Feather

You never know who or what is around the corner.

Today’s surprise is an incredibly beautiful Pea Hen.

From Himlayan Art.org :

Mahamayuri is the Great Peahen, from the pheasant family of birds. The male is called a peacock and the female is a peahen. They are also referred to as peafowl.

Mahamayuri is rarely found in Himalayan art as an independent figure. She is generally included in the group of five known as the Pancha Raksha and represented primarily as painting and less so as sculpture.

From Wiki :

The Sanskrit name Mahāmāyūrī means ‘Great Peahen’. Known as the ‘Queen of the secret sciences’ and the ‘Godmother of Buddha’, Mahamayuri is believed to have the power to protect devotees from poisoning, either physical or spiritual. In Buddhism, her demeanor is in contrast to the wrathful attitudes of male personifications of the Wisdom Kings.

The Mahamayuri text is a Buddhist dharani-genre text, containing magical incantations to treat snake bites, poisons and other maladies. Mahamayuri’s dharani was translated into Chinese by Kumārajīva between 402 and 412 CE. It contains the only mention of the Rig Veda in the entire Chinese Buddhist canon.

Her origins are said to derive from an Indian goddess of the same name. She is one of the Nepali pañcarakṣā deities, where she is the chief of the five rakṣā (守護) in the five parasol configuration, occupying the northern position. Unlike her four companions of the pañcarakṣā she appears to have had a fairly well-developed cult in India.