“The Lord and Lady of the Charnel Grounds/Pal Durdak Yab Yum,” 15th-c painting. Tibetian Buddhist traditions took much from Ancient India . . . As with the two Hindu deities featured in yesterday’s post, the juxtaposition of enlightenment with death and male-female pairings stands out. Tibetian art is highly symbolic, and the male-female, or “Yab-Yum,” couple demonstrate the balance of spiritual principles of bliss and clarity of mind. The focus on death was a call for enlightenment, because the Tibetian Buddhist aimed to be dead to this-worldly attachment. The club with the human skull held by each dancer represented the hindrances to enlightenment being pounded to dust. Their left hands hold skull cups filled with blood, representing blissful wisdom.
Source(s): P. 189, _Female Buddhas: Women of Enlightenment in Tibetian Mystical Art_, Glen H. Mullin with Jeff J. Watt, Clear Light Publishers (Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2003).
