The Indian Buddhist Iconography

by Benoytosh Bhattachacharyya | 1958 | 51,392 words | ISBN-10: 8173053138 | ISBN-13: 9788173053139

This page contains an iconography image of Four Light Goddesses: Dipa and represents figure 213 of the book Indian Buddhist Iconography, based on extracts of the Sadhanamala English translation. These plates and illustrations represent either photographs of sculptures or line-drawing reproductions of paintings or other representations of Buddhist artwork.

Figure 213 - Four Light Goddesses: Dīpā

Dipa
Fig. 213: Dīpā
(Peiping)

There are four goddesses of Light in the Vajrayāna pantheon. They are named as Sūryahastā, Dīpā, Ratnolkā and Taḍitkarā and described in the Pañcaḍāka-maṇḍala of the Niṣpannayogāvalī. Collectively, they are conceived as nude, and as violent in appearance with garland of skulls and severed heads. They dance on a corpse in the Pratyālīḍha attitude and hold their special marks of recognition in their hands. They [viz., Dīpā] are described below in the order in which they appear in the Pañcaḍāka-maṇḍala.

2. Dīpā:

Colour: blue;
Arms: two;
Symbol: Light stick.

The second Light deity is called Dīpā. Her form is described as under: “Dīpā is blue in colour and holds in her hands the light stick”. A statuette of this goddess occurs in the Chinese collection. This Chinese statuette is illustrated in Fig. 213.

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