A Tibetan story tells of a holy man who meditated in a cave for fifty years and was on the brink of enlightenment when two thieves broke in with a stolen buffalo. They slaughtered it and, realizing they'd been seen, cut off the hermit's head too. In rage he put on the buffalo's head, became Yama, the lord of death, killed the thieves, and went on to terrorize the world. The gods begged Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom, for help. He took on an even more terrifying form, with a buffalo head of his own, and defeated death. That form is Vajrabhairava, and this mandala was woven for him in China around 1330.
Vajrabhairava became especially important in the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, whose founder, Tsongkhapa, practiced him as a principal meditation deity. His buffalo head is the answer to death's own: fear turned against fear.
The biggest surprise is who it was made for. This mandala comes from the Mongol imperial court of the Yuan dynasty, whose rulers governed China and were devoted patrons of Tibetan Buddhism. Commissioning a mandala to the conqueror of death was a claim of piety and of power: the rulers of the largest empire of the age wanted their reign placed under the protection of this deity.
It is also a technical marvel. It isn't painted at all. It is kesi, "cut silk," a silk tapestry technique in which each area of color is woven separately, leaving tiny slits where colors meet. Weaving an image this complex took a skilled workshop a very long time, which is why kesi mandalas were reserved for important imperial commissions. The Met's example is one of the most celebrated textiles to survive from the Yuan court.
There's a quiet irony in it. Emperors ruled the largest empire of the age, and still turned to the conqueror of death, asking for what no empire could give.
The Vajrabhairava Mandala appears on our: