Vintage bronze incense burner Wrathful Spirit

Very nice Tibetan bronze incense burner, from vintage origin. This incense burner shows the face of a wrathful spirit.

In Himalayan regions, images of freightening faces of wrathful spirits and deities can be found everywhere at the entrances of temples and homes. Being the physical houses for these wrathful entities, masks such as these are obviously not seen as mere decorational pieces on the wall. They are regularly fed with offerings from ghee, wodka, milk or incense smoke.

In both (Tibetan) Buddhism and (Shaivist) Hinduism, they often represent the images of the fierce, wrathful aspects or forms of buddha's, bodhisattva's, deva's and deities (beings that have thus both a peaceful, friendly appearance and a forceful, horrifying form). In Tibetan Buddhism they can also be the images of dharmapala's; spirits and gods originating in the Tibetan pre-buddhist indigenous Bon-tradition, that are said to be 'tamed' by Padmasambhava in the 8th century CE and then sworn an oath to protect the buddhist dharma ever since.

The wrathful deities are portrait as terrifying, demonic-looking beings, often further adorned with gruesome ritual attributes and symbolic decorations such as (human) bones and skulls and other items associated with the charnel grounds.

But as terrifying as they might appear, they actually are often driven by compassion. They are very strong and powerful protectors and guides for those on the path to enlightenment, embodying the power and force needed to go forward and overcome and transform all obstacles on the way. They fight against all kinds of demons and evil and in Tibetan Buddhism especially against the enemies of Buddhism. 

But not always are these freightening faces specifically to be associated with the wrathful aspect of an identifiable deity. They can also be more ‘random’, general, anonymous wrathful faces working from the age old adage of “scaring away evil forces with an even more terrifying and forceful one”. And because the depictions of these more general wrathful spirits are of course not bound to the restrictions of the iconography of a certain specific deity, their depictions often consist of the most gruesome details their artist could come up with; the most demonic facial expressions combined with sharp teeth, a devilish pair of horns, skull ornaments etc.

Images from wrathful deities and spirits have also found their way into some classical shamanic lineages, such as the lineage of Spirit of Wolf. Here they are also associated with Erlik Han, Lord of the Underworld, and as such mostly used by black shamans.

This old bronze incense burner weighs a heavy 662 grams. Sizes are approximately; 18 centimeters length, 16 centimeters wide and 7,5 centimeters high.

Please note; this incense burner is from vintage origin and has some damages and imperfections due to its age and previous usage; it stands a bit crooked on its feet (due to its feet not being all the exact same height) and on the backside there's some old smear of paint. Some of the (faux) inlay stones of turquoise and coral had gone missing over time, but all have been nicely replaced with new stones.

Use incense burners such as this one by filling it with sand, rice or little stones before placing your incense sticks or cones in it.