Sarvatathāgatakāyavākcittarahasyaguhyasamājamahākalparāja/Full text
Guhyasamājatantra. (T. Gsang ba 'dus pa’i rgyud; C. Yiqie rulai jingang sanye zuishang mimi dajiaowang jing; J. Issainyorai kongōsangōsaijōhimitsu daikyōōgyō; K. Ilch’e yǒrae kǔmgang samǒp ch'oesang pimil taegyowang kyǒng 一切如來金剛三業最上祕密大教王經). In Sanskrit, "Secret Assembly Tantra; referred to in Tibet as the "king of tantras" (rgyud kyi rgyal po), it is among the most important of what later come to be called anuttarayogatantras, or highest yoga tantras. It is also classified as a "father tantra" (pitṛtantra). The text was likely composed sometime between about 750 and 850 CE. It consists of eighteen chapters, the last of which is a supplement, referred to as the uttaratantra. The Guhyasamāja is one of the earliest tantras to present overtly antinomian practices, notably of a sexual nature, as well as the practices of ingesting impure substances. The text begins with a surprising rendition of the opening line of a Buddhist sūtra (see evaṃ mayā śrutam), when it states, "Thus have I heard. At one time the Bhagavān was residing in the vaginas of the women who are the vajra essence of the body, speech, and mind of all the tathāgatas." Such passages led to the development of sophisticated hermeneutical systems for interpreting the tantras to discover their hidden meaning. Important Indian commentaries on this tantra include the Pañcakrama attributed to Nāgārjuna, the Caryāmelāpakapradīpa attributed to Āryadeva, and the Pradīpoddyotana attributed to Candrakīrti. In the maṇḍala associated with the Ārya tradition of commentary (deriving from Nāgārjuna) there are thirty-two deities. The central deity of the maṇḍala is Guhyasamāja, a manifestation of Akṣobhya, surrounded by Vairocana in the east, Ratnasambhava (or Ratnaketu) in the south, Amitābha in the west, and Amoghasiddhi in the north, each in sexual union with a consort. The central deity is blue in color, with three faces and six arms. Seated in the posture of sexual union, he embraces his consort Sparśavajra. In addition, there are the ten "fierce kings" (krodharāja), eight bodhisattvas, and four goddesses. Like other tantras of its class, the sādhanas of the Guhyasamāja set forth the practice of the stage of generation (utpattikrama) and the stage of completion (niṣpannakrama), with its attendant sexual yogas, toward the achievement of an illusory body (māyākāya). The text was translated into Chinese by Dānapāla around 1002, but was not particularly influential in East Asian Buddhism, where its explicit sexual language offended more prudish Confucian sensibilities. It was translated into Tibetan in the eleventh century by Rin chen bzang po and Śraddhākaravarman. In Tibet, the tantra was highly influential, ranking in importance with the Hevajratantra, Cakrasaṃvaratantra, and Kālacakratantra. (Source: "Guhyasamājatantra." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 334–35. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)
| Reference | sarvatathāgatakāyavākcittarahasyaguhyasamājamahākalparāja. de bzhin gshegs pa thams cad kyi sku gsung thugs kyi gsang chen gsang ba 'dus pa zhes bya ba brtag pa'i rgyal po chen po [དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པ་ཐམས་ཅད་ཀྱི་སྐུ་གསུང་ཐུགས་ཀྱི་གསང་ཆེན་གསང་བ་འདུས་པ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་བརྟག་པའི་རྒྱལ་པོ་ཆེན་པོ]. [Guhyasamāja (84000)]. Kangyur, RKTSK 442 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=442&typ=1. |
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| People | Lochen Rinchen Zangpo, Śraddhākaravarman |
