Karma Kagyu is the second-largest lineage of the Kagyu school, one of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Among a number of peculiarities relating to this school is the figure of Mahakala, who is considered Karma Kagyu’s patron and protector. Originally a Hindu deity, a fierce manifestation of Shiva and consort to Mahakali, a goddess of time and death. Buddhists then adopted Mahakala as their own, portraying him as a dharmapāla (‘protector of the dharma’) and as a wrathful emanation of the Buddha himself. A particular form of Mahakala, the ‘black cloaked’ Mahakala (Tibetan: mgon po ber nag chen), was especially associated with Karma Kagyu. Originally a protector of the karmapas (leaders of the sect), introduced by the second karmapa in the mid-Thirteenth Century AD, ‘black cloaked’ Mahakala became a general patron of all adherents, and a popular subject of devotional imagery. Characterised by his warlock’s cloak (māntrika), Mahakala – whose name means ‘beyond time/death’ – was replete with fierce death imagery.

This example of a ‘black-cloaked’ Mahakala displays all the traditional attributes. Stood on a lotus throne (padmasāna). He is depicted squatting, legs bent at the knee, with the skin of an Indian leopard (Panthera pardus fusca) around his waist, a holdover from his origins on the subcontinent. Also hanging around his waist is a belt of severed human heads, which dangles below his portly stomach. Around his shoulders is his actual black cloak, and hanging from his neck are various necklaces and other adornments. IN his right hand, he holds what is known in Tibetan as a drigug, a semi-circular flaying knife, originally used by Indian butchers to remove the skins of animals, but which became an important symbol of wrathful deities in Vajrayana Buddhism. In his left hand, he holds a kapala, a cup made from a human skull and overflowing with blood. These, too, were used in the esoteric practices of Vajrayana. Paired together, the drigung and kapala represent the inseparable union of wisdom and skilful means. Mahakala’s face is deliberately fierce and ugly. His three eyes, derived from his Hindu origins as a form of Shiva, stare unblinkingly at the viewer with a well-studied intensity. His hair and beard flow upwards like flames, adding to his fearsome countenance. He is crowned with an elaborate headdress, fronted by a diadem with five skulls. These skulls represent the five kleśas, states of mind that negatively cloud the path to enlightenment, and their transmutation into the five wisdoms (tarthāgatas). Around his body is a fiery halo (pabha), which signifies purity, since the flames were considered to burn up the negative and impure thoughts which interfere with enlightenment.

This figure comes from a later period in Tibetan history, the turn of the Nineteenth into the Twentieth Century AD. This was a vital time in the Tibetan consciousness. Following the decline of the Qing Chinese Empire, and the deposition of the last Emperor, the child Puyi, Tibet achieved a period of de facto independence, under the rule of the Dalai Lamas. While China endured a civil war, and the rule of warlords, Chinese troops were finally withdrawn from Lhasa after nearly two centuries of semi-occupation. While the Chinese claimed to be de jure rulers of Tibet, the reality was that Chinese influence had waned to the point of negligibility. Perhaps the most important external force in Tibet in this period came from the south, in the form of the British rulers of India. After the Younghusband Mission in AD 1904, the British stationed permanent representatives in numerous Tibetan cities, including Gyantse, Yatung, Gartok and, of course, Lhasa. The British, like the Chinese before them, discouraged Tibet from opening up to foreigners, in order to jealously guard their colonial interests. Another result of this isolation, however, was the flourishing of native Tibetan arts, under the protection of the foreign power. It is to this flourishing that this Mahakala dates.