Buddha with fangs and claws is an unexpected image, if only because religions so often express themselves as benign. Actually, however, they are also belligerent and can often be detected flexing their muscles. Among such examples are Japan's monastic warriors, Buddha's soldiers, fighting their way through the Heian (794-1185) and Kamakura (1185-1333) periods.
We see them in many an early text and scroll. In "The Heike Story" they descend from their heights on Mount. Hiei and fall upon Kiyomizu temple below, and we hear the Emperor Go-Shirakawa's lament that the three things beyond his control are the Kamo River, the roll of the dice, and "the mountain clerics."
Their ferocity was often such that, in the words of the author of this interestingly deconstructive study of these military groups: "One might even argue that religious beliefs have as often been used to condone violence as to condemn it."