Mahāpratisarā (Ch: 大随求菩薩;

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

: ''Dàsuíqiú''; Jp: ''Daizuigu'') is a female Buddhist deity in

East Asian Buddhism East Asian Buddhism or East Asian Mahayana is a collective term for the schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism which developed across East Asia and which rely on the Chinese Buddhist canon. These include the various forms of Chinese, Japanese, Kore ...

and

Vajrayana ''Vajrayāna'' (; 'vajra vehicle'), also known as Mantrayāna ('mantra vehicle'), Guhyamantrayāna ('secret mantra vehicle'), Tantrayāna ('tantra vehicle'), Tantric Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism, is a Mahāyāna Buddhism, Mahāyāna Buddhis ...

Buddhism. She is sometimes presented as the consort of

Vairocana Vairocana (from Sanskrit: Vi+rocana, "from the sun" or "belonging to the sun", "Solar", or "Shining"), also known as Mahāvairocana (Great Vairocana), is a major Buddha from Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism. Vairocana is often interpreted, in text ...

or as an emanation of Ratnasambhava Buddha.Bhattacharyya Benoytosh (1924).
The Indian Buddhist Iconography Mainly Based on the Sādhanamālā and Other Cognate Tāntric Texts of Rituals
', pp. 116-117. Oxford University Press. Mahāpratisarā is the main deity of the fivefold Pañcarakṣā set of protector deities and thus she is often shown surrounded by the other four protector goddesses. In the Indian Tantric Buddhist ''Sadhanamala'', she is depicted as yellow in complexion, with three faces with three eyes each, ten arms, carrying various implements and weapons. In East Asian Esoteric Buddhism, this deity is found in the Garbhadhatu Mandala and is associated with protection. She is invoked through her mantra which is believed to fulfill the wishes of sentient beings, especially in eliminating defilement and averting calamities. In Japan, Mahāpratisarā was popular during the

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kammu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means in Japanese. It is a ...

. She is sometimes depicted with a yellow body and eight arms, though the iconography varies. There are various texts associated with Mahāpratisarā in the East Asian Buddhist canon, including two

dharani Dharanis (IAST: ), also known as (Skt.) ''vidyās'' and ''paritas'' or (Pal.) ''parittas'', are lengthier Buddhist mantras functioning as mnemonic codes, incantations, or recitations, and almost exclusively written originally in Sanskrit while Pa ...

sutras and two ritual manuals. Several Japanese Buddhist temples contain images of this deity, including Kanshin-ji,

Kiyomizu-dera is a Buddhist temple located in eastern Kyoto, Japan. The temple is part of the Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto UNESCO World Heritage Site. History The temple was established in 778, during the late Nara period, by Enchin Shonin, who ...

and Ishite-ji.

Notes

Bodhisattvas {{Buddhism-stub