Thangka of the Arhat Bhadra

This Tibetan thangka depicts the Arhat Bhadra as a monk with a shaved head, wearing a crimson and orange monastic robe. He is seated on a low wooden throne with a large, vibrant orange nimbus behind his head, his right hand raised in the vitarka mudra (gesture of teaching/discussion) and his left hand holding a rolled palm-leaf manuscript. Below him, a smaller figure of a disciple sits on the ground, wearing a simple robe and holding an alms bowl. The scene is set in a landscape with large flowering peonies, a distant mountain, swirling clouds, and birds in flight, all framed by a later Chinese silk brocade border.

Bhadra is one of the sixteen (or eighteen) Arhats of Buddhism, revered as the direct disciples of the historical Buddha, Gautama. His presence in Tibetan art signifies the preservation and transmission of the Dharma, often found in sets of paintings used for ritual veneration in monasteries.