The Indian Buddhist Iconography, Mainly Based on the Sadhanamala and Other Cognate Tantric Texts of Rituals c17.s2.t5: (V) Daśabhujasita-Mārīcī
The Indian Buddhist Iconography, Mainly Based on the Sādhanamālā and Other Cognate Tāntric Texts of Rituals c17.s2.t5
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(V) Daśabhujasita-Mārīcī
c17.s2.t5.1
Faces—Five Colour—White Arms—Ten Legs—Four
c17.s2.t5.2
Two Sādhanas in the Sādhanamālā describe her form which is ten-armed, and white in colour. The most important feature of this variety is that she is endowed with four legs. She has five faces. The principal face is white, the right is blue, the left is red and distorted sow-like, the face behind is green, and the face above is yellow and bears the Triśikhā (three tufts of hair) and the Jaṭāmukuṭa. The five right hands hold the sun, the blue Vajra, the arrow, the goad and the needle while the five left hands carry the moon, the bow, the Aśoka bough, the noose with the Tarjanī and the string. She rides a chariot drawn by seven pigs, and tramples under her feet the four Hindu gods Indra, Śiva, Viṣṇu and Brahmā. She bears the effigy of Vairocana on her crown.
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The Sādhanas further add that she should be accompanied by three other goddesses of whom the first is blue in colour, and rides upon a Makara. Her face is mis-shapen like that of a sow, and she carries the Vajra in one hand and the Tarjanī in the other.
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The second goddess appears to the right of Mārīcī, wears celestial ornaments, is ruddy in colour with one face mis-shapen like that of a sow.
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The third goddess appears to the left of Mārīcī. She is of red colour, with one face mis-shapen like that of a sow, and four arms. The two principal hands are engaged in drawing to the full the bow charged with an arrow, while the remaining two hold the Vajra in the right and the Aśoka bough in the left.
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Below the seven pigs drawing the chariot are the Navagrahas or the Nine Planets, and various diseases and disasters in human shape lie flat on the ground¹.
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¹ Sādhana No. 139 in the Sādhanamālā, pp. 285-286.
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The Sādhanas do not give the names of the attendant deities, which are only three in number. It is possible that these three are the members of the Varttālī group. Fig. 155 illustrates a Nepalese drawing of this variety of Mārīcī.
Cites (1)
- Sādhanamālā — Sanskrit