The legends of Chhinnamasta emphasise her self-sacrifice — sometimes coupled with a maternal element — sexual dominance, and self-destructive fury.
- The lotus beneath the couple is sometimes replaced by a cremation pyre.
- The coupling couple is sometimes omitted entirely.
- Sometimes Shiva — the goddess's consort — is depicted lying beneath Chhinnamasta, who is seated squatting on him and copulating with him.
- Dogs or jackals drinking the blood sometimes appear in the scene.
- Sometimes Chhinnamasta is depicted standing on a lotus, a grass patch, or the ground
Attendants
Both of the attendants — Dakini to her left and Varnini to her right — are depicted nude, with matted or dishevelled hair, three-eyes, full-breasts. They wear the serpentine sacred thread and the mundamala, and carry a skull-bowl in the left hand and a knife in the right.
- Sometimes, the attendants also hold severed heads (not their own). While Dakini is fair, Varnini is red-complexioned. In other depictions, both are depicted blue-grey.
- Sometimes, her attendants are depicted as skeletons and drinking the dripping blood from Chhinnamasta's severed head, rather than her neck

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