Palden Lhamo- Tibetan GodDeity"Glorious Goddess"

The Terrible Vow

Palden Lhamo was once a queen, married to a demonic king of Ceylon who persecuted Buddhism and slaughtered its practitioners. He burned texts and tortured monks. Palden Lhamo pleaded with him. She reasoned, cajoled, used every skillful means at her disposal. Nothing worked.

So she made a vow of last resort: if she could not convert her husband, she would end his evil lineage. She killed their son, the heir to the demon throne, and from his flayed skin she made a saddle for her mule. His blood filled the ocean she would ride across. His skull became her drinking cup.

She fled on the mule, galloping across the blood-sea while her enraged husband gave chase. He loosed an arrow that struck the mule's hindquarters. Palden Lhamo drew the shaft from the wound and spoke a curse: "May this wound become an eye large enough to watch over all of Tibet." The eye opened on the mule's rump, and it has never closed. She rode north, across the ocean of blood, across mountains and deserts, until she reached the high plateau. There she swore a new oath: she would guard this land and its dharma against all enemies, visible and invisible, for all time.

The Rider on the Blood Sea

Tibetan painters depict her at full gallop. Dark blue body blazing with fire. Hair streaming upward in flames. Three red eyes glare from beneath a crown of five skulls, and a garland of freshly severed heads hangs at her throat. She rides sidesaddle on her mule across the blood ocean, the reins made of poisonous snakes, the sandalwood club raised in her right hand, a skull cup brimming with blood cradled in her left. Beneath the saddle lies the flayed skin of her son.

The Lake of Visions

Palden Lhamo is bound above all to the Dalai Lama lineage. She appeared to the First Dalai Lama, Gendun Drup, and swore to protect every subsequent incarnation. When a Dalai Lama dies and the search for his reincarnation begins, high lamas travel to Lhamo Latso, a small lake about ninety miles northeast of Lhasa that is sacred to her. On the lake's still surface, visions appear: letters of the Tibetan alphabet, images of buildings and landscapes, fragments of direction pointing toward the region where the child will be found.

In 1935, the regent Reting Rinpoche traveled to Lhamo Latso and saw on the water's surface the letters Ah, Ka, and Ma, along with the image of a monastery with a jade-green and gold roof beside a small house with turquoise tiles. These visions led the search party to Amdo province and to the village of Taktser, where they found the two-year-old Lhamo Dhondup. Palden Lhamo's prophecies, reflected in water, have guided Tibet's spiritual succession for centuries.

The Twenty-Ninth Day

On the twenty-ninth day of each lunar month, Tibetan monasteries perform special rituals for Palden Lhamo. Black tea, alcohol, and blood-red torma offerings are arranged before her image. Her altar is decorated with weapons, bone ornaments, and skulls.

Every evening at dusk, her image is placed facing outward at doorways and gates: the fierce face that meets anyone who approaches with ill intent. Together with Nechung, the State Oracle of Tibet, she forms the protective system that has guided Tibetan governance through centuries of crisis. Nechung's human medium delivers oracular guidance on temporal matters. Behind him stands Palden Lhamo, the fierce mother whose eye on the mule's rump has never closed.