Troma Nagmo Thangka Print – A4 Tibetan Treasures

Giclee Print by Robert Beer
7.” x 10.75″

The dynamic figure of Troma Nagmo (Tib. khros ma nag mo), the ‘Wrathful Black Mother’ (Skt. Krishna Kali, Krishna Krodhini), dominates the centre of this gold-on-black composition. She is extremely fierce, as youthful and nubile as a sixteen-year-old, and black in colour like the darkness at the end of time. With her right leg drawn up and her left leg bent in ‘bow-and-arrow’ posture, she dances upon the golden sun-disc of her lotus seat, with her left foot pressing down upon the breasts of a naked female demon that has been thrown down onto its back. This fierce demon reveals her sharp teeth and vagina, and her breasts are the ‘seat of desire’, thus her corpse represents the concept of the self-cherishing attitude that is sacrificed through the practice of the chod ritual.

Troma Nagmo’s facial expression is ferocious and terrifying, with three round and angry red eyes that gaze piercingly towards the left, and a large gaping mouth that reveals her sharp teeth and fangs, and her twisting red tongue. Her nose is wrinkled as she frowns, and her red facial hair blazes upward like tongues of fire. The tawny-yellow locks of her matted hair swirl upwards like thunderclouds above her five-skull tiara, and from the crown of her head protrudes the wrathful black or brown head of a squealing sow that gazes up into the sky towards her right. Troma Nagmo’s face represents her single potential and the ‘relative truth’, while the sow’s face represents her perception of emptiness as the ‘absolute truth’. Her black colour indicates her unchangeable nature, and her two heads the transformation of ignorance (sow’s head) into wisdom or pristine awareness (dakini’s head). Her three eyes perceive the three worlds and times; her four sharp canine teeth liberate the four maras or demonic obstructions; her twisting red tongue indicates that she leads beings from cyclic existence; her blazing facial hair indicates her triumph over hopes and fears, and her two legs represent the purity of samsara and nirvana. – Robert Beer