Krishna Yamari & Yama Dharmaraja Confusions
The two iconographic figures of Krishna Yamari and Yama Dharmaraja are often confused with each other, conflated, and subsequently misidentified.
There are a number of different forms of Krishna Yamari from a six faced six armed deity to a one face two armed form. All forms of Krishna Yamari are meditational deities. The confusions in identification primarily involve the simple [1] one faced form of Yamari, the [2] one faced Heruka form of Vajrabhairava and the depiction of the protector deity [3] Yama Dharmaraja in his outer form. It is these last three which are most commonly confused, conflated and misidentified.
In the graphic reference the top row of figures are the four principal forms of Krishna Yamari from most complicated on the left to simplest on the right. The bottom row highlights the confusion. The first image on the left in the bottom row of the graphic is the buffalo faced Heruka. He is the simplified meditational form of Vajrabhairava with nine faces and thirty-four hands. This form of Heruka is often mistaken for Yama Dharmaraja. On the right hand side is Yama Dharmaraja, the special protector deity exclusive to the Vajrabhairava Tantra. He appears very much like Krishna Yamari in the simple form with one face and two and holding the same attributes of a staff and lasso. Yama Dharmaraja is always accompanied by the consort Chamundi whereas the simple form of Krishna Yamari has no consort.
(The majority of images used for the graphic are detail images from a Vajrabhairava mandala belonging to the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco. It is really a fantastic example of a great work that exemplifies both high art and precise iconography).