TIBET, 13TH CENTURY

The present miniature stone stele derives from the tradition of miniature devotional steles created for Buddhist practitioners in or by craftsmen from the Pala empire of Northeastern India. As Buddhist devotees from much of South Asia and the Himalayas traveled to the Buddhist centers of the Pala regions, an industry sprang up to create small, portable Buddhist images that could be transported back to the pilgrims' homelands. The present work depicts the tantric meditational deity, Chakrasamvara in union with Vajravarahi; the two figures stand on prostrate figures over a low lotus base, and are backed by a flaming aureole, all carved in daring openwork. Compare the present figure to an almost identical example in the Potala, illustrated by U. von Schroeder in Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet, vol. I, Hong Kong, p. 387, fig. 124E.