Indian Tantric Yantra or Drawing

Several heads, several arms, and not a scrap of the sheet left idle.

This Tantric yantra or drawing comes from Himachal Pradesh, India, and dates to the late 17th century, in pigment on cotton. In Tantric practice a yantra is a sacred diagram used in meditation and ritual, and text and image together were believed to hold the power they invoked. Red lines draw a striding, multi-headed, many-armed figure holding weapons, with small squares set across the body and circles at its chest. Lines of script fill the margins. Faded brown stains band across the cotton. A pale mat and a dark frame surround it. Forty-two inches high.

Made to be used. Hung, now, to be looked at.