- Title
- Chakrasamvara and Vajravarahi
- Date Made
- late 14th-early 15th century
- Medium
- Gilt copper inlaid with gemstones
- Dimensions
- 9 1/2 x 7 1/2 x 3 1/2 in. (24.13 x 19.05 x 8.89 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.71.73.131
- Collecting Area
- South and Southeast Asian Art
- Curatorial Notes
In Tantric meditation, images such as this Nepalese sculpture serve as visualization tools for the meditative practices, in which the practitioner realizes his or her own identity as the fully enlightened Buddha. Each symbolic nuance of the intensely detailed iconography must be completely internalized, to the point that it becomes second nature during the meditations. This process cultivates of mental awareness to realize the absolute truth: the emptiness of all phenomena. It is the blissful nondual union of Chakrasamvara and Vajravarahi that metaphorically symbolizes this enlightened state.
This exquisite sculpture of the Chakrasamvara and Vajravarahi perfectly captures the bliss of the enlightened mind. Chakrasamvara is shown with his usual iconography of twelve arms, indicating the twelve-fold chain of causation in the phenomenal world. Vajravarahi blissfully looks up into Chakrasamvara’s face, offering him a skull-cup filled with purified ambrosia with her left hand, and holding a flaying knife, symbolizing the severing of conceptual thought with her left. Their dynamic, passionate energy in perfect union is further articulated by their lunging stance as they dance atop the bodies of the emaciated Kalaratri and the fierce Bhairava. Indeed, works of comparable quality continue to be commissioned by the initiated members of the Newar community even today, and equally skilled craftsmen have kept alive the knowledge of the aesthetic and iconographic requirements necessary to capture the abstract nature of the enlightened mind.
- Selected Bibliography
- Little, Stephen, Tushara Bindu Gude, Karina Romero Blanco, Silvia Seligson, Marco Antonio Karam. Las Huellas de Buda. Ciudad de México : Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 2018.
- Little, Stephen, and Tushara Bindu Gude. Realms of the Dharma: Buddhist Art across Asia. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2025.
