The main function of tsakli is to make visible, in an instructive way, symbols that are meaningful to religious practice. To facilitate visualization during a ritual, tsakli are sometimes briefly shown to the initiates by the officiating lama (religious master) by simply holding the card at arms’ length, or they may be held by a stick as part of other ritual items on an altar. Sometimes the cards on an altar are changed gradually over a course of several days as a series of teachings unfold. Tsakli may also serve as substitutes for ritual items that are difficult to obtain, such as precious stones of different colors, or flayed skins of demons.

Tsakli could be displayed by a lama to his students while chanting a mantra (repeated phrase) from a book of manuscript pages similar to the page in this exhibition. The tsakli’s small size and amazing iconographical detail necessitated that the class of students also be small and intimate. Imagine, too, that the interior of the huge monasteries would be dimly lit by lamps fueled with the clarified dri (female yak) butter.