The Tantra of the Blue-Clad Blessed Vajrapāṇi
Introduction

The Tantra of the Blue-Clad Blessed Vajrapāṇi is a scripture that, in the fourfold classification that the Tibetans employed to organize their tantric canon, belongs to the “Conduct” or Caryātantra class. The small number of tantras in this category were grouped together because of their similarities in philosophical view and ritualistic conduct. The Caryātantra class is the second of the “three outer tantras.” It adopts features from both Kriyātantra and Yogatantra (the first and third, respectively), being characterized by its attention to worldly rituals (as found in Kriyātantra) as well as more soteriological insights (as emphasized in Yogatantra). From an historical perspective, the Caryātantras can also be viewed as exemplifying the transition in Indian tantric practice from a role of predominantly protecting against worldly calamities to one of providing a path toward personal awakening, as the later tantric systems promise. Generally the texts of the Caryātantra class have been tentatively dated to the early seventh century ᴄᴇ (Williams 2000, p. 207). There is, however, some evidence within this tantra (which will be discussed below) that might point to a slightly later date for this text.

More specifically, the tantra presented in this translation concerns a form of Vajrapāṇi known as the Blue-Clad One. In this form Vajrapāṇi is dark blue, with one face, three eyes, and two hands. His clothing is blue and his thick matted hair streams upward. His body is adorned with eight serpents in various places, and in his right hand he brandishes a vajra. For the Tibetans, and no doubt for Indian tantric practitioners, this form of Vajrapāṇi was highly popular‍—to the extent that the Kangyur contains no fewer than seven tantras and two dhāraṇī texts centered on this awakened figure. Of the seven tantras, three (Toh 498, 499, 501) belong to the Caryātantra class, while the remaining four (Toh 454, 456, 457, 461) are found in the class called the “Unexcelled tantras” (bla na med pa’i rgyud) by Tibetan exegetes. Seen from an historical standpoint, it seems likely that the Blue-Clad Vajrapāṇi of the Caryātantras may have functioned as the prototype for the later Unexcelled tantras associated with this figure. As such, the tantra translated here is of particular importance for understanding the early developments of this tradition.

The popularity of Blue-Clad Vajrapāṇi can also be gleaned from the number of texts concerned with this figure in the Tengyur (the Indian commentarial collection in Tibetan translation), where we find no fewer than thirty-seven works that focus on Blue-Clad Vajrapāṇi. They are made up of actual commentaries as well as of several shorter practice manuals and of various rituals. Almost all of these texts, and importantly all of the commentaries, relate to the later tantras found in the Unexcelled Tantra section. We can therefore deduce that the tradition of this deity gained its primary popularity in the later days of the tantric movement in India, where it seems that a particularly colorful group of devotees took to wearing blue robes as the hallmark of their community.1 In the West, however, Blue-Clad Vajrapāṇi has remained surprisingly unexplored, and to date hardly any mention of the deity can be found in modern scholarship.

The text begins with the bodhisattva Vajrapāṇi requesting the Buddha Akṣobhya to teach a tantra that can tame all evil spirits that live beneath the ground. The notion that an underworld exists in which various forms of evil spirits flourish was well developed in Indian Buddhism since the very early days.2 Both of the two other Caryātantra tantras on Blue-Clad Vajrapāṇi (Toh 499 in seven chapters and Toh 501 in five chapters) share the same theme, unfolding as Vajrapāṇi requests the Buddha to teach the rituals that can tame the nāgas and yakṣas below the ground and, in the process, accomplish the wealth that they guard and repel the disease that they inflict on humans. These two other tantras thus appear to be slightly condensed (or perhaps earlier) versions of The Tantra of the Blue-Clad Blessed Vajrapāṇi.3

The Buddha Akṣobhya agrees to Vajrapāṇi’s request, and then prepares to teach the tantra known as The Vajra That Subjugates the Evil Forces Below the Vajra Earth, which throughout this text is synonymous with the main title of the tantra. Before he begins, however, he first blesses Vajrapāṇi with the ability to tame the various serpent beings living in the environment below, headed by the nāga king Anantaka (another name for Śesa, the serpent associated with Viṣṇu). Once tamed in this way, the serpent beings join in the request being put to the Buddha that he teach the tantra. With the stage thus set, the Buddha Akṣobhya proceeds to teach.

The instructions begin with a short, unnumbered chapter (here included at the end of the prologue) called “Taming the Nāgas,” which details a very brief ritual practice for taming nāgas, grahas, and other evil forces that live beneath the earth. After this initial instruction, the remainder of the tantra is structured in thirteen chapters, all of which are numbered and given titles in the tantra itself.

Chapter 1, entitled “Accomplishing Peaceful Activity” or the “Chapter of the Gods,” presents the “ritual for the action deity,” which amounts to a succinct practice manual for the visualization of Blue-Clad Vajrapāṇi and the recitation of his mantra. The practice manual is well structured and simple, and contains the tantra’s main iconographic description of Blue-Clad Vajrapāṇi.

Chapter 2, “The Oblation,” describes the ritual for making an oblation and other offerings to Vajrapāṇi and his retinue. This contains the offering mantra for Blue-Clad Vajrapāṇi, as well as mantras for each of the nine yakṣas in his retinue named in this chapter.

Chapter 3 is entitled “Vaiśravaṇa,” and focuses on the yakṣa Vaiśravaṇa who, according to the previous chapter, is the first among Vajrapāṇi’s retinue. In this chapter Vaiśravaṇa is encouraged by the Buddha (one assumes this is still Akṣobhya, as in the opening of the tantra, but this is not made explicit) to give instructions on his own practice, in which Vaiśravaṇa himself is the main figure and the other eight yakṣas are members of his retinue. The practices described include making offerings to Vaiśravaṇa and his retinue, as well as a wrathful suppression ritual performed with an effigy.

Chapter 4, “The Wheel of Suppression,” describes a short ritual of suppression, connected with the yoga of Vajrapāṇi, which “strikes all wicked ones,” presumably clearing away evil or obstructing forces.

Chapter 5, entitled “The Ritual for Drawing the Diagram,” outlines a wrathful ritual for killing a person or subduing a place, and is taught by the Vajra Holder (Tib. rdo rje ’dzin pa), an epithet that probably refers to Vajrapāṇi. The appropriate target for such wrathful practices is not mentioned explicitly in this chapter, but chapter 3 describes such a ritual target as “those hostile toward the teachings.”

In chapter 6, “The Stages of the Fire Offering,” Vajrapāṇi asks the Blessed One (again, probably Akṣobhya) whether or not one is liberated through ritual practices such as the fire offering (Tib. sbyin sreg, Skt. homa). The Blessed One replies that one is indeed liberated through the performance of such ritual practices when they are combined with the maintenance of sacred commitments, and he proceeds to describe the stages of the fire-offering ritual.

Chapter 7, “The Wheel of Expulsion,” describes a short ritual in which the practitioner visualizes himself as the activity deity (presumably Vajrapāṇi) and summons the target into an effigy, which is burned and then discarded in water.

Chapter 8, entitled “Mantra,” is an extremely concise chapter that mentions Vajrapāṇi’s main mantra together with a claim that it “accomplishes all activity, even without practice.” The rest of the chapter is a list of activities that one might wish to accomplish (being affectionate toward all beings, killing all enemies, protecting against epidemics, accomplishing wealth, and so forth) and a concise statement of the method for accomplishing each of them.

Chapter 9, “Certainty and Purity,” initially focuses on the recitation of mantras. Here several mantras are mentioned that are used in the practice of the activity deity (presumably according to the same ritual manual outlined in the first chapter of the tantra), and concise advice is given on the recitation of Vajrapāṇi’s mantra and its attendant visualization. In its later stanzas, however, this chapter stands out from the rest of the text in its use of a much more abstract and almost poetic language to describe the intended results of practice, with a perceptible shift to a more soteriological focus. For example, the “nondual nature” that is the result to be obtained in a single lifetime is described as “inexpressible, nonconceptual, the meaning of thatness.” This contrasts rather sharply with the more ritualistic language of the other chapters, where the emphasis is mostly on suppressing, subduing, or killing ritual targets. Here the use of terms like “natural luminosity” and “supreme awakening” suggests an orientation transcending mere worldly ritual. It is true that throughout the other chapters there are hints to be found of a more soteriological orientation, such as in the introductory section of the tantra when the nāga kings are made to generate the mind of enlightenment; in chapter 1 when the goal of the “supreme attainment” is mentioned; in chapter 6 when Vajrapāṇi asks the Blessed One if it is possible to be liberated through a ritual such as the fire offering; and in the final chapter when Vajrapāṇi asks Vajradhara to explain the secret of enlightened mind. However, it is in this ninth chapter that the whole tenor of the text changes most perceptibly, with the language and content reflecting what is only hinted at in other parts of the text.

Chapter 10, “Protection,” describes a number of detailed protection rituals spoken by Vajradhara to Vajrapāṇi. Among the protection rituals described are those that seem intended to counteract possession‍—for “those beings who are seized by wicked ones”‍—as well as general negative influences, and to reverse obstacles.

Chapter 11, “The Arrangement of Mantras,” describes the ritual arrangement of mantra syllables within a triangular maṇḍala and explains their ritual recitation. The arrangement describes syllables from the “first” through the “seventh,” but then later mentions the “thirteen syllables,” which are presumably the thirteen syllables of Vajrapāṇi’s root mantra, taught earlier in the tantra. The relationship between this thirteen-syllable mantra and the arrangement of the seven syllables described earlier in the chapter, however, remains unclear.

Chapter 12, “Bestowing Empowerment on Students,” describes the ritual for performing initiation for the Vajrapāṇi practice. After discussing the preparation of the ground and the maṇḍala, the tantra mentions five initiations that are to be bestowed: the vase, vajra, bell, crown, and name initiations. These five initiations are characteristic of an early stage in the development of Buddhist initiatory rites (Tib. dbang, Skt. abhiṣeka) in which these five initiations as a group constituted the full initiatory procedure, and the later, now well-known set of four consecrations (in which these earlier five were condensed into the first of the four, the vase initiation) had not yet developed (Isaacson 2010, pp. 263–64). If, as it appears, the tantra is following this early system‍—which had, by this point, developed into the full form of the fivefold consecration‍—this might suggest a seventh-century or even early eighth-century date, since the continued development of initiations, starting with the “secret initiation” (Skt. guhyābhiṣeka), took place with the mid-eighth-century Guhya­samāja­tantra.

In chapter 13, the final chapter of the tantra, “Establishing the Secret,” Vajrapāṇi asks the Blessed One (again identified as Vajradhara, which we may assume here is a different name for Akṣobhya) to explain the secret of enlightened mind. The reply he receives is the instruction to generate the enlightened attitude and to gather the two accumulations of merit and wisdom, and then to perform a version of Vajrapāṇi’s ritual practice, which is described in brief and presented as a method for taming unruly beings and subduing obstructing forces. Then, after a brief verse lauding the qualities of this particular tantra, Vajrapāṇi and his retinue praise the words of the Blessed One, and the text concludes.

If we look at the structure of the tantra as a whole, the various chapters of The Tantra of the Blue-Clad Blessed Vajrapāṇi, with the exception of the ninth chapter, appear to be a collection of related ritual manuals centered on the figure of this particular form of Vajrapāṇi. The first chapter seems to be the foundational ritual manual for the visualization and mantra recitation of Blue-Clad Vajrapāṇi, while the later chapters describe ancillary rituals that, it seems, are to be connected with the framework of the main ritual manual. These ritual texts are all presented within the tantra’s larger narrative framework. While the initial introductory narrative framework (Tib. gleng gzhi, Skt. nidāna) of the tantra is somewhat detailed, its closing framework is very brief‍—a single sentence. Additionally, each of the chapters, again with the single exception of chapter 9, has its own short introductory narrative framework. These statements, ranging from a single sentence in some chapters to a few paragraphs in others, give the context for the rituals presented therein, stating what the ritual is for and who taught it, thus framing the actual ritual instructions as quotations of the words spoken by the teacher.

This presentation of teachings as a discourse by a particular teacher, or a dialogue between teacher and student, is a standard framework for both sūtras and tantras. What is interesting here, however, is that the content presented within this framework is almost entirely ritual instruction. In a recent article, Jacob Dalton has argued convincingly that ritual manuals were often a major source upon which the tantras themselves were based, rather than the other way around as traditional scholarship mostly holds (Dalton 2016, p. 4). Here we see what seems to be a clear example of this inversion, since apart from its narrative framework, the content of the tantra is nearly exclusively ritual instruction.

In this tantra, the ninth chapter is the single exception to both the presence of this narrative framework and the exclusive ritual content (here we include within “ritual content” laudatory words praising the efficacy of the ritual, which are commonly found within ritual works). This chapter names no teacher as the one imparting the instructions; it simply begins, “Then, moreover, the certainty of recitation / Will be taught now.”

As discussed above, the initial part of chapter 9 is a description of the visualization for mantra recitation, followed by a short list of the mantras required for the practice. This part of the chapter can be considered as ritual content, though it does not contain a full or self-contained ritual as the other chapters do; instead it appears to be a sort of supplemental instruction to be integrated into the practice described in chapter 1. The text then shifts, however, in both content and tone to an overtly soteriological orientation with the use of abstract language that is not found in other parts of the tantra. The lack of the narrative framework found in the other chapters combined with the overt soteriological orientation and abstract language single out chapter 9 as being, perhaps, a later addition to the tantra.

Although the language of the text is sometimes obscure and difficult, The Tantra of the Blue-Clad Blessed Vajrapāṇi represents a fascinating stage in the historical development of Buddhist tantra and offers a beautiful example of early tantric literature. We hope that this English translation will open the doors to further engagement with this and other tantras, by both practitioners and scholars of Buddhist tantra alike.