Page 97 - Tibetan Thangka Painting Methodsand Mat, Jackson

Colour Codes (tshan yig) The .latter artist also wrote out the name for yellow-
ish brown (ser nag), but in a slightly abbreviated form:
It was common in large projects for the master painter, senag ~ ~ ~ •. The systems of numbers and letters were
when he had completed the sketch, to leave the filling often used in combination. For example,)n the same
in of the initial colours to his assistants or students. To painting numbers 1, 4 and 5 might be used for white,
indicate the correct colours to be applied to each place green and yellow, and the letters tha, ma and la could
the artists used two systems of abbreviated notation. indicate blue, red and orange.
One common system used the numerals 1 through 5 and
7 through 9 to indicate the main colours. These numbers
corresponded to the numbers and colours of nine-
sectioned magic squares within the sme ba dgu of
Tibetan astrology:

:J (1) = white (dkar)
~ (2) = black (nag)
3. (3) = blue (mthing)
0(4) = green (ljang)
~ (5) = yellow (ser) Notes
C1 [6 = white, but omitted by artists as redun- 1. Sum-pa mkhan-po, p.398.6; Mi-pham-rgya-mtsho,
dant] Bzo gnas, p.86. Several painters corroborated the
f)) (7) = orange (Ii khri) statement that orpiment and green should not be
--<., (8) = gold (gser) mixed. However, none said that vermilion and
r- (9) = red (dmar) minium were incompatible.
For some artists, however, the numbers 8 and 9
2. Bo-dong, Mkhas pa, vol.2, p.255. Such colour
indicated magenta pink (zing skya) and maroonish theories were also one of the first subjects dealt
brown (rgya smug) respectively. with in introductory logic classes (bsdus grwa).
The second system used the main consonantal
elements of the names of the colours. The names, so 3. Rong-tha, p.183.
abbreviated, included the following:
4. Sum-pa mkhan-po, p.389.4-5; Mi-pham-rgya-mtsho,
ka = white (dkar or ka rag) Bzo gnas, p.88.
na = black (nag) - or for some artists,
5. Mi-pham's text (ibid.) reads ser, but it should read
maroonish pink (na ros)
se as confirmed by Sum-pa. Below, ljang ser itself
tha = blue (mthing)
is a "son of orpiment." But compare Rong-tha,
ma = red (dmar)
p.184, where ser ljang is the product of the mixture
sa == yellow (ser)
of green (= "compound green"?) plus white.
la = minium orange (Ii khri)
ja = brown (ja kha, tea colour) 6. Mi-pham-rgya-mtsho, Bzo gnas, p.88, erroneously
tso = orange of realgar (btso ma) reads sla'i bu instead of bla 'i bu.
yu = deep blue-green (g.yu kha, turquoise
colour) 7. The text of Sum-pa available to us here (p.398.5) is
very faint but appears to read ngar pa. Mi-pham has
ngar rna. The only similarly spelled colour that we
Whitish (skya bo) tints of a few colours (made by
know of is ngur or ngur srnrig, "saffron colour."
the addition of a small amount of the colour to white)
could be indicated by the addition of a subjoined ya
8. Council for Tibetan Education, Reader 9 (Dharam-
(ya btags) to the appropriate letter. The most common sala, 1967), p.258.
example was pink (dmar skya, whitish red) which was
written mya, a ma with subjoined ya: Cf1 + <6 = ~ 9. The text, ibid., reads ljang kha instead of ja kha.
In Wangdrak's system certain syllables indicated
whitish shades even without a subjoined ya: 10. Rong-tha, p.183f.

~ -- sngo = pale blue (sngo skya)
"" Ii = pale orange (Ii skya)
~
Another artist, Dorje Gyaltsen, used similar
notations:
G) ~. spa = pale green (spang skya)
W (from~· , snga?) = pale blue (sngo skya)
riii.. (from~', Ii?) = pale orange (Ii skya)

COLOUR CODES 93