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The Thirteen Deity Yamantaka


The glorious and great Yamataka with Thirteen Deities is black in color. He has nine faces with thirty seven arms and sixteen legs. He stands with right leg bent and left leg extended. He bares his fangs and looks wrathful. His eyebrows and eyes blaze like the time of destruction. His tawny hair is coiled upward. He holds a skull cup made from five dry skulls. His head is adorned with a garland of fifty fresh skulls. A black snake is the sacrificial ladle, and he has a human bone wheel. He is adorned with bone ornaments such as earrings. He has a large belly and naked body. His eyebrows, eyelashes, beard, and body hairs blaze upward like fire. His main face look like a buffalo and is wrathful with a sharp horn. He has five locks of hair on his head. The first face on the right of the horn’s root is blue. The face to the right of that is smoke-colored. The left face is black and all faces look very wrathful. All nine faces have three eyes on each. The first two arms on the right and left sides hold fresh elephant skins. On the right side, he holds a curved knife, a pestle, a water knife, an axe, spear, and arrow, a hook, a club, a wheel, a five-pronged vajra, vajra hammer and sword, and a changdeo. On the left side he holds a skull, a head of Brahma, a shield, a leg, a lasso, a bow, an intestine, a bell, hands, cloth from a cremation site, a person speared on the end a stick, a fire pit, a skull cup and three pointed thrust and clothes. The eight right legs press down on a human, buffalo, ox, donkey, camel, dog, sheep, and a wolf. The eight left legs press down on a vulture, owl, crow, parrot, eagle, big bird, house bird, and a shayma. He presses down under his feet Brahmā, Indra, Viṣṇu, Rudra, the six-faced youth, and the misleading one, moon and sun. He is standing in the midst of a blazing fire. In his lap is the mother, blue Vajra. She has one face with two arms. Her right hand holds a vajra curved knife and her left hand, embracing the father, holds a skull filled with blood. Her head is adorned with five dry skulls and necklace made of fifty skulls. She is adorned with the five mudras. Her right leg is extended, and her left leg embraces the father. Her entourage has eight yamantakas and four mothers.