Vajrabhairava (Adamantine Anger), also known as Yamantaka (Conqueror of Death), is the wrathful manifestation of Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom. He is a meditational deity (yidam) in the Anuttara Yoga classification of Tantric Vajrayana Buddhism, which was practiced in the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism founded by Tsongkhapa (1357–1419). His consort is Vajra Vetali (Adamantine Zombie).
Vajrabhairava is represented in multiple iconographic forms. Here, he has a flaming nimbus and nine heads, eight of which are fierce. The primary head is a buffalo symbolic of Vajrabhairava's role as the destoyer of death. His uppermost placid head is Manjushri. He has thirty-four arms holding assorted weapons and attributes. His principal and hold a flaying knife (kartrika) and a skullcup (kapala). He holds an elephant skin draped behind him. The practitioner must visualize each ritual object and its specific Tantric symbolism. He has sixteen legs, stands in the militant posture (alidha asana), and is trampling various gods, humans, animals, and birds.
Vajrabhairava embraces Vajra Vetali in the "father-mother" (yab-yum) sexual posture. She has one head and two arms holding a thunderbolt (vajra) in her right hand and a skullcup in her left hand.
The complex image is cast in sixteen pieces and is a tour de force of Tibetan metalworking. See also M.77.19.8, M.79.243.1-.3, and a comparable 18th-century brass sculpture in the British Museum, London (1880.157).
