[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Thanks Jim for a great summary on the Talisman Cintimani subject which spans so many centuries and religions down the ages. In the book shown below which I highly recommend to members it describes the difficulty encountered by the Othmanli had immense problems dealing with beurocratic issues at the best of times but in the question of liaison among the different quality workshops it was very chaotic...even though it may be said that in war they had great ability in mastering logistics...in other areas this was not the case.

In fact there was an overall sort of pecking order or authority over other master works that the Royal calligraphers seemed to have but it simply didn't work... specialists in the different disciplines of high quality craftsmanship took the designs to whatever end they were moving...so the Cintimani moved from concept to concept and even split in two the three circles or ideas from the so called tigers stripes so that they often morphed into separate designs or placed in the composition in separate areas or both.

I digress but in support of more pictures here is my next set of quite amazing photographs worth seeing from the Othmanli period on this issue. The red Koran holder showing only dots while the brown Koran holder only wavy lines i.e. Tiger stripes now morphed into cloud patterns and also seen in Turkish Rugs...AND in the decoration of the shield also incorporating dots and cloud patterns but spread separately.

Note that the Ottoman ceramic bottle has clear designs of the Cintimani and the possible shape of the tiger stripes lending themselves to The Buddha lips idea.

A most peculiar painting of a Japanese 3 dotted alter with what seems to be a sacrifice with the perpetrator making an escape and the dead body laid in front of the three ball device? A pointer toward Buddhist involvement?