The Phur-Pa, Tibetan Ritual Daggers

The “far-reaching” arrow or bolt as a means of controlling negative factors in one’s life is a phenomenon occurring in many circum-Pacific cultures. But nowhere has it reached the importance and complex development that the phur-pa achieved in association with Buddhism in the Nepalo-Tibetan regions. This study is an attempt to survey the iconography of the manifold types of phur-pa and to set up broad categories of classification based on iconographic elements. A considerable variety of implements is examined and analyzed in order to determine their relationship to underlying principles. In each case it will be seen that nothing less than the force of the Universal itself is brought to bear on the subject of concern.