Iconographic Drawings: Chakrashamvara with Vajravarahi, Hevajra with Nairatmya, and Yamantaka (verso) (c. 1500): Art, History and Details

Iconographic Drawings: Chakrashamvara with Vajravarahi, Hevajra with Nairatmya, and Yamantaka (verso) (c. 1500) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

These rare surviving pages of a practice book have drawings of prominent tantric figures. The line drawing is confident and masterful, with each iconographic element rendered with clarity and precision. The svelte proportions of the figures follow the style of the Khyenri school initiated in the second half of the 15th century by the artist Khyentse Wangchuk (about 1420-1500), known for his elegant and energetic depictions of the fierce manifestations of the enlightened beings. The best preserved example on this segment is the blue Hevajra in sexual union with Nairatmya, shown in a deeper shade of blue. Chakrashamvara, another powerful emanation of a Buddha, is at the left with his consort Vajravarahi, holding a variety of weapons, tantric implements, and an elephant skin representing the defeat of uncontrolled passions in his twelve hands. The buffalo-headed figure at the right is Yamantaka, a powerful form of the Bodhisattva of Wisdom. Tantric practitioners invoke this deity to aid in conquering fear of death, one of the most powerful hindrances to enlightenment.

Object facts

• Title: Iconographic Drawings: Chakrashamvara with Vajravarahi, Hevajra with Nairatmya, and Yamantaka (verso)
• Date: c. 1500
• Culture: Tibet
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: ink and watercolor on cotton
• Dimensions: Overall: 20.3 x 12.7 cm (8 x 5 in.)
• Collection: Tibetan Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1985.191.b

A detail from the museum

The script notations are in an Indic script, but the line drawings are Tibetan.

Collection credit

Delia E. Holden Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Turner, Evan H. “The Year in Review for 1985.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 73, no. 2, 1986, pp. 26–71.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.