Summary

Ritual Dagger   (  )
Artist	Anonymous (Tibet)Unknown author
Title	Ritual Dagger
Description	English: Originally the "phur-bu" was probably a simple peg used to secure tent ropes to the ground. No doubt the ability of the peg to pierce gave rise to the expression, "kilaya kilaya," (pierce, pierce) often a component of tantric mantras along with "han han," (destroy, destroy) or "maraya maraya," (kill, kill). The objects of destruction are, of course, enemies of the faith, evil forces, as well as psychic demons. This example, typically Tibetan in form, is particularly handsome and visually powerful. It has a three-sided iron blade adorned with silver intertwined serpents and a golden "makara" (mythical aquatic creature) guarding the joint of the hilt and the blade. Then, a silver thunderbolt with sixteen prongs has two knots of immutability at the two ends. The finial has three wrathful heads with open mouths and hanging tongues crowned by prongs of yet another thunderbolt. The square faces of the deity are particularly expressive, with their strongly molded features and a rich interplay of gilt, silver inlay, and lightly applied pigments.
Date	16th century date QS:P571,+1550-00-00T00:00:00Z/7
Medium	iron, silver, gold
Dimensions	32.4 cm (12.7 in)
Collection	Walters Art Museum    Native name Walters Art Museum Location Baltimore, United States of America Coordinates 39° 17′ 48″ N, 76° 36′ 58″ W   Established 1934  Website thewalters.org Authority file : Q210081 VIAF: 128918374 ISNI: 000000040373611X ULAN: 500279110 LCCN: no00096900 GND: 16029354-6 WorldCat institution QS:P195,Q210081
Accession number	52.311
Place of creation	Tibet
Object history	John and Berthe Ford, Baltimore [date and mode of acquisition unknown] 2002: given to Walters Art Museum
Exhibition history	Desire and Devotion: Art from India, Nepal, and Tibet in the John and Berthe Ford Collection. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara; Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque. 2001-2003.
Credit line	gift of John and Berthe Ford, 2002
Source	Walters Art Museum: Home page  Info about artwork
Permission (Reusing this file)	This work is free and may be used by anyone for any purpose. If you wish to use this content, you do not need to request permission as long as you follow any licensing requirements mentioned on this page. The Wikimedia Foundation has received an e-mail confirming that the copyright holder has approved publication under the terms mentioned on this page. This correspondence has been reviewed by a Volunteer Response Team (VRT) member and stored in our permission archive. The correspondence is available to trusted volunteers as ticket #2012021710000834. If you have questions about the archived correspondence, please use the VRT noticeboard. Ticket link: https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom&TicketNumber=2012021710000834 Find other files from the same ticket:

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This file was provided to Wikimedia Commons by the Walters Art Museum as part of a cooperation project. All artworks in the photographs are in public domain due to age. The photographs of two-dimensional objects are also in the public domain. Photographs of three-dimensional objects and all descriptions have been released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License and the GNU Free Documentation License. In the case of the text descriptions, copyright restrictions only apply to longer descriptions which cross the threshold of originality. العربيَّة | English | français | italiano | македонски | русский | sicilianu | +/−

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