Tsiu Marpo- Tibetan GodDeity"Red Wild Tsen"

King of the Tsen

Before Buddhism reached Tibet, Tsiu Marpo ruled the tsen, red warrior ghosts who haunted rocky crags, high passes, and battlefields across the plateau. The tsen were spirits of men who died in violence, their rage unextinguished by death, and they brought fever, madness, and sudden bloodshed to any who crossed their territory. Tsiu Marpo was chief among them, a war spirit whose red body blazed like fire and who rode a red horse through the mountain skies at the head of vast tsen armies. His spear struck first. His lasso dragged travelers from their horses.

Subjugation by Padmasambhava

When Padmasambhava journeyed through Tibet in the eighth century, subduing the land's spirits and binding them to protect the dharma, Tsiu Marpo refused submission. He marshaled his tsen hosts against the tantric master. The Padma bka' thang describes a contest of power in which Padmasambhava's tantric authority overwhelmed the war spirit's martial fury. Defeated but not destroyed, Tsiu Marpo was bound by solemn oath to serve Buddhism. His weapons, once turned against humans, would now strike down enemies of the dharma. His tsen armies, once the terror of travelers, would guard practitioners and monasteries.

The Bound Protector

As a sworn dharma protector, Tsiu Marpo holds command over the entire tsen class. When illness or misfortune is attributed to tsen disturbance, lamas invoke him to restrain his subjects rather than confronting individual spirits. He is propitiated with offerings suited to his martial nature: red torma and red drinks, alongside weapons laid before his shrine. In protector chapels, his image appears mounted and armed, red-bodied, riding his red horse through flames, spear raised and lasso coiled, surrounded by retinues of galloping tsen warriors.