A golden goddess with the face of a sow, a needle and thread in her hands, riding out ahead of the sun on a chariot pulled by seven boars.
Marici is the Buddhist goddess of the dawn. In Tibetan she is Özer Chenma, 'od zer can ma, and Lotsawa House renders the name "Goddess of the Dawn". She has travelled far: invoked in Tibet, painted in China, cast in bronze in medieval India, and known in Japan as Marishiten. Himalayan Art Resources (HAR) sums up her function as removing obstacles, and her metaphor in one word: light.
Marici meaning: the name
Wikipedia glosses the Sanskrit Mārīcī as "ray of light", and notes that the word can also mean "mirage". Both fit her. A ray of light is what arrives before the sun. A mirage is something you can see and never take hold of. The Tibetan 'od zer can ma is built on 'od zer, rays of light, and is often put into English as "she who has rays of light".
Where Marici comes from
Her beginnings are not settled. The MAP Academy's encyclopedia entry says scholars "are unable to attribute a singular origin to the goddess", and lists nature spirits, Vedic solar deities, an Iranian solar cult and martial goddesses among the proposals. Wikipedia, drawing on David Hall and Miranda Shaw, describes her as an amalgam of Indic, Iranian and other solar goddesses, and links her to Uṣas, the dawn goddess of the Vedas.
The dates differ too. Stefan Mang's introduction on Lotsawa House places her early worship in northwest India around the fifth to seventh centuries, and calls her the personification of her own protective dhāraṇī, a long incantation. The MAP Academy entry puts the earliest known images in reliefs of the first and second centuries BCE. Wikipedia points to early icons at Salihundam in Andhra Pradesh, where she rides a chariot of seven horses, like the sun god Surya.
Lotsawa House is clear about the character underneath all of this. Whatever she shares with Mithra, Surya or Uṣas, it says, she is fundamentally a Buddhist protector whose power rests on wisdom and compassion, and her way of protecting is to help the practitioner slip past danger, not to fight it.
The dhāraṇī: she who travels before the sun
The scripture at the center of her cult is the Noble Mārīcī Dhāraṇī. In the Tibetan canon it sits among the Action (Kriya) tantras as Toh 564, translated in full by 84000. In the version on Lotsawa House, whose colophon credits the paṇḍita Amoghavajra and the translator Bari Rinchen Drakpa, the Buddha is staying in the Jetavana grove at Śrāvastī when he tells the monks:
"There is a goddess called Mārīcī. She travels before the sun and moon. She is invisible, ungraspable, unstoppable…"
The list goes on: insuperable, indomitable, unassailable, invulnerable, unconquerable, imperishable, invincible. Another Tibetan edition, made by the Seventeenth Karmapa from Amoghavajra's Chinese and translated into English by David Karma Choephel, mentions only the sun: "The sun cannot see her, but she can see the sun."
She is not the sun. She is the light that comes just before it, which no one can catch. The same dhāraṇī, a little later, names four figures, vattālī, vadālī, varālī, varāha-mukhī. We will meet all four again in the paintings.
Marici iconography
HAR describes her range in one sentence: sometimes she rides a white horse across the sky, holding the orb of the sun in her outstretched right hand and driving back the night, but "more commonly" she is yellow or red, with three or more faces and six to twelve arms, seated on a chariot drawn by seven pigs or horses. She can be peaceful or wrathful, and the Rubin Museum's glossary associates her with "the light of dawn, victory, and protection."
The classic form: three faces, eight arms
HAR gives the standard description of her eight-armed form from the Sakya compiler Ngorchen Konchog Lhundrub (1497–1557), in his Drub Tab Gyatsa. It is precise enough to draw from:
- Body. Yellow, with three faces, each with three eyes.
- Faces. The main face yellow, the right face red, the left face the blue face of a sow.
- Four right hands. A vajra, a hook, an arrow and a needle.
- Four left hands. An aśoka branch, a bow, a thread, and a threatening gesture.
- Dress. A red lower garment, jewels and a garland of small bells.
- Posture. Seated with the left leg extended.
HAR calls this form Kalpoktam Marici. Around her, in the four directions, sit four goddesses: red Vettali with a pig face, yellow Vadali, white Varali, and red Varahamukhi. They are the four names in the dhāraṇī, given bodies.
The sow
The MAP Academy entry puts it simply: "Marichi images are distinguished by the motif of the boar or sow." The animal can be one of her faces, her mount, or the team pulling her chariot; in a rare form she is a sow herself.
She is not the only sow-faced goddess. HAR notes that the special attribute of Vajravarahi is also a sow's head, sometimes at the side of the face, sometimes on top. HAR keeps a separate list of sow-faced deities because they are easily confused. With Marici, look for the needle and thread, the aśoka branch and the boars.
The needle and thread
HAR lists the needle and thread as her particular attributes. The MAP Academy entry explains what they are for: they serve as a weapon, "to sew closed the eyes and mouths of evildoers." The idea is that she does not destroy the danger. She makes sure it cannot see you or speak against you.
The aśoka branch
The MAP Academy notes that she is usually shown holding an aśoka branch and a vajra. In the form HAR calls Ashokakanta Marici, yellow, with one face and two hands, standing on the back of a yellow pig, her right hand makes the gesture of generosity and her left holds the branch. Mipham Rinpoche's short sādhana on Lotsawa House names her Aśokakāntā-Mārīcī, "Sorrowless Resplendence", golden and seated on a lotus and moon, with the same gesture and the same branch.
The chariot of seven boars
The seven boars are her best-known image, and the seven horses of the sun god seem to stand behind them. Lotsawa House dates the chariot form to around the tenth century. The MAP Academy describes her "in a chariot with seven boars or sows as her steeds (instead of horses)." The numbers are not fixed: in Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö's sādhana, also on Lotsawa House, the chariot is drawn by four golden sows. HAR adds that in several Tibetan forms the chariot carries a stupa with the goddess inside it, seated or standing.
Other forms
HAR counts five descriptions of her in the Bari Gyatsa, six in the Drub Tab Gyatsa and four in Taranatha's Rinjung Gyatsa. Some are fierce: HAR's Oddiyana Marici is red, with six faces including a black pig face, twelve hands and a necklace of human heads, in a chariot drawn by seven pigs.
Marici in Tibetan Buddhism
HAR places her in the Kriya tantras as the "Mother" of the Tathagata family, an individual deity in her own right, not an emanation, and without a consort. Wikipedia notes that the Kangyur holds three Kriya texts devoted to her, and that in the Nyingma tradition she is counted as the twenty-first of the Twenty-One Taras (Green Tara and the Twenty-One are in Green Tara).
The sādhanas tell what practitioners ask of her. Mipham's text closes with "the powers of invulnerability, pacification, protection". Lotsawa House describes the tradition's view of her as a protector in dangerous situations, associated with invisibility and invincibility. Those are the beliefs of the tradition, held and practiced within a lineage, and Lotsawa House notes that these texts are meant for those who have received the empowerment and instructions. A thangka is an image of her made with care; we make no claim that it protects anyone, or brings safety, luck or anything else to the person who hangs it.
Marici in China and Japan
Lotsawa House credits the eighth-century translations of Amoghavajra with bringing her into Chinese Buddhism and Daoism. In Japan, as Marishiten, she became a goddess of warriors, though the sources disagree on when: Wikipedia says samurai took her up in the eighth century, Lotsawa House that she gained prominence from the twelfth.
Three Maricis to look at closely
The Rubin's two Maricis, P1996.3.1
A nineteenth-century painting from China, about 86 by 48 centimeters, in the Shelley and Donald Rubin collection. Above, a red Marici with one face and two hands rides a white horse over a great red sun, holding up a smaller sun marked with the Chinese character for sun. At the center of the large sun is the three-legged crow of Chinese myth, painted here as a golden rooster. Below, the yellow Marici with three faces and eight hands rides her chariot behind seven sows. It is the whole of her in one frame: the rider who drives back the night, and the goddess on the chariot.
The Met's small bronze, 1987.142.345
"Marichi, the Goddess of Dawn, with Seven Pigs": Pala period India, Bihar, eleventh to twelfth century, bronze with silver inlay. It is 6.7 centimeters tall. A goddess and seven pigs, all in something you could close your hand around.
The Rubin's Zanabazar Marici, C2005.16.26
A gilt copper sculpture, about 40 centimeters tall, from Mongolia in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century, attributed to Zanabazar, Mongolia's first incarnate lama, and his workshop. The Rubin explains that she is shown here as an attendant to Tara, holding a vajra and an aśoka branch, and may once have belonged to a set of Taras now in the Bogdo Khan Palace Museum in Ulaanbaatar.
The Marici mantra
oṃ mārīcyai svāhā
This is the form in Mipham's sādhana on Lotsawa House, which also gives the Tibetan pronunciation, om ma ri tsyai soha. Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö's sādhana gives oṃ mārīcyai mūṃ svāhā, with her seed syllable added. Forms vary by lineage.
Our Marici thangkas
Our Marici Thangka on a Chariot of Seven Boars shows her classic form: golden, three-faced and eight-armed, seated on a chariot drawn by seven blue boars in red harness. Her central face is golden and calm, with a third eye; to one side is a white face, and to the other the dark face of a sow. Her hands hold a bow and arrow among other implements, against a great golden wheel set with red, blue and clear crystals. Above her a rainbow rises, the sun and moon sit in a night-blue sky, and trees and clouds open on either side. The piece shown is framed in Night Sky brocade.
Our Marici Black & Gold Thangka shows her standing, as some of HAR's forms do. She stands upright on a lotus, with three faces, the central one white and calm, and many arms, holding a bow and arrow and a branch of green leaves. A blue boar is at her feet. The ground is black, with clouds, trees and mountains drawn in gold line, and her jewellery and girdle are set with red, blue and green crystals. The piece shown is framed in Ink & Gold brocade.
Like all our thangkas, both are our own drawings, kept to traditional iconometric proportions and printed on heavy card. They are not hand-painted and not mineral pigment. Elderly lay Buddhists who practice at a temple finish each one by hand there, setting glass crystals one by one and tracing the outlines in gold glitter, which is not gilding; each piece takes about two days. The frame is 55 by 71 centimeters around an image of 40.2 by 56.2 centimeters, with a silk brocade frame-within-a-frame, a wood frame and an acrylic front. Part of every order goes to that temple, so every thangka is also an offering.
The others are in the thangka collection. How a thangka is made is in What Is a Thangka?, and where to hang one in How to Hang a Thangka.
Marici questions
Who is Marici?
The Buddhist goddess of the dawn, Özer Chenma in Tibetan, Marishiten in Japan. Her dhāraṇī says she travels before the sun and cannot be seen or caught.
What does Marici mean?
The Sanskrit is glossed "ray of light", and can also mean "mirage". The Tibetan name is built on 'od zer, rays of light.
Why does Marici have a pig face and ride seven boars?
The sow is her animal: one of her faces, her mount, or the team that pulls her chariot, in place of the sun god's horses.
What does Marici hold?
In the eight-armed form: a vajra, hook, arrow and needle on the right; an aśoka branch, bow, thread and a threatening gesture on the left. The needle and thread are her particular attributes.
Is Marici the same as Vajravarahi?
No. Both can have a sow's head, which is why they are confused, but they are different deities. HAR describes Marici as an individual deity of the Kriya tantras without a consort.
What is the Marici mantra?
Oṃ mārīcyai svāhā, with variations by lineage.
Before the sun
The sun rises and the day starts, and somewhere just ahead of it, in the texts, a goddess has already passed. Nobody saw her go by. The sun did not see her either.
May every road you take begin in light.
Marici on a Chariot of Seven Boars · Marici Black & Gold Thangka · Thangka collection
More from the Journal: Green Tara · Kurukulla · Sun and Moon · What Is a Thangka? · How to Hang a Thangka
More thangka deities: The Three Long-Life Deities · Yellow Jambhala · Manjushri · Six-Armed Mahakala · Cundi