Kurukulla thangka

Kurukulla - "she who is the cause knowledge”, is sixteen years old because sixteen is the ideal number that signifies perfection, four times four. Her face is beautiful and her body voluptuous and alluring.She has a single face because she embodies non-dual wisdom beyond conventional distinctions of good and evil. She is naked because she is unconditioned by discursive thoughts. She has four arms because of the four immeasurable states of mind, namely, love, compassion, joy, and equanimity. She holds the bow and arrow entwined with flowers because she can give rise to thoughts of desire in the minds of others. In her other two hands she holds the hook that attracts and summons them into her presence and the noose by which she binds them to her will. The ornaments of human bone she wears signify the five perfections, whereas she herself embodies the sixth perfection, that of wisdom. She wears a necklace of fifty freshly severed human heads dripping blood because she vanquishes the fifty negative emotions. She is dancing because she is active and energetic, her compassionate activity manifesting in both Samsara and Nirvana. She dances, treading upon a male human corpse because she enchants and subjugates Rahu - the demon of ignorance. She stands upon a red tantric lotus blossom because she is a pure vision of enlightened awareness. More than any other figure in the Buddhist pantheon, Kurukulla becomes the Buddhist goddess of love and sex, corresponding to the Western gooddesses Aphrodite and Venus. Among the attributes she holds in her four hands, four arms being her most common manifestation, are the flower-entwined bow and arrow, reminiscent of the Western Eros and Cupid, although as the goddess of witchcraft, she is more akin to Diana."Her mantra is Om Kurukulle Hum Hrin Svaha

canvas 27cm x 35cm, 19th century, very good condition