As the music plays, Thubten Gyaco, Tibet Autonomous Region’s master artisan of cultural heritage and his students have started another day of sculpting black jade Buddhas.

The black jade is found on mountain peaks at over 4500 meters, which is unique to the Tibetan plateau.

According to ancient texts, Nyatri Tsenpo, the first king of Tibet, once sealed sacred Buddhist texts and pagoda molds falling from the sky inside a cave, and covered them with a black jade pagoda, hence the first sculpted black jade artifact appeared in Tibetan history.

As the fifth generation heir of the art, Thubten Gyaco has continued his family legacy to work on the ancient art form. Tibetan black jade sculptures were included in the fourth batch of Tibet Autonomous Region’s cultural legacy archives in 2012.

Thubten Gyaco now has almost 30 students, and they are introducing the art of black jade sculptures to the world.

Photo taken on Jan.8th shows that Thubten Gyaco (right) and his student are sculpting the black jade Buddha sculptures.