Watch the morning light catch a bamboo pen dipped in liquid gold. The hand holding it belongs to a monk who has spent his life preserving a language that Bhutanese Buddhists believe is the very sound of the devas.
Master Kezang Tshering is a lopen (monastic official) from Bhutan. He is a calligrapher from the kingdom’s Central Monastic Body. For decades, he has been a living bridge between the celestial realms—where the Dharma is taught in Sanskrit, according to Buddhist lore—and the young students sitting before him, bamboo cutter-pens trembling with focus. He has taught over three hundred monks and this year. In one of his classes, fifty monks and twenty-four lay de-ssung (royal volunteers) sat at his feet.
As the saying goes, 84,000 Dharma doors await, and this is one that Lopen Kezang has opened. What they are learning to write—in gold, silver, and black—is lha’i skad, the “divine language” spoken by all buddhas of past, present, and future.
A language that still sings
For most of the world, Sanskrit is a dead language. But in Bhutan’s Vajrayana Buddhism, it is alive—the supreme language to create the supreme field of spiritual energy. Sanskrit mantras are also called mantra-śabda: sacred vibrations that are the Buddha’s enlightened mind. To see them, write them, chant them, or even just gaze at a painting that holds them is to establish divine connection.
When I write Sanskrit, I hear a heavenly echo in the air that lingers, like an alluring violin tune. The thousand-year-old mantra echoes in monasteries, in the homes of hopeful practitioners, on the lips of Dharma kings and queens (chakravartins). It never fades.
Master Kezang creates luminous paintings, some of which were displayed at an exhibit for his art in Milarepa Centre, Hong Kong. On display were a gold Kalachakra mantra, a Medicine Buddha circled by healing syllables, and a fierce Kurukullā wrapped in her mantras. But his real masterpiece is his life’s artistic experience, which he gave exhibit visitors a glimpse of with a live workshop of Bhutanese calligraphy. During his stay in Hong Kong, which lasted for a month, he also gave classes to students excited to learn this art rarely taught outside of the Himalayan kingdom.
He will not let this tradition become a relic.
Why Sanskrit? Look to the sky
Why teach Sanskrit calligraphy in 21st century Bhutan? Because, as Shantideva’s Bodhisattvacharyāvatāra declares, this is the language “that all Buddhas of the three times spoke in the past, are speaking in the present and will speak in the future.”
Buddhist cosmology places the original Sanskrit teachings in celestial realms. In the Tuṣita Heaven, the Buddha gave the Prajñāpāramitā teachings in Sanskrit. In the Sambhogakāya Buddhas’ Pure Lands, the Dharma is taught only in Sanskrit. Even Amitābha vowed that in his own Pure Land, “the sounds of the Dharma will be in Sanskrit.”
Master Kezang passes this cosmic truth to his students. When they shape a single syllable, they handle a sacred technology transmitted through an unbroken chain of masters.
From India to the Himalayas
The historical Buddha once rejected Vedic Sanskrit, telling his disciples to teach in everyday languages. However, as Buddhism grew, Sanskrit became the tongue of royal courts and great universities. Mahayana scriptures from the 1st–4th centuries CE embraced it. Philosophers like Nāgārjuna used its razor precision to teach śūnyatā and the Bodhisattva path. At Nālandā and Vikramaśīla, monks from across Asia—including the Chinese master Xuanzang (602–64)—crossed mountains and deserts to master Sanskrit. They knew: a translated mantra is like a flower without its scent.
When Sanskrit faded in India, it found refuge in the Himalayas. Bhutan held it close. The Central Monastic Body made calligraphy a core practice. I had the privilege of viewing the first Sanskrit Prajñāpāramitā text at Bhutan’s oldest temple—its aura fills every corner of that sacred space. I also had the privilege to study writing mantras in Sanskrit for one month. I find the ancient calligraphy brings unsurpassed tranquillity and peace to my practice, a stillness with a resonance. As always, that heavenly echo follows like an invisible incense lingering in the air.
Today, Master Kezang is one of the last great inheritors.
Gold, healing, and dancing fire
Look at his Kalachakra mantra in gold. The Suvarṇaprabhāsa Sūtra teaches that copying sacred texts in gold generates exponentially greater merit. Master Kezang explains: “Offering gold to Buddha images and writing the Buddha’s teachings accumulates vast merit. The more precious the elements, the vaster the merit. Writing mantras in Sanskrit with precious gold ink—there, the accumulation is most profound, because all preciousness is gathered together.”
His Medicine Buddha (Bhaishajyaguru) painting shows the Lord of Healing encircled by his mantra. The mantra is literally healing, and far from a mere embellishment. The circle is a vibrational field that works on you just by being near it.
His Kurukullā thangka is a fierce red goddess dances with her flower bow, her short, enigmatic mantra woven into the composition. These are active forces. They attract. They transform. By writing them meticulously, Master Kezang turns the thangka into a living vessel.
A rare and precious chance
Why go to such lengths? Because, as Master Kezang says, almost no one gets this chance. If not him, who?
“Among billions of people, only a few million—maybe a hundred thousand—are fortunate enough to write and learn Sanskrit Dharma teachings,” he says. “Even among these, very few write the mantras of bodhisattvas and Buddhas in Sanskrit. Here we see the preciousness of Sanskrit—and especially of those who write mantras in Sanskrit.” He adds: “Writing in Sanskrit is double in merit than writing ordinary words.”
For practitioners, Sanskrit does four things. Seeing it plants seeds of liberation. One glance can plant the seed of bodhi in your mind-stream. Writing it accumulates merit. When students sit with bamboo pens, they benefit all beings. Reading it aligns your mind with the Buddha’s original vibration. Chanting it transforms your subtle body, purifying karmic impressions.
“Learning such calligraphy accumulates good karmic impressions and assists your spiritual journey to enlightenment,” Master Kezang says. “Sanskrit is the language of devas—beings of higher realms—and is only used for writing the Buddha’s Dharma. Such deeds benefit this life and many lifetimes to come, until enlightenment.”
The living transmission
Traditions need human hands. Bhutan’s Central Monastic Body has long supported Master Kezang’s work. His students—monks and lay de-ssung—are the future. They learn not just script forms, but also the understanding that writing Sanskrit is practice. Each syllable carries the Buddha’s speech.
One student told me: “When we sit to write, Master Kezang reminds us: you are not making letters. You are making offerings. Each one goes to the Buddhas.”
The echo never ends
Master Kezang’s gold Kalachakra catches the light. His Medicine Buddha circles with healing sound. His Kurukullā dances with mantras that enchant and liberate. But his greatest work is being written not on paper, but in the hearts and hands of his students.
They learn the curves of the uyi script. They chant what they write. And they become part of a transmission that began in Tuṣita Heaven, traveled through India and Nālandā, crossed the Himalayas, and arrived, still singing, in their hands.
The gold will never fade. The echo never ends. Sanskrit will never die.
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The Unhurried Brush: How Master Locho is Reviving India’s Lost Buddhist Art
The Infinite Line: Jao Tsung-I’s Buddhist Art and the Dunhuang Legacy
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