The Sri Cakrasamvara Tantra dates back to the late eighth or early ninth century. When the second wave of transmission of Buddhism to Tibet from India took place, the study and practice of this tantra was a thing with the Newar Buddhists of Kathmandu. The thangka that you see on this page, an age-old form of superior fabric painting which is the core of traditional Nepalese visual arts, depicts the Lord Samvara in profound union with Devi Vajravarahi.
Samvara-Vajravarahi are the predominant deities in this tantra. Lord Samvara is wearing a tiger-skin that has slid beneath the loins and an angavastram of sea green colour that floats about the twin figures. But for the gold and pearls that adorn Her limbs, She is naked. The painters have conveyed the composite passion of their conjoined bodies with a lifelike language. With the limbs interlocked and the mouths refusing to tear away, Samvara-Vajravarahi are caught in the throes of a pulsating orgasm.
It is an essentially wrathful composition. An aureole of flames surrounds the central figures. Mythical figures with multiple limbs lie beneath the two feet of Lord Samvara, on the golden pistil of a lotus with multicoloured petals. The milky stream in the foreground and the tempting offerings floating on it, the snow-coated peaks rising in the verdant landscape of the background, and the wisps of pristine cloud are motifs that are integral to the thangka.
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