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Mahakala,
or as he is known in Tibetan Buddhism, Heruka, is said to be a wrathful form of
Avalokiteshvara the Boddhisattva of compassion. This horrific representation has
many of the attributes traditionally ascribed to Heruka, however it is also uniquely
grotesque, with features that are peculiar to the place or period of its origin.
As depicted in this Mahakala in rare form, the deity has three fierce identical
heads. Each head snarls from an open mouth with fangs and a curling tongue and
each head has three bulging eyes, furry eyebrows and whiskers. The figure wears
a garland of freshly severed “moist heads” (demonstrating triumph over egoistic
self-interest). He wears a five-skull crown on each head, which symbolizing the
transmutation of the five poisons of ignorance, hatred, pride, craving and envy.
As a scarf the Mahakala wears a flayed human skin, the hands and feet hanging
from strips of flesh, while the human head is visible on the left. A leopard skin
with head attached is carved on the reverse. He holds a bow as an attribute, and
detailed with snake bracelets armbands and necklaces of bone. The figure is seated
on a diamond shaped base which is topped with skulls all around and bone diadems
draped below. Two most unusual and monstrous features are the enormous head emerging
from the torso of the Mahakala, and the indication that the figure ends in the
body of a snake, the coiling tail of which is seen on the top of the diamond base.
These very unusual details add to the hideous ferocity of the deity in its mission
to crush every obstruction to the awakening of innate pristine awareness. |
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