This 7.75″ Guru Marpa statue is fully fire gilded in 24K gold with elaborate hand-engraved scroll patterns throughout the robes and the characteristic square throne base — a level of surface detail that reflects the exceptional care the Newar artisan tradition brings to depictions of the great Kagyu lineage holders. The face is hand-painted with the distinctive features of Marpa Lotsawa — the dark skullcap, the strong brow, the expression of a man who spent decades in sustained scholarly and contemplative effort — rendered with the precision that the lost wax sculpting method makes possible. The statue was handcrafted in Patan, Nepal by master artisans of the Shakya caste. Learn more about Guru Marpa statues and his role in the Kagyu lineage.
Marpa Chökyi Lodrö (1012–1097 CE) — Marpa Lotsawa, “Marpa the Translator” — was born into a wealthy Tibetan family in Lhodrak and converted his inheritance into gold to fund multiple arduous journeys to India, where he studied under the mahasiddha Naropa to receive the Mahamudra teachings and the Six Yogas that became the foundation of the Kagyu school. He returned to Tibet, translated these teachings from Sanskrit, and established the first transmission of the living Kagyu lineage. His most celebrated student was Milarepa, whose years of trials under Marpa — building and demolishing towers on Marpa’s instruction — are among the most documented teacher-student encounters in all of Tibetan Buddhist literature. The third and final of those towers, a nine-story stone structure Milarepa built in the eleventh century in Lhodrak, is said to stand to this day — a physical monument to the specific pedagogical method through which Marpa transmitted the Dharma and purified his student’s karmic obstacles simultaneously. Marpa originally intended his son Tarma Dode to inherit the lineage, but after his son’s death, Milarepa became the principal heir and transmitted what he received to Gampopa, whose students founded the major Kagyu sub-schools that continue today.
Guru Marpa Statue Features
This statue depicts Guru Marpa as the Tibetan accounts describe him: seated in a posture of grounded authority on an engraved square throne — the throne form appropriate for a great householder master rather than a monastic figure — wearing the robes of a Tibetan lay practitioner with the elaborate engraving work that marks the finest examples of Newar sacred metalwork. The fully gilded surface gives the figure the formal quality suited to an altar placed in the presence of a Kagyu teacher or used as a focus for guru yoga practice, in which the practitioner visualizes the teacher’s mind-transmission as inseparable from one’s own awareness.
Authentic, Handmade in Nepal
Every statue and ritual item is handcrafted in Patan, Nepal, using traditional lost wax casting and comes with a certificate of authenticity issued by Nepal's Department of Archaeology, verifying its materials, technique, and origin.
