Mahayana Buddhism in India, got influenced by Hinduism as it was adopted over the ages by Pala dynasty, who used to rule in Eastern India till the 15^th Century. Gopala, the first known Pala king adopted Buddhism and his successors followed suit. During that period of 300 to 400 years, mixture of Hinduism gave rise to Tantric Buddhism. So prevalent was it, that it spread from India to Tibet and was known as Vajrayana in Sanskrit ( Thunderbolt).

The tantric school of Buddhism is quite complex and understudied due to lack of materials and hardly any manuscript has been translated to modern languages. The word Tantra is derived from the Sanskrit word tantram, meaning “loom, warp”, or figuratively, “groundwork, system, doctrine”, where tan means “ to stretch, extend”. In practice, Tantra doctrine refers to an expanded esoteric literature, both Buddhist and Hindu, that provides religious and practical instructions to becoming Awakened or aware of the true nature of reality.

Among the prevalent deities of tantric Buddhism or Vajrayana Buddhism is Yidam – the meditational deity. With mixture of schools of thoughts and growth in tantras, Yidam gets blended  with Naga princess and take the form of Half -Cobra and Half- Woman, a seductress who spits after sex and kills her paramour. The origin of this deity can be traced to Rishi Kashyap.

Well, my next research of writing a novel is on this theme.