The tradition of producing Tibetan Buddhist scroll paintings has ensured a decent quality of life in a remote village in Qinghai province.

Lama apprentice Drupa Dargye works on a thangka at the Snowland Art Center of Wutun. Photos by China Daily

In stark contrast to most of the country's villages, none of Wutun's young people have left to work in the city. That's because this settlement of about 2,500 in Northwestern China's Qinghai province already has its own more lucrative version of assembly line work - that is, producing thangka (tangka), or Tibetan Buddhist scroll paintings.

It's a trade plied by nearly every man in Wutun. And it's estimated that more than half of the thangkas in the country are produced in the village, including many in such prestigious monasteries as Tashilhunpo, Tar and Labrang.

Most thangka instead end up in private homes. Depending on size and quality, they can fetch a few hundred yuan to more than a million a piece for their creators.

"There are so many orders that I can't possibly finish them and have to let my students help me," painter Nyangbon says.

Wutun, which is located in Huangnan Tibetan autonomous prefecture's Tongren county, has sustained a tradition of thangka painting since the 15th century, when Tibetan Buddhism rapidly spread throughout the area.

Many monasteries were erected during this period, and the mix of Tibetans, Tu and other ethnic groups who lived in the area set about painting religious images to adorn them.

These skilled artisans also traveled throughout the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, painting as they went.

But it was only a few years ago the folk art came to offer a viable way to make a living.

Nyangbon says there were fewer than 100 people in the village able to paint thangka when he began studying the art form in the early 1980s, during which time Buddhism reemerged after being forbidden during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76).

When Nyangbon opened a small thangka shop in Lhasa in the 1990s, a 70-cm-by-55-cm painting sold for 500 yuan ($57). The same work would today be priced between 5,000 and 50,000 yuan.

Nyangbon's personal record for a high-price sale came when he sold a work depicting the life of Sakyamuni for 1 million yuan ($147,160) in 2007.

His Regong Painting Institute last year grossed 12 million yuan, a figure already surpassed this year.

"The price climbs are related to the growing popularity of Tibetan Buddhism," Kartsegyal says.

"As more Han people begin to practice Tibetan Buddhism, thangka has become increasingly popular among a broader demographic."