Yak Goddess Crushing Oppressors

For years, a thangka my dad had painted hung on the living room wall of my mum’s flat and I would stare at it often, not knowing the name of the blue deity with snarling eyes and furious teeth yet being awe-inspired by his fierceness. He was surrounded by flames and squashed beneath his feet were pitiful beings who had generated bad karma in their waking, breathing lives. I later learned this was Mahakala, Dharma protector. Wrathful deities, in Tibetan Buddhism, are not evil beings. They look vastly frightening only because they scare away evil and are, in fact, very benevolent.

I wanted to invent an animal-headed deity who possessed the virtue of benevolence yet at the same time was not a being anyone would want to mess with. Yaks can be gentle and good-natured, domesticated ones often being more docile than other kinds of cattle. But they are, we must remember, a much larger animal who has horns and hooves. I simply had to paint a yak, the iconic Tibetan animal.

Although I wanted her to be a goddess, I didn’t want her to be stereotypically feminine. She holds a mixture of both feminine and masculine power, represented by her curves alongside broad shoulders and long horns. Also, she is a yak, which is the term for a male member of the species, dri being the term for females. Interestingly, a friend of mine told me that sometimes Mahakala’s gender is not specified. There are also influences of Kali the Hindu goddess of death, who is often portrayed in art wearing a necklace of decapitated heads and trampling on her husband, Shiva. I wanted the Yak Goddess to be a frightening lady too, with red glaring eyes and feet that willingly crush the tiny, male figures beneath her.

I was feeling pretty trodden on at the time. A man, who I am convinced is a sociopath, had lied to me about having terminal cancer. It was very upsetting and baffling—I had viewed him as a friend—and so I made the Yak Goddess come into being so she could help me feel fearsome again. When I painted her, I thought of other people who had been unnecessarily trodden on. I did of course think of Tibet, and I thought of women too, and neurodivergent people, trans people, people of colour. I thought of how vast and huge mountains are, compared to little humans who oppress others.

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