TIBET, 12TH-13TH CENTURY

This striking bronze image of the solitary form of Chakrasamvara Sahaja Heruka represents the foremost meditational deity within the wisdom-mother form of Anuttarayoga tantra. The present form, with a single face and only two hands - in contrast to the more complex multiarmed variations of Chakrasamvara also common in Vajrayana Buddhism - was introduced to Tibet by the eleventh-century translator, Rinchen Zangpo. The meditational deity here stands on two prostrate figures in alidhasana, his hands crossed in front of his chest holding the vajra and ghanta, with a khatvanga staff held in the crook of his arm. Compare the present work to a very similar work, with comparable treatment of the base and modeling of the figure, illustrated by T. Chen in Sattva and Rajas: The Culture and Art of Tibetan Buddhism, 2004, p. 331, cat. no. 206.