Go Back

The nine forms of Hayagrīva, the most secret wrathful deity


The nine deities of the most secret wrathful Hayagrīva, an emanation of the supreme and noble Avalokiteśvara, are dark red in colour, with three faces and six arms. The central face is red, the right face is white, and the left face is green. On the crown of their heads is a green horse’s head, the centre of which is white. The root left hand holds a skull cup, the right hand a lotus, the remaining right hands hold a goad, the second a club, the first left hand a lasso, and the second a sword. They have the wings of a garuḍa, blazing with fire. He wears a dry human head and the six bone ornaments and so forth, and from his four legs, he stands in the posture of right leg drawn in and left leg extended, in a majestic pose. The consort, Garwangma, is dark blue in color. She holds a skull cup in her right hand and a human heart in her left hand. She embraces the father, Hayagriva, in the secret place and offers a blood-filled skull cup to the father. Both himself and consort have a crown of five-family dry skulls, and are surrounded by the four doorkeepers—Vajra Maheśvara, RatnaMaheśvara, Padma Maheśvara, and Karma Maheśvara—and the four doorkeepers’ retinue, such as Hook, Lasso, Iron Chain, and Bell. Not only does he avert all harm from humans and nonhumans, such as the harm caused by the upper evil spirits, the middle evil spirits and the lower evil spirits, nāgas, and earth lords, but if he gets angry, he is red Hayagriva, and if he doesn’t get angry, he is the Great Compassionate One, who is inseparable from the great treasure of the compassion of all the victorious ones, the supremely noble Great Compassionate One.