MONGOLIAN COLLECTABLES

MONGOLIAN COLLECTABLES

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Yama

Yama is an ancient Vedic deity incorporated into the Tibetan Buddhist Pantheon as the judge of the dead and ruler of the Buddhist hells located in the southern hemisphere of the Mount Meru world system beneath the continent of Jambuvidpa. His name comes from the root used in Vedic literature meaning "twin" and means "to restrain or bound." In Tibet Yama is usually called gShin rje, "Lord of Death" or Dam Can Chos rGyal, "The Pledge Bound Dharma-King." The later alludes to his conversion to Buddhism by Manjusri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, in his wrathful manifestation as Yamantaka "the Destroyer of Yama. " There are three common forms of Yama that occur in Tibetan Buddhism which are called respectively the External, Internal, and Secrete Yama. This painting depicts the External or Outer form ( T: phyi sgrub ) of Yama who is a Dharma protector invoked to protect devotees from mundane difficulties such as physical illness and hunger. He is the color blue and is shown in the characteristic fierce standing pose of a protective deity with a pot belly and erect penis. He has the head of a fierce bull with sharply pointed horns and protruding blood shot eyeballs. Yama stands on a blue bull with a fanged mouth widely agape. Underneath the bull a prostrate red human figure is being crushed by the weight of Yama and the bull. The bull is an ancient symbol in Indic religions that is associated with Yama and death, but also can symbolize procreation. This ambivalent symbolism is understood in the Buddhist context as the overcoming of death to create eternal life.

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