SOURCE: "Approaching the Numinous: Rudolf Otto and Tibetan Tantra," in Philosophy East and West, Vol. 29, No. 4, October, 1979, pp. 467-76.

In the following essay, Lopez compares Otto's idea of the numinous with that of Tibetan Buddhist scholars, particularly the "mysterium tremendum."

In Oriental art there may be no more evocative portrayal of what Rudolf Otto calls the mysterium tremendum than the wrathful deities of Tibetan Tantric Buddhism. Fearful in form, wreathed in flames, adorned with garlands of human heads, and brandishing dagger and skull-cup, their painted images conjure the feelings of dread and fascination which Otto describes in The Idea of the Holy. In this seminal work, he sets out to describe the central element of religious experience such that there is "no religion in which it does not live as the real innermost core, and without it no religion would be worthy of the name."¹

This article will...