Durdak Garcham - Dance of the Skeleton Lords

The Skeleton dance is a sacred dance ritual found in Tibetan Buddhist lineages. It is intended to reflect the transient nature of things, including states of mind and the body itself. The skeletons depicted in the dance are Chitipati, a pair of lovers known as the Lord and Lady of the charnel ground whose dance represents the eternal dance of death, as well as the attainment of perfect consciousness. They are typically depicted as skeletons, each with a third eye of wisdom, holding scepters made of human heads and spines in one hand and a blood-filled kapala, sometimes with a still warm brain inside, in the other hand.

This artwork is meant to depict a dynamic vision of death as one travels through bardo, void of attachment.

By @dehiscenceart, 2021 JPG 5400px X 7200px