Gdams ngag mdzod Shechen Printing/Volume 5/Introduction

Translator’s Introduction

This volume is the fifth in The Treasury of Precious Instructions series and the first of two that treat the teachings of the Sakya school. The Sakya school’s principal teaching is known as Lamdre, or the “Path with Its Result.” According to traditional Sakya sources, this system was first taught by Mahāsiddha Virūpa to Kāṇha, the lesser of his two disciples, some twelve hundred years or so following the Buddha’s death, or parinirvāṇa. It was passed down as an oral tradition through a series of Indian siddhas and entered Tibet in the middle of the eleventh century. It was finally written down in 1141 c.e. by Sachen Kunga Nyingpo. While the details of that story are fairly well known, much less has been written about the Sakya tradition’s portrayal of the rise of Secret Mantra Vajrayāna and the origins of the Hevajra cycle of tantras.

Hevajra is a prominent Buddhist deity influential throughout India and Southeast Asia. Representations have been found as far east as Cambodia, dating from the twelfth-century reign of Jayavarman VII, and in Sumatra, where we find a fourteenth-century epigraph of devotion to the practice of Hevajra from the reign of King  dityavarman. Furthermore, Taranātha received a transmission of Hevajra from the Indian master Pūrṇavajra, who traveled to Tibet in the late sixteenth century. The influence of Hevajra in Tibet, Mongolia, and beyond has continued to the present day, with the Hevajra Tantra forming one of the basic texts of two major Tibetan Buddhist schools, Sakya and Kagyu.

Western scholars typically date the appearance of the Hevajra Tantra to the beginning of the tenth century c.e. Traditional Sakya scholarship dates the dissemination of the Hevajra Tantra and its two main explanatory tantras to the encounter between Śrī Dharmapāla, an abbot of Nālanda University, and a ḍākinī known to us from the Hevajra Tantra as Nairātmyā (“she who lacks a self ”) at an unknown time, predating the founding of Samye Monastery in 762 c.e.

Tibetan sources generally consider the rise of Secret Mantra teachings in India to have begun with an Indian king referred to as “King Dza,” mentioned in a tantra generally identified as the Saṃvara Supplementary Tantra. Amezhab, the seventeenth-century polymath and the twenty-seventh Sakya throne holder, relates that one hundred twenty years following the passing of the Buddha, Vajrapāṇi appeared to King Brilliant Moon (Rab gsal zla ba, a.k.a. King Dza) and conferred upon him the Compendium of the Principles of All Tathāgatas empowerment, and so on.

The traditional Sakya presentation of the later spread of the unsurpassed yoga tantras of Vajrayāna is related by Sönam Tsemo, the fourth Sakya throne holder, in his General Presentation of the Tantras. Śākyamuni Buddha visited King Indrabhūti in Oḍḍiyāna and granted him the Guhyasamāja empowerment. King Indrabhūti attained full awakening during the empowerment. After Vajrapāṇi compiled the tantras, he gave them to the king and his subjects; all attained siddhi, and the country became vacant.

A great lake filled with nāgas arose in Oḍḍiyāna. The nāgas who lived in the lake were ripened by Vajrapāṇi and entrusted with the tantras he had collected. The nāgās gradually took on human form and established a city on the lakeshore. Those who practiced Vajrayāna became siddhas and ḍākinīs; those who did not became humans. Later on King Visukalpa in South India dreamed that if he journeyed to Oḍḍiyāna, he could attain awakening in a single lifetime. He traveled there and became the disciple of a woman from whom he received both the Guhyasamāja and the Compendium of the Principles of All Tathāgatas empowerments. He then returned to South India and promulgated the Vajrayāna, and from there it spread to the rest of India.

Turning to the Hevajra cycle of tantras specifically, one of the most important Sakya sources is Ngorchen Kunga Zangpo’s Marvelous Ocean, which presents Bhagavān Hevajra in three ways: through the dharmakāya, the saṃbhogakāya, and the nirmāṇakāya. To summarize the first, the mind of Hevajra is the dharmakāya, the dharmatā nature of all phenomena. The saṃbhogakāya Hevajra is referred to as the cause Heruka, and the nirmāṇakāya Hevajra is referred to as the result Heruka (which has implications for understanding the cause and result Vajradhara sections in the Hevajra sādhana in part 2 of this volume). The saṃbhogakāya Heruka is described in the usual terms of the five certainties of the saṃbhogakāya: the certain place is Akaniṣṭha Ghanavyūha; the certain teacher is the eight-headed, sixteen-armed Mahāvajradhara; the certain retinue is the bodhisattva Vajragarbha, and so on; the certain dharma is the Hevajra tantras; and the certain time is always.

In terms of the nirmāṇakāya Hevajra, Ngorchen then discusses the taming of the mundane devas, the prerequisite condition for the Hevajra tantras to arise in our world. He describes the universe as possessing four rulers: Brahma, the ruler of the form realm; Maheśvara, the ruler of the wider desire realm; Papayin Māra (a.k.a. Kamadeva), the ruler of the Paranirmitavaśavartin devas, the highest set of devas in the desire realm; and Rudra, the ruler from the peak of Sumeru on down and the ruler of the earth. They and their four wives (Gaurī, and so on), along with the eight arrogant gods (such as the desire realm’s Brahma) and their wives, constantly engaged in intercourse out of desire, slew humans whose flesh they devoured out of anger, and were confused about the meaning of cause, result, and reality due to ignorance.

Because of the unvirtuous actions of the gods, the saṃbhogakāya cause Heruka entered the samādhi called “The Vajra Play of the Great Samaya of Various Intentions” and issued forth various maṇḍalas into the billion-world system in order to benefit those to be tamed. In India—or more broadly, this world—the Bhagavān emanated a maṇḍala composed of nine deities: the eight-headed, sixteen-armed form of Hevajra in union with Nairātmyā and the eight goddesses whose names match those of the wives of Rudra, and so on. The Bhagavān made the four rulers of the universe his seat, and the eight goddesses made the eight arrogant gods their seats. Rudra’s main retinue was dominated by the principal deity, Hevajra in union with Nairātmyā, and Rudra himself was dominated by Ghasmarī. In the eight charnel grounds, Gaurī, and so on—the eight wives of the desire realm gods, such as Rudra, with their numberless retinue—tame the hateful through fear, the passionate through erotic apparitions, the ignorant with the sound of mantras, and so on.

After taming Rudra and his retinue, the Bhagavān teaches a retinue of those who have transcended the world in the celestial mansion called “The Bhaga of the Vajra Queen.” The tantras he teaches are the great Hevajra Root King Tantra in seven hundred thousand lines (the “large” tantra); the topical Hevajra Tantra in five hundred thousand lines (the “small” tantra); the supplemental tantra, the Ornament of Mahāmudrā; the addendum to the supplemental tantra, the Essence of Gnosis; the unshared explanatory tantra, the Ornament of Gnosis; the shared commentary tantra, the Saṃpūṭa Tantra in three hundred sixty thousand lines; the essence tantra, the Ornament That Definitively Explains Accomplishment; and the result tantra, the Lamp of Principles. According to Ngorchen, all these tantras were taught prior to the advent of Śākyamuni Buddha.

As to the question of when and where the tantras were taught by the Bhagavān in this world, Ngorchen cites the account given in Alaṃkakalaśa’s Extensive Commentary on the Vajra Garland Tantra. According to this account, the Bhagavān—Śākyamuni Buddha manifesting in the form of Hevajra—taught the large and small Hevajra tantras and the commentary tantras in Magadhā, India, in order to tame the four māras, but Alaṃkakalaśa declined to give further locations.

When the question arises of who then will teach the tantras at a later time period, Ngorchen’s account of the spread of Vajrayāna in human lands after the Buddha’s parinirvāṇa is based on this citation from the Ornament of Gnosis:

“Oh Bhagavān, in the future who will explain this tantra of the true secret to fortunate sentient beings?” The Bhagavān replied, “Śrī Vajrapāṇinātha will explain it.”

Ngorchen also cites a prediction found in the Lamp of Principles:

The goddess asked, “By whom will this tantra of the great secret be known and explained?” The Bhagavān replied, “It will be known, explained, and clarified for sentient beings by Indrabhūti, the king of Oḍḍiyāna, in the place of the glorious vajra in the north.”

We are to understand that the compiler of the tantras is Vajrapāṇi, and as the Lamp of Principles also asserts, Indrabhūti is an emanation of Vajrapāṇi. In this way, not only are the teachings of the Hevajra Tantra and other tantras grounded in Śākyamuni Buddha’s lifetime, but their means of transmission in the future is guaranteed by Vajrapāṇi.

Ngorchen then turns to how the three main Hevajra tantras were taught. Ngorchen cites the commentary composed by Kāmadhenupa concerning the origin of the Hevajra Tantra in two sections, the Vajrapañjara Tantra, and the Saṃpūṭa Tantra we have at present as the principal sources for the practice of Hevajra in the Tibetan tradition. Kāmadhenupa places the teaching of the Hevajra Tantra during the lifetime of Śākyamuni Buddha, which was taught to the bodhisattva Vajragarbha (and his retinue of eighty million heroes), the yoginī Nairātmyā (and her retinue, said to be equal to the atoms of Sumeru), and innumerable other devas and humans. After this the Bhagavān taught the Vajrapañjara Tantra and the Saṃpūṭa Tantra.

To answer the question of why the longer Hevajra tantras are no longer extant in human lands, Ngorchen turns to a passage in the Vajrapañjara Tantra. It explains that in the future, after the Buddha’s parinirvāṇa, people will not be able to uphold the extensive tantras because they have little wisdom and short lives. Therefore, the root and explanatory tantras would be taught in condensed forms. The passage reads:

“Bhagavān, why were [the tantras] condensed from the extensive forms? If in the Fortunate Eon bodhisattvas and ordinary people have short lives, how will they uphold them? How will they hear them? How will their minds be transformed? Bhagavān, why will the lives of ordinary people be short?”

Vajradhara replied, “Some will become teachers and incur root downfalls. The behavior of others will be enjoyment of the ten unvirtuous actions. Others, ordinary people, will slay creatures. Some with craving will desire to possess a harem of women. For those reasons all tantras will not be taught in their extensive forms.”

The Hevajra Tradition in the Sakya School

The Sakya school specializes in the practice and exegesis of the Hevajra Tantra, developing its entire Vajrayāna curriculum around the root tantra, its respective commentarial tantras, and the Indian commentarial literature that grew up around the Hevajra Tantra cycle. The Sakya school concerns itself with four principal Hevajra lineages. Three of these traditions pass through Drokmi Lotsāwa Śākya Yeshe: the Virūpa tradition, the Ḍombhi Heruka tradition, and the Saroruha tradition. The Kṛṣṇa Samayavajra tradition passes through the eleventh-century translator Gö Khukpa Lhetse. It should be noted that in all these lineages, the person who reveals the Hevajra Tantra to Virūpa, Anaṅgavajra, and Samayavajra is none other than the ḍākinī Nairātmyā, who is consistently identified as a nirmāṇakāya.

Among these four lineages, the principal lineage to emerge was the Virūpa tradition, also known as the Intimate Instruction tradition (man ngag lugs) or the Path with Its Result. The Path with Its Result begins with the hagiography (rnam thar) of the mahāsiddha Virūpa. However, there are at least two Virūpas known to us. The Virūpa of the Path with Its Result tradition is known as Śrī Dharmapāla, who is identified as the author of The Vajra Verses. The other, a brahmin Virūpa, is identified as a disciple of Princess Lakṣmiṃkāra in the Jal tradition (dpyal lugs) of Vajravārāhī. It is possible there may be more Virūpas, but such an exploration is beyond the scope of this introduction.

There are three primary sources concerning the life of Śrī Dharmapāla Virūpa: the single verse of supplication to him found in the Supplication to the Eighty-Four Mahāsiddhas, the Chronicle of the Eighty-Four Mahāsiddhas, and the Chronicle of the Indian Gurus. While the latter two texts disagree on biographical details—the monastery in which Śrī Dharmapāla Virūpa resided, his main practice, and so on—all three agree on a key episode of Virūpa’s hagiography: the notorious incident when Virūpa stopped the sun because he did not want to pay his bar tab. In addition, we may add a fourth source: the Commentary on the Songs of Conduct composed by Munidatta, which contains a version of Virūpa’s song about the barmaid.

The Chronicle of the Indian Gurus, the principal hagiography, relates that Śrī Dharmapāla Virūpa was a member of the aristocracy, ordained into the Mūlasarvāstivāda lineage, and later initiated into the Cakrasaṃ- vara tradition by a preceptor named either Dharmamitra or *Vijayadeva at Nālanda Monastery. Upon the passing of his preceptor, Śrī Dharmapāla Virūpa replaced him as Nālanda’s grand preceptor. Amezhab notes that he was born one thousand twenty years after the parinirvāṇa of the Buddha. Abhayadatta’s account gives Śrī Dharmapāla Virūpa’s birthplace as the Tripura region of Bengal during the early ninth-century reign of Devapāla and maintains that he was a monk at the Somapūri Vihara, adding that he practiced Vajravārāhī for a period of twelve years, accumulating one billion mantras.

Ngawang Chödrak (1572–1641) reports that the Zhije lineage maintains that Śrī Dharmapāla Virūpa was a direct disciple of Ācārya Āryadeva and composed a commentary on Āryadeva’s Four Hundred Verses, which links Śrī Dharmapāla Virūpa to the famed sixth-century Yogācāra master, Śrī Dharmapāla. While Śrī Dharmapāla’s commentary on the Four Hundred Verses was never translated into Tibetan, his commentary is mentioned by Avalokitavrata.

Ngawang Chödrak further reports that Śrī Dharmapāla Virūpa was Śāntarakṣita’s teacher, according to the lineage lists given for the Dhāraṇī of the Ten Stages and the Noble Dhāraṇī of the Mother of Planets. The latter is a special Khön family lineage that begins with Śrī Dharmapāla Virūpa, passes to Śāntarakṣita, then to Khön Nagendrarakṣita (kLu’i dbang po srung), and so on. Finally, Ngawang Chödrak states that King Trison Detsan invited Śrī Dharmapāla Virūpa to Tibet toward the end of his incredibly long life span.

The second principal lineage, the Ḍombhi Heruka tradition, concerns the explication of the Hevajra tantras and does not possess a root text. Ḍombhi Heruka was the main disciple of Vīrupa.

The third principal lineage, the Saroruhavajra tradition, begins with Vilasavajrā, an Indian woman identified as an emanation of Nairātmyā by Sachen in the Chronicle of  Ācārya Saroruhavajra. She was the guru of Anaṅgavajra, and he in turn was the guru of Saroruhavajra, the source of the eponymous Saroruha Sādhana. Saroruha, also known as Padmavajra, is the author of several other important works on the Hevajra cycle. The most significant is the Padminī commentary on the two-section Hevajra Tantra. Kongtrul identifies Saroruhavajra with Padmasambhava.

The fourth principal lineage is the Samayavajra tradition. Samayavajra was a direct disciple of Nairātmyā and the author of the Jeweled Garland of Yoga, a commentary on the two-section Hevajra Tantra. Samayavajra is also referred to as Kṛṣṇa Jr. (Nag chung), as opposed to the more famous Kṛṣṇācārya (Nag po spyod pa). Samayavajra’s Hevajra maṇḍala rite serves as a major source of the empowerment of Hevajra translated here in part 2.

According to the Catalog of the Hevajra Dharma Cycle, the lineages of Ḍombhi, Saroruha, and Samayavajra contain a total of thirty-nine discrete texts.

Apart from the Hevajra cycle just mentioned, there is another set of Sakya teachings called the Nine Path Cycles (lam dgu skor). Volume 5 of The Treasury of Precious Instructions concerns just one of those path cycles: Virūpa’s Path with Its Result. The other eight path cycles will be presented in volume 6.

Path with Its Result

The preeminence in Tibet of the Path with Its Result as one of the eight great practice lineages is bound up with the prominence of the Khön clan (’khon rigs), one of the ancient clans of pre-Buddhist Tibet that has ruled the Sakya region in western Tsang since the eleventh century. The political, social, and economic prominence of the Khön clan ensured the success of these teachings. We can be certain that they were lent prestige by the spiritual reputation of the five founding Sakya masters and the backing of the Mongolian emperor Kublai Khan. It should be noted that there were five other traditions of the Path with Its Result, descending either directly from Drokmi, or in the case of the Phakmo Dru lineage, from Sachen: the Drom, Zhama, Chegom, Jonang, and Phakdru traditions.

The Path with Its Result is a heterogeneous system largely forged out of the translations of Drokmi, who in the latter part of his life lived in Mugulung in western Tibet, near the location of Sakya Monastery. Drokmi, a prolific translator, spent twelve years studying at Nālanda in India and is responsible, along with his guru, Gayadhara, for translating at least thirty-one texts in the Tibetan Buddhist canon, including the Hevajra, Vajrapañjara, and Saṃputa tantras. In addition, Drokmi translated many more works with other collaborators. It is no exaggeration to state that Drokmi was largely responsible for introducing the Hevajra system to Tibet in the eleventh century.

Drokmi’s principal sponsor was Könchok Gyalpo (dKon mchog rgyal po, 1034–1102), a Khön scion and the founder of Sakya Monastery. The Khön, who were staunch Nyingma practitioners since the time of the Tibetan empire, focused mainly on the practices of Śrī Heruka from the True Accomplishment Sādhana and Vajrakīlaya. Könchok Gyalpo’s elder brother, Sherab Tsultrim, aware of the decline of the Nyingma tradition in western Tsang, encouraged his younger sibling to study with Drokmi. Although Könchok Gyalpo received the Hevajra empowerment and some teachings from Drokmi, he never received The Vajra Verses. Drokmi had a policy of never giving the Intimate Instruction teachings to disciples to whom he taught the commentaries, and vice versa. However, Könchok Gyalpo’s son, Sachen Kungpa Nyingpo, the third Sakya throne holder, would receive Drokmi’s complete teachings through intermediary gurus, and it is Sachen Kungpa Nyingpo’s treatment of the Path with Its Result that is presented here.

This volume is divided into three major divisions: part 1, “The Core Collection of the Treatise and Manuals on the Path with Its Result” (Lam ’bras gzhung khrid gces btsus); part 2, “The Ripening Empowerment”; and part 3, “The Liberating Instructions.” Part 1 focuses on Virūpa’s Vajra Verses, which was not committed to writing until sometime after Sachen Kungpa Nyingpo began teaching it in 1141. The Vajra Verses is not in fact a collection of verses but consists of terse statements that require a commentary to fully understand. The remainder of part 1 contains the core collection (consisting of several short texts that outline The Vajra Verses and provide the fundamental framework for all later Path with Its Result literature) and the Nyakma Commentary.

Part 2 contains the sādhana, bali offering, maṇḍala rite, and the empowerment manuals necessary for bestowing the Hevajra at the Time of the Path empowerment in the Intimate Instruction lineage of Virūpa. Absent here are the Hevajra at the Time of the Path empowerment and the ḍākinī blessing of Nairātmyā or Vajrayoginī, which in this system are prerequisites for meditating on the paths of the three higher empowerments, according to the manuals presented in part 3. It is important to understand that the Path with Its Result presented here is not the full system. A number of important practices are omitted, such as the blessing for the Profound Path guru yoga, Virūpa’s protection practice, and the uncommon bodhisattva vow rite from the Mahāyāna section of the Path with Its Result, which is traditionally bestowed at the commencement of the common Mahāyāna section in the common experiential appearance section in the Three Appearances manuals.

Part 3 contains the instructional manuals that follow the outline presented in chapter 5, How to Give Instructions According to the Treatise: The Instructional Manual of the Path with Its Result, the Precious Oral Instruction. Kongtrul’s selection of texts avoids the entanglement of the controversial division of the Path with Its Result transmissions into two separate textual lineages: the Explanation for the Assembly and the Explanation for Disciples. However, chapter 14 in part 3, The Complete Clarification of the Hidden Meaning, can be understood to be the basis for the Explanation for the Assembly. Chapter 17, The Manual That Clarifies Symbols and Meanings, can be understood to be the basis for the Explanation for Disciples because it contains teachings and practices on luminosity (’od gsal), dream yoga, and illusory body, which are excluded from the Explanation for the Assembly.

Acknowledgments

First, I would like to acknowledge my root guru, His Holiness Sakya Trichen Rinpoche, the forty-first Sakya throne holder, from whom I had the good fortune of receiving the teachings and transmissions of the Path with Its Result. I would also like to recall the memory of the late His Holiness Dagchen Rinpoche, from whom I received the same. I owe a debt of gratitude to Khenpo Migmar Tseten, who guided me through my three-year retreat on the Path with Its Result cycle, has continually tutored me in Tibetan since 1990, and who patiently answered my questions concerning obscure terms in the colloquial language of his native Tsang province, which occasionally make an appearance in these manuals. I would like to express my appreciation to all the translators of Sakya works who have tread before me in this area of study. My work here has been made easier because of their trailblazing efforts. I would like to thank Osa Karen Manell, who worked with me through all phases of this project and whose exacting attention to detail improved the manuscript inestimably. I would also like to thank Anna Wolcott Johnson, our editor at Shambhala, whose advice was invaluable in polishing and preparing the manuscript for print. Finally, I would like to thank Eric Colombel and the staff of Tsadra Foundation for the opportunity to work on these texts that are so essential to the Sakya tradition