Chhinnamasta — Dasa Mahavidya

Chhinnamasta, the sixth Mahavidya, presents one of the most startling and profound images in all of Hindu iconography: a goddess who severs her own head with her sword and holds it in her hand, drinking a stream of her own blood along with two attendant yoginis, Dakini and Varnini, drinking from the two side streams. This shocking self-sacrifice, performed while standing upon the copulating forms of Kama and Rati (or in some versions, Rati and Kama upon Kamadeva), represents the ultimate act of self-giving and the transcendence of both life-force (represented by sexual union) and death (represented by the severed head and flowing blood). According to the Shakta Pramoda and other Tantric texts, the goddess decapitated herself to feed her hungry attendants when they demanded food during a bathing excursion, demonstrating supreme compassion and the willingness to sacrifice even her own body for the nourishment of her devotees. Symbolically, she represents the union of sexual energy and spiritual awakening, showing that Kundalini energy, when raised, transcends ordinary bodily consciousness even as it remains rooted in the vital life-force. She embodies the paradox of death-in-life and life-in-death, teaching that the ego (symbolized by the head) must be severed for true spiritual nourishment and enlightenment to flow to oneself and others. Her worship is considered among the most advanced and esoteric in the Mahavidya tradition, generally reserved for serious Tantric practitioners who have received proper initiation, as her energy directly confronts the practitioner's deepest fears surrounding death, sexuality, and self-dissolution, guiding them toward the recognition of the deathless consciousness beyond the body.

Chhinnamasta is depicted standing on the copulating forms of Kama and Rati, holding her own severed head in one hand and a sword in the other, with three streams of blood flowing from her neck—one entering her own mouth and the other two feeding her attendant yoginis Dakini and Varnini. She is nude but for jewelry and a serpent, symbolizing complete transcendence of worldly modesty.