Overview
Descriptions of his physical appearance derive from such scriptural source as the Mahavairocana Tantra (Ja: Dainichikyō (『大日経』?)) and its annotation.
His face is expressive of extreme wrath, wrinkle-browed, left eye squinted or looking askance, lower teeth biting down the upper lip. He has the physique of a corpulent (round-bellied) child. He bears a sword on his right, and a lariat or noose (Ja: kensaku (羂索?)) on his left hand. He is engulfed in flame, and seated on a "huge rock base" (Ja: banjakuza (盤石座?)).
Acala is said to be a powerful deity who protects All the Living (sattva, shujō (衆生?)) by burning away all impediments (antar-aya, shōnan (障難?)) and defilements, thus aiding them towards enlightenment.
In Japanese esoteric Buddhism, according to an arcane interpretive concept known as the "three wheel-embodiments(ja)" or san rinjin (三輪身?) Acala and the rest of the five wisdom kings are considered kyōryō tenshin (教令輪身, "embodiments of the wheel of injunction"?), or beings whose actions constitute the teaching of the law (the other embodiments teach by word, or merely by their manifest existence).
Under this conceptualization, the wisdom kings are ranked superior to the Dharmapala (gohō zenshin (護法善神?)), a different class of guardian deities.
Nevertheless, this distinction sometimes fails to be asserted, or the two are openly treated as synonymous by many commentators, even in clearly Japanese religious contexts.
The Sanskrit symbol that represents Acala is hāṃ हां ( conventionally transliterated kān (カーン?)). However, it has been confounded with the similar glyph (हूं hūṃ), prompting some commentators to mistakenly identify the Acala with other deities. (The Sanskrit symbol is called siddham, Ja: bonji (梵字?)), or "seed syllable" (zh: bīja, Ja: shuji (種子?)).
For other Buddhist beings identified with the Acala, see below under #Conflations with other deities.
Some of the other transliterations and variants to his name are Ācalanātha, Āryācalanātha, Ācala-vidyā-rāja. The Hindu form of the deity may also be known as Caṇḍamahāroṣaṇa or Caṇḍaroṣaṇa "the violent-wrathful" one.
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