Ushnishavijaya Enthroned in the Womb of a Stupa T-Shirt

This is one of the earliest 16th-century extant images of the rarely represented Buddhist goddess Ushnishavijaya. She embodies a magical spell (dharani) recited by practitioners to reach liberation through the accumulation of merit. The power of multiplication in Buddhist merit making is suggested by the many small stupas (chaityas), which symbolically evoke the donation of one hundred thousand stupas. Multi-armed and multi-headed, Ushnishavijaya, white in color (like the autumn moon), is seated in the central stupa, flanked by red and green bodhisattvas and surrounded by the guardians of the eight directions and representations of Tara. As a manifestation of the Buddha’s head protuberance, or ushnisha, she is associated with wisdom.