TIBET, 15TH CENTURY OR LATER

The vajra (ritual thunderbolt) and ghanta (bell) are important implements in tantric Buddhism, representing masculine compassion and feminine wisdom, respectively, and are used in various rituals and meditations in Vajrayana Buddhism. The present set is typical of a type that was first developed in the early fifteenth-century during the Yongle period (1402-1424), although this work most likely dates from the seventeenth century. The handle of the bell is in the form of a half-vajra, similar in style to the correspoding vajra; on the interior of the bell, the Tibetan characters Om Ah Hum are cast in raised script. The set is accompanied by a hand-carved wooden storage box. Compare the present set to another group with a wooden carrying box in the collection of the Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art, illustrated by B. Lipton in Treasures of Tibetan Art: Collections of the Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art, New York, 1996, p. 212, cat. no. 112.