Himalayan Art Resources

Item: Mahottara Heruka (Buddhist Deity) - (21 Faces)

ཆེ་མཆོག་ཧེ་རུ་ཀ། 嘿噜嘎 (八大法)
(item no. 86928)
Origin Location Tibet
Date Range 1800 - 1899
Lineages Nyingma and Buddhist
Size 88.57x58.42cm (34.87x23in)
Material Ground Mineral Pigment on Cotton
Collection The Brooklyn Museum of Art
Catalogue # acc. #BMA 36.751, Gift of Herbert L. Pratt in memory of his Wife
Notes about the Central Figure

Classification: Deity

Appearance: Wrathful

Gender: Male

Interpretation / Description

Mahottara, Heruka: the supreme combined deity of the Eight Herukas (Tibetan: ka gye) surrounded by wrathful retinue deities at the sides, the primordial Buddha Samantabhadra at the top center with Padmasambhava and lineage teachers alongside.

Mahottara is extremely wrathful, maroon in colour with twenty-one faces, forty-two arms and a number of legs.

At the top left is Pandita Vimalamitra wearing monastic robes and a red pandita hat. An unidentified figure sits next to the primordial Buddha Samantabhadra. At the top right is Padmasambhava with Trisong Detsen seated slightly below. The figures are identified by small name inscriptions written in gold.

Jeff Watt 3-2002

Front of Painting
English Translation of Inscription: [Name inscriptions for the four lineage figures at the top of the composition]

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