The early history of the Hindu/Buddhist deity Vajrap€Ši is one of the most interesting and complex processes of transformation in the history of South Asian polytheism.   This one unassuming deity allows us the unique opportunity to see the history of Buddhist and it's interpenetrations with Hinduism and Indigeneous Indic religious traditions.   In this process, he moves from a deity of secondary influence to a place of multi-national eminence.

This process has achieved such a level of elevation and dispersion that today there are many shrines to this figure in the United States. Endowed with the power of the Vajra, he seems to have a force that few other dieties in the vast South Asian pantheon seem to possess. The performance that follows is however not a complete history of this figure. I will confine myself to his early history, an object of study that has been painfully neglected. I will take the reader only as far as his transition into a central figure for Vajray€na Buddhism as this material has already been well developed.