![]() Historically (and outside of the Tibetan context), wax has been used to make votive tablets and molds for bronze casting, and later to create incredibly realistic and evocative wax effigies. I will consequentially talk about wax and waxworks, following the popular naming of hyperrealistic statues that resemble living beings. And what is known today as wax effigies signify “…statues simulating human form, whether or not they are made of wax.” (Bloom 2003: 266). Nowadays, when we talk about wax, we often do not mean beeswax, but something similar, usually chemically produced, such as silicone, plastic, and acrylic. In this article, I introduce the waxwork as a new medium of Buddhist materiality, and I present one assemblage of a deceased religious authority and its living maker.īefore the early nineteenth century, all wax was beeswax. My research explores different Tibetan waxworks (in Kham and Chengdu in China) and how people discover, desire, produce, acquire, and engage with waxworks of the living and the dead – all of which are topics for future articles. Tibetan waxworks are particularly fascinating in relation to the Buddhist sacred. The hyperrealistic aesthetics extends their presence among devotees since wax can be formed and colored to look exactly like the living person. It is usually departed Buddhist masters who are immortalized as wax effigies. ![]() The waxwork is a new medium of Buddhist materiality that now coexists with the metal statue, the photograph, and the painted scroll in the Tibetan cultural sphere.
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