Unique to Tibetan Buddhism, Thangkas are paintings or embroidered scrolls made of fabrics like silk and cotton. Usually found in family altars, monasteries and carried by Buddhist monks for ceremonies. Thangkas portrays anything from Buddhas, their lives, great masters and mandalas. Some 2,500 years ago, Siddhartha Gautama, a prince of the royal Shakya Clan of Nepal, meditated under the bodhi tree (a type of fig tree) in the Indian town of Bodh Gaya (in eastern India) and attained enlightenment.