A gilt-bronze figure of Chakrasamvara and Vajravahari Qing dynasty, 18th century | 清十八世紀 鎏金銅勝樂金剛像

Chakrasamvara and Vajravarahi are depicted engaging in the perfect union of wisdom and compassion in this dramatic and powerful sculpture. The statue serves as a device for the visualisation of the Chakrasamvara tantra, a secret treatise with its origin in medieval eastern India, used by practitioners to increase their ability to attain the ultimate goal of Enlightenment; for a succinct discussion on the content of the tantra, see John C. Huntington & Dina Bangdel, The Circle of Bliss: Buddhist Meditational Art, Columbus, 2003, pp. 264-268, where Robert A. F. Thurman notes in the foreword, p. 11:

"The arts and sciences of this Tantra are amongst the most extraordinary things in world culture, products of a tradition of accomplished adepts, spiritual artists of universal liberation who have emanated waves of beauty through the millennia".