THANGKA, Yamantaka Vajrabhairava. Tibet, troligen 1700-tal/tidigt 1800-tal.

This powerful Yamantaka in Father-Mother form, is masterfully portrayed with seven faces on his main buffalo head, a smaller blood-red head above and a head of Manjusri above that, and with thirty-four arms and sixteen legs. He is standing upon eight animals and eight birds, whose bodies rest upon the eight world deities, who are held down on the solar disc. He holds in sexual union the one faced, two armed Vajravetala ("Diamond Zombie").

"This manifestation of Manjushri... is the fierce archetype of wisdom's triumphal conquest of death - seeing through the pretense of intrinsically real substance and hence the pretense of the destruction of substance. In killing death, wisdom prevents even death from dying, making death itself an immortal guardian of the blissful life"