Hevajra and Nairātmyā

This sculpture is an early and rare Tibetan representation of Hevajra, an Esoteric Buddhist deity well known from eastern Indian medieval Tantrism and preserved in Vajrayana Buddhism as practiced in Tibet. This work was produced during the second wave of Buddhism in Tibet, which was propagated in part by the great Indian Vajrayana exponent Atisha, a trained master of the Hevajra Tantra text, who studied at Rajgir and Vikramashila monasteries (mahaviharas) before being invited to teach in Tibet. The work dates to the end of the twelfth century, an emerging moment for Tibetan devotional art coinciding with the historical collapse of monastic Buddhism in India..