The Tantra of Siddhaikavīra
Chapter 4
Toh 544
Degé Kangyur, vol. 89 (rgyud ’bum, pa), folios 1.b–13.a
- Dīpaṃkara Śrījñāna
- Géwai Lodrö
- Tsultrim Gyalwa
Imprint
Translated by the Dharmachakra Translation Committee
under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha
First published 2016
Current version v 1.17.12 (2023)
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Table of Contents
Summary
The Tantra of Siddhaikavīra is a tantra of ritual and magic. It is a relatively short text extant in numerous Sanskrit manuscripts and in Tibetan translation. Although its precise date is difficult to establish, it is arguably the first text to introduce into the Buddhist pantheon the deity Siddhaikavīra—a white, two-armed form of Mañjuśrī. The tantra is primarily structured around fifty-five mantras, which are collectively introduced by a statement promising all mundane and supramundane attainments, including the ten bodhisattva levels, to a devotee who employs the Siddhaikavīra and, presumably, other Mañjuśrī mantras. Such a devotee is said to become a wish-fulfilling gem, constantly engaged in benefitting beings. Most of the mantras have their own section that includes a description of the rituals for which the mantra is prescribed and a brief description of their effects. This being a tantra of the Kriyā class, the overwhelming majority of its mantras are meant for use in rites of prosperity and wellbeing.
Acknowledgements
This translation was produced by the Dharmachakra Translation Committee under the supervision of Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche. Wiesiek Mical translated the text from the Sanskrit, and Andreas Doctor compared the translation against the Tibetan translation contained in the Degé Kangyur and edited the text.
This translation has been completed under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.
Text Body
Chapter 4
Fifty-Second Mantra
oṁ lavaṇāmbho ’si tīkṣṇo ’si udagro ’si bhayṃkara | amukasya daha gātrāṇi daha māṃsāni daha tvacam nakhāny api daha asthīni asthibhyo majjakaṃ daha | lavaṇaṃ chindati lavaṇaṃ bhindati lavaṇaṃ pacati | kṣoṇitalavaṇe hriyamāṇe kuto nidrā kuto ratiḥ | yadi vasati yojanaśate nadīnāṃ ca śatāntare | nagare lohaprākāre kṛṣṇasarpakṛtākule | tatraiva vaśam ānīhi lavaṇabandhapuraskṛta | oṁ ciṭi ciṭi vikloli amukaṃ sadhanaparivāram eva samānaya svāhā |
Oṁ, Lavaṇāmbha! You are fierce! You are vast! O terrifying one! Burn the limbs of such-and-such! Burn his flesh! Burn his skin! Burn even his nails! Burn his bones and the marrow in his bones! He cuts the salt, breaks the salt, and cooks the salt. When the salt of the earth is being seized, how could one sleep, how could one find pleasure? If such-and-such dwells a hundred leagues away, behind a hundred rivers, in a city surrounded by iron walls and protected by cobras—at that very place, enthrall that person, having first bound the salt. Oṁ, ciṭi, ciṭi! Vikloli! Please bring here such-and-such a person! Svāhā!
As a preliminary practice, one should perform 10,000 recitations before commencing the sādhana practice. Here, one should visualize oneself as the noble lord Avalokiteśvara, standing beneath a blossoming aśoka tree. He is red in color and wears red garlands,89 red clothes, jewelry, and unguents. He has a distinctively erotic appearance and in his four arms he holds a noose, a goad, a bow, and an arrow. He is accompanied by two goddesses, Tārā and Bhṛkuṭī, who stand to his right and left respectively.
Visualizing oneself like this, one should offer, in the three periods of the day, 108 homa offerings90 of salt. After seven days, one will succeed in enthralling a man or a woman. After twenty-one days, one will be able to enthrall an eminent person.
One should make an effigy from beeswax mixed with salt in the shape of the target person, four fingers in size. Then one should heat up that effigy at the three junctions of the day above the smokeless embers of cutch tree wood while saying the mantra aloud. Whoever’s name is included in the mantra, that person will become enthralled. One should give the target salt mixed with vajra water after incanting it 108 times. Then the target will become enthralled simply by drinking it.
Fifty-Third Mantra
oṁ lavaṇāmbho ’si tikṣṇo ’si udagro ’si hṛdayaṃgama amukasya hṛdayaṃ pītaṃ nāsti loke cikitsakaḥ oṁ ciṭi ciṭi vikloli vikloli mahāvikloli mahāvikloli amukaṃ me vaśam ānaya svāhā |
Oṁ, Lavaṇāmbha! You are fierce! You are vast! You touch the heart! The heart of such-and-such a person is drunk. There is no physician in the world for this. Oṁ, ciṭi, ciṭi! Vikloli, vikloli! Mahāvikloli, mahāvikloli! Please enthrall such-and-such a person for me! Svāhā!
Having completed the procedure of the preliminary practice as before, one should drink three handfuls of incanted water with salt in the three periods of the day. Whoever’s name one includes, that person will become enthralled.
One should mix equal amounts of salt and black mustard seed and offer them in a homa offering. Whoever’s name is used in the offering, that person will become enthralled. [F.12.b]
Fifty-Fourth Mantra
oṁ kurukulle svāhā |
Oṁ, svāhā to Kurukullā! [S21]
This is the heart mantra of the venerable noble Tārā. Its invincible power in the activity of enthralling the three worlds is known far and wide.
One should, while absorbed in the absorption mentioned previously, recite the mantra 100,000 times for each syllable. Later, the person to whom one gives flowers, incense, unguents, fragrant powders, or betel will become enthralled.
By censing oneself with a pleasant-smelling incense, one will be adored by everyone. If one offers a homa of red flowers, the person whose name one uses in the homa will become enthralled. If one incants food and drink, whoever it is given to will become enthralled. To enthrall an important person, one should offer white mustard seeds in the fire. Later, on an auspicious lunar day, during an auspicious asterism, etc., one should make offerings to her, the Blessed One. Then one should draw a circle with sixteen divisions in the form of a lotus with petals. One should draw it on birchbark or cloth using saffron, bovine orpiment, resin, etc. In the center of the circle, one should write both the name of the target and that of the practitioner.91 On the petals, one should write the four syllables ku ru ku llā in combination with the target’s name only.92 On the outside, one should surround this with a threefold circle of oṁ syllables using a red cord and insert the drawing into the heart of an effigy made of beeswax. Then, while heating up the effigy over the embers of cutch tree wood at the three junctions of the day, one should draw the effigy’s feet toward oneself. Whether one is enthralling a man or a woman, one should pierce the feet with a copper needle and heat them. The target will become enthralled.
One should visualize the wind maṇḍala arisen from the syllable yaṁ. Above it, one should visualize the target with disheveled hair, naked, and with a noose tied around his neck. One should pull him by the chest with a hook and draw him by means of the mantra which has the force of the wind. As he is visualized prostrate at the practitioner’s feet, all that one wants from him can be accomplished. With dedicated practice, one will be able to draw even material objects93 into one’s presence by mere concentration. [F.13.a]
One should place the mantra in the center of a bowl of ghee, honey, and sugar-candy and, in the three periods of the day, offer flowers and other things to it while reciting the mantra. Then one will enthrall whomever one wishes.
One should make a lamp wick with fibers of white lotus and put lampblack into a dish of unbaked clay along with clarified butter from a brown cow. By applying this lampblack, incanted 108 times, to one’s eyes, one will be adored by everyone.
In the ancestors’ grove,94 one should collect lampblack from a wick made of white lotus fibers burning inside a human skull with human fat. This should be done at night on the eighth or the fourteenth day of the waning moon. By anointing one’s eyes with this lampblack, one will be adored by everyone.
Fifty-Fifth Mantra
amale vimale kuṅkume samayena baddho ’si | bindūn bindūn icchayā devo varṣati vidyotayati garjati garjati | vismayamahārāja samāyita vardhayita hūṁ | devebhyo manuṣyebhyo gandarvebhyo śikhigrahadeva ānandasya grahaṇāyāgamanāyākramaṇāya95 juhomīha svāhā |
In the pure and stainless saffron, you are bound by your pledge. The god rains raindrops, raindrops, as he pleases. He sends lightning and thunder. O amazing great king! May he bring prosperity and growth! Hūṁ! [S22] O god of comets and planets, I now offer an oblation to gods, humans, and gandharvas, for the seizing, the coming, and the traversing of happiness,96 svāhā!
With this king of mantras one should perform the preliminary ritual. Then, in the center of a house yard, one should smear cow dung and delineate the altar space.97 One should spread darbha grass there and set it alight. Next, one should take 108 flowers of the giant milkweed shrub and, repeating the mantra, offer the flowers one by one in the fire. Then one summons the woman or man one desires.
This was the fourth chapter in the “Great Sovereign Tantra of Siddhaikavīra.”
Here ends the “Great Sovereign Tantra of Siddhaikavīra.”
Colophon
Translated by the great Indian preceptor Dīpaṃkara Śrījñāna and the translator monk Géwai Lodrö, and finalized by the monk Tsultrim Gyalwa.
Bibliography
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