Ritual Implements in Tibetan Buddhism

Ritual Implements in Tibetan Buddhism:

A Symbolic Appraisal Rites and rituals are an essential part of Tibetan religion and reflect its practical side. Not restricted to temples alone, they are performed in a variety of places and circumstances, for a myriad of purposes. Daily ceremonies are conducted in temples, although they are perhaps not so elaborate as those that take place in Hindu temples in Nepal and India.
Throughout the year, too, special rituals are performed to propitiate deities, to precipitate rain, to avert hailstorms, diseases, and death, to ensure good harvests, to exorcise demons and evil spirits, and of course to destroy the passions of the mind and, ultimately, the ego. All these practices-whether occult, magical, or shamanistic, require various implements which are as important as the images of the deities in whose service they are employed.

Some deities Statues Hold Ritual Implements

Each such object is pregnant with symbolic meaning and is frequently imbued with magical power and potency
Many of these ritual implements also occur as hand-held attributes of various important Buddhist deities (Above Statues Click for Detail). Many of these weapons and implements have their origins in the wrathful arena of the battlefield and the funerary realm of the cremation grounds. As primal images of destruction, slaughter, sacrifice, and necromancy, these weapons were wrested from the hands of evil and turned-as symbols-against the ultimate root of evil, the self-cherishing ego.

In the hands of wrathful and semi-wrathful deities, protective deities, the siddhas and the dakinis, these implements became pure symbols, weapons of transformation, and an expression of the deities' wrathful compassion, which mercilessly destroys the manifold illusions of the inflated human ego.
Read Some of the important ritual implements:
· The Vajra or Thunderbolt, also known in Tibetan as dorje.

· The Bell, known in Sanskrit as the Ghanta, and in Tibetan as dril bu.

· The Phurpa (Ritual Dagger)

· The Skull Cup, known as kapala in Sanskrit. (will be posted soon)

Also See some detail picture of Crystal Kapala



Dakini Using Skull Cup (Kapala) and Kapala offering Painting

· The Curved Knife or Chopper

· The Curved Knife or Chopper

KARTIKA The Curved Knife or Chopper

KARTIKA (The Curved Knife) or Chopper :Kartika is one of the most prominent weapons used by Buddhism's angry deities, both male and female. Continuously brandished by them or simply carried in their hands, its purpose is to chop up disbelievers.
This curved flaying-knife is modeled on 'knife of the butchers', used for skinning animal hides. The gibbous crescent of its blade, which terminates in a sharp point or curved hook, combines the flaying implements of a cutting-knife and scraping blade, and the piercing activity of a dagger or pulling-hook. The blade's crescent is used for cutting through flesh and scraping it clean, separating the outer and inner as 'appearance and emptiness'.

Kartika is one of the most prominent weapons used by Buddhism's angry deities, both male and female. see pictures below

The sharp hook or point of the blade is used for the more delicate acts of flaying: the initial incising of the carcass, the pulling out of veins and tendons, and cutting around the orifices of the skin.

An interesting but somewhat disturbing legend is related about the Mahakala ( Right and Left picture)'protector chapel' at Samye monastery in Central Tibet. Traditionally, this forbidding chapel was kept locked for most of the year and entry into its precinct was rarely permitted.The attendant monk who supervised the chapel would each year ceremoniously replace an iron chopper and wooden chopping board which had become blunt and worn down by its nocturnal activities. Even though the chapel was locked and empty, at night the screams of the ethereal miscreants hacked under Mahakala's chopper could be clearly heard from outside the chapel.


In Mahakala's symbolism the curved knife cuts through the life veins of enemies such as oath-breakers and hindering spirits; and his skull cup is filled with the heart-blood of these enemies. This crescent shaped chopper, held by deities such as Mahakala, corresponds in shape to the cavity of the skull cup and functions to make 'mincemeat' of the hearts, intestines, lungs, and life-veins of enemies hostile to the dharma, which are then collected in the skull cup. As mentioned, a similar crescent shaped hand cleaver is used in oriental cuisine to chop meat and dice vegetables.

Just as the thunderbolt( vajra ) is typically paired with the bell, so do the chopper and skull cup generally accompany each other. The symbolism of the two pairs may be the same. Since the chopper is the instrument for cutting through the fog of ignorance, it represents method, the masculine principle, while the cup symbolizes wisdom, the feminine principle. In many ways, the chopper serves the same purpose as the dorje or the phurpa and is employed in rituals of exorcism by priests and shamans.

Broadly speaking, the category of ritual objects in Tibetan religion includes nearly all objects that serve a religious function. The extensive variety and uses of ritual objects should be noted as one of the defining elements of Tibetan art, for no other culture has generated so wide a range of such implements. The great breadth also holds true for the materials they are made from. These include various metal alloys, precious metals, especially silver, jewels, wood, sculpted butter, and even human bones and ashes, taking the ritual well beyond the usual range of materials familiar among most religious traditions.

Most ritual objects are used in temples by initiated lamas who alone have the right and duty to perform the various rituals. In this and in many other ways the customs are not different from those of Judaism and Christianity, in which the rabbi or priest performs most acts of worship.
Aesthetically appealing and visually resplendent, Tibetan ritual implements are indeed fascinating, as much for their exquisite craftsmanship as for their rich forms and symbolism.

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