The Glorious King of Tantras That Resolves All Secrets
Introduction
Toh 384
Degé Kangyur, vol. 79 (rgyud ’bum, ga), folios 187.a–195.b
- Gayādhara
- Śākya Yeshé
Imprint
Translated by the Dharmachakra Translation Committee
under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha
First published 2012
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Table of Contents
Summary
As its title suggests, this tantra is specifically concerned with the proper interpretation, or “resolution,” of the highly esoteric or “secret” imagery and practices associated with deity yoga in both its development and completion stages as described in the Yoginītantra class of tantras. The work is organized according to a dialogue between the Buddha and Vajragarbha—the lead interlocutor throughout many of the Yoginītantras—and the Buddha’s responses give particular attention to the specifications of the subtle body completion-stage yoga involving manipulations of the body’s subtle energy channels, winds, and fluids in conjunction with either a real or imagined consort. The tantra sets its interpretation of these common Yoginītantra themes and imagery within the wider context of the four initiations prevalent in this class of tantras. In resolving the secrets connected with each initiation, the text elaborates the different levels of meaning connected with each initiation’s contemplative practices.
Acknowledgments
Translated by the Dharmachakra Translation Committee. The principal translator for this text was James Gentry, who also wrote the introduction. Andreas Doctor edited the translation and compared it with the original Tibetan.
The Dharmachakra Translation Committee would like to thank Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche for suggesting this tantra for translation, and Khenpo Sangyay Gyatso for his generous assistance with the resolution of several difficult passages.
This translation has been completed under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.
Introduction
This translation is based on seven Tibetan-language textual witnesses of a translation from Sanskrit into Tibetan ostensibly executed by the eleventh century translation team of the Indian paṇḍita Gayādhara and the Tibetan translator Drokmi Śākya Yeshé. The Sanskrit manuscript(s) upon which tradition claims Gayādhara and Drokmi based their translation has since vanished from the purview of Buddhists and Buddhist scholars.1 In reliance, then, on the two conjectured dates of Drokmi’s death, this tantra’s terminus ante quem can only be roughly estimated to be either 1043 or 1072.2 Tibetan historical records claim that Gayādhara continued to be active after Drokmi’s death.3
Judging from its bibliographic location within the relevant Kangyur collections, as well as from the distinctive themes it advances, this tantra belongs to the Yoginī class of tantras. Post-tenth-century Tibetan classification schemes4 that were formalized by the fourteenth century in the structure of the Tibetan Kangyurs typically catalog the translated texts of the Yoginītantra class, which Tibetans called “Mother tantras,” alongside what they called “Father tantras”5 and “Nondual tantras,”6 to make up the more inclusive category of “Unexcelled Yoga Tantra” (yoganiruttara / anuttarayoga tantra).7 The Unexcelled Yoga tantras, believed by most Tibetan exegetes to be the ultimate revelation of the Buddha of our eon, therefore occupy the first major bibliographic category in the Tantra collection8 of most Kangyur collections. Unexcelled Yoga tantras are in turn followed by the tantra classes of “Yoga,” “Conduct,” and finally “Action,” an order thought to represent along a descending gradient the relative soteriological power of the yogic techniques emphasized in each textual class.
The same hierarchical logic is also reflected in the Kangyur’s internal subdivisions of Unexcelled Yoga tantra itself, where the highest of the high, Nondual tantras, are followed by Mother tantras and then by Father tantras, once again reflecting in descending order Tibetan conceptions of the relative profundity and power of each subclass’s methodological emphasis. In relating the rationale for this tripartite hierarchy in his commentary on the Guhyagarbhatantra, Longchenpa (klong chen rab ’byams pa dri med ’od zer, 1308–64) echoes the following popular tantric dictum:
Father tantra primarily teaches generation stage, mother tantra primarily teaches completion stage, and nondual tantra primarily teaches their integration.9
In terms of content, then, Yoginītantras emphasize the apex of those Buddhist tantric methodologies developed on the Indian subcontinent from the ninth through the twelfth centuries ᴄᴇ,10 which later Tibetan exegetes collectively refer to as completion stage practices. Such practices are distinguished by Tibetans from those of the Father tantras, where the emphasis is on male deities, images, and symbols, and the associated practices of development stage, or deity yoga, in which one imaginatively recreates self and environment in the form of a central male deity and his celestial domain.
In contrast, the Yoginī or “female practitioner” tantras are said to emphasize more the special efficacy of female deities, principles, and symbols. These tantras likewise promote yogic techniques—the completion phase practices of Tibetan parlance—involving highly choreographed manipulations of the energy channels, winds, and seminal fluids that constitute the human body’s subtle physiology. Such practices center on the controlled arousal and movement of winds and fluids throughout the subtle body by means of sexual union with a real or imagined female practitioner or deity. Other salient features of the Yoginītantras include imagery related to Indian charnel grounds and the profusion of fierce male (heruka) and female (yoginīs and ḍākinīs) divinities believed to cavort there; the ritual preparation, exchange, and consumption of “polluting” substances such as bodily fluids and fleshes; an emphasis on the intimate connection and correlation between language, cosmos, and subtle physiology; and a considerable degree of language and imagery shared with Hindu Śaiva tantric traditions, particularly the Kāpālikas.11 For Indian and Tibetan commentators of Yoginītantras the term yoginī not only denotes the overtly sexual nature of the practices these texts prescribe, it also connotes the power and efficacy of contact with the feminine in all its human and divine forms.
Yet, alongside the profusion of elements that might reflect a nonmonastic origin or audience, the Yoginītantras also often assume knowledge of traditional Buddhist topics of learning like the dharmas of the Abhidharma, the ordination status of the various lay and monastic vow holders as stipulated in the Vinaya, and understandings of self, mind, and world drawn from Middle Way and Mind Only formulations. The Hevajratantra and the Cakrasaṃvaratantra, the two most well-known and widely practiced Yoginītantras, exhibit well this hybrid combination of characteristics.
Due to the social, political, and economic fragmentation that followed the collapse of the Tibetan empire in 840–42 ᴄᴇ, Tibetans were unable to begin translating the Yoginītantras until over a century later, toward the end of the tenth century, when Tibetans once again resumed their large-scale importation of Indian Buddhist texts and traditions. This renewed interest in Indian Buddhism among Tibetans, a movement that has recently come to be called the “Tibetan Buddhist renaissance,”12 was characterized foremost by the rise of an elite class of Tibetan scholars specially trained in the daunting task of translating and interpreting the developments in Indian Buddhist theory and practice that had transpired in the intervening century. From the inception of this period the new class of translator-scholars was thrust into the limelight and enjoyed the status of aristocracy.
Drokmi the translator appears to have been an especially important figure within this new ecclesiastical network. Ronald Davidson’s 2005 study entitled Tibetan Renaissance: Tantric Buddhism in the Rebirth of Tibetan Culture, which explores the major socioreligious figures and themes of this important period in Tibetan history, devotes an entire chapter (Chapter 5: “Drokmi: The Doyen of Central Tibetan Translators:” 161–209) to the life and career of Drokmi, including his relationship with the Indian scholar Gayādhara. We refer the reader to this chapter for a detailed discussion and analysis of Drokmi’s and Gayādhara’s lives and influence.
Here it suffices to note that Tibetan historical records depict Drokmi as having been especially steeped in Yoginītantra traditions. Drokmi receives credit, along with Gayādhara, for having produced authoritative translations of some of the most influential Yoginītantras to circulate in Tibet, most notably the seminal texts of the Hevajratantra system of practice and exegesis.13 Drokmi is also described as having produced, again together with Gayādhara, a translation of the famous Root Text of Mārgaphala (Path and Fruit), which would later become a core feature of the institutional identity of the Tibetan Sakya tradition. The process by which the first few generations of Sakya hierarchs integrated the laconic Root Text of Mārgaphala with the Hevajratantra ritual system to craft a powerfully influential sectarian identity forms the subject matter of much of Davidson’s 2005 study. Further readings on the rubric and contents of Buddhist Yoginītantras include Gray (2007), Isaacson (1998), Sanderson (1995a, 1995b and 2001), and Snellgrove (1959 and 1987).
In most Kangyurs, The Glorious King of Tantras That Resolves All Secrets is found within a corpus of thirty-two works known as the Rali (ra li) tantras (Toh 383–414). The corpus is divided into four groups—mind, speech, body, and miscellaneous—each comprising eight tantras. All are works translated by Drokmi, and all but eight with Gayādhara.14 The Glorious King of Tantras That Resolves All Secrets is the second of the first group, the eight mind tantras. It is not clear whether the texts belonging to the Rali corpus were so identified by Drokmi himself or later, but Butön, in his 1323 History of the Dharma, includes them in his classified list of canonical texts with the mention that they are “well known as the thirty-two Rali [tantras].”15 He places them as belonging to the Cakrasaṃvara cycle, and editors of the Kangyur have generally followed this classification.
A brief review of the structure and content of The Glorious King of Tantras That Resolves All Secrets reveals the presence of several Yoginītantra traits. The tantra is organized according to a dialogue between the Buddha and Vajragarbha, who is the lead interlocutor of the Buddha’s entourage throughout many of the Yoginītantras, such as the Hevajratantra, and others. After a brief opening narrative frame common to the Yoginītantras, Vajragarbha poses a series of four questions about each of the four major terms of the tantra’s title: secret, resolution, tantra, and king. The Buddha offers responses, which in turn elicit further questions. Vajragarbha’s opening four questions structure the body of the text as a whole, while his follow-up questions tend to open subtopics for further discussion. The following outline, which we have extracted in accordance with Vajragarbha’s questions, reveals the tantra’s thematic flow. Folio numbers correspond to the Degé witness.
Opening narrative frame (187a.2–4)
I. What is “secret”? (187a.4–195a.5)
1. The first secret, the practice of the development stage related to the vase initiation (187a.5–190b.5)
A. The support (187a.6–188a.5)
B. The supported (188a.5–190b.5)
i. What is the completion of the thirty-seven features? (188b.6–189a.2)
ii. How are they “developed”? (189a.2)
iii. What are their stages like? (189a.2)
v. How are view and conduct brought into coalescence? (189a.5–189b.1)
b. What is the conduct associated with it like? (190a.1–2)
b1. Beginners (190a.2)
b2. Superior persons (190a.2–4)
c. How do its qualities emerge?
d. What are all the meanings of the adornments?
d1. What is the “sixth” like? (190a.6–190b.3)
d2. What is a superior person like? (190b.3–4)
d3. How is desire fully purified? (190b.4–190b.5)
2. The second secret, the subtle physiology related the secret initiation (190b.5–193a.5)
B. Subtle energy channels (191b.7–192a.3)
C. “Camphor” (subtle seminal fluid) abiding in those channels (192a.3–4)
D. Practices based on this subtle physiology (192a.4–193a.5)
3. The third secret, sexual yoga related to the wisdom-gnosis initiation (193a.5–195a.2)
A. What is a cluster of stars like?
B. What is coalescence like?
C. What is nonduality like?
D. The actual practice of sexual yoga and the status of its practitioners (194a.1–195a.2)
i. What is a three-initiation fully ordained monk like? (194b.2–4)
ii. What are his activities like? (194b.4–195a.2)
4. The fourth secret, related to the fourth initiation (195a.2–195a.5)
II. What is its “resolution” like? (195a.5–195b.3)
III. What is the meaning of tantra? (195b.3–5)
IV. And what is its king like? (193b.5–6)
Closing narrative frame (193b.6–7)
This text is present in at least seven of the currently extant Kangyurs—the Choné, Degé, Lithang, Kangxi Peking, Stok Palace, Urga, and Yongle Peking versions16 (referenced in the notes, following Harrison and Eimer’s suggested sigla,17 as C, D, J, K, S, U, and Y)—where it occupies 18, 18, 14, 18, 21, 18, and 18 folios, respectively. While the tantra is located in each of these Kangyurs within the second bibliographic subdivision of the Collected Tantras section, among the penultimate Yoginītantras, the location of the Collected Tantras section varies somewhat between collections. The present translation is based primarily on the Degé edition, in consultation also with the six other available witnesses.
Text Body
Bibliography
Indian Texts in Tibetan Translation
Collections
D: Degé Kangyur, facsimile edition of the 1733 redaction of si tu chos kyi ’byung gnas, Delhi, 1978. Numbers from Tōhoku (Toh.) catalogue (Tokyo, 1934).
K: Peking Kangyur, original wood-block print prepared in 1684/1692 under the Kangxi emperor. Rare text collection at Harvard-Yenching Library.
Individual Texts
dpal gsang ba thams cad gcod pa’i rgyud kyi rgyal po (Śrīguhyasarvacchindatantrarāja) (C). Choné Kangyur, vol. 4 (rgyud ’bum, nga), folios 4b.5–13b.3.
dpal gsang ba thams cad gcod pa’i rgyud kyi rgyal po (Śrīguhyasarvacchindatantrarāja) (D). Toh 384, Degé Kangyur, vol. 79 (rgyud ’bum, ga), folios 187a.2–195b.7.
dpal gsang ba thams cad gcod pa’i rgyud kyi rgyal po (Śrīguhyasarvacchindatantrarāja) (K). PTT. 29, Peking Kangxi Kangyur, vol. 4 (rgyud ’bum, nga), folios 4a.8–13a.3.
dpal gsang ba thams cad gcod pa’i rgyud kyi rgyal po (Śrīguhyasarvacchindatantrarāja) (S). Stok Palace (stog pho brang bris ma) Kangyur, vol. 93 (rgyud ’bum, kha), folios 450a.4–461a.4.
dpal gsang ba thams cad gcod pa’i rgyud kyi rgyal po (Śrīguhyasarvacchindatantrarāja) (U). Urga Kangyur, vol. 80 (rgyud ’bum, ga), folios 187a.2–195b.7.
dpal gsang ba thams cad gcod pa’i rgyud kyi rgyal po (Śrīguhyasarvacchindatantrarāja) (J and Y). bka’ ’gyur (dpe bsdur ma) [Comparative Edition of the Kangyur], krung go’i bod rig pa zhib ’jug ste gnas kyi bka’ bstan dpe sdur khang (The Tibetan Tripitaka Collation Bureau of the China Tibetology Research Center). 108 volumes. Beijing: krung go’i bod rig pa dpe skrun khang (China Tibetology Publishing House), 2006-9, vol. 79, pp. 538–60.
Other Tibetan Texts
Butön (bu ston rin chen grub). chos ’byung [“History of the Dharma”] bde bar gshegs pa’i bstan pa’i gsal byed chos kyi ’byung gnas gsung rab rin po che’i mdzod. In gsung ’bum / rin chen grub, vol. 24 (ya), pp. 619–1042. Lhasa: zhol par khang, 2000. (BDRC W1934)
Gö Lotsāwa Zhönupal (’gos lo tsā ba gzhon nu dpal). deb ther sngon po. New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture, 1974. Translated by George Roerich, with help from Gendun Chöphel, as The Blue Annals. Calcutta: Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1949. Reprinted Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 1988.
Longchenpa (klong chen rab ’byams pa dri med ’od zer). dpal gsang ba de kho na nyid nges ’grel phyogs bcu mun gsel. In rnying ma bka’ ma rgyas pa, vol 26. Kalimpong: Dupjung Lama, 1982–87.
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Gray, David. The Cakrasamvara Tantra: A Study and Annotated Translation. New York: American Institute of Buddhist Studies at Columbia University in New York, 2007.
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