Potala Palace: Hevajra

CHINA, Tibet, Lhasa

Hevajra is one of the Vajrayana meditational deities and a wrathful manifestation of Aksobhya. This bronze sculpture has five gilded faces, sixteen arms and two pairs of legs. Each face has the third wisdom eye and a five-leaf crown with red hair behind. All sixteen hands carry skull cups containing, on the left, the gods of Earth, Water, Fire, Air, the Moon, the Sun, Death, and Wealth; and on the right are a man and animals: an elephant, horse, donkey, bull, camel, deer, and cat. Hevajra embraces his consort, Nairatmya, whose arms are about his neck. She holds a flaying knife and a skull cup filled with blood as an offering to him. Both her legs embrace his hips while Hevajra’s first set of legs are in the warrior stance and trample two crowned figures lying on their backs. His other set of legs perform a wrathful dance. A garland of 50 freshly severed heads swings behind him almost to the ground. The symbolism of this divine drama is wisdom’s subjugation of evil and ignorance.