I've noticed there is very little information about this goddess and I've decided to correct that.
Chinnamasta:
The Self-Decapitated Goddess
Victory to the light of the world, giver of a good ending to the universe, to her whose forehead is lovely with charming locks.
I meditate upon the Goddess Chinnamasta who is seated in the center of the Sun's disk and holds in her left hand her own severed head with gaping mouth, her hair is disheveled and she is drinking the stream of blood gushing out from her own neck. She is seated on the Rati and Kamadeva who are engaged in sexual dalliance, and she is rejoicing with her friends Dakini and Varnini.
She stands in an aggressive manner with her leg put forward. She is holding her own severed head in one hand and a sword in the other. She is naked and happily drinks the blood from her headless body. She has three eyes and is adorned with a blue lotus at her heart.
One should meditate on Chinnamasta, who has the complexion of a red hibiscus flower. She stands on Kama and Rati, who are joined in sexual intercourse. To her right is Varnini, who is possessed by rajas guna, who is white in color, with loose hair, and who holds a sword and a skull cup. She happily drinks the blood gushing from the devi's severed neck. On her left is Dakini, who also drinks the blood flowing from Chinnamasta's headless body. She is possessed by tamas guna and enjoys the world in its state of dissolution. One should meditate on this goddess who bestows blessings on her devotees.
Possible Prototypes
Chinnamasta does not have a wide spread cult in Hinduism and does not seem to have had a very developed history prior to her appearance as one the Mahavidyas. Like Tara, however, she also appears in tantric Buddhism, where she is known as Vaja-yogini (discussed below). Althrough we are unable to find early references to Chinnamasta or evidence of an early cult associated with her, certain goddesses, or images of female beings, have been suggested as her prototypes because of some peculiarity they share with her, such as being headless, naked, bloodthirsty, or violent.
Several examples have been discovered in India of nude goddesses squatting or with their thighs spread to display their sexual organs. These figures, some very ancient, usually depicted on stone bas-relief, often have their arms raised about their bodies and are headless, or faceless.
Their headless condition is not the result of subsequent damage but an intentional part of the image.
The combination of nudity and headlessness, it has been suggested, may indicate that Chinnamasta had an ancient prototype in India. The arresting iconographic feature of these images is their sexual organs, which are openly displayed. If the headlessness of the figures suggests death or self-destruction, it lacks the force of the Chinnamasta icon. More likely, the nude figures simply focuses attention on the generative physiology and creativity. Althrough the Chinnamasta image includes an emphasis on sexual activity, life and nourishment (discussed below), the central iconographic characteristic of the goddess is her shocking self-decapitation.
Other nudes goddess figures have been suggested as possible prototypes of Chinnamasta. One of these is the fierce, wild goddess Kotavia. Kotavia is usually associated with battlefields and is sometimes included among the lists of Matrkas. Sometimes she is an opponent of Visnu, and the Vinu-purana and the Bhagavata-purana describes her as naked, disheveled, and of such disgusting appearance that Visnu had to turn his head away from her lest he become incensed by her. In this myth she tries to protect the demon Banasura, who is her son in the Bhagavata-purana account. Althrough the descriptions of Kotavi empathize her nudity and wild appearance, she seems quite different in character from Chinnamasta. Her typical hauint is the battlefield, not the cermation ground (althrough both are places of death), and she seems to be a fierce demoness whose primary role is to terrify or distract enemies during battle. Her character is usually malevolent. Chinnamasta's character is fierce, but not necessarily malevolent, and althrough in her thousand-name hymn she is associated with the battlefield she is rarely shown there in her iconography.
A South Indian hunting goddess called Korravai is similar in name and character to Kotavi. She is fierce, bloodthirsty, and wild. She receives blood sacrifices and haunts the battlefield, where she gvictory. Again, it has been suggested that she may be another expression of the type of goddess that inspired Chinnamasta. Chinnamasta, however, is not usually described as a warrior goddess, and what rivets the viewer's attention is her self-decapitation. Althrough in her thousand-name hymns Chinnamasta is said to like blood, and at her few shrines and temples she receives blood sacrifices, the emphasis with Chinnamasta, unlike Korravai, is not so much on her demanding and recieving blood as on her giving her own blood to her devotees.
