This brass image represents a celestial figure, the Dakini of All the Buddhas, the force of inspirational consciousness who urges the devout toward the realization of Buddhahood. She strides to the left upon two four-armed gods, one prostrate, the other supine, whose upper hands salute the goddess. Naked except for a garland and crown of skulls and her jewelry, she has long, flowing hair and a third eye in the center of her forehead. With insatiable elation she drinks blood from the foaming skull cup held high in her left hand; in her right she grasps a chopper. Despite the grimness of the image, it connotes universal ideals of deliverance. The blood-filled cup does away with all ideas of substance and nonsubstance and is a symbol of oneness. Stella Kramrisch, from Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections (1995), p. 57.