Item: Kurukulla (Buddhist Deity)

Kurukulle (Tibetan: rig che ma. English: The One of the Action Family): Goddess of Power.

Slightly peaceful and slightly wrathful in a dark red appearance, she has one face, three eyes, dark yellow hair flowing upward and four hands. In the first pair of hands held upraised is a bow and arrow constructed of red utpala flowers and aimed to the left. The second pair hold in the right a hook and left a lasso. Adorned with a tiara of five white skulls, earrings, and a necklace of fifty heads, she wears a green scarf and a tiger skin skirt. Standing with the right leg drawn up in a dancing posture and the left leg pressing on a corpse above a sun disc and red lotus seat she is completely surrounded by a circle of flames of pristine awareness.

At the top center is Amitabha, the buddha of boundless light, red in colour, seated with the two hands in the mudra (gesture) of meditative equipoise placed in the lap supporting a black begging bowl. At the bottom center are precious offerings of wishing jewels, red coral, and the like, with flower vases standing at each side.

"Culmination of the pristine awareness and compassion of all conquerors,
Well arising as the bliss-emptiness - Goddess of Power,
Controlling all beings of the three realms with a charming form;
Homage to the Dakini." (Nyingma liturgical verse).

There are numerous forms and lineages of Kurukulle arising from the Kriya and Anuttarayoga classes of tantra of the Sarma traditions and many forms from the 'Terma' (Revealed Treasure) traditions of the Nyingmapa School. In the Kriya tantras she is often portrayed, but not exclusively, as a red power emanation of Tara. However, most forms of red Tara are not Kurukulle. In Anuttarayoga, from the Shri Hevajra and Vajrapanjara Tantras, she is a power emanation of Shri Hevajra.

Jeff Watt 1-99