33”x 23.25” Simhamukha Thangka Painting

Simhamukha

The dakini Simhamukha is a female meditational deity with a lion face. In the Sarma traditions (Sakya, Kagyu, Gelug) she arises out of the Chakrasamvara cycle of Tantras and belongs to the Anuttarayoga 'wisdom' classification. The Sarma tradition Simhamukha is somewhat unrelated to the deity of the same name and appearance in the Nyingma tradition, although the Nyingma Simhamukha is based on the Sarma tradition of Bari Lotsawa according to Nyangral Nyima Ozer. In the Nyingma 'Treasure,' tradition Simhamukha is regarded as one of the many forms of Padmasambhava, specifically a 'secret' form of Guru Rinpoche within the system of outer, inner and secret manifestations. 

"...the wisdom Dakini Simhamukha, with a body blue-black in color, one face, two hands; three eyes, red, round and glaring; bared fangs and a curled tongue. The right-hand holds aloft to the sky a curved-knife marked with a vajra. The left a blood-filled skullcup to the heart, carrying a three-pointed khatvanga staff in the bend of the left elbow. Orange hair, eyebrows, and beard flowing upwards, with five dry human heads as a crown and fifty wet, blood dripping, as a necklace. With five bone ornaments and a tiger skin as a lower garment; standing on the left leg with the right drawn-up, in the middle of a blazing fire of pristine awareness." [sGrub Thabs Kun bTus, vol.8, folios 288-290. Translated in 1989].