Tibetan Buddhist Butter Sculptures

Butter might seem like an unlikely artistic medium. But in some Tibetan Buddhist traditions, sculptors shape yak butter that’s been colored with mineral pigments into flowers, animals, and meaningful symbols such as the dharma wheel. The sculptures, known as torma, are often made by Buddhist monks, nuns, and laity for prayer festivals and the Tibetan New Year, also known as Losar.

The butter art is an essential part of the New Year’s Butter Lamp Festival, when the streets outside Buddhist temples glimmer with thousands of burning lamps, also made from yak butter. The flickering lights are meant to represent the enlightening power of Buddhism and the miracles performed by the Buddha. But they can also be extinguished at any time, symbolizing the impermanence of all things. The same holds true for the dairy-based sculptures. Though artists can mix barley flour or wax into their butter to extend their sculptures’ lifespans, they don’t last forever. At some point, the makers melt their masterpieces or feed them to animals.