Palden Lhamo Entourage
Figure (Image)
Metal, sculpture
Copper with fire gilding
7.0 inches
Tibet or China
Ca. 18th century
Musuem #: 97.075
By Cathleen Cummings
3 June, 1998
This small sculpture is similar to Palden Lhamo in many respects but is
depicted without many of Lhamo's characteristic attributes and is most likely
one of the deities of her retinue. It may originally have formed part of
a large Palden Lhamo mandala.
Palden Lhamo (dPal ldan lha mo; Skt: Sri Devi) is considered the
chief guardian-goddess of the Tibetan pantheon, and is the only female among
the eight Dharmapala, the Guardians of the Dharma. She appears as
an acoloyte or protector figure in the galaxy of most Tibetan Buddhist sects,
but it was under the Gelugpa that her liturgy took its final form, and it
is among the Gelugpa that she is given particular prominence, as a protectress
of the Dalai and Panchen Lamas, and the principal guardian goddess of Lhasa,
the Tibetan capital. She is also venerated by followers of the Gelugpa in
Mongolia and China.
Palden Lhamo is terrifying in aspect in order that she may better fight
evil or negative forces, and enemies of the Buddhist teachings She rides
a wild, white mule across the sea of blood; the flayed skin of her son,
an enemy of Buddhism, serves as her saddle blanket. The single eye on the
rump of the mule was formed when Lhamo removed the arrow that her husband,
the cannibal king of Sri Lanka and an enemy of the Buddhist doctrine, shot
at her as she escaped him. The trappings of the mule are made of snakes
and from them hang many of Palden Lhamo's tools: a pair of dice for divination,
a stack of red tablets, a ball of magic thread, and a skin bag full of diseases
with which she destroys enemies of the faith. In her right hand she brandishes
a club topped with a half-dorje (vajra in Sanskrit), a symbolic
ritual implement) which is used to crush those who have broken their promises.
In her left hand is a kapala (skull cup) filled with blood; here,
it is specifically the skull of a child born of an incestuous union. Many
of her other accouterments such as the moon disc in her hair and the sun
disc at her navel, are gifts from the gods. Her myriad destructive powers
aid Lhamo in her quest to conquer the destructive forces of egotism.
Palden Lhama frequently appears in the entourage of wrathful deities, especially
Yama, Dharmaraja, and Mahakala. She herself also has a number of important
forms and emanations, as well as an extensive retinue of minor goddesses
and gods. Her origins seem to be a combination of the Indic Sri Devi --
the black goddess and Great Mother -- and pre-Buddhist Bon goddesses. Once
incorporated into the pantheon of Buddhist protector figures Palden Lhamo
replaced these earlier pre-Buddhist goddesses, though a particular set of
twelve such deities remain in her mandala, which is extremely complex as
a result of her composite nature.
References:
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Updated November 2004
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