in the dictionary compiled by the monk Huilin (慧琳) titled The Sound and Meaning of All Sutras (, pinyin: Yīqièjīng yīnyì) has him standing on the hands of the earth goddess. The same work describes Mahākāla as having eight arms, holding an elephant skin, a trident, a preta, a goat, a sword, and a khatvāṅga (a skull-topped club or staff). Some images of Mahākāla of this type found in Dunhuang (dating from the 9th-10th centuries) meanwhile show him standing on a snake. Another iconographic variant (not found in Chinese texts but attested in Japan) depicts Mahākāla with one head and two arms, holding a sword in his right hand and a skull cup (kapāla) in his left. He is sometimes also shown as trampling on the elephant-headed deity Vināyaka (the Buddhist analogue to the Hindu Ganesha, though the Buddhist version is sometimes also perceived as a negative figure), another deity Mahākāla is associated with. Indeed, the two deities are shown together in the outer northeast (upper left) corner of the Womb Realm (Garbhadhātu) Maṇḍala, one of the two main maṇḍalas of East Asian esoteric Buddhism. Yijing describes the statues of Mahākāla he had seen in Indian monasteries as "holding a golden bag and seated on a small chair, with one foot hanging down towards the ground." Some scholars believe that the images Yijing saw may have actually been that of the god Kubera, who was represented in Indian art as carrying a money bag; indeed, he identifies 'Mahākāla' as being part of the retinue of the "great god" (大天, i.e. Mahādeva / Maheśvara). It is thought that the two gods may have been conflated at some point; images of both deities are commonly found guarding the entrances of temples in India, Nepal and other places influenced by Hindu-Buddhist culture, and Kubera was, as mentioned, closely associated with Shiva. The image of the sack-carrying Daikokuten that would become the standard in Japan is thus thought to be derived from Kubera's iconography.The earliest Japanese representations of Mahākāla-Daikokuten can be classified into two types: one (associated with the Shingon school) shows the deity standing, his left hand holding a sack slung over his shoulder, with his right hand clenched into a fist and resting on the right hip, while the other (associated with the Tendai school) depicts him as sitting. Most of these images show Daikokuten wearing Japanese clothing, though a few has