16th and 17th Karmapa

In 1978 i was commissioned to make a container for an image created by 16th Karmapa It's length is a Cubit, Standard cubit: elbow to end of middle finger (20") I've just measured my own and I'm 19 3/4 inches, That's me cubit wise. Width, the same as an English glory matchbox, topped with a fire surrounded triple gem in Lapiz enamel on a lotus atop a sphere. Whatever image the Tangshup contains is unknown but is meant for transmission to 17th Karmapa who will absorb and replace for the 18th Karmapa and so on for each reincarnation. This transmission will occur when His Holiness the Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje visits Samye Ling Tibetan Centre in June this year.

Tangshup, largely designed over the telephone by Akong Rinpoche. It had to have certain syllables in particular places, some hidden within the design.Everything depicted in the design is there for a reason. The whole is made in sterling silver, engraving filled by coloured resin, parcel gilt, bejewelled. On completion the cylinder was immersed in a solution of hydrogen sulphide, turning the silver blue/black, only then did did it come to life. I wept.