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Animal Headed Gods & Deities (Buddhist) Main Page - Added

In Buddhist iconography there are a small number of Animal Headed Deities. Generally deities appear as peaceful, semi-peaceful/wrathful or wrathful in appearance. The animal headed deities are categorized outside of this general system and appear with either the central face as an animal or an animal head placed atop their own central face. For example Hayagriva has one or more horse heads atop his main wrathful face. Vajravarahi either has a sow's head on the proper right of her own face, or placed on the top of the head, or in some cases the main face is that of a sow.


Depending on the general mood and disposition of the deity the animal face can be either in the normal animal appearance or wrathful such as with Vajrabhairava and Simhamukha. A number of Anuttarayoga deities have retinue figures with animal heads such as are found in the various Chakrasamvara Tantras of the Sarma Traditions. In the Guhyagarbha Tantra of the Nyingma Tradition there are the famous sets of peaceful and wrathful deities with many of the minor retinue figures having animal faces. These deities are also known as, or referred to as, the Bardo deities.


- Chakrasamvara Retinue Figures

- Chakrasamvara Vajradaka Retinue Figures

- Donkey-faced Chakrasamvara

- Donkey-faced Hevajra

- Donkey-faced Protector (Sera Monastery)

- Ganapati

- Garuda

- Guhyagarbha Tantra Retinue Figures

- Hayagriva

- Kinnara (Heavenly musician)

- Marichi

- Simhamukha

- Vajrabhairava

- Vajravarahi

- Yama Dharmaraja

- Yutog Nyingtig Protectors

- Others...


There are two human figures that are also depicted with animal characteristics. The first is the Indian teacher of the famous Madhyamaka system of philosophy - Nagarjuna - who is typically shown with five or seven snakes above the head. The second is Gyalwa Chogyang, one of the twenty-five famous students of Padmasambhava, that is typically depicted with a green horse head atop his own head.