Robert Beer's Tibetan Symbols book

Today a wonderful book arrived! The Encyclopedia of Tibetan Symbols and Motifs, by Robert Beer -- picked up (new) on eBay. It's over 350 pages, hardback, of lions, tigers, buddhas, astrological symbols, with explanations in text I'll probably never get to ;-) There is, for instance, an entire page of deer in different poses, 4 or 5 plates of nothing but flame motifs, patterns and mandals, wrathful and benevolent. I forgot how much I love Tibetan Buddhist art.

Years ago (before I had nearly enough respect for the fact that books do go out of print), I acquired an earlier edition of Tibetan Thangka Painting, Methods and Materials and wrote iconographic notes right into the margins of the book! At that time (pre-Internet), it was not that easy to find information, so I stuffed the book with postcards, little pages of notes I took down at the library, etc. Then a couple of years ago when I started selling off some of my block prints of Himalayan and Tibetan Buddhist prints, I found a scads of wonderful resources on the net that simply weren't available to me (and you) before... here are a few:

• Little Tibetan Buddhist Iconography from the Dharmapala Thangka Centre
• Female Buddhas and Bodhisatvas from Sakyadhita, the International Assoc. of Buddhist Women
• Japanese Buddhist Mudras (hand gestures) and a short list of Tibetan Mudras
• Tibetan Buddhis Symbols (poke around this site for more pages on iconography)