Siddhalakshmi, page from a Nepalese sketchbook

Iconographic guidebooks are important components of Vajrayana (Lightning or Diamond Vehicle) art and meditative traditions. They tell how to depict the key characteristics of each deity and, as here, are sometimes labeled. This figure is Siddhalakshmi, a multiarmed esoteric form of the Hindu deity of wealth Lakshmi. In Himalayan traditions, the ability to vanquish otherwise intractable problems is expressed through such supernatural imagery as multiple heads and hands, both of which are in evidence on this seventeenth-century sketch. Siddhalakshmi sits atop the fearsome form of Shiva called Bhairava, recognizable by his tiger skin, serpent necklace, and half-moon in his headdress.