Chhinnamasta of Rajrappa

Chhinnamasta of Rajrappa

Chinnamastā at Rajrappa is a rare tantric Mahāvidyā shrine. The goddess holds her own severed head in her hand, drinking the three streams of blood pouring from her neck — a visual meditation on self-sacrifice and the cyclical nature of life, death, and regeneration.

Chhinnamastā is one of the 10 Mahāvidyās — the 10 fierce-tantric forms of the goddess. Her iconography: standing on a copulating couple, she has beheaded herself; the severed head in her left hand drinks the central stream of blood from her neck while two streams flow to two attendant yoginis. The dense theological symbolism — sacrifice, sex-as-force-of-life, blood-as-consciousness — makes this a cryptic tantric meditation, not a popular devotional cult. Rajrappa is one of the few places in India where Chinnamastā is formally enshrined and regularly worshipped.