The Buddhist deity Vajrasattva

Vajrasattva, whose name translates as “Lightning Being,” is one of the most important figures in the esoteric Buddhist traditions of the Himalayas. With ancient roots deep in Indian texts like the Magical Net, Vajrasattva is a universal Buddha, encapsulating within one potent being the body, speech and mind of all the Buddhas.
Here, Vajrasattva holds before his heart a vajra, a symbolic lightning bolt. Against his left hip he holds an inverted bell. Respectively, these implements symbolize wisdom and compassion, and together they symbolize the awakening ( jangchub/bodhi) that results from their fusion.
Often visualized together with his consort, as in this Nepalese sculpture, Vajrasattva owes his prominent position in the Himalayan Buddhist religious curriculum to his role as the preeminent agent of psychological and spiritual purification. Visualized above the practitioner’s head while his hundred-syllable mantra is recited, Vajrasattva’s meditation is thought to purify even the most egregious misdeeds and their otherwise inevitable karmic consequences. Such visualization and recitation is one of the key component of the often-extensive “preliminary practices” (ngondro) that most Tibetan Buddhist teachers recommend prior to advanced meditation, and in part accounts for his prominence in the art historical record across the centuries.