Heruka

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Heruka (Skt.; Tib., khrag. ʾthung, ‘Blood Drinker’). A class of wrathful deity in Tibetan Buddhism who presides over Tantric ritual. According to the texts, the Heruka serves not to ‘protect’ the ritual, but is rather a meditational ‘tool’ by which the yogin, through identification with the Heruka, attacks his own egotistical grasping.

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