Yama Dharmaraja is the archetypal Lord of Death, a terrifyingly wrathful figure who overwhelms the deceased with splendor and paralyzes the living with fear. At first glance this drawing looks like a fiery manifestation of the devil—an evil, hateful being who would crush and destroy his victims. But according to Vajrayana Buddhism, Yama Dharmaraja is in fact a buddha, the reflection of our own mind’s enlightened nature, appearing in a fierce form to assert the ruthless power of truth, the subjugation of ego, and the unyielding accuracy of karma, the natural law of causality.