Vajrakilaya, also known as Vajrakumara, is identified by the kila or a three-sided peg held with his two main hands at his heart. Emanating as a meditative deity, his practice is celebrated for its ability to remove obstacles and adversarial forces that impede spiritual advancement. Believed to be the wrathful manifestation of the karma-purifying deity Vajrasattva, the present iconography of Vajrakilaya derives from a treasure text (Tib: Terma) revealed by Ratna Lingpa (1403-1479). A revered treasure revealer, Ratna Lingpa was led by a vision of Padmasambhava to an inventory of treasure texts. When he was thirty, he revealed his first treasure related to the three root attainments, and over the course of his life he discovered twenty-five treasures in total, including a text relating to the practice of Vajrakilaya named Purba Yangsang Lamey, or the “Unsurpassed and Extremely Secret Kila.” This cycle of teaching was later transmitted to the Sixth Karmapa, Tongwa Dondan (1416–1453), and as such, the Terma lineage is preserved in both Nyingma and Kagyu schools.
Although the deity depicted here is technically derived from the fifteenth-century revealed treasure of Ratna Lingpa, its iconography likely traces back to as early as the eighth century. In its present manifestation, he is depicted with a blue-black body with three faces and six arms. The first two pairs of right hands hold a nine-pointed and a five-pointed vajra respectively. His outstretched right hands hold a wrathful gesture and a trident. The remaining two hands hold a kila, the implement of which gives rise to his name. He stands amidst a blazing mass of fire. The body is massive and robust, with exposed fangs, three round and red eyes, and upward-flowing brown hair. He wears an elephant hide, human skin, and a tiger skin as lower garments. In the texts, his head is adorned with five dry skulls. He wears a garland of fifty fresh heads, and various jewel ornaments adorn his body. Positioned in the archer’s posture, he has four legs – the right ones bent and the left extended atop the head of Ishvara and the left on the breast of Uma.
The vibrant color palette dominated by primary colors and the composition which fill the frame of the painting echo painting styles from sixteenth-century Central Tibet. The burning red flames outlined with gold and red pigment, the delicately shaded lotus base, along with his exaggerated facial features all point to a strong Newari influence and this work was likely produced by Tibetan artists working in this idiom. The present painting was once part of a larger set depicting the other revealed treasure of Ratna Lingpa, many of which are in notable collections, including the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (acc. no. 1992.344), illustrated on Himalayan Art Resources, item no. 69430 and the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University (acc. no. 2002.335), illustrated on Himalayan Art Resources, item no. 88607. Other examples in private collections are illustrated on Himalayan Art Resources, item nos. 7918, 7919, 7920, 7922, 8067, 89797, and 91409. All of the works in the set, including the present painting, have inscriptions in gold painted over the form of a red stupa on the reverse. The small inscription at the base of the present painting can be translated as: "The Victorious [and] Great Glorious One, Vajrakilaya, in union with his consort."