At 94 ½ inches in height, this is one of the largest Tibetan ceremonial paintings (thangka) outside of Tibet. It depicts the Vajrayana (esoteric) Buddhist protective deities Yama and his sister Yami. Yama is the Lord of the Underworld who judges the soul at the gates of hell. As a Dharmaraja (King of the [Buddhist] Law), Yama is a major member of the Dharmapalas (Protectors of the [Buddhist] Law), who are believed to defend Buddhism and its teachings, and destroy the hindrances of its followers. He is specifically depicted here in his conceptual form of the Outer Yamaraja (Lord of Death), who protects Buddhists and monasteries from droughts, bandits, and other evils. See also M.84.104. The macabre imagery of Yama and Yami serves to terrify those who might seek to harm Buddhists. Yama is thus represented in a fierce form surrounded by brilliant areola of billowing flames. He has a buffalo’s head and wears a diadem of skulls, bone ornaments, and a long garland of severed heads. He carries a chastising staff and a noose to bind souls. Yami, equally horrific, offers him a skullcup full of demon-blood elixir. They stand aggressively on a blue bull, which crushes a female figure symbolic of ignorant life. Beneath them are ritual offerings of multicolored gems and skullcups filled with gruesome body parts and organs intended to remind devotees of the impermanence of one’s physical body. Five small images of Yama, each a different color representing a distinct conceptual form, appear in the four corners and apex of the painting. The green landscape along the bottom and sides of the thangka are characteristic of eastern Tibetan painting.

• Little, Stephen, Tushara Bindu Gude, Karina Romero Blanco, Silvia Seligson, Marco Antonio Karam. Las Huellas de Buda. Ciudad de México : Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 2018.
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• Pal, Pratapaditya. Art of Tibet. Expanded edition. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1990.