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Shri Shmashana Adhipati, Glorious Supreme Lords of the Charnal Ground (also known by another Sanskrit name - Chitipati - a name popularized in Mongolia but virtually unknown in Tibet) arises from the Secret Essence Wheel Tantra and is associated with the collection of Chakrasamvara Tantras (Anuttarayoga). Primarily employed as a wealth practice for Chakrasamvara practitioners, with emphasis on protecting from thieves, Shmashana Adhipati, Father and Mother, also serve as the special protector for the Vajrayogini Naro Khechari practice of the Indian mahasiddha Naropa as transmitted through the Nepalese Pamting brothers and then to the Sakya Tradition. Shri Shmashana Adhipati is now common, to a greater or lesser extent, in all the New (Sarma) Schools of Himalayan and Tibetan influenced Buddhism.

Shri Shmashana Adhipati is regarded as an emanation of Chakrasamvara and unrelated to the dancing skeleton figures found in Tibetan Cham dances. The Cham dance skeletons are understood as worldly spirits acting as jokers or servants for minor worldly gods such as Yama. Although the Sakya Tradition in the 16th century incorporated the
deity Shamashana Adhipati into the Vajrakila dances of the Khon-lug
Tradition, the deity however remains unrelated to the various skeleton
figures depicted in other Tibetan Cham dance. Western scholars of the
20th century have continually and mistakenly conflated the deity
Shmashana Adhipati with the minor skeleton dance figures found in the
Cham dances and associated with the worldly god Yama.

There is only one original form of the deity as described in the Tantra and passed down through the Sakya Tradition beginning with Sachen Kunga Nyingpo. Many great scholars wrote ritual texts related to the practice of Shmashana Adhipati but not until Zhuchen Tsultrim Rinchen was there a lenthy commentary and explicit retreat instructions. The Gelug Tradition, at the time of the 5th Dalai Lama, adopted the practice and slightly modified the hand attributes for the female deity by adding the stalk of grain in the right hand and a wealth vase in the left rather than the bone stick and skullcup. There have been a few Nyingma 'Revealed Treasure' versions of the dancing skeleton figures, again with some modifications to the hand attributes. There will likely be other forms of the deity that exist as textual traditions having their origins in 'pure visions' or other types of Tibetan revelatory creation, but as yet they have not appeared in known paintings or sculpture.

For more information on this subject see the publication Demonic Divine by Rob Linrothe and Jeff Watt, Rubin Museum of Art, New York, 2004.