Mahakala, the Black Sky God

Mahakala, the 'Great Black Heaven-God' or Black Sky God, is a wrathful Buddhist guardian who became the focus of a flourishing cult in the Nanzhao and Dali kingdoms of Yunnan from the ninth century onward, appearing many-armed in the Jianchuan grottoes and as the chief deity of the Dali ritual manual Dahei tianshen daochang yi, in which his consort is the goddess Baijie Shengfei. In later Bai village religion the Black Sky God was absorbed into Benzhuism and is among the most widely enshrined of the protector benzhu of northwestern Yunnan.

Domains

• protection warding
• territorial guardianship

Powers

• to ward the borders of the realm and guard the Buddhist teaching

Epithets

• 黑天神

Relations

• spouse: Baijie Shengfei

Sources

• Megan Bryson, "Mahakala Worship in the Dali Kingdom (937-1253): A Study of the Dahei tianshen daochang yi," Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 35, no. 1-2 (2012/13): 3-69.
• Megan Bryson, Goddess on the Frontier: Religion, Ethnicity, and Gender in Southwest China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2017).