Tantric Art

The Tantric tradition of India and Tibet is much broader in its scope than the subset of Tantric Sexuality taught in the West. While Western Tantra focuses on practical techniques, the Eastern form also uses sexual symbolism for purely meditational purposes. As such, Tantric art often contains imagery that can seem bizarre to Western eyes. This Tibetan-style devotional painting, for example, depicts an animal-headed female deity trampling on two small figures while she menstruates into a bowl they are holding. At the same time, she is balancing the Hindu elephant God Ganesha on her hands and performing fellatio on him – in other words, sucking his penis!