Attributes of the six-handed Mahākāla in a "rgyan tshogs" banner. Distemper painting by a Tibetan painter.

Within the series of fifteen "Temple of Protectors" banners, this one is the first on the right hand side. In the centre is an offering-cake (gtor ma). Above the gtor ma is a net-like cloth with winglike extensions, surmounted by a trident. These may represent a tent, as one form of Mahākāla is the Protector of the Tent. In the top part of the gtor ma is a chopper with a golden handle, dipped into a blood-filled skull bowl. There are king's and queen's earrings, a trefoil-shaped emblem, and two rhinoceros horns. On the far left is a bone trumpet. These six musical instruments, together with the six skull-bowls shown, correspond to the six arms of this form of Mahākāla. At the bottom left is half a pagoda, standing in a vessel containing green jewels. The fact that the Mahākāla is a fierce deity is indicated by the various human organs hanging from the top edge of the banner. There is an elephant, a green man, and a tiger. At the bottom are an eagle, an antelope with a skeleton, a horse, a dog, two goats, another horse, a snake and a yak. On the right-hand side are a feathered arrow with a mirror inscribed with the syllable hūṃ attached to it, a skull rosary, and a large ichneumon which suggests that, in Tibet as in Japan, Mahākāla has sometimes been given the function of Kubera, the god of wealth who traditionally is holding an ichneumon disgorging jewels, probably because purses were often made of ichneumon or rat fur