TIBET, 14TH-15TH CENTURY

The principal female deity of the Chakrasamvara Tantra, Vajrayogini stands in a powerful lunge atop corpses, a blood-filled skull cup held to her mouth and a curved knife in her hanging hand. She is a fully-enlightened being who epitomizes the practice of tantra, the expedient Buddhist path to enlightenment, which entails destruction of human ego and the triumph over the duality of conventional and ultimate truth. These principles are captured in the skulls that adorn her naked body and the blood she transforms to amrita. The present lot is cast in a copper-rich alloy, which appears to have previously been gilded.
The single lotus base and overall style are similar to a fourteenth-century dakini illustrated in U. von Schroeder in Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1981, p. 442-443, fig. 119B.
Himalayan Art Resources, item no. 24561.