Vajrasattva
Encyclopedia
Bodhisattva
In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is either an enlightened existence or an enlightenment-being or, given the variant Sanskrit spelling satva rather than sattva, "heroic-minded one for enlightenment ." The Pali term has sometimes been translated as "wisdom-being," although in modern publications, and...
in the Mahayana
Mahayana
Mahāyāna is one of the two main existing branches of Buddhism and a term for classification of Buddhist philosophies and practice...
, Mantrayana and Vajrayana
Vajrayana
Vajrayāna Buddhism is also known as Tantric Buddhism, Tantrayāna, Mantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Esoteric Buddhism and the Diamond Vehicle...
buddhist traditions. In the Japanese Vajrayana school of Buddhism, Shingon, Vajrasattva is the esoteric aspect of the bodhisattva
Bodhisattva
In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is either an enlightened existence or an enlightenment-being or, given the variant Sanskrit spelling satva rather than sattva, "heroic-minded one for enlightenment ." The Pali term has sometimes been translated as "wisdom-being," although in modern publications, and...
Samantabhadra
Samantabhadra
Samantabhadra , is a bodhisattva in Mahayana Buddhism associated with Buddhist practice and meditation. Together with Shakyamuni Buddha and fellow bodhisattva Manjusri he forms the Shakyamuni trinity in Buddhism...
and is commonly associated with the student practitioner who through the master's teachings, attains an ever-enriching subtle and rarefied grounding in their esoteric practice. In Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism is the body of Buddhist religious doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet and certain regions of the Himalayas, including northern Nepal, Bhutan, and India . It is the state religion of Bhutan...
Vajrasattva is associated with the Dharmakaya and also with purification practice.
Vajrasattva appears principally in two Buddhists texts: the Mahavairocana Sutra and the Vajrasekhara Sutra
Vajrasekhara Sutra
The Vajrasekhara Sutra is an important Buddhist tantra used in the Vajrayana schools of Buddhism, particularly the Japanese Shingon school. It is also known as the...
. In the Diamond Realm
Diamond Realm
In Vajrayana Buddhism, the Diamond Realm is a metaphysical space inhabited by the Five Wisdom Buddhas...
Mandala, Vajrasattva sits to the East near Akshobhya
Akshobhya
In Vajrayana Buddhism, Akṣobhya is one of the Five Wisdom Buddhas, a product of the Adibuddha, who represents consciousness as an aspect of reality...
Buddha.
In some esoteric lineages, Nagarjuna
Nagarjuna
Nāgārjuna was an important Buddhist teacher and philosopher. Along with his disciple Āryadeva, he is credited with founding the Mādhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhism...
was said to have met Vajrasattva in an iron tower in South India, and was taught tantra
Tantra
Tantra , anglicised tantricism or tantrism or tantram, is the name scholars give to an inter-religious spiritual movement that arose in medieval India, expressed in scriptures ....
, thus transmitting the esoteric teachings to more historical figures.
Nomenclature, orthography and etymology
Vajrasattva is a bodhisattvaBodhisattva
In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is either an enlightened existence or an enlightenment-being or, given the variant Sanskrit spelling satva rather than sattva, "heroic-minded one for enlightenment ." The Pali term has sometimes been translated as "wisdom-being," although in modern publications, and...
in the Mahayana
Mahayana
Mahāyāna is one of the two main existing branches of Buddhism and a term for classification of Buddhist philosophies and practice...
and Vajrayana
Vajrayana
Vajrayāna Buddhism is also known as Tantric Buddhism, Tantrayāna, Mantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Esoteric Buddhism and the Diamond Vehicle...
buddhist traditions. Vajrasattva's name translates to Diamond Mind or Thunderbolt Mind.
Shingon Buddhism
In the Shingon Buddhist lineage, Vajrasattva is traditionally viewed as the second patriarch, the first being VairocanaVairocana
Vairocana is a celestial Buddha who is often interpreted as the Bliss Body of the historical Gautama Buddha; he can also be referred to as the dharmakaya Buddha and the great solar Buddha. In Sino-Japanese Buddhism, Vairocana is also seen as the embodiment of the Buddhist concept of shunyata or...
Buddha himself. According to Kukai
Kukai
Kūkai , also known posthumously as , 774–835, was a Japanese monk, civil servant, scholar, poet, and artist, founder of the Shingon or "True Word" school of Buddhism. Shingon followers usually refer to him by the honorific titles of and ....
's writings in Record of the Dharma Transmission he relates a story based on Amoghavajra
Amoghavajra
Amoghavajra was a prolific translator who became one of the most politically powerful Buddhist monks in Chinese history, acknowledged as one of the eight patriarchs of the doctrine in Shingon lineages.-Life:Born in Samarkand of an Indian father and Sogdian mother, he went...
's account that Nagarjuna
Nagarjuna
Nāgārjuna was an important Buddhist teacher and philosopher. Along with his disciple Āryadeva, he is credited with founding the Mādhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhism...
met Vajrasattva in an iron tower in southern India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. Vajrasattva initiated Nagarjuna into the abhiseka ritual and entrusted him with the esoteric he had learned from Vairocana
Vairocana
Vairocana is a celestial Buddha who is often interpreted as the Bliss Body of the historical Gautama Buddha; he can also be referred to as the dharmakaya Buddha and the great solar Buddha. In Sino-Japanese Buddhism, Vairocana is also seen as the embodiment of the Buddhist concept of shunyata or...
Buddha, as depicted in the Mahavairocana Sutra. Kukai does not elaborate further on Vajrasattva or his origins.
Elsewhere, Vajrasattva is an important figure in two esoteric Buddhist sutras, the Mahavairocana Sutra and the Vajrasekhara Sutra
Vajrasekhara Sutra
The Vajrasekhara Sutra is an important Buddhist tantra used in the Vajrayana schools of Buddhism, particularly the Japanese Shingon school. It is also known as the...
. In the first chapter of the Mahavairocana Sutra, Vajrasattva leads a host of beings who visit Vairocana
Vairocana
Vairocana is a celestial Buddha who is often interpreted as the Bliss Body of the historical Gautama Buddha; he can also be referred to as the dharmakaya Buddha and the great solar Buddha. In Sino-Japanese Buddhism, Vairocana is also seen as the embodiment of the Buddhist concept of shunyata or...
Buddha to learn the Dharma
Dharma
Dharma means Law or Natural Law and is a concept of central importance in Indian philosophy and religion. In the context of Hinduism, it refers to one's personal obligations, calling and duties, and a Hindu's dharma is affected by the person's age, caste, class, occupation, and gender...
. Vajrasattva inquires about the cause, goal and foundation of all-embracing wisdom, which leads to a philosophical discourse by the Buddha. The audience cannot comprehend the teaching, so the Buddha demonstrates through the use mandala
Mandala
Maṇḍala is a Sanskrit word that means "circle". In the Buddhist and Hindu religious traditions their sacred art often takes a mandala form. The basic form of most Hindu and Buddhist mandalas is a square with four gates containing a circle with a center point...
. Vajrasattva then questions why rituals and objects are needed if the truth is beyond form. Vairocana Buddha replies to Vajrasattva that these are expedient means to bring practitioners to experience awakening more readily, and so on. In Shingon Buddhist rituals for initiation, the kechien kanjō, the initiate re-enacts the role of Vajrasattva and recites mantra
Mantra
A mantra is a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that is considered capable of "creating transformation"...
and dialogue from the sutras above. The Maha Acharya enacts the role of Mahavairocana Buddha bestowing wisdom upon the student.
Tibetan Buddhism
In Tibetan BuddhismTibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism is the body of Buddhist religious doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet and certain regions of the Himalayas, including northern Nepal, Bhutan, and India . It is the state religion of Bhutan...
the Vajrasattva root tantra is Dorje Gyan, or 'Vajra Ornament'. Vajrasattva practices are common to all of the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism and are used both to purify obscurations so that the Vajrayana
Vajrayana
Vajrayāna Buddhism is also known as Tantric Buddhism, Tantrayāna, Mantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Esoteric Buddhism and the Diamond Vehicle...
student can progress beyond Ngondro
Ngöndro
Ngöndro refers to the preliminary, preparatory or foundational 'practices' or 'disciplines' common to all four schools of Tibetan Buddhism and also to Bön...
practices to the various yoga
Yoga
Yoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline, originating in ancient India. The goal of yoga, or of the person practicing yoga, is the attainment of a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility while meditating on Supersoul...
practices of tantra
Tantra
Tantra , anglicised tantricism or tantrism or tantram, is the name scholars give to an inter-religious spiritual movement that arose in medieval India, expressed in scriptures ....
and also to purify any broken samaya
Samaya
The samaya , is a set of vows or precepts given to initiates of an esoteric Vajrayana Buddhist order as part of the abhiṣeka ceremony that creates a bond between the guru and disciple.According Keown, et al., Samaya may be defined as:*A particular system of teaching or...
vows after initiation. As such, Vajrasattva practice is an essential element of Tibetan Buddhist practice.
In addition to personal practice, the Vajrasattva mantra is regarded as having the ability to purify karma
Karma
Karma in Indian religions is the concept of "action" or "deed", understood as that which causes the entire cycle of cause and effect originating in ancient India and treated in Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh philosophies....
, bring peace, and cause enlightened activity in general. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks
September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
on the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche
Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche
The 7th Dzogchen Ponlop, Rinpoche is an abbot of Dzogchen Monastery, president of Nalandabodhi, the founder of Nitartha Institute, a leading Tibetan Buddhist scholar, and a meditation master...
announced a project, Prayer 4 Peace, to accumulate one billion six syllable
Syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
Vajrasattva recitations by practitioners around the world. The six syllable mantra (OM VAJRASATTVA HUM), is a less formal version of the one hundred syllable mantra on which it is based but contains the essential spiritual points of the longer mantra, according to lama
Lama
Lama is a title for a Tibetan teacher of the Dharma. The name is similar to the Sanskrit term guru .Historically, the term was used for venerated spiritual masters or heads of monasteries...
and tulku
Tulku
In Tibetan Buddhism, a tulku is a particular high-ranking lama, of whom the Dalai Lama is one, who can choose the manner of his rebirth. Normally the lama would be reincarnated as a human, and of the same sex as his predecessor. In contrast to a tulku, all other sentient beings including other...
Jamgon Kongtrul
Jamgon Kongtrul
Jamgön Kongtrül is a name of a prominent line of Tibetan Buddhist teachers , primarily identified with the first Jamgon Kongtrul, but also the name shared by members of a lineage held by tradition to be his subsequent reincarnations , to date....
.
Hundred Syllable Mantra
In Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhist practice, Vajrasattva is used in the NgondroNgöndro
Ngöndro refers to the preliminary, preparatory or foundational 'practices' or 'disciplines' common to all four schools of Tibetan Buddhism and also to Bön...
, or preliminary practices, in order to "purify" the mind's defilements, prior to undertaking more advanced tantric techniques
Tantra techniques (Vajrayana)
Tantra techniques in Vajrayana Buddhism are techniques used to attain Buddhahood. Vajrayana partially relies on various tantric techniques rooted in scriptures such as tantras and various tantric commentaries and treatises...
. The 'yik gya', the 'Hundred Syllable Mantra' supplication of Vajrasattva, approaches universality in the various elementary Ngondro sadhana
Sadhana
Sādhanā literally "a means of accomplishing something" is ego-transcending spiritual practice. It includes a variety of disciplines in Hindu, Sikh , Buddhist and Muslim traditions that are followed in order to achieve various spiritual or ritual objectives.The historian N...
for sadhaka
Sadhaka
A sādhaka is someone who follows a particular sādhana, or a way of life designed to realize the goal of one's ultimate ideal, whether it is merging with brahman or realization of one's personal deity. The word is related to the Sanskrit sādhu, which is derived from the verb root sādh-, to accomplish...
s of all Mantrayana and Sarma
Sarma (Tibetan Buddhism)
Sarma In Tibetan Buddhism, the Sarma schools include the three newest of the four main schools, comprising:*Kagyu*Sakya*Kadam/Gelukand their sub-branches.The Nyingma school is the sole Ngagyur or "old translation," school....
schools bar the Bonpo. The pronunciation and orthography differ between lineages.
ཨོཾ་བཛྲ་སཏྭ་ས་མ་ཡ་མ་ནུ་པ་ལ་ཡ། བཛྲ་སཏྭ་ཏྭེ་ནོ་པ་ཏིཥྛ། དྲྀ་ཌྷོ་མེ་བྷ་བ། སུ་ཏོ་ ཥྱོ་མེ་བྷ་བ། སུ་པོ་ ཥྱོ་མེ་བྷ་བ། ཨ་ནུ་ར་ཀྟོ་མེ་བྷ་བ། ས་རྦ་སི་དྡྷི་མེ་པྲ་ཡ་ཙྪ། ས་རྦ་ཀ་རྨ་སུ་ཙ་མེ ཙི་ཏྟཾ༌ཤེ་ཡཿ་ཀུ་རུ་ཧཱུྂ། ཧ་ཧ་ཧ་ཧ་ཧོཿ བྷ་ག་བ་ན ས་རྦ ཏ་ཐཱ་ག་ཏ་བཛྲ་མཱ་མེ་མུ་ཉྩ། བཛྲཱི་བྷ་བ་མ་ཧཱ་ས་མ་ཡ་སཏྭ ཨཱཿ །། ཧཱུྂ ཕ་ཊ | Oṃ (1) Vajrasattva (5) samaya (8)manupālaya (13) | Vajrasattva (17) tvenopatiṣṭha (22) | Dṛḍho me bhava (27) | Sutoṣyo me bhava (33) | Supoṣyo me bhava (39) | Anurakto me bhava (46) | Sarva siddhiṃ (50) me prayaccha (54) | Sarvakarmasu (59) ca me (61) citta śriyaḥ kuru hūṃ (68) | Hā hā hā hā hoḥ (73) Bhagavan (76) sarva (78) Tathāgata (82) Vajra (84)mā me muñca (88) | Vajra bhava (92) mahāsamaya (97) sattva āḥ (100) || | oṃ O Vajrasattva honour the agreement! Reveal yourself as the vajra-being! Be steadfast for me! Be very pleased for me! Be fully nourishing for me! Be passionate for me! Grant me all success and attainment! And in all actions make my mind more lucid! hūṃ ha ha ha ha hoḥ O Blessed One, vajra of all those in that state, don't abandon me! O being of the great contract be a vajra-bearer! āḥ | (The most excellent exclamation of praise) Vajrasattva’s Samaya: O Vajrasattva, protect the Samaya May you remain firm in me Grant me complete satisfaction Grow within me (increase the positive within me) Be loving towards me Grant me all the siddhis Show me all the karmas (activities) Make my mind good, virtuous and auspicious! (The heart essence, seed syllable of Vajrasattva) (Symbolises the four immeasurables, the four empowerments, the four joys, and the four kayas) (The exclamation of joy at this accomplishment) O blessed one, who embodies all the Vajra Tathagatas Do not abandon me Grant me the realization of the Vajra Nature O great Samayasattva Make me one with you |
Longchen Nyingtig
The evocation of the Hundred Syllable Mantra in the Mantrayana lineage of Jigme LingpaJigme Lingpa
Jigme Lingpa was one of the most important tertöns of Tibet. He was the promulgator of the Longchen Nyingthik, the Heart Essence teachings of Longchenpa, from whom, according to tradition, he received a vision in which the teachings were revealed...
's (1729–1798) Ngondro from the Longchen Nyingtig sports Sanskrit-Tibetan hybridization, such textual and dialectical 'diglossia
Diglossia
In linguistics, diglossia refers to a situation in which two dialects or languages are used by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety , a second, highly codified variety is used in certain situations such as literature, formal...
' (Sanskrit: dvaibhashika) is evident from the earliest transmission of tantra into the Himalaya where the Sanskrit phonemes and lexical items are often orthographically rendered in the Tibetan, rather than the comparable indigenous terms (Davidson, 2002). Though Jigme Lingpa did not 'compose' the Hundred Syllable Mantra, his scribal style bears a marked similarity to it as evidenced by his biographies (Gyatso, 1998). Jigme Lingpa as 'pandit', which in the Himalayan context denotes an indigenous Tibetan versed in Sanskrit, often wrote in a hybridized Sanskrit-Tibetan diglossia.
Dzogchen
'The Mirror of the Heart of VajrasattvaThe Mirror of the Heart of Vajrasattva
The Mirror of the Heart of Vajrasattva is numbered amongst the 'Seventeen Tantras of Menngagde' within Dzogchen discourse and is part of the textual support for the Vima Nyingtik....
' is one of the Seventeen Tantras
Seventeen tantras
In Tibetan Buddhism, specifically in the literature and practice of Dzogchen, the seventeen tantras of the esoteric instruction cycle are a suite of tantras belonging to the textual division known as the "esoteric instruction cycle" .-History and tradition:The seventeen tantras, though not...
of Dzogchen
Dzogchen
According to Tibetan Buddhism and Bön, Dzogchen is the natural, primordial state or natural condition of the mind, and a body of teachings and meditation practices aimed at realizing that condition. Dzogchen, or "Great Perfection", is a central teaching of the Nyingma school also practiced by...
Upadesha.
Samantabhadra discourses to Vajrasattva and in turn Vajrasattva asks questions of Samantabhadra in clarification in the Kulayaraja Tantra (Wyl. kun byed rgyal po; Tib. künjé gyalpo) or 'The All-Creating King Tantra', the main tantra of the Mind Series of Dzogchen.