Pehar — the spirit-king — is a powerful protector deity of Tibetan Buddhism, the chief of a class of worldly spirit-kings (gyalpo) bound to the dharma by [padmasambhava], and the deity who speaks through the famous Nechung Oracle, the state oracle of Tibet. He is the divine source of the prophecies that guided the Tibetan government and the Dalai Lamas.
The Bound Spirit-King
Pehar (Pehar Gyalpo) was, by tradition, a powerful and dangerous worldly spirit — a gyalpo, a king-spirit of fierce and unpredictable nature — who was subdued and bound by oath by Padmasambhava during the founding of Buddhism in Tibet, converted from a wild and dangerous power into a protector of the dharma and appointed as a guardian of the great monastery of Samye and its treasures. As the chief of the spirit-kings, he commands a class of powerful protective (and potentially dangerous) deities.
The Voice of the Nechung Oracle
Pehar’s greatest fame is as the deity who possesses and speaks through the Nechung Oracle — the state oracle of Tibet. Through a human medium (the kuten, “the physical basis”) who enters a trance and is possessed by the deity (often Dorje Drakden, an emanation or minister of Pehar), the spirit speaks, delivering prophecies and counsel. For centuries the Nechung Oracle was consulted by the Tibetan government and the Dalai Lamas on the most important matters of state, and the dramatic possession ceremonies — the medium in elaborate, immensely heavy ceremonial dress, entering a violent trance — are among the most striking of Tibetan religious phenomena.
The Guardian and the Counsellor
As the deity behind the state oracle, Pehar held a unique and powerful role in Tibetan religious and political life — the bound spirit-king whose counsel, delivered through trance, guided the highest decisions of the land. He embodies the Tibetan integration of the older, wilder spirit-world into the framework of the dharma, the dangerous powers of the land harnessed (through Padmasambhava’s binding) to the service and protection of the Buddhist state. In Pehar, Tibetan Buddhism gave form to the bound spirit-king and the voice of prophecy — the fierce gyalpo subdued by Guru Rinpoche and made a protector, the deity who speaks through the Nechung Oracle, the divine counsellor whose trance-borne prophecies guided Tibet and its Dalai Lamas.