The Lama with unusually realistic features appears to be a portrait of an actual personage, as his right eye is in the customary downcast position, while his left stares straight ahead as if blind. His smile is pronounced and wide, unlike the stylised smile of idealised figures. His body, however, is seated on a lotus throne in the entirely stylised form of the deity Tzongkhapa – the founder of the Gelugpa, or reformed Yellow Hat sect of Tibetan Buddhism – himself an emanataion of Manjusri, the god of wisdom. This is indicated by the sword and book (pustaka) borne on a lotus flower to either shoulder.