Tibetan Calligraphy - Styles

Styles

A variety of different styles of calligraphy existed in Tibet:

  • The Uchen (དབུ་ཅན།, "headed"; also transliterated as uchan or dbu-can) style of the Tibetan script is marked by heavy horizontal lines and tapering vertical lines, and is the most common script for writing in the Tibetan language, and also appears in printed form because of its exceptional clarity. When handwritten, it is the most basic form of calligraphy, and must be mastered before moving onto other styles.
    • Ngatar (སྔ་དར། 前宏期) development
      • Toad 蟾体 - the initial Thonmi Sambhota edition
      • Liezhuan 列砖体
      • Xiongji 雄鸡体
      • Ke 稞体
      • Chuanzhu 串珠体
      • Qianglang 蜣螂体
      • Yuyue 鱼跃体
      • Tengshi 腾狮体
    • Qitar (ཕྱི་དར། 后宏期) development
      • Sarqung or chung (standard ujain; གསར་ཆུང༌།)
      • Sugring
      • Sugtung
      • Sarqên
  • The umê (དབུ་མེད།, "headless"; or ume) style is a more cursive script which can be seen in daily correspondence and in other day-to-day life. The feature which distinguishes it the most from u-chan is the lack of the horizontal lines on the top of letters.
  • The bêcug (དཔེ་ཚུགས།; or betsu) style is a narrow, cursive variant of umê in squarish shape.
  • The zhuza (འབྲུ་ཚ།; or drutsa) style is a variant of umê but with ujain vowel symbol.
    • curve-leg zhuza
    • straight-leg zhuza
    • short-leg zhuza
      • 棱体
      • 粒体
  • The cugtung (ཚུགས་ཐུང༌།; or tsugtung) style is shortened, abbreviated variant of u-me, traditionally used for commentaries.
    • Yi style 伊体
    • Xiong style 雄体
  • The cugrin (ཚུགས་རིན། 徂仁体) style
  • The kyug'yig (འཁྱུག་ཡིག།, "fast letters"; or chuyig) is a highly abbreviated, fluid, cursive version of u-me. It is a common form of handwriting for notes and personal letters.
    • general cursive小草
    • extremely cursive 大草
  • The cug-ma-kyugyig style - a style halfway between cug'yig and kyug'yig
  • The gyug'yig (རྒྱུག་ཡིག།) style

Read more about this topic:  Tibetan Calligraphy

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