Ḍākinī have a pivotal function in Vajrayāna Buddhism as transmitters of esoteric teachings and practices, but they are also meditational deities. Siṃhamukhā is a lion-faced ḍākinī, two-armed and dark blue in colour except for her head which is white. Surrounded by flames, she stands dancing in the ardhaparyaṅka posture on a corpse which lies on a lotus. Her raised right hand holds a vajrahandled chopper, her left a blood-filled skull in front of her heart. A khaṭvāṅga staff rests in the crook of her left arm. Her head is adorned with skulls, and her body with bone ornaments. She wears a garland of human heads and the skins of a human and a tiger. She is accompanied by two other animal-headed and blueskinned ḍākinī in the lower corners, on the left the tiger-faced Vyāghramukhī, and the bear-faced Ṛkṣamukhī to the right. In the upper corners appear two Gelug figures in three-quarter profile with a lotus and a manuscript.