The Great Black One, a Wrathful Protector

Mahakala, the Great Black One, is a wrathful protector deity (dharmapala) prominent in Vajrayana Buddhism, especially in Tibet, Mongolia and parts of East Asia. Iconographically fierce, dark-bodied, wreathed in flame, crowned with skulls and trampling obstacles underfoot, he is understood not as an evil power but as the compassionate energy of enlightenment taking a form terrible enough to overcome the forces that obstruct the Dharma and its practitioners. He appears in many forms, distinguished by the number of arms and by their attributes, and different forms are tied to different lineages and monasteries, which look to him as a guardian of the teaching and of their communities. In origin he is related to a wrathful aspect of the Indian god Shiva absorbed into the Buddhist tantric pantheon and there reinterpreted as an emanation of enlightened activity; in East Asia a related protector is worshipped as Daikokuten, one of the Japanese gods of fortune.