Tibetan traditions in the present

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The local government has invested over 20-million yuan in the making of "Story of Shambhala." The project started in April 2005, and is scheduled to finish in 2011. More than a hundred artists from Tibet, Sichuan, Gansu, Qinghai and Yunnan are collaborating.

The techniques for traditional paintings known as Thangka  are handed down from generation to generation.

One of the artists says the Thangka painting is a unique Tibetan art form. It originated in the reign of Sron Tsan Gampo, some one thousand years ago. Thangkas are made on various fabrics with a palette of water soluble pigments, both mineral and organic. The process demands great mastery over the drawing and perfect understanding of symbolism.