Palden Lhamo

A thangka of Palden Lhamo guardian deity of Tawang Monastery, Arunachal Pradesh, India
Offerings to the Goddess Palden Lhamo, Tibet. Late 16th Century distemper on cloth, 67 x 44 1/8 in. Palden Lhamo is the principal protectress of Tibet and the only female of the Eight Guardians of the dharma. This black-ground (Tibetan: nag thang) painting was installed in the chapel (gonkhang) dedicated to the wrathful protective deities (dharmapalas), a room reserved for tantric initiation rites within a Tibetan monastery.

Palden Lhamo ("Glorious Goddess",[1][2] Tibetan: དཔལ་ལྡན་ལྷ་མོ།, Wylie: dpal ldan lha mo, Lhasa dialect: [pantɛ̃ l̥amo], Sanskrit: Śrīdēvī)[3] or Shri Devi is a tantric Buddhist (Vajrayana) goddess who appears in various forms.[4] She usually appears as a wrathful deity with a primary role as a dharmapala. She is specifically a Wisdom Protector, an enlightened being.[4]

Palden Lhamo is the special dharmapala of the Dalai Lamas, while the three protectors of his Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism are Yamaraja, Vaisravana, and Mahakala.[5] She is the wrathful deity considered to be the principal protectress of Tibet.

Palden Lhamo appears in the retinue of the Obstacle-Removing Mahakala, either as an independent figure[1] or associated to Ekajati,[6] and has been described as "the tutelary deity of Tibet and its government",[7] and as "celebrated all over Tibet and Mongolia, and the potent protector of the Dalai and Panchen Lamas and Lhasa."[8]

  1. ^ a b Buswell, Robert E. Jr.; Ziegler, Donald S. Lopez Jr.; with the assistance of Juhn Ahn, J. Wayne Bass, William Chu, Amanda Goodman, Hyoung Seok Ham, Seong-Uk Kim, Sumi Lee, Patrick Pranke, Andrew Quintman, Gareth Sparham, Maya Stiller, Harumi (2013). Buswell, Robert E; Lopez, Donald S. Jr. (eds.). Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p. 267. ISBN 978-0691157863.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ Volkmann, Rosemarie: "Female Stereotypes in Tibetan Religion and Art: the Genetrix/Progenitress as the Exponent of the Underworld" in Kloppenborg, Ria; Hanegraaff, Wouter J. (1995). Female stereotypes in religious traditions. Leiden: Brill. p. 171. ISBN 978-9004102903.
  3. ^ Dowman, Keith. (1988). The Power-Places of Central Tibet: The Pilgrim's Guide, p. 260. Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., London. ISBN 0-7102-1370-0 (pbk).
  4. ^ a b https://www.himalayanart.org/search/set.cfm?setID=164 Shri Devi Main Page at Himalayan Art Resources
  5. ^ https://tricycle.org/magazine/real-or-pretend/ Are deities real or pretend?
  6. ^ John C. Huntington, Dina Bangdel (2003). The Circle of Bliss: Buddhist Meditational Art. Serindia Publications. p. 335. ISBN 9781932476019.
  7. ^ "The Boneless Tongue: Alternative Voices from Bhutan in the Context of Lamaist Societies". Michael Aris. Past and Present, No. 115 (May, 1987), p. 141.
  8. ^ Schram, Louis M. J. (1957). "The Mongours of the Kannsu-Tibetan Border: Part II. Their Religious Life." Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. New Series, Vol. 47, No. 1, (1957), p. 21.