The thangka, or scroll painting, is ŕ special art of Tibetan Buddhism. In ancient India, for instance, there was the Pata, Buddhist portraiture, which was executed on the kasaya (the monk's outer garment) cloth,and the Hans sometimes used silk fabric as material for paintings.
         The material used for thangkas is linen cloth or cotton fabric; silk cloth is reserved for important subjects. Before painting begins, the material is stitched along the edges with flax thread and stretched on a specially made wooden frame (T. Tang-shin). Then a paste made of animal glue mixed with talcum powder is spread over its surface to block up the holes in it. When the paste is scraped off and the cloth gets thoroughly dried, the material is ready for painting. To begin, the artist works out the sketches of the images with charcoal sticks. The drawing usually begins with the figure in the centre and then goes to the surrounding deities or landscape. Colouring comes last. The pigments used come from non-transparent minerals and plants such as malachite and cinnabar. They are mixed with animal glue and ox bile to make the lustre stay. When the painting is done, it is mounted on a brocaded silk border. Important thangkas are embroidered on transferred outlines; some of them use a great variety of stitch patterns such as flat and piled stitches to give them a three-dimensional effect.
         The pictorial subjects of thangkas include portraits of Buddhas, stories from the lives of saints and great masters. Thangkas are usually rectangular in shape, and the square ones are reserved for mandalas. Thangka paintings vary in size, ranging from a little over ŕ few square centimeters to several square meters. A large thangka often takes large team of artists months, even years, to make.