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Collections

Unknown
Dancing Vajravarahi

Not on view
No image
Artist or Maker
Unknown
Title
Dancing Vajravarahi
Place Made
Central Tibet, Densatil Monastery (?)
Curatorial Notes
This is an exceptionally dynamic depiction of the esoteric Buddhist goddess Vajravarahi (Adamantine Sow), the embodiment of transcendent wisdom. Highly venerated in her own right, Vajravarahi is also the consort of Chakrasamvara, the personification of transcendent compassion. In her aspect depicted here, in a dancing posture, she is the supreme dakini, a group of female divinities who represent the generative power and innate presence of the Buddha that is found in all sentient beings. Her dance of enlightenment overcomes and dispels delusion, which is symbolized by the small head of a female pig that projects above her right ear (visible from the rear). Her flying scarf conveys the exuberance of her dance and lends an energetic sense of movement to the sculpture. The goddess holds a chopper in her raised right hand and a skull cup in her left, which she uses respectively to cut through the fog of ignorance and to hold the blood symbolic of wisdom's triumph over delusion. This image may have once adorned a temple at the famed Densatil Monastery complex in central Tibet, which was destroyed during the Chinese Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976.
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.
  • McGill, Forrest, editor. Beyond Bollywood: 2000 Years of Dance in the Arts of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Himalayan Region. San Francisco, CA: Asian Art Museum, 2022.
  • Little, Stephen, and Tushara Bindu Gude. Realms of the Dharma: Buddhist Art across Asia. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2025.