Buddhist Deity: Vajrapani, Bhutadamara Iconography

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Bhutadamara Vajrapani Page

Subjects, Topics & Types:
- Description
- Best Examples
- Forms Outline Page
- Source Texts
- Text Catalogue
- Bhutadamara Tantra (Kriya/Charya)
--- Thirty-three Deity Bhutadamara Mandala
- Bhutadamara (Anuttaryoga Tantra)
--- Vajrapanjara
--- Vajradaka Tantra (Anuttarayoga)
- Related: Maharakta Ganapati
- Confusions: Jvalanala
- Others...

Videos:
- Bhutadamara Vajrapani
- Bhutadamara: Best Examples

There are three basic texts that are the foundation of the Bhutadamara ritual practice: Bhutadamara Tantra, Vajrapanjara Tantra, and the Vajradaka Tantra.

Toh 747. The Bhūta­ḍāmara Tantra (Bhūta­ḍāmara­tantram, འབྱུང་པོ་འདུལ་བའི་རྒྱུད། · ’byung po ’dul ba’i rgyud). 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.

"...a great vajra palace, vast and extensive. Inside ... a multi-coloured lotus with eight petals. ... the King of the Wrathful, Shri Vajrapani Bhutadamara, with a body blue-black in colour, one face, four hands. The first right hand holds aloft a blue vajra with tines open and the left in a wrathful gesture and holding a vajra lasso. The two main hands perform the daemon subduing mudra at the heart. The mouth has bared fangs and tongue curled, three round red eyes glaring fiercely, orange mustache, eyebrows and hair blazing upward. Having a crown of five dry skulls and a necklace of fifty wet. Adorned with eight great nagas and wearing a lower garment of tiger skin and upper robe of blue silk. Standing with the right leg bent and left straight - pressing on Bhuta Aparajita lying face down; white, with three eyes, four hands. The right holds a drum and curved knife, left a skullcup and trident, wearing a tiger skin as a lower garment and yellow hair in a top knot - standing in the middle of a fiercely blazing fire of pristine awareness." (Ngorchen Konchog Lhundrub (1497-1557). sGrub Thabs Kun bTus, vol.6, folios 6-8).

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Jeff Watt, 12-1998 [updated 12-2020]

(The images below are only a selection of examples from the links above).