Where the customs say a sacred image goes, what museum conservators do to keep paintings and silk alive, and plain care for a thangka behind acrylic.
How to hang a thangka comes down to two sets of advice that mostly agree. Tibetan custom asks that a sacred image hang high, in a clean place, never on the floor and never somewhere dirty like a bathroom. Museum conservators ask that it hang out of direct sun, away from damp and heat, on hardware that will hold it. Put the two together and you have most of what you need. The details differ by teacher and by household, and a silk-mounted scroll needs different handling from a framed thangka, so both are covered below with their sources.
How to hang a thangka: the short version
- Hang it high: in a shrine, higher than your head when you sit facing it.
- Choose a clean, quiet wall. Not a bathroom, and not where people sit, walk or put their feet toward it.
- Keep it out of direct sunlight, and away from radiators, heating vents and damp outside walls.
- Keep lamps and incense to one side, never burning unattended, and never directly under the painting.
- For a scroll, use a secure hook and lower it with both hands. For a framed thangka, use two hooks rated for the weight.
- Touch the mount or the frame, not the image.
Where to hang a thangka: what teachers and traditions say
High, and above the shrine
The YoWangdu guide to setting up a Tibetan Buddhist shrine says the shrine should sit on a clean shelf or table "higher than the level of your head as you sit facing it", and that a thangka is typically hung above it. The reason is the ordinary Tibetan sense of high and low. The same site's notes on etiquette say holy objects should generally be "as high as possible", and that teachers sit higher than lay people, higher lamas higher still. A sacred image is given the same courtesy as a respected person.
The arrangement on the shrine itself follows the three supports of body, speech and mind. Venerable Thubten Chodron, writing for Sravasti Abbey, puts a statue of the Buddha in the center, a Dharma text to its left as you face it, and a stupa to its right. She writes that the center figure "is always the Buddha", and that other deities go to the sides. A picture of one's teacher goes above. YoWangdu gives the same left and right, and adds that on a shrine with several levels the offerings go lowest, statue and stupa in the middle and the scripture highest. It also notes that a photo or a thangka can stand in for a statue.
The Rubin Museum's Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room, modeled on an elaborate household shrine, hung paintings on three walls and arranged everything by the hierarchy it holds in practice.
Where customs differ
They do differ, and it is better to know it than to look for one rule.
- What sits highest. Thubten Chodron places the teacher's picture above everything; YoWangdu places scripture on the top level. Both are in use.
- Which way it faces. None of the Tibetan sources we read gives a compass direction for a thangka or a shrine. The concern in all of them is height, cleanliness and quiet.
- Display or practice. YoWangdu says that "generally speaking, we don't use sacred objects as artistic displays". Museums and many homes hang thangkas to be looked at. If you display a thangka as a painting, the same courtesies still apply.
If you have a teacher or a temple, follow their practice.
Thangka placement customs that are widely shared
- Not on the floor. YoWangdu: sacred objects "should not be placed on the ground or where people sit". That includes the hour a thangka spends leaning against the wall while you look for a hook; set it on a table or a clean cloth.
- Not toward the feet. "We avoid extending our feet toward a teacher or a shrine," as YoWangdu puts it. The same guide explains that feet are considered dirty and low.
- Not stepped over. The same guide, and the Dharma etiquette notes of Losang Dragpa Centre, say holy objects and texts are never stepped over. If you must set something sacred down, the Centre's notes say to spread a cloth first.
Can you put a thangka in the bedroom or the bathroom?
The bathroom: no. Here the customs and the conservators agree. YoWangdu says plainly that sacred objects don't go in dirty places "like the bathroom". On the conservation side, the Canadian Conservation Institute warns that high humidity makes paper swell and go wavy and encourages mould, and that damp above 70 percent relative humidity should always be avoided for textiles. A bathroom runs damp every day. A thangka is cotton, silk and glue, or in our case card, silk and wood, and none of them likes steam.
The bedroom: it depends on whom you ask. Thubten Chodron advises that it is "better not to put it in your bedroom if you have a partner". YoWangdu allows a shrine in a bedroom if it is placed higher than the bed and at the head of the bed, not the foot. For many people the bedroom is the only quiet room. If that is where it goes, hang it high, at the head of the bed rather than the foot, and keep the area beneath it clear.
The kitchen. We found no Tibetan source on kitchens either way. The conservation objections are steam and heat, which CCI warns against for both textiles and paper, and grease: the conservator Ann Shaftel found the soot, grime and grease that build up on thangkas in front of lamps very difficult to remove.
Thangka etiquette at home
- Point with an open hand. YoWangdu advises pointing at holy objects with an open palm, not the index finger.
- Handle the edges. On a scroll, the brocade and rods. On a framed thangka, the frame. Shaftel records that rolling with hands on the painted panel, or carrying a rolled thangka with hands around the painting, causes damage.
- Keep lamps safe. YoWangdu says never to leave a candle or butter lamp burning unattended on a shrine. Shaftel's paper adds that smoke from lamps and incense becomes embedded in the silks and helps them deteriorate. A lamp to one side, put out when you leave, protects both the house and the painting.
- If an image is damaged beyond keeping. Losang Dragpa Centre's notes record Lama Zopa Rinpoche's advice not to burn photographs or images of holy beings, but to place them respectfully somewhere high and clean, such as a stupa, a tree, or a small sealed shelter, so they do not end up on the ground.
There is more on keeping sacred images as someone outside the tradition in Can You Wear Buddhist Jewelry If You're Not Buddhist?, and the reasoning carries over to images on a wall.
Light, humidity and air: what museums do
Museums are stricter than a home needs to be, but their numbers explain the advice.
Light
Light damage adds up and does not go back. LACMA's conservators, writing about their Tibetan painting of Yama and Yami, put it this way: light damage is "cumulative and, once it occurs, irreversible". The Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art lists South Asian paintings and East Asian scrolls among its light-sensitive works and usually lights them at 50 lux or less. Its conservators note that such works generally spend five years in dark storage after six months on view.
The Canadian Conservation Institute's notes on textiles explain the arithmetic. Damage depends on light level multiplied by hours, so 100 lux for 400 hours equals 50 lux for 800 hours, and ultraviolet should be avoided entirely where possible. CCI suggests a three-month maximum for displaying textiles.
At home, what carries over is simple: a wall that takes direct sun every day is the wrong wall. CCI's advice for works on paper is to avoid hanging them where sunlight from windows or skylights reaches them, and to use blinds or curtains. The Indiana Historical Society's guide for historic homes, by conservators from the Indianapolis Museum of Art, adds that picture lights create hot spots and are generally not recommended.
Humidity and temperature
Shaftel's 1986 study found that changes in relative humidity make the cotton support of a thangka cockle and wrinkle unevenly, while its silk mount moves differently. The Indiana guide gives a target for paintings in good condition: relative humidity between 40 and 60 percent through the year, and a temperature between 59 and 77°F, about 15 to 25°C. CCI notes that textiles become brittle in very dry air, from about 40 percent down, and that mould needs three months or more to grow at 70 percent but only days at 90.
At home that means placement. Keep the thangka away from radiators, heating vents and fireplaces, as CCI advises for textiles. On a cold outside wall, the Indiana guide suggests an air gap behind the frame so condensation cannot form. For storage, avoid basements and attics, where CCI notes temperature and humidity swing hardest.
Thangka frame vs brocade mounting
The silk scroll
A traditional thangka is mounted in silk brocade and made to be rolled. Shaftel insists that "a thangka is not only the painting but the mounting and the painting combined", and her 1991 paper describes museum treatments she considered inappropriate, including one where a painting was cut out of its Tibetan mount and remounted as a Chinese scroll, changing its proportions and dulling its surface. Hung properly, she writes, a thangka "creates a three-dimensional sculpture".
The weak point of a scroll is the rolling. Shaftel notes that rolling compresses the pigment and abrades the surface, and that careless rolling cracks and warps the silk along its folds. When LACMA's paper conservators treated their Yama and Yami painting in 2007, they decided against returning it to a scroll, because "the risk of further damage from rolling and unrolling was too great". It now rests on a lightweight panel built like a Japanese screen, with new red and blue borders modeled on a standard thangka mount in the collection.
The framed thangka
A frame removes the rolling, which is its great advantage. It also means the thangka can no longer travel rolled, and any veil stays up. For a painted antique, framing is a decision for a conservator. For a new piece made to be framed, it is simply the format.
When anything textile or paper is framed, CCI gives three rules: use UV-filtering glazing, use spacers so the glazing does not touch the work, and if the frame is wood, seal the wood off from the mount with a barrier film. If an old painted thangka is ever framed, don't let anyone glue or line its back. Wikipedia notes that most old thangkas carry inscriptions on the reverse, usually the deity's mantra, and Shaftel's paper shows how hard adhesive linings are to undo.
How to hang and care for a silk-mounted scroll
The basic rolling rules are in our guide to what a thangka is: roll from the bottom up with the veil inside, hold the mount, don't leave a rolled thangka lying flat for months. A few more from conservators of hanging scrolls:
- Before hanging. Queensland Art Gallery's conservators check that the hanging cord, its fixings and the rod ends are secure, and fix a secure hook into the wall. The wall should be larger than the scroll in both directions.
- Lowering it. Lower the roll slowly with both hands, steady the bottom rod before letting go, and have a second person hold the top if it wants to roll back up.
- Rolling it up. Japanese scrolls are rolled with no slack, and a wider core is used for heavy paper and thick pigment to reduce stress. Incorrect tension, the gallery notes, causes creasing and in time cracking.
- Storing it. CCI's advice for rolled textiles: a tube longer than the piece, so the ends touch nothing; acid-free tissue or washed cotton between the layers; a loose cotton cover; and support at the ends, so the roll never bears its own weight. CCI also advises against mothballs and cedar chests, and suggests checking stored textiles regularly for insect damage.
Caring for a framed thangka behind acrylic
Ours are framed. Each is 55 by 71 centimeters, an image of 40.2 by 56.2 centimeters inside a silk brocade frame-within-a-frame, in a wood frame with an acrylic front. The image is our own drawing, printed on heavy card, then finished by hand at a temple by elderly lay Buddhists who set glass crystals one by one and trace the outlines in gold glitter. It is not hand-painted, and nothing in it is mineral pigment.
Most of its care is general care for any framed work.
Hanging it
- Use two hooks. The Indiana guide prefers a pair of D-rings on the back of the frame, sized to its weight, on rated hooks in the wall, over a single wire on eye hooks.
- Use the right fixing. In plaster, appropriately sized anchors. In drywall, the Indiana guide recommends reinforcing the wall for large or heavy pieces.
- Leave a gap on an outside wall. Small bumpers or cork behind the frame keep air moving behind it.
- Dust it with a soft brush. The Indiana guide recommends very soft brushes for frames and warns against feather dusters.
Cleaning the acrylic
The glazing maker Tru Vue's care sheet for its acrylics advises a clean microfiber cloth, used damp, with light pressure; spraying any cleaner onto the cloth, not the acrylic; never using window-cleaning sprays, kitchen scouring compounds or solvents such as acetone; and washing the cloths without fabric softener. Its sheet for museum-grade acrylic allows a non-ammonia glass cleaner on the cloth. Spraying onto the cloth also keeps liquid from running down inside the frame onto the brocade and the card.
Tru Vue also warns that heat from radiators, steam pipes or direct sun can soften and deform acrylic, and that condensation leaves water spots. It recommends letting acrylic acclimatize for 24 hours before display.
What not to do
Don't open the frame or press on the acrylic. The crystals are set by hand and the glitter lines are traced by hand, and both are best left where the temple workers put them. We make no claim that our acrylic filters ultraviolet, so treat it as if it doesn't, and keep the thangka out of strong sun.
Consecrated thangka care
In Tibetan practice a finished thangka is often consecrated, and the Rubin describes mantra syllables corresponding to the deity's head, throat and heart painted on the back. The making and the consecration are described in our guide to what a thangka is. The care that follows from it is the same care as for any thangka, with more weight on respect: hang it high, keep it clean, keep its back untouched, don't separate it from its mount, and if it must leave the wall, roll or wrap it and store it somewhere high.
Our own thangkas are not consecrated unless you choose it. If you would like yours consecrated, choose Temple consecration on the thangka's page and we arrange it at the temple where it was finished: it spends a night in the temple's main hall, and the monks consecrate it the next morning. It costs US$100, all of it offered to the temple, and we send you photos and a short video of it in the hall. A consecrated thangka ships in 5–7 business days and is final sale unless it arrives damaged. Or ask a teacher or a temple near you. All our designs, Amitabha Buddha among them, are in the thangka collection, including the Amitabha thangka with Shakyamuni, Tsongkhapa and the Medicine Buddha.
None of this care makes a thangka do anything for the person who owns it, and we don't claim it does. It keeps the image whole and treats it the way the people who made the tradition would want it treated.
Thangka care questions
Where should a thangka be hung?
High on a clean, quiet wall, above a shrine if you have one, out of direct sun and away from heat and damp. Tibetan guides ask that a shrine sit higher than your head when you are seated facing it.
Can a thangka hang in the bedroom?
Opinions differ. Thubten Chodron advises against it if you share the room with a partner; YoWangdu allows it if the image is higher than the bed and at its head, not its foot.
Can you put a thangka in the bathroom?
No. Tibetan etiquette keeps sacred objects out of bathrooms, and the damp is bad for cotton, silk, paper and card.
Which direction should a thangka face?
None of the Tibetan sources we consulted gives a compass direction. They are concerned with height, cleanliness and keeping the image away from feet and floors.
Is it better to frame a thangka or keep it in brocade?
A brocade scroll is the traditional form and conservators treat the mount as part of the thangka, but rolling wears the paint. A frame avoids rolling. For an antique, ask a conservator; for a new piece made to be framed, the frame is the format.
How do I clean a framed thangka?
Dust the frame with a soft brush. Clean the acrylic with a damp microfiber cloth, spraying any cleaner onto the cloth, never onto the acrylic. No window-cleaning sprays, scouring powders or solvents.
What do I do with an old or damaged thangka?
For a valuable painting, ask a thangka conservator before doing anything. For an image beyond repair, Lama Zopa Rinpoche advised not burning images of holy beings but placing them somewhere high and clean.
Above eye level
Shaftel wrote that a thangka hung properly becomes a three-dimensional sculpture, painting and silk together. A framed one is flatter, and quieter. Either way the instruction is the same one Tibetan households have followed for a long time. Put it up, a little higher than seems necessary, somewhere clean, and leave the space beneath it clear.
May whatever you look up to be kept well.
Thangka collection · Amitabha Buddha Thangka · Amitabha with Shakyamuni, Tsongkhapa & Medicine Buddha · Amitabha Black and Gold Thangka
More from the Journal: What Is a Thangka? · Amitabha Buddha · Can Non-Buddhists Wear Buddhist Jewelry? · What Is a Stupa?
Also in the thangka series: The Three Long-Life Deities: Amitayus, White Tara and Ushnishavijaya