A khatvanga is a staff, traditionally topped with a trident and a stacked sequence of skull motifs in different states, an arrangement that is iconographically fixed rather than an artist's free choice, made by ritual craftsmen working in wood, bone and metal fittings rather than by an ordinary woodturner.
What the object publicly represents
In its best known appearance the khatvanga is carried in the iconography of Padmasambhava, where it is understood as representing a consort principle rather than a weapon, and versions of the staff appear both as temple and monastery ritual implements and as an attribute held in painted and sculpted images rather than only as a physical object handled day to day.
Why this stops at description
Ritual use of a khatvanga, as opposed to its appearance in iconography or its presence as a temple implement, is tied in several lineages to advanced tantric initiation, anuttarayoga level empowerment specifically, restricted to practitioners who have received that transmission from a qualified teacher. This atlas records that the object exists, what it is made from, and that its ritual handling is restricted and to whom, and it stops there deliberately, since describing the associated practice in working detail is not something an outside reference can responsibly do, and is not what this entry attempts.