Item: Mandala of Hevajra (Buddhist Deity)

Hevajra Mandala (Shalu Monastery).

Vajravidarana is a male meditational deity. He can appear as white and peaceful, green and semi-peaceful/semi-wrathful, or blue and wrathful. Four different forms are found in the Kriya classification of Tantra and one wrathful form with a seventy-five deity mandala in the anuttarayoga classification of Tantra.

Although a meditational deity, Vajravidarana is very much a deity of purification and belongs to the group known as the Five Cleansing Deities. The form with a Seventy-five Deity Mandala is also included as a branch initiation and practice in the Margapala (Lamdre) Tradition of the Sakyas.

The principal attribute of Vajravidarana is a double vajra held in the right hand. In peaceful form, Vajravidarana is almost identical in appearance with the meditational deity Vajrasattva. The two deities are differentiated by the double or single vajra and in painting by the colour of the body. Vajravidarana is often depicted with three eyes while Vajrasattva generally has only two.

Jeff Watt [image added 2-2012]