The figure is bound by chains at the ankles and secured within a ritual triangle ('brub khung). Nebesky-Wojokowitz describes human effigies being endowed with the attributes of a particular individual, in order to divert harmful forces that threaten a person, a family, or a whole community. Like the previous example (cat. no. 7), this carpet may have been used in rites designed to destroy negative forces - external or internal - symbolized by the linga. Samten Karmay writes that in Tantric Buddhism, the linga "came to mean a human figure symbolizing one's passions (nyon mongs; skt., klesa); the root of samsara [suffering]. In order to liberate oneself or others…the neophyte is advised to go through various stages of meditation which enable him to cast off his passions by destroying symbolically the linga." The carpet may thus also have been used as a seat for meditations in which the linga is symbolically destroyed. The carpet's macabre border consists of entrails punctuated by skulls and severed heads.