This image may have once adorned a temple at the famed Densatil Monastery complex in central Tibet. Between 1198 and the early 17th century as many as eighteen stupas were erected at Densatil to either inter the remains of revered Kagyu Buddhist abbots and local princes or to honor their memory. The exteriors of the stupas were adorned with ornate high relief sculptures depicting various deities and subsidiary divinities. The Densatil monastic complex was destroyed during the Chinese Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976.
The wrathful figure has three bulging eyes (including the third eye in his forehead), bushy eyebrows, long snake necklace, and a tiger skin loincloth; curiously, however, he does not have fangs. He is two-armed with his hands held in variants of teaching or exposition gestures (vyakhyana mudra). He stands in a militant posture (pratyalidha asana) directly on a lotus base without any intervening recumbent conquered figures. His copious jewelry is inlaid with gemstones. The crest of his sumptuous crown is graced with the "Face of Garuda" (garudamukha), the ancient sky-bird and Vajrayana class of bird-genii that is depicted here as a winged bust with an avian head and raptor beak, and his paws seizing his archenemies, the serpents (nagas). This heraldic form of Garuda is a variant of the Indian "Face of Glory" (kirttimukha). (Robert Beer, The Encyclopedia of Tibetan Symbols and Motifs [Boston: Shambala Publications, 1999], pp. 65-68, pl. 44 and pp. 69-70, pl. 46).
A comparable wrathful attendant or guardian deity from Densatil is published in Jean-Luc Estournel, "About the 18 stupas and other treasures once at the Densatil monastery," Asianart.com (2020), fig. 320, https://www.asianart.com/articles/densatil/index.html#320; and Himalayan Buddhist Art, https://himalayanbuddhistart.wordpress.com/2017/10/31/tibet-unidentified-wrathful-deities-3/