Mandala of the Buddhist deity Chandamaharoshana

Chanda, “the Greatly Impassioned,” kneels at the center of this Nepalese painting. Dark blue and wearing a tigerskin skirt, Chanda is a fierce deity visualized in Buddhist meditation.

Chanda is a form of the blue Buddha Akshobhya, “the Immovable One,” who touches the earth with his right hand just above the mandala. To Akshobhya’s right and left, two lamas teach the visualization depicted in this mandala.

A multiarmed meditation deity and three forms of the bodhisattva Manjushri accompany the white-robed lamas. At the summit of the painting’s central axis, the tiny blue Buddha Samantabhadra embraces his white consort; together, they symbolize the union of appearance and emptiness whose realization is tantamount to enlightenment itself.