Parnasavari: The Forest Goddess & Healer of Epidemics

Parnasavari is the goddess of healing mysteries, whose power is too great to heal the most serious diseases and epidemics. She has a close relationship with nature, and, on a ritual level, she is conceived as living on a mountain of gems, with thick clustering groves of magic trees and multicolored flowers. She lives in a forest that is rich with plants and is situated on a mountain side, which is full of botanical wealth and the holy medicinal herbs. The forest where she lives is full of healing energy, and the energy is portrayed in her appearance. Her skin glows like a bright emerald, which seems to be infused with the spirit of the very life of the forest. The sap of the trees that has healing powers flows in her veins thus directly connecting her to the restorative powers of the earth.

Parnasavari wears upon herself natural gifts of feathers, flowers, fruit and berries, all symbols of her great attachment to the fertility of the forest. Her leaves woven conducts her wilderness rhythm make her dress, a skirt, swaying with her motion. Clad in tribal glory, she dances blissfully in the colorful forest in full awareness of its glamour, smell, and magic of the all life force.

Introduction to Parnasavari 

Parnasavari appears as an effective healing goddess, who is called to prevent diseases, epidemics, and pestilence. She is the goddess of the leaf: the name is Sanskrit (Parna = "leaf", savari/sabari = “dweller among leaves”), a testimony to her savage affiliation with nature, she is commonly referred to as the leaf-clad goddess. By worshiping, the practitioners are seeking not just spiritual cleansing but also physical and societal security particularly during contagion or epidemic periods.

Although in many forms, a most spectacular and unusual or unusual expression of Parnasavari is that in yellow colour, skiless on three faces, with six arms and a ferocious and wrathful air an expression and an energy that is said to have been born of the enlightened force of the Dhyani Buddha Amoghasiddhi. She is referred to in this form as the Sarvamariprasamani, the destroyer of all diseases and epidemics.

Iconography and Symbolism of the Green, Wrathful Parnasavari

As Parnasavari is presented in this itself, it is seen that iconographic literature and extant images adhere to an elaborate plan:

• Color: Her natural color is yellow, symbolizing her connection to the earth and healing energies.

• Main Face: Slightly peaceful yet wrathful, with three eyes and hair tied in a snake topknot atop her crown, representing her power and transformative energy.

• Left Face: Red, embodying a desirous mood, representing fiery, intense energy.

• Right Face: White, symbolizing peacefulness and serenity.

• Arms & Attributes: She has six arms. According to the traditional meditative instructions (sadhana), in her three right hands she holds a vajra, a parashu (axe), and an arrow; while in her three left hands she carries a bow, a cluster of leaves, and a tarjani-pasa (noose / lasso). These represent her weapons against disease the vajra of immutable clarity and the axe and arrow of cutting through afflictions and the noose of seizing and binding disease-spirits.
  

• Attire & Posture: She wears a garment of leaves (it is her connection to the forest and to nature) and a tiger‑skin skirt; her hair is tied up; her belly is slightly protruding. She stands (or sits in pratyalidha / lotus‑on‑moon‑disc posture), trampling under her feet various personified figures of diseases and epidemics. This dramatic imagery depicts her power to subdue sickness and pestilence once and for all.
  

• Crown and Association: On her crown, she has the figure of Amoghasiddhi - showing that this specific form is a manifestation of that Buddha.

In general, green-wrathful Parnasavari is not a kind healer but a powerful guardian, a divine personification of the healing power, who is willing to fight the diseases and protect people in her wrathful mercy.

Parnasavari’s Role & Importance in Vajrayana Buddhism

• Member of the Kriya‑Tantra Tradition: Parnashavari is a member of the Kriya class of tantra, one of which focuses on the importance of ritual, purification, and protection. In her example, this ritual preoccupation is on the healing and protection against infectious diseases and epidemics.

• Healing Deity Against Epidemics and Illness: The goddess is honored as a formidable goddess who can calm down and counteract all diseases and plagues (human or animal), cleanse bad karma, and heal where all other treatments might fail. Her practice is especially invoked during periods of general illness or when communities have epidemics.

• Preserved Across Multiple Lineages (Nyingma & Sarma): The worship and practice of Parnashavari survive in both older and newer branches of Tibetan Buddhism (commonly referred to as Nyingma and Sarma). Her sadhanas (spiritual practices), mantras, and dharanis (healing chants) have been passed on, modified, and preserved throughout the centuries through these lineages. 

• Integration of Folk & Tantric Traditions: Parnashavari is thought to derive partly from ancient forest or tribal healing traditions (e.g., linked to the “Savari” or “forest‑dweller” tribes). Over time, Buddhist tantra assimilated her, re-contextualizing her as a goddess of protection and assigning her a symbolic role that is in keeping with Buddhist cosmology, but maintaining her original connection with the natural world and the curative.

• Ritual and Devotional Practice in Communities and Monasteries: Traditionally and still, before big congregations in monasteries or even in open teachings, communities frequently invoke Parnashavari by reciting prayers or using a blessing ceremony. This is because it is done in the hope to keep illnesses away, avoid contagion among the grouping as well as to provide protection in a spiritual sense.

• Spiritual & Moral Significance: Beyond physical healing, her practice is seen as a means to purify not just the body but negative karma that may manifest as illness, and to maintain mental clarity, spiritual well‑being, and moral integrity. In this sense, invoking Parnashavari is as much about inner purification and protection as it is about outer health.

Parnasavari: A Bridge Between Traditional Healing and Tantric Spirituality in Crisis

In today’s world, especially during global and local health crises, many Vajrayana teachers and practitioners turn to Parnasavari’s sacred mantra and sadhana, invoking her ancient healing power to protect themselves and their communities. Being a forest-covered goddess who has a strong connection to nature and medicinal plants, the symbolic image of Parnashavari appeals greatly to people who believe in the all-encompassing approach to healing, i.e, healing of the spiritual and mental, as well as physical and ecological levels of health. Based on ritual, visualization, mantra, and compassion, the practice of Parnashavari is a strong way to bridge the ancient practice of healing and the spirituality of tantra and modern spirituality to suffering. Through this, she remains an important figure to practitioners in crisis, sick, or suffering, to restore the healing energies of nature in them.  

Conclusion

Parnashavari is a symbol of protection and healing that has been revered over time, during both ancient and modern times. Being a forest-covered goddess, which is closely connected to the healing properties of nature, she symbolizes the peaceful union of spiritual knowledge and the healing powers. Parnashavari provides a comprehensive approach to healing, which comprises physical, spiritual, and mental health due to her relation to medicinal plants and sacred rituals and her involvement in the purification of the negative karma and the fight against diseases. The fact that her practice remains relevant by Vajrayana Buddhism especially during crisis or sickness underscores her significance as a caring guardian as well as the key to the continuum between the traditional and the contemporary spiritual reaction to suffering. With her mantra and the practice of visualization, the practitioners could use her great healing power to bind to the ancient relationship between people and the divine force of the nature.