Item: Vajrayogini (Buddhist Deity) - Vajravarahi, Red

Vajravarahi (Tibetan: dor je phag mo. English: the Vajra Sow), most renowned female meditational deity of Anuttarayoga Tantra.

Sanskrit: Vajravarahi Tibetan: Dor je pag mo

Slightly peaceful and slightly wrathful, red in colour, she has one face with three eyes and two hands. The right is held aloft holding a curved knife with a vajra handle. The left holds to the heart a white skullcup. A katvanga staff, with a blue vajra tip and three white skulls, leans against the shoulder. A long white scarf unfurls and twists about the upper body. Adorned with bone ornaments, earrings, bracelets, necklaces and the like, she wears a garland of variously coloured severed heads. Above a prone figure she dances with the right leg drawn up, atop an ornate sun disc and multi-coloured lotus blossom, standing surrounded by a dynamic outline of orange fire - the flames of pristine awareness.

This form of Vajravarahi, and the more complex versions with a mandala, are practiced predominantly in the Kagyu and Sakya Schools and arises from the Chakrasamvara cycle of tantras belonging to the wisdom (mother) class of Anuttarayoga Tantra.

Jeff Watt 5-99