[NSFW-ish maybe] The beguiling yakshini (wood-nymph) who made her way from Maharashtra (central India) to Pompeii, shortly before burial by Vesuvius in 79 C.E.
There was extensive material trade and cultural exchange between India and Rome then.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeii_L…
There was extensive material trade and cultural exchange between India and Rome then.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeii_L…
Even the earliest known Buddhist temples were ornamented with yakshini sculptures that were unambiguously erotic, unambiguously Buddhist, and predate tantrism by centuries. What are we to make of that? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakshini
Wikipedia quotes some guy from 1967 who at least points out that there’s a problem here. (His two proposed solutions seem improbable to me.)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhutesvar…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhutesvar…
Perhaps first century mainstream Buddhism was much less life-denying and anti-world/women/sex/pleasure than the surviving texts suggest.
Perhaps we somehow inherited the worst of the tradition of that era, after puritan moralizers suppressed a more joyful strain?
Perhaps we somehow inherited the worst of the tradition of that era, after puritan moralizers suppressed a more joyful strain?
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