Hevajra and Nairatmya

Vajrayana, or esoteric Buddhism, uses gender and sexual union to communicate the merging of compassion (male) and wisdom (female) that results in awakening. Here, the wrathful male Buddha Hevajra and his female partner Nairatmya stand in ecstatic embrace. With hair painted the fiery orange of wrathful deities, Hevajra’s eight heads look in all directions. His sixteen hands hold skull cups containing animals (in his eight right hands) and deities representing worldly elements (in his eight left hands): earth, water, air, fire, the moon, the sun, and the gods of death and wealth. He raises two of his four legs in a position of dance, while lunging sideways with the other two. Hevajra wears a garland of fift severed heads, while Nairatmya wears one of skulls.

Provenance

Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object. Learn more about provenance at the Walters.

Purchased by Walter Hauser [1], Charlottesville, Virginia, 1964-65; given to Walters Art Museum, 2016.

[1] Purchased from an unknown dealer or bazaar shop in Kalimpong or Darjeeling in West Bengal