Skeletons, whether lying down in a cemetery, hanging over the branch of a tree, standing, walking, dancing, or in a pair, always represent impermanence and death in Himalayan art. This goes back to the Pali canon’s meditations on the stages of corpse decomposition. The skeleton is the ultimate decomposition; there’s really nothing left, unless you grind up the bones.

The dancing skeletons, which we see here, are properly named in Sanskrit: Shri Shmashana Adhipati, or “Revered Lords of the Cemetery.” The term Chitipati, or “Lord of the funeral pyre,” is also commonly used nowadays, but this word does not exist in any of the ritual texts or the root tantras.

The Shri Shmashana Adhipati comes from a text called The Secret Mind Wheel Tantra, part of the Chakrasamvara cycle of tantras. There are three ways to view these figures. The first is as meditational deities. In this practice, they are actually protector deities and sometimes wealth deities. The second is as dancing figures, which we will discuss more below. The third area is cemetery scenes. In depictions of these scenes, it’s naturally very common to have one or two or more skeletons. These skeletons represent impermanence and signal that the cemetery is a frightening place where you have to be even more aware, more conscious, because it may be full of zombies and all sorts of terrible things.

There is a Shmashana Adhipati dance in the Sakya tradition (one of the major schools of Tibetan Buddhism), but it was developed only about 250 years ago. It doesn’t go back 900 years, as the practice from The Secret Mind Wheel Tantra does. Other traditions might have adopted some form of skeleton dance as well.

You would normally see images like these in the protector chapel of a monastery or a temple. They would be community commissions for the traditions that have Shri Shmashana Adhipati as one of their main protectors. For an individual devotee of this practice, you would likely have a small painting done, or a small clay figure or small sculpture.

The dancing skeletons we see here, in a painting dating to roughly the 19th century, are meant to be frightening. Each dancer—one male, one female—holds a fused spine staff and a skull cup full of blood. The female can also hold a sheaf of barley or rice in her right hand, signifying abundance, and in her left hand, she has a golden vase, representing wealth. The skulls they wear represent the five aggregates and the five wisdoms, meaning complete Buddhahood. That makes them wisdom deities rather than worldly deities. The landscape where they exist is not one you’ll see out your window. It’s not part of samsara. They are emanations. This is an interesting subject: Which deities are alive and which are emanations?

The skeleton is the ultimate decomposition.

Maybe the only unique thing about this particular depiction is that one figure stands on a conch shell and the other on a cowry shell, which are believed to have protective properties. They stand on a sun disk, representing the thought of enlightenment, and they’re completely surrounded by flames of pristine awareness.

They both wear hair ribbons, even though they don’t have any hair, and this is an artistic convention, to add visual interest to the composition. These hair ribbons may have developed out of the dance mentioned above rather than being part of the iconography. All of these decorative ribbons may be a case of art imitating life, because we don’t have those in the original images of Shri Shmashana Adhipati. They appear only in more modern images.

As far as the oldest images go, we can go back to the 13th or 14th century, but we will not find the skeleton deities as central figures. They will appear as secondary figures within a larger composition along with other protectors, because it was not a major practice. Skeleton figures generally appeared in the lower corners of paintings back then, since the practice was more a minor protection practice that required initiation and a twenty-one-day retreat.

These figures were pulled to the fore at some point later. And the open landscape behind them, with floating figure paintings, appears only in the modern era, say the last few hundred years or so, beginning in the 17th century.

There is a tremendous amount of artistic variation in the iconography of the two dancing skeletons. The artist has a fair amount of flexibility to place the arms and legs in different positions. The male should be dancing on his right leg, and the female on the left, which is the case here, but beyond that there is a lot of interesting artistic invention and variation, if you look at a number of these images.

They’re not as static as a lot of forms that we’re used to, as with Avalokiteshvara or Kalachakra. There’s an acceptance in these depictions for the artists to be creative. There’s a certain freedom that comes out and makes for very entertaining images.

The post The Dancing Skeletons appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

The red dancing figure seen here is the dakini Vajrayogini, a Tantric deity who is the female counterpart to Chakrasamvara, the chief deity of the Chakrasamvara Tantras, an important collection of Buddhist texts and practices.

Vajrayogini is one of the most important, most often reproduced figures in Himalayan art, sculpture, and painting, going back as early as the 8th or 9th century. This particular image is from Bhutan and dates to the 19th century.

But what exactly is a dakini? As with all Tantric deities, representations of dakinis have three meanings: outer, inner, and secret. The outer meaning will be discussed here. Practitioners can learn the secret meanings of Tantric deity representations only when they complete more profound teachings on the practice, and this may require retreats of three months, six months, and so on.

There are three types of deity appearances: peaceful, wrathful, and then semi-peaceful/semi-wrathful, which falls somewhere in between. This depiction is the third type and is also referred to as Vajravarahi, which refers to the sow’s head next to the face, described below.

Vajrayogini dances atop a prone figure, representing the ego. In Tantric Buddhism, one practice is to meditate on oneself as a deity. The purpose of this practice is to open up the mind to the idea that we don’t have to be who we usually think we are—a samsaric delusional being. We can be something else, and to do that, we have to suppress the ego, which we see here being trampled underfoot. This prone figure should not be looked at literally as a dead body.

In her right hand, Vajrayogini holds a hooked blade, a knife used for skinning, and it has a vajra handle. (If you’ve ever seen someone skin a deer, then you know that you don’t use a straight knife.) In her left hand, she has a skull bowl, and it’s full of what looks like blood and is generally described as the blood of the four Maras, tempters who need to be defeated along with the ego. She also has a khatvanga staff in the crook of her arm. This staff is a stand-in for Vajrayogini’s consort, the wrathful aspect of Chakrasamvara, as well as the other deities of the mandala. Its presence indicates that she is part of something larger.

Vajrayogini is one of the most important, most often reproduced figures in Himalayan art. 

To the left of her face, which is her right side, there is a sow’s head. Vajrayogini is also called, in Tibetan, shal nyi ma, meaning two-faced, because of these two heads. And of the two heads, the sow’s head is more important, because the main face represents relative truth. The sow’s head represents the ultimate truth, since sows often find food under the ground that no one else can see. This is a metaphor for digging out the ego and reaching enlightenment.

She also wears a garland of fifty freshly severed heads, representing the Sanskrit alphabet. At least, that’s one meaning of the severed heads. The secret meaning is accessible only to students of the tantra.

At the top of the composition, the lama with the blue hat is a Gyalwang Drukchen. If you meet the current Gyalwang Drukchen, who lives in Ladakh, you’ll see that he often wears this blue hat. This is one of his predecessors from the 19th century. All three figures are Bhutanese teachers from the same era.

Several figures surround Vajrayogini. These are her retinue, other yoginis from the Chakrasamvara Tantra. The presence of these figures indicate that Vajrayogini practice is just one part of a larger collection of practices.

An interesting feature of this representation is the dakini at top right dancing on her right leg. This is a highly unusual depiction, since usually only males are depicted this way. The others in this image conform to the depiction, in which dakinis dance on the left leg.

Dakinis emerged from Indian culture, particularly Shaivism, the worship of Shiva. To this day in India, “dakini” refers to a class of cannibalistic, blood-drinking witches. They generally inhabit cemeteries and charnel grounds. Shiva and Durga were said to have hordes of followers called dakini—witches and women warriors—who eventually developed into higher sorts of beings, and Buddhism took the concept from here. The ambivalent nature of dakinis, sometimes helping and sometimes harming humans, is meant to caution practitioners to avoid dualities.

It is common today to see “dakini” used as an epithet, a term of respect and endearment. But the word and its representation are tied to specific practices and have specific meanings in the correct context. Attempting to generalize them leads to confusion.

The post Dakinis Explained appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

The bardo is the “fourth state” of existence, after birth, life, and death, and is a time when, if your life wasn’t good enough for a rebirth in a higher realm or no rebirth at all you get another chance.

Though popular in the West today, the bardo is not universally accepted within Buddhism. Coming from pre-Buddhist Indian culture, bardo practice is primarily found in Tantric traditions. Bardo practice gained adherents in the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism for devotees of the Guhyagarba Tantra and soon spread to the Kagyu and other schools. Karma Lingpa, a 14th-century Nyingmapa, is credited with introducing the Bardo Thodol, a manual for bardo practice and ritual. The popularity of the 1927 Evans-Wentz translation of this manual, with the inaccurate title The Tibetan Book of the Dead (more accurately, “liberation through hearing in the intermediate state”), brought the bardo to the attention of Buddhists across all traditions and the world beyond.

Bardo practice is done as a preparation for death and is often a funerary rite performed for the recently deceased. After death it’s thought that practitioners pass through the bardo in seven-day cycles, which can be repeated up to seven times, for a total of forty-nine days. The notion of forty-nine days was borrowed from the Kshitigarbha Sutra, which also deals with the afterlife.

There are several possible purposes for a painting like the one shown here. One is that it could be commissioned for personal practice. The second possibility is that it was done as a funerary work. It’s common in Tibet to have paintings made when people die. And the third possibility is that it’s done just for instructional purposes or general blessing.

(1)

In the upper portion of this composition, we see two large circles and a small circle, and then figures in the upper corners of the painting. The two large circles represent the one hundred peaceful and wrathful buddhas, or deities, of the bardo. The forty-two peaceful deities are in one circle, and the fifty-eight wrathful deities are in the other. Practitioners are taught to look on all lovely, peaceful, quiescent thoughts as peaceful deities and all troublesome, neurotic, anxious, terror-filled thoughts as wrathful deities. There’s a smaller circle above the one hundred deities that represents the five buddha families: Vairochana, Akshobhya, Ratnasambhava, Amitabha, and Amoghasiddhi. These five buddhas are familiar to Tantric practitioners and can be seen in many depictions. In the top left corner, you have Padmasambhava, whom Nyingmapas regard as the founder of Tibetan Buddhism, and in the top right corner, you have Yeshe Tsogyal, the preeminent woman in the Nyingma tradition, who transcribed many terma, texts hidden for future generations to discover. Her presence here indicates that this is a terma teaching.

(2)

Toward the bottom right, we have a vertical depiction of the wheel of life, but with the six realms of existence favored by the Nyingmapas rather than the five favored by other Buddhist traditions. We see six buddhas that represent the six realms, but they also represent the overcoming and transforming of the six realms, symbolically blocking the practitioner from being reborn in a lower realm. It’s important to remember that buddhas don’t live in these worlds. There are buddhas and the dharma only in the human realm. At the top is the realm of the gods, or devas, surrounded by fruit trees and living the good life. The devas are too busy enjoying themselves to practice the dharma, so eventually their karma will bring them back down to lower worlds. Below them are the asuras, the jealous demigods, and this is the realm that most other Buddhists include with the devas in the realm above. The third realm is the human realm, and we see a laborer here and dharma practitioners. Below the humans is the world of animals, then the realm of hungry ghosts, and finally hell, specifically a cold hell. It’s a snow-covered landscape, and there are heads buried in the snow and ice up to their necks.

(3)

Below that, at the bottom of the painting, is the hot hell, and we can see blue-skinned figures associated with Yama, the lord of death, torturing unfortunate people here. This section is connected to the actual bardo journey, above to the left, and is the destination for those beings weighed down with karma, who slide down on their bellies into this steamy molten hothouse.

(4)

Above this we see Yama, with blue skin and hair shooting upward. The practitioner has died, and this is the point when they’re asked, Are you going down? Are you going up? It’s when the mirror comes out and your deeds are reflected. We see a zigzagging white path going upward, while the lower half is black and looks like a waterslide. People are naked and upside down, falling and sliding down into hell. But some people have exhausted their karma in hell and they’re climbing upward. If we follow the path up to the top, we see Amitabha with Avalokiteshvara on one side and Vajrapani on the other, and people are being welcomed into Sukhavati, the pure land of Amitabha. There’s a lot of wishfulness and aspiration in this section of the painting.

(5)

At the center is Vajrasattva, the progenitor of all of the peaceful deities and wrathful deities in this painting. Vajrasattva is the lord of all the buddha families and is capable of clearing away all defilements and impurities. He can also be understood to be the practitioner, so this can be you or me but not our ignorant, greedy, samsaric mind. It’s our potential for enlightenment. It’s our wishing and bodhicitta and our buddhanature, represented as Vajrasattva. He is the lynchpin to the entire composition. Three rainbow lines emanate from his head to form the circles of deities above.

In early Buddhism, the in-between state, or the antarabhava in Sanskrit, is not very important, because once you get there, it’s game over and they’re setting up the board again. It’s only in Vajrayana Buddhism, with the proper training, that you have an opportunity in the bardo, but bardo instructions are a last chance. If you’re focused on bardo teachings, it actually means you’re doing remedial work. You’re not the sharpest kid in the class, because this is really your last opportunity to make good.

The post A Tour of the Bardo appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

The bhavacakra, the “wheel of existence,” or “wheel of birth and death,” found painted on the walls outside Tibetan Buddhist temples in Tibet, India, and China, goes back to a text from an early Indian school preserved in Chinese and Tibetan translations (the Mulasarvastivada-vinaya vibhanga). The text explains how it came about that the Buddha asked for the wheel to be painted and gives the blueprint provided for rendering the image.

Maudgalyayana, one of the Buddha’s two main disciples, after periodically traveling through the realms of existence would return to describe them, inspiring those he addressed to make efforts to follow the Buddha’s teachings. For the benefit of those who would not be able to hear Maudgalyayana, the Buddha said that the wheel of life should be painted outside the front entrance to temples and that a monk should be appointed to explain the painting to pilgrims. The bhavacakra, it should be noted, was in the beginning always a mural, not a thangka, or scroll painting.

Visually, the wheel contains several distinct parts. While there are many variations, the following sections are most common and can be seen in the image to the left, starting at the center and moving outward: the three poisons; good and bad karma; the five or six realms of existence; the twelve links of causation, or dependent origination; and, holding the wheel, a demon representing impermanence.

The instruction stipulated that a Buddha should be at the center of the wheel, with a pig, a snake, and a bird ➊ (representing the three poisons of ignorance, aversion, and attachment, respectively) placed in front of him. However, this configuration is extremely rare: early on in the wheel’s depictions the Buddha figure was moved to the upper right corner ➋, outside the wheel itself, in what appears to be a Tibetan innovation. In the earliest extant wheel of life—from the 4th or 5th century CE, in the Ajanta Caves in India—the original instruction is followed; but in the version shown in our illustration, the central circle or disk contains only the representation of the three poisons.

The next segment is a white and black disk. The white section represents meritorious actions (which are moving upward toward the top of the circle) ➌. The black half shows bad actions (moving downward toward the bottom) ➍. In the source text the Buddha likens this to a water wheel with buckets going up one side and down the other, a depiction seen in some examples of the wheel in China.

Whether we know it or not, we’re all on the wheel—at least until we get enlightened.

Next are the realms of existence. Naraka (Skt., “hell”) is at the bottom ➎. On the next level are animals on one side ➏ and ghosts on the other ➐. Above them are the human realm ➑ and the gods’ realm ➒. In the Nyingma tradition, one of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism, bhavacakras are most likely to depict six realms, as described in the Guhyagarbha Tantra (the primary text studied by this school), where the gods’ realm is split into two: devas (the gods) and asuras (jealous demigods); in the latter realm there is no dharma and no opportunity for enlightenment.

In the final ring, outside the realms of existence, are the twelve links of dependent origination, beginning with ignorance, here represented by a blind person with a walking stick ➓.

The Buddha also mentions a fearsome, ugly creature that embraces the wheel—the demon of impermanence, as the Chinese translation names him. The demon is not Yama, the lord of death, although that is who he is commonly held to be; Yama’s presence would place undue emphasis on death. In the Tibetan artistic tradition, it has become the custom to adorn the demon with ornaments such as a crown, earrings, jewelry, and a tiger-skin skirt, as if it were a wrathful deity like Mahakala or Vajrapani. Many teachers, including the Dalai Lama, believe that such complimentary decoration is inappropriate for a demon. Some traditions, such as the Mongolian, generally do not decorate the demon.

The Buddha said also that the upper corner of the painting should show two verses describing the purity of nirvana, which is represented by a white sphere. This last symbolic element is sometimes painted as a moon, and Tibetans therefore often paint a rabbit on it, after a well-known Jataka story featuring a pure-hearted rabbit whose image is inscribed on the moon. The Buddha figure is seen in the corner opposite the moon, because having achieved nirvana, he is free of the wheel.

When looking at a bhavacakra, it doesn’t really matter where you start on the wheel, but it does matter that you go clockwise when observing the twelve links of dependent origination.

You will see many variations of the bhavacakra, but most will contain the same essential features discussed here. Whether we know it or not, we’re all on the wheel—at least until we get enlightened and can hop off at the top like the Buddha!

The post What’s in a Symbol? Bhavacakra appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Students and fans of Himalayan art know the Himalayan Art Resources website for its extensive catalog of artwork from Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, India, China, and Mongolia, and the detailed information that accompanies each painting, sculpture, or textile. Known to many as HAR, the virtual museum and educational resource is approaching its 25th anniversary this September, and it recently added a new important resource tool to its roster: video. Two years ago, on June 9, 2020, when HAR Director and Chief Curator and professor Jeff Watt had to pause in-person teaching due to the pandemic, he started posting videos to YouTube, which also landed on HAR’s website. On June 9, 2022, he posted his 500th video. Tricycle caught up with Watt to learn more about the endeavor, and what’s next for Himalayan Art Resources. 

How did this video project start? Were videos meant for your students or for a wider audience? Some videos were a little bit technical, and they were based on questions from students. Other ones were just very general, like a series on a particular deity or a series on religious hats and how to recognize them to be able to identify paintings or sculptures and what tradition they belong to. We started with questions, but expanded because we wanted to make more videos. 

And now you’re up to 500 videos? We put the 500th video up on YouTube on June 9, 2022, but we actually have more than that, because we already have 16 or so videos up on our Patreon account.

Beyond answering questions for students, how do you choose the topics of the videos? A lot of the topics aren’t necessarily based on questions, but they’re based on discussions with students. For example, I have one student who’s very interested in the subject of Tara. So we’ve done a lot of videos on Tara because it’s also a very good generic deity that you can use to explain a lot of different things. You can explain a little bit of history, iconography, and tantric theory and function. Plus, there’s some very good art in museums or monasteries around the world that is quite well known, such as the famous Tara at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Some topics are very popular, and sometimes we choose topics because we think they’re important, but they get very few hits on YouTube. Other times we choose a topic because it’s a hole in the series that we want to fill.

Is there any type of order or progression? No, and we’re not using YouTube as the primary destination. If you go to the Himalayan Art Resources website, then all of these videos are cross-linked to all the subjects that relate to that topic. We view that as the primary destination because people who are going to the website and searching on a topic are the people who will benefit most from the videos.

Have you changed or updated your approach since the first video? Yes, it really has changed. And because we’ve reached 500 videos, we’re now pivoting to a new area. First, we’re going to slow down a bit on the free YouTube videos and we’re also going to come up with new techniques to make those videos quicker and a little bit easier. One approach is doing more site locations, where I’m just introducing the topic, and it’s the images that have to carry the video. What people don’t see behind the scenes is with some of these videos, and especially questions from students, I have to then go into the HAR website and update certain pages and make things clearer, or sometimes branch out and make more pages on that topic. 

So that actually is a lot of work. A five- or six-minute video might actually take two hours, or even three or four hours, if I need to do more research, or if I really want to translate a Tibetan passage or something to add more depth to the subject. 

Then, we want to pivot back to Patreon. We treat the Himalayan Art Resources website as the information conduit; it’s just the information. It’s like going to the library. But on Patreon we want to be more editorial. Also, on Patreon we can talk about auction houses and what art is coming up for sale, whether or not it’s any good, and whether or not they are sleepers—or art that’s undervalued that people don’t realize could be a tremendous asset to somebody. What are people not looking at? What’s really of value that’s hidden in the bottom of the box?

We’re also going to be devising some single 50-minute lectures on Teachable and eventually a three-lecture course to go a little bit deeper. 

Explore HAR’s videos via its website or YouTube Channel, and check out the Patreon channel here.

♦

Join Jeff Watt for a conversation on decoding tantric art on July 28 at 4 p.m. EST. Register here.

The post Himalayan Art Resources Posts Its 500th Video appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

The vajra (Skt., “lightning bolt”; Tib., dorje) plays an important role in Buddhist art and ritual and is particularly associated with Vajrayana Buddhism, the vehicle (yana) of the vajra, representing indestructable power. Several early Mahayana sutras speak of the vajra samadhi, the final meditative absorption a bodhisattva engages in before entering full buddhahood. The place of Shakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment is known as the vajra asana (vajrasana), a term that refers both to the actual site (marked by a stone slab) and, by extension, to Bodh Gaya. The posture of the meditating Buddha is also called the vajrasana, the posture known to yoga practitioners today.

Most often the vajra appears as a weapon, like the lightning bolt of the northern European god Thor or the southern European god Zeus; it is especially associated with the Indian Vedic god Indra, king of the heavens, who appears in early Buddhist tales as Shakra (“mighty”). The vajra as weapon is wielded like a club by figures such as the wrathful deity Vajrapani in order to subjugate an external or internal obstacle and thus is simultaneously a tool of compassion and skillful means leading to the indestructible state of enlightenment.

In Vajrayana Buddhism the vajra, bell, and mala (prayer beads) are the three most important ritual objects. The vajra and bell are not typically part of ordinary daily practice, but for group practice or a major ritual they are used together, sometimes with the addition of a drum. The vajra is also an object of visualization: in the practice of deity meditation, the foundational meditation of Vajrayana Buddhism, the practitioner at one stage is commonly asked to visualize the mind becoming or appearing as a vajra.

The physical form of a vajra is determined by the specific ritual purpose it will serve. Often its basic design is that of a short central section with prongs on either side that curve inward to create a spherical enclosure. In Japanese traditions such as Shingon or Shugendo a single-pronged vajra is generally used for protection from the snakelike beings known as nagas.

Most commonly seen is the five-pronged vajra, which can represent the five celestial Buddhas, the five Buddha wisdoms, and so on. This form is favored by the “new schools” of Tibetan Buddhism (Kadam, Sakya, Kagyu, Gelug, and Jonang), whereas the “old school”—the Nyingma—often prefers a nine-pronged vajra, which has various meanings including a reference to categories of Nyingma teachings.

The appearance of the vajra also varies from region to region. In a provincial area, a vajra may be shaped distinctively simply because its creator is not familiar with the traditional form. Vajras coming out of India and Nepal at the end of the first millennium CE are usually simple in design; more ornate examples appear in China during the Yuan dynasty of the early 14th century when the ruling Mongolian emperor had elaborate vajras and bells created as gifts for Mongolian teachers, and again during the Ming dynasty when the Yongle emperor had gifts made for the visiting Karmapa of the Kagyu school.

The post What’s in a Symbol? Vajra appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Buddhist practice and Buddhist art have been inseparable in the Himalayas ever since Buddhism arrived to the region in the eighth century. But for the casual observer it can be difficult to make sense of the complex iconography. Not to worry—Himalayan art scholar Jeff Watt is here to help. In this “Himalayan Buddhist Art 101” series, Jeff is making sense of this rich artistic tradition by presenting weekly images from the Himalayan Art Resources archives and explaining their roles in the Buddhist tradition.

Part 1: Dorje Shugden
Part 2: The Svastika
Part 3: Ithyphallic Deities

Controversial Art, Part 4: The Female Nude

Himalayan style erotic art, or obvious depictions of a sexual nature, are generally of three types: there are the embracing couples found in the highest level of Buddhist tantra, ithyphallic deities, and nude female figures. As for the couples, they are not very revealing in their embrace, with their anatomy is mostly concealed. The ithyphallic deities are certainly more provocative, though there are very few of them found in the pantheon of deities. The Mahadeva and Ganapati forms are certainly the more shocking from this group. 

The nude female figure is easily the most pervasive of these types in painting and sculpture. She appears as a central figure in painted compositions, and as a repeated retinue figure in the mandala arrangements of many other deities. When the nude female is a central figure, she is almost always identified as a form, or related form, of Vajrayogini—a very prominent meditational deity in tantric Buddhist practice. 

Yoginis, as a class of deities, are depicted as nude female figures wearing a crown of jewel or bone ornaments, along with earrings, bracelets, anklets, girdles, and so forth. They may also have a scarf or shawl over their shoulders, as well as ribbons attached to the crown or looped around their earrings. The term dakini is commonly employed in reference to yoginis. There are, of course, technical definitions and textual distinctions as to which term should be used for a given deity. 

The first example is of Vajrayogini in a form known as Vajravarahi. The term varahi relates to the long-snouted boar’s head attached to the right side of her own. The second example is a white-colored Vajrayogini known in Tibetan as Kachod Karmo. Here the imagery is very revealing, with legs raised and vulva fully exposed. Kachod Karmo is probably the most animated and graphic example of the female nude in Himalayan art. 

The last example is a Nepalese depiction of the Hindu goddess Kali seated atop the prone form of Bhairava, the wrathful form of the god Shiva. Under Bhairava is the quiescent Shiva, white in color, with four arms, and wearing a tiger skin. The imagery of this painting symbolizes the dominance of the female principle over that of the male. Sexually explicit iconography and art is actually far more common in the many different forms of Hinduism, such as Shaiva and Shakta, than it is in tantric Buddhism and the art of the Buddhist Himalayas.

The post Himalayan Buddhist Art 101: Controversial Art, Part 4 – The Female Nude appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Buddhist practice and Buddhist art have been inseparable in the Himalayas ever since Buddhism arrived to the region in the eighth century. But for the casual observer it can be difficult to make sense of the complex iconography. Not to worry—Himalayan art scholar Jeff Watt is here to help. In this “Himalayan Buddhist Art 101” series, Jeff is making sense of this rich artistic tradition by presenting weekly images from the Himalayan Art Resources archives and explaining their roles in the Buddhist tradition.

Part 1: Dorje Shugden
Part 2: The Svastika

Controversial Art, Part 3: Ithyphallic Deities

To the layman, “tantra” and “tantric” connote sex, and “tantric art” evokes sexual imagery. Most sexual imagery in Himalayan Buddhist art, however, is actually quite tame, with only the suggestion of sexual activity given by either seated or standing couples in warm embraces. (Granted, the couples are naked except for wisps of clothing or bone ornaments designed to conceal nothing.) But embracing couples, one of the most common imageries, are far less controversial compared with the ithyphallic [having an erect penis] depictions of solitary male deities and dancing Vajrayogini figures.

There are five main examples of ithyphallic deities: Vajrabhairava, Yama Dharmaraja, Black Jambhala, Ganapati, and Mahadeva (Shiva). Each is generally depicted alone, though Mahadeva is often flanked by the consort Uma Devi; some paintings depict the deity holding his erect member in his left hand. Ganapati, a deity of peculiar persuasion, is occasionally befriended by a female monkey while in the aroused state.

These five examples of ithyphallic deities can be catalogued by figurative appearance as either wrathful or semi-peaceful/semi-wrathful. According to function and the classification of the Four Tantric Activities of Vajrayana Buddhism, these deities all perform either “powerful” or “wrathful” activities. The aroused state depicts both literally and symbolically an intense desire and passion to accomplish a specific task. In the case of Black Jambhala and Ganapati, the focus is on gaining wealth; for the red forms of Ganapati and Mahadeva, it is wealth and power; and for the meditational deity Vajrabhairava and the special protector Yama Dharmaraja, the symbolism relates to the intensity of their wrathfulness in overcoming ego and obstacles to reaching enlightenment.

One form of Ganapati known as Ragavajra, introduced to Tibet by Atisha in the 11th century, would likely be classified x-rated by most Western standards. In this example Ganapati is depicted dallying with a monkey, which is performing fellatio on him. The symbolism here is harder to explain and involves some understanding of tantric physiology and theory…

The idea of deity couples in sexual embrace is certainly alluring—and, to the prudish layman, possibly objectionable—but the reality of the imagery is surely disappointing compared to the exaggerated depictions of ithyphallic deities.

Continue to Part 4: The Female Nude

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Buddhist practice and Buddhist art have been inseparable in the Himalayas ever since Buddhism arrived to the region in the eighth century. But for the casual observer it can be difficult to make sense of the complex iconography. Not to worry—Himalayan art scholar Jeff Watt is here to help. In this “Himalayan Buddhist Art 101” series, Jeff is making sense of this rich artistic tradition by presenting weekly images from the Himalayan Art Resources archives and explaining their roles in the Buddhist tradition. 

Himalayan Buddhist Art 101: Fakes, Part 1 – An Introduction

Just the mention of fakes immediately gets everybody’s attention in the museum and art world. Though at first thought it might seem like everyone’s on the same page when it comes to fakes, the discussion surrounding fake art is actually very complicated, with many different stakeholders, not least the collectors of art—museums, private collectors, and sellers. It also doesn’t help that there’s a lot of money involved.

When approaching the topic of a potentially fake artwork, any ethical question must consider motivation: is, or was there, “the intention to deceive” on the part of the seller or artist? Can an artwork be intended exclusively for the tourist or pilgrim market, and thus not be of the quality or subject-accuracy of other works?

Has there been conservation work, and what of the difference between traditional conservation techniques and modern methods? What about restoration and over-restoration?

Art as commodity plays an important role in the discussion of fakes. It can be very lucrative to take a damaged sculpture or painting and invest time and money into restoration with the intent to resell. What should the seller say to the prospective buyer? Should there be full disclosure on the amount of restoration work done? 

So far, all of this may sound very un-Buddhist and distant, but what if a painting or sculpture contains inaccurate iconography, made-up mandalas, unknown hats, or deities with extra faces and arms that are  supported in neither literature nor the living Buddhist tradition, be it Nyingma, Sakya, or another schools?

The example given is a painting of Milarepa. Both the post-restoration and pre-restoration image are shown. The “before” image betrays significant damage to the painting in which the paint has been lost, at parts, right down to the white ground, and even to the weave of the support cloth. The “after” image remarkably shows a painting with very little damage—if any—and all of the figures complete. From a Buddhist practitioner’s point of view, this heavily restored painting may be a wonderful thing to behold, but does it convey the artist’s intent, give an accurate representation of a 14th- or 15th-century Tibetan painting, and, lastly, does the iconography remain a suitable object of worship for tantric practice?

This is just the beginning of an important discussion about fake Buddhist art that concerns all Buddhist practitioners in one way or another.

The post Himalayan Buddhist Art 101: Fakes, Part 1 – An Introduction appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Buddhist practice and Buddhist art have been inseparable in the Himalayas ever since Buddhism arrived to the region in the eighth century. But for the casual observer it can be difficult to make sense of the complex iconography. Not to worry—Himalayan art scholar Jeff Watt is here to help. In this “Himalayan Buddhist Art 101” series, Jeff is making sense of this rich artistic tradition by presenting weekly images from the Himalayan Art Resources archives and explaining their roles in the Buddhist tradition.

Read Part 1: Dorje Shugden

Controversial Art, Part 2: The Svastika

In the Western world the svastika has come to represent the evil of the Nazis of World War II. But the word itself—written “swastika” in English—means “auspicious” in Sanskrit. In the Tibetan Zhangzhung language it is referred to as yungdrung, meaning “everlasting.” Most languages in fact have their own variation on the millennia-old, cross-cultural symbol of the svastika. 

In the Buddhism of the Himalayas, Tibet, and Mongolia, the svastika is a ubiquitous symbol used primarily as a decorative element. Common in woodcarving and architectural relief, the symbol taken on its own offers auspicious and stabilizing qualities.

In China it is common to find a svastika outlined over the heart of a Buddha figure in painting and sculpture. The symbol can even be included in the double-vajra textile motif found on the front of the thrones of important Buddhist teachers such as the Dalai Lama. The svastika is very rarely found in Buddhist ritual practice, and in such cases is more closely associated with yantra diagrams and magical devices for warding off thieves and protecting wealth.

In general, Buddhism is not overly concerned with the direction  the svastika turns. This is not true for the Bon religion, however, where the left-turning yungdrung is the principal symbol of the religion, and a right-turning yungdrung has no meaning. The word is also part of the official name of the religion, Yungdrung Bon—”Everlasting Truth.”

The yungdrung is also a commonly found in the hands of Bon teachers and deities in a variety of shapes, colors, and sizes. It is even used for religious hats and seats, carpets, and for marking the bottom of Bon sculpture. Since ancient times, the yungdrung has been one of the more common etchings in pictographs and petroglyphs of the western Himalayas and Tibet.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries the svastika was used on modern European maps to differentiate between Bon and Buddhist monasteries: the Bon locations were marked with a left-turning svastika and the Buddhist ones were marked with a right-turning svastika.

A common mistake made in identifying the svasktika in Himalayan art is mistaking the bliss whorl used in Tantric imagery for a svastika. The bliss whorl is a spiral-shaped circle with three to four legs—and occasionally two—that is envisioned as a flat disc-like shape.

Despite confusion surrounding the symbol of the svastika, it remains, due to its almost endless uses, a fixture in Himalayan art, religion, and culture.

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