The Indian Buddhist Iconography, Mainly Based on the Sadhanamala and Other Cognate Tantric Texts of Rituals c16.t3: 3. Ekajaṭā
The Indian Buddhist Iconography, Mainly Based on the Sādhanamālā and Other Cognate Tāntric Texts of Rituals c16.t3
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3. Ekajaṭā
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Colour—Blue Appearance—Terrible
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Attitude—Pratyālīḍha
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Ekajaṭā is one of the most powerful goddesses in the Vajrayāna pantheon. It is said in the Sādhanamālā that if a person listens to her mantra but once, he is at once freed from all obstacles and is attended always with good fortune, his enemies are destroyed and he becomes religiously inclined, even attaining the level of a Buddha. Four Sādhanas in the Sādhanamālā dovoted to the worship of Ekajaṭā, describe three different forms of the goddess. She may have one face with two, four or eight arms.
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The main features of the goddess aie given in one of the Sādhanas, the Colophon of which asserts that the Sādhana has been restored from Tibet ( Bhoṭa ) by Ārya Nāgārjuna, who was famous in the mediæval ages as one of the eighty-four Siddhapurusas of India. The general description of the goddess given in the Sādhana is as follows :
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Kṛṣṇavarṇā matāḥ sarvāḥ vyāghra-carmāvṛtāḥ kaṭau I
Ekavaktrāḥ trinetrāśca piṅgordhvakeśamūrdhajāḥ II
Kharvā lambodarā raudrāḥ pratyālīḍhapadasthitāḥ I
Saroṣakarālavaktrā muṇḍamālāpralambitāḥ II
Kuṇapasthā mahābhīmā Maulāv-Akṣobhyabhūṣitāḥ I
Navayauvanasampannāḥ ghorāṭṭahāsabhāsvarāḥ II
Viśvapadmopari sūryye cintanīyāḥ prayatnataḥ” II
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Sādhanamālā p. 266.
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“All these (three) forms (of Ekajaṭā) are of blue colour, have the tiger-skin round their loins, are one-faced and three-eyed, and have brown hair rising upwards on their head. They are short, pot-bellied, wrathful and stand in the Pratyālīḍha attitude, they have faces distorted with anger; with garlands of heads hanging from their necks, they rest on corpses, are terrible in appearance and bear the image of Akṣobhya on the crown. They have youthful bloom and laugh horribly and they should be conceived on the orb of the sun over the double lotus.”
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This general description only applies to the following three forms of Ekajaṭā with one face and two, four or eight arms :
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(i) When two-armed, she carries the Kartri and the Karoṭa (skull-cup) in her two hands (Fig. 138).
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(ii) When four-armed, Ekajaṭā carries the arrow and the sword in the two right hands and the bow and the skull in the two left. In two other Sādhanas describing the four-armed variety, her appearance undergoes a slight modification. Here she holds in the first pair of hands the Kapāla and the Kartri, while the other pair shows the Utpala and the sword. She may hold also the rosary instead of the sword (Fig. 139).
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(iii) When eight-armed, she carries the sword, the arrow, the Vajra and the Kartri in the four right hands and the bow, the Utpala, the Paraśu and the skull in the four left hands.
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Images of Ekajaṭā are found in almost all Buddhist countries of the North. She is known in Tibet ¹ as well as in China ².
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¹ Gordon : ITL, p. 76, Getty : GNB, pp. 125-126
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² Clark : TLP, II. p. 284
Cites (1)
- Sādhanamālā — Sanskrit