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Yamāntaka or Vajrabhairava is the "destroyer of death" Yidam of Vajrayana Buddhism. Sometimes he is conceptualized as "conqueror of the lord of death". Of the several deities in the Buddhist pantheon named Yamāntaka, the most well known belongs to the Anuttarayoga class of tantra of deities popular within the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism.
While Yamāntaka is therefore Yama's nemesis, his representation mirrors Yama in many ways: he too often rides a buffalo and is often depicted with a buffalo's head.
Because of this mirroring of appearance and similarity in name, it is not hard to find texts and books (which would appear to be reliable sources of much material) conflate both Yamāntaka and Yama as being the same deity when they are not.
Within Buddhism, "terminating death" is a quality of all Buddhahood as they have stopped the cycle of rebirth, samsara. So Yamāntaka represents the goal of the Mahayana practitioner's journey to Bodhi, or the journey itself: On final awakening, one manifests Yamāntaka – the ending of death.
In the buddhist Tantra, Shiva as wrathful Bhairava, prefixing of the term “vajra” to his name—the preeminent symbol of power in the Buddhist tantra vehicle (Vajrayana)—is interpreted as a definitive sign of Bhairava’s wholesale transformation and conversion to Buddhism. The subjugation and conversion of non-Buddhist deities and the subsequent acquisition of the defeated deity’s special attributes is a common theme in Buddhist tantric literature.
Taranatha describes Yamāntaka is a wrathful expression of Mañjuśrī, the bodhisattva of wisdom. However, the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa describes Yamāntaka to be an emanation of Vajrapani. In Chinese Buddhism and Shingon Buddhism, Yamāntaka is the wrathful emanation of Amitabha. He adopted this form in order to defeat Yama, the lord of death who was arrogantly interfering with karma by claiming victims before their time was up. Yamāntaka submitted Yama by terrorizing him with his form, one even more frightening than that of Yama himself, which at the same time also acted as mirror of Yama's horrible appearance. Yama then repented his actions and became a guardian of dharma. Through this way, Mañjuśrī also exposed the illusory nature of the fear of death, as well as the unreality of death itself. (2025). 9780195173987, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195173987 (2025). 9780861715695, Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780861715695
The most common representation, Vajramahabhairava, depicts 9 heads, thirty-two hands and sixteen legs standing on Yama and all the Deva's, and Asuras.Kinley Dorjee, Iconography in Buddhism, Thimphu, Bhutan: Blue Poppy, 2018, 63. Also, like Yama, he is represented with an erect penis, symbolizing the alchemy of bodily fluids.
In Chinese Buddhism and Shingon Buddhism, Yamāntaka is pictured with six faces, legs and arms holding various weapons while sitting on a white ox.
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