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Vajravarahi


In Tibetan Buddhism, Vajravārāhī ("The Diamond Sow", Tibetan: ་རྡོ་རྗེ་ཕག་མོWylie: rdo rje phag mo Dorje Pakmo) is a wrathful form of Vajrayogini associated particularly with the Cakrasaṃvara Tantra, where she is paired in yab-yum with the heruka Cakrasaṃvara. Judith Simmer-Brown writes that "Vajravārāhī's iconography is very similar to that of Vajrayoginī, but she often has more prominent fangs and a more wrathful expression, and she prominently displays a sow's head above her right ear."

Although there are practices of Vajravārāhī in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism, she is particularly associated with the Kagyu school and is one of the main yidam practices of that school. Her tulkus, the Samding Dorje Phagmo, are associated with the Bodongpa, a little-known school of Tibetan Buddhism.

Vajravārāhī is one of the most popular female Tantric deities in all traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. Although there are several forms, the basic iconography is that she has one face, (usually) two hands and two legs, is usually red in colour, and standing in a dancing posture on a human corpse. The distinguishing iconographic attribute is a sow head (varahi) placed either on the right side of her head or on the top of her head. Because of this sow's head, sometimes she is called the 'two-faced' Vajrayogini (shal nyi ma).

The tulku lineage associated with Vajravarahi is that of Samding Dorje Phagmo, who first manifested at Samding Monastery in 1717 in order to tame Yamdrok Lake, a sacred lake as well as a dangerous flashpoint for massive flooding events in Tibet.


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