Lha

The supplied sources do not give a single unified mythic origin for lha as a category. Rather, Buddhist religious worlds in Tibet incorporated Indian cosmological categories (devas, asuras, yakshas) and later assimilated regional spirits and local gods — the lha — into Buddhist and local ritual orders. Individual lha may have their own origin stories within local or Bon traditions (for example Shenlha Ökar is an important deity in the Yungdrung Bon tradition), but the general category arose through syncretic incorporation of place-based divinities into Buddhist and indigenous religious practice.

The provided materials do not supply a consistent generic iconography for lha as a class. Appearance varies by individual deity and local tradition; some named lha or analogous deities (e.g., Shenlha Ökar in Bon sources) have distinctive iconography in their own traditions, but no single visual description for all lha is given in the cited excerpts.

Sources frame lha primarily by their social and ritual roles rather than enumerating a fixed set of supernatural powers. As local/regional divine beings integrated into Buddhist practice, lha are venerated in ritual and popular contexts and function as protectors or recipients of offerings, participants in the sacralization of landscape, and elements of local religious economies. They may be ritually empowered or propitiated much like other Tibetan protector deities, though specific powers differ by named deity and locality.