The Protector of Tibet

Palden Lhamo (Sanskrit Shri Devi) is the foremost protective deity of Tibet, the special guardian of the Gelug school and of the line of the Dalai Lamas, and the only female figure among the eight great wrathful dharmapalas, the protectors of the teaching. She is depicted in a terrifying form, riding a mule across a sea of blood, the mule's saddle resting on the flayed skin of her own son, a fierce image whose story is that she killed her son when he grew up to harm the teaching, and turned even this into a vow of protection. Her attributes and her frightful setting mark her, like the other wrathful protectors, as a power whose ferocity is directed against the enemies of the Dharma and the obstacles to practice, not against beings as such; in the understanding of the tradition the wrath is an aspect of enlightened activity in a forceful mode.

Palden Lhamo has a particular connection with the affairs of Tibet: the sacred lake associated with her, Lhamo Latso, was traditionally consulted for visions to help in the search for the reincarnations of the Dalai Lamas and other high teachers, and she is invoked as the guardian of the Tibetan government and people. She belongs to the class of Vajrayana meditational and protective deities whose full practice is transmitted within the tradition; described here at the level of her public role and iconography, she stands as the fierce maternal defender of the teaching and of the land under its care.