Yama (the Lord of Death) and Yamantaka (Defeater of Death)

Yama the Lord of Death

Yama the Lord of Death
He should be of dark color, resembling the rain-cloud, with two arms and a buffalo head, fire-colored eyes and sharp side-tusks. He stands on his buffalo mount, under which a body is seen lying. In his right hand he holds a danda, a skull-headed club. In his left, He holds a noose of rope (pasa).
www.flickr.com/PetWerewolf :  "Yama is one of the dharmapalas, or protectors of Buddhist doctrine.
His fearsome appearance helps him to combat malevolent demons and other enemies of Buddhism...
Originally, Yama was a Hindu god. Like many other Hindu gods, he has been adopted and worshipped by the Buddhists, together with all his original functions.
A Buddhist sign on his abdomen, a chakra or wheel, which is a mark of Buddhist doctrine, shows that the statue is part of Buddhist religion."

Image source: photobucket.com

Yamantaka

Yamantaka

Image source: commons.wikimedia.org: Yamantaka

The following story describes the relationship between Yama and Yamantaka:

A holy man was told that if he meditated for the next 50 years, he would achieve enlightenment.

The holy man meditated in a cave for 49 years, 11 months and 29 days, until he was interrupted by two thieves who broke in with a stolen bull.

After beheading the bull in front of the hermit, they ignored his requests to be spared for but a few minutes, and beheaded him as well.

In his near-enlightened fury, this holy man became Yama, the god of Death, took the bull's head for his own, and killed the two thieves, drinking their blood from cups made of their skulls.
Still enraged, Yama decided to kill everyone in Tibet.

The people of Tibet, fearing for their lives, prayed to the bodhisattva Manjusri, who took up their cause. He transformed himself into Yamantaka, similar to Yama but ten times more powerful and horrific.
In their battle, everywhere Yama turned, he found infinite versions of himself. Manjusri as Yamantaka defeated Yama, and turned him into a protector of Buddhism.

One of the Ten Kings of the Underworld

One of the Ten Kings of the Underworld
Painting on paper, 18.0 x 26.8 cm. Yarkhoto, 8th -9th century
Museum fur Indische Kunst (MIK III 6327 )

Apart from the richly painted miniatures found in the Turfan oasis, which as we have seen are mostly from Manichaean manuscripts, the site yielded two other kinds of book illustration: wood blocks, which deal with Buddhist themes and accompany texts in either Chinese or Uighurian; and black-and-white or lightly colored drawings relating to various texts, such as the one which is the subject of this illustration and No. 135. (Next image)

As von Gabain (1973a) has established, the text here concerns the cult of Kshitigarbha, the bodhisattva who rescues repentant souls from hell, which was widespread in Central Asia. Dated not earlier than the eighth century A.D., the text is entitled The Ten Kings Institute the Seven. It tells how after death each person must appear before the tribunal of the ten underworld kings in succession, every seventh day before each of the first seven kings, before the next two kings after one hundred days and one year respectively, reaching the tenth king finally after three years.

As in an earthly court, the offenses of the deceased — the evil he has done and the good he has failed to do — are read out to him from a charge-sheet, that is, a scroll. He is berated by each of the Ten Kings, menaced by their myrmidons, locked in the pillory, and even tortured In view of this highly unenviable position, it is necessary — as the text enjoins again and again — for pious relatives to earn merit (punya) for him by copying sacred texts and . . . commissioning "pictures" or "sculptures." If succor is given to a dead person in this way, even the last of the Ten Kings will be inclined to show mercy. Kshitigarbha appears to him . . . and rescues him from this prison; indeed, he even escorts the deceased to Amitabha in his Western Paradise. (Gabain 1973a, pp. 48f)

Kshitigarbha in this text appears as the great savior, and seems to have had a special connection with the cult of the dead. Illustrated copies of the Central Asian text, made in Tun-huang in the tenth century, are evidence for the assertion that a whole series of drawings in Berlin's Turfan collection belongs to a work of this kind.

In the painting shown here we see a bearded man, one of the Ten Kings, sitting at a table. A label in the middle of his cap, from which a veil is suspended, bears the inscription "king" in Chinese. His wide-sleeved overgarment is Chinese; the undergarment is belted with a sash. The charge-sheet in the form of a scroll lies on the table in front of him. At the bottom left is the head of a small figure — one of the youths who, the text tells us, bring a pair of scales to weigh the good and bad deeds of the deceased against each other.

Lady in Waiting to One of the Ten Kings

Lady in Waiting to One of the Ten Kings
Painting on paper, 12.6 x 2.8 cm. Toyok, 8th -9th century
Museum fur Indische Kunst (MIK III 47)

The retinue of each of the Ten Kings includes, we are told, ladies in waiting of noble rank, of whom this is one. She faces left, presumably looking toward her underworld master. Her hair is piled up in an elaborate coiffure tied with a reddish ribbon. She wears a red undergarment, a yellow-and-brown dress with a panel in blue silk, and a wide, reddish sash. Round her neck is a simple chain. The costume of the ladies in waiting, like that of the Ten Kings, is not Uighurian, nor is it purely Chinese in style.

Emma Ō