"With a body red in colour, three faces, six hands, the main face is red, right green, left white; each face possesses three glaring eyes, bared fangs and a curled tongue, moustache, eyebrows and hair - brownish-yellow, flowing upward. Set atop the faces are three green horse heads with mouths gaping and neighing loudly. From the gaps in the mane sparks issue filling the three thousand-fold world. For the six hands, in the first right a vajra is held, second a katvanga, third a sword. The first left is in a wrathful gesture, second a lance, third a lasso of intestines; wearing an upper garment of a fresh elephant hide and a human skin, a lower garment of tiger skin, five dry human skulls as a crown and a necklace of fifty fresh [heads], a brahmin cord of human hair, adorned with drops of blood and clumps of charnel ashes. The four right legs are bent and the four left extended - treading on the forms of the eight great nagas [above a sun disc and multi-coloured lotus]; standing in the middle of a blazing fire of pristine awareness." (Tsarchen Losal Gyatso 1502-1566).

Directly above, within a sphere of rainbow light is the Buddha Amitabha, Lord of the Padma Family, red in colour, with the two hands folded in the mudra of meditation placed in the lap - holding a black begging bowl.

At the bottom center is the avowed protector Gyalpo Pehar, dark blue in colour with one face and two hands, holding a noose in the right and a knife in the left. Wearing long dark garments and a large round hat he rides on the back of a white elephant trampling on a corpse. To the left is the protector Baiktse Chen, red with one face and two hands, holding a sword in the right and a heart in the left. Wearing the garb of a Tibetan warrior he is standing on a horse and human corpse; the special protector for the Hayagriva cycle of practice. To the right is Garwa'i Nagpo, chief attendant to the protector Dorje Lekpa, dark in colour, holding a hammer in the right hand and a blacksmith's bellows in the left. Wearing long garments he rides atop a shaggy brown goat.

The 'Secret Accomplishment' Hayagriva, practiced in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism, is a Treasure Teaching of the Nyingmapas discovered by Nyemowa Sangye Wangchen. The Shangpa Kagyu master Kyergangpa acquired the teaching directly from Guru Rinpoche in a dream and was further instructed to receive the teaching of the 'Terma' from Nyemowa. The practice was then made famous throughout Tibet by the lama Kyergangpa.

Jeff Watt 10-98