Four Harmonious Animals,Tibetan Thangka Brocade,Tibetan Buddhist Tapestry Wall Hanging,Gandhanra Thangka Art

All our crafts are directly handmade from Tibet. When you purchase this craft it helps and support the artisan and their families in Tibet. Your support is highly appreciated. ❤DESCRIPTION The tale of the four harmonious animals, four harmonious friends or four harmonious brothers Standard Tibetan: མཐུན་པ་སྤུན་བཞི། (Wylie: mthun pa spun bzhi[1] or Wylie: mthun pa rnam bzhi) is one of the Jātaka tales, part of Buddhist mythology, and is often the subject in works of Bhutanese and Tibetan art. It is perhaps the most common theme in Bhutanese folk art, featuring on many temple murals, stupas, and as a decorative pattern on many daily utensils.It is the best-known national folktale of Bhutan and is popular in Tibet and Mongolia, it is widely referred to in these cultures. A popular scene often found as wall paintings in Tibetan religious buildings represents an elephant standing under a fruit tree carrying a monkey, a hare and a bird (usually a partridge, but sometimes a grouse, and in Bhutan a hornbill) on top of each other.The scene refers to a legend which tells that four animals were trying to find out who was the oldest. The elephant said that the tree was already fully grown when he was young, the monkey that the tree was small when he was young, the hare that he saw the tree as a sapling when he was young and the bird claimed that he had excreted the seed from which the tree grew. So the bird was recognized by the other animals as the oldest, and the four animals lived together in co-dependence and cooperation, helping each other to enjoy the fruits of the tree. After the story is finished, it is revealed the partridge was the Buddha in a previous life.The story was meant as an illustration of cooperation and respect for seniority, and was told by the Buddha after some of his students had failed to pay due respect to the senior disciple Śāriputra.Sometimes the tale also describes the animals upholding the five precepts and teaching them to others.One of the oldest extant forms of the story is the Pāli versio