parts of inner Asia is rarely seen outside of a local context like this.

0:01:19.8 Dr. Beth Harris: And he looks so energetic, so powerful. Moving forward, his legs are spread, and we feel the power of the deity through the power of the animal.

0:01:31.3 Dr. Karl Debreczeny: I love his bristling tail. It really is expressive of the vitality of both the yak and the mountain god.

0:01:38.7 Dr. Beth Harris: And the mountain god is supposed to be ferocious and powerful.

0:01:42.5 Dr. Karl Debreczeny: The mountain god is one of these many local gods who are associated with natural forms such as mountains and lakes.

0:01:50.5 Dr. Beth Harris: So he’s both fearsome as a protector, but also could bring prosperity.

0:01:55.6 Dr. Karl Debreczeny: Right. So you can see in his right arm, he wields a spear, in his left arm is a collection of jewels, a kind of symbol of prosperity.

0:02:03.5 Dr. Beth Harris: And he has around him a bow case made of tiger skin and a quiver of arrows, so he’s fully armed, and he wears this helmet and armor, known as Lamellar armor, which is made up of these horizontal bands of overlapping plates that I imagine would be very protective.

0:02:22.3 Dr. Karl Debreczeny: So here, the local god is depicted as a Tibetan warrior. So here you really get a sense of a Tibetan identity.

0:02:29.0 Dr. Beth Harris: These shapes that rise up from the bottom, that give the effect of overlapping peaks of the mountain and the swirling forms of clouds, so evocative of nature.

0:02:40.2 Dr. Karl Debreczeny: And it’s very common for this kind of a place to be depicted in Tibet, and in fact, replicas of natural sites were widespread in Tibetan Buddhism, and such natural sites are often considered holy by Tibetans and visited by pilgrims who would collect material such as earth from a mountain or water from a lake. And so an image of a mountain like this might contain earth from the mountain itself. The substances are fragments of the place but embody the whole.

0:03:08.5 Dr. Beth Harris: And we see around him what looks like his palace or his abode.

0:03:12.5 Dr. Karl Debreczeny: You can see his mountain abode is populated by deer who frolic along the bottom, and the ingenious use of these teardrop shapes to create the sense of the mountain range. So the medium of this work, clay, and the idea that it likely includes earth from the mountain itself, brings together the object, the mountain, and the god.

0:03:36.1 Dr. Beth Harris: And I see two small figures on either side. The one on the right looks as though it’s making an offering.

0:03:42.6 Dr. Karl Debreczeny: This could be an attendant, someone making an offering. And on the left is a naga, or in Tibetan, a klu, a snake spirit who are the guardians of the treasures of the Earth.

0:03:54.2 Dr. Beth Harris: He’s so dynamic. As he strides forward with the spear in his hand, the scarf flies behind him.

0:04:01.0 Dr. Karl Debreczeny: This object really reflects Indigenous traditions, and also Tibetan understanding of their relationship to the environment.

[music]

This work at the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art

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Learn more about Kula Khari on Project Himalayan Art, a resource from the Rubin for learning about Himalayan, Tibetan, and Inner Asian art and cultures:

Learn more about this mountain god

Read more about Tibet’s Indigenous Bon religion and its relation to the natural world: Thread Crosses: Sky Symbols of Divine and Cosmic Forces and Bon Deity Trowo Tsochok Khagying: A Microcosm of the Bon Religion

See a painting of a Bon deity also dressed as a Tibetan warrior

Buddhism, an introduction