Hevajra

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Hevajra ( Tib. : Kye rdo RJE ) is the main god of named after him Tantra , the Hevajratantras which the writings of Vajrayâna , a direction of Mahayana belongs. The text we have today was compiled in India towards the end of the eighth century AD and translated into Tibetan and Chinese some time later. Hevjara is one of the so-called eight great Heruka gods (blood drinkers), alongside Hayagriva , Guhyasamaja , Chakrasamvara , Vajrakilaya , Yamantaka , Amrita and Mamo .

Hevajra

Goal setting

The aim of the tantras is identical to that of the Buddhist discourses (Sanskrit: sûtra ): liberation from this world, the samsâra - however, the means used for this are increased: not only ethical behavior, wisdom and meditation are used, but also rituals, sâdhanas (pictorial meditations), mantras (i.e. the recitation of words or brief combinations of words), mandalas , initiations , even magic and sexuality .

According to the Tibetan Bu-ston (1290–1364), the tantras are divided into four classes in the schools of the New Translations : kriyâ, caryâ, yoga and anuttarayoga . Anuttarayoga Tantra corresponds to the Mahayogatantra of the school of ancient translations . The anuttarayoga tantras can be divided into male (upâya, dâka, pitr, father) tantras like the Guhyasamâjatantra, female ( prajñâ , yoginî, dâkinî, matr, mother) like the hevajratantra, and nondual tantras.

The Hevajratantra

The Hevajratantra , a female basic tantra of the anuttarayoga class, saw the light of day in literature towards the end of the eighth century AD. Kampala and Saroruha alias Padmavajra, both teachers at the court of King Indrabhûti II, are responsible as his compilers. Previously, the Dombîheruka mentioned by Târanâtha, a disciple of the Sahajayoginî Cintâ, is said to have dealt with the Hevajratantra; from him in Sâdhanamâlâ , number 228, a Sâdhana (meditation instruction) of the Nairâtmyâ together with her group of yoginîs (female deities), which corresponds to the text in the Hevajratantra.

Within the tantric mandala system, the Hevajra tantra belongs to the vajra family Akshobhyas ; this is connected with "anger" and stands here in the middle of the mandala (see II, iv, 99), which can consist of three, five, but also six families (II, iv, 100-103).

Content of the Hevajratantra

The text begins by introducing the characters of the tantra and their relationships to each other: Hevajra, Nairâtmyâ, his prajñâ [ dâkinî , Hindu: shakti ], and the other deities of this mandala. For this purpose, the mantras necessary for meditation and ritual are listed below. Further chapters deal with the purifications, the consecration of places, the consecrations or initiations, the secret language, the offerings, the making of pictures, magical rituals.

The basic tendency of tantric scriptures is to use this world as a means of liberation:

"With the same poison of which a little would kill a living being, one who understands the nature of poison by using this poison will dispel this poison" (II, ii, 46).

"By that by which the world is bound, through this very thing, the bonds are broken" (I, x, 19).

As in European mysticism and magic, the inside corresponds to the outside, the bottom to the above:

"The whole cosmos arises in me, the threefold world arises in me, all of this is permeated by me, this world consists of nothing else" (I, viii, 39).

(Quotes from the German edition, see below)

Comments on the Hevajratantra

Comments on the Hevajratantra include: a. authored: Yogaratnamâlâ , from Krishna alias Kânha, a contemporary of King Devapâla, who lived at the beginning of the 9th century; more from his disciple Bhadrapala, who passed the tradition on to Tilopa (around 928-1009), whose disciple was the famous Nâropa (around 956-1040), who in turn passed the teachings on to the Tibetan Marpa (1012-1097), from whom it is said that he practiced the Hevajratantra with eight yoginîs. Tankadâsa, a monk of the great Buddhist University of Nâlandâ , and Ratnâkarashânti, a monk of Vikramashîla , Dharmakîrti and Vajragarbha wrote further commentaries in the period that followed, of which the Vajragarbhas is the most detailed and useful as it not only reveals the inner meaning, but also the rites associated with it. It refers to a longer version of the Hevajratantra in 32 chapters and 500,000 shlokas, traces of which can be found in individual Sâdhanas such as the Dombîherukas, the entire text of which, however, must be considered lost.

Translations

The Tibetan translation by the Indian scholar Gayadhara together with the Tibetan Drogmi Lotsawa Shâkya Yeshe, a forefather of the Sakya school, both students of the Indian Mahâsiddha Avadhûtipa, dates to the year 1043; it was revised in the 15th century by Gö Lotsawa Shônnu Pal . The Chinese translation by Fa-hu, Dharmapâla, took place in the time between February 11, 1054 and January 30, 1055 during the Northern Song Period in the Institute for Translations of the Canon, I-ching Yüan, at Pien-Liang, today K ' ai-feng held in Ho-nan.

On the text and language of the Hevajra tantra

The language of the Hevajratantra is not homogeneous, but, apart from the less classical Sanskrit, it is not uniform in terms of terminology or the level of language used. Snellgrove says in its edition: "Yet as will be seen, this work has all the defects of its class. Little attention is paid to grammar and even less to scansion. The style is often crude and disjointed, and the whole work shows no logical construction "(Snellgrove: HT, vol. I, p. 10).

Likewise, the structure of the entire text is not consistent, but the topics are presented in loose order, then partly treated fragmentarily and taken up again. Magical formulas and rites are often inserted suddenly into the text.

Some passages are written in "intentional language" (Sanskrit: sandhyâ-bhâshâ). This basically means that text passages, as Candrakîrti writes in his commentary on the Guhyasamâjatantra , can have several levels of meaning: one literal, one with regard to the context, one that indicates the highest wisdom, and one that contains it, although it is itself withdraws from language.

In summary, it can be said that, due to this complex structure, it is not possible to understand the text without studying the entire text.

One has to consider that the terms technici of buddhadharma partly have a long Indian prehistory, so that earlier levels of meaning resonate in a Buddhist term for the medieval Indian tantricist. The most obvious example of such a resonance of earlier levels of meaning is found in Hevajratantra II, ix, 18: "The first of the Vedas" that is om , a sound to which the upanishads devote themselves in detail.

Furthermore, it must always be taken into account that Buddhist tantrism did not develop separately from the rest of society, i.e. it influenced Hindu tantrism and received influences from it as from Chinese Daoism.

Transmission of the Hevajratantra in Tibet

The Hevajra Tantra is mainly transmitted and practiced in the schools of the New Translation Traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. In the Sakya School in particular , a focus of the transmission is on the Hevajratantra in the form of the so-called "13 golden teachings" . Based on the literature on the Hevajratantra and teachings of the Mahâsiddha Virûpa, the methodology of path and fruit (Tibetan: lam-'bras) was developed here. But Hevajratantra and its practice are also taught in the Kagyu School (compare Snellgrove HT, vol. I, p. 10).

literature

  • Snellgrove, David L .: The Hevajra Tantra. A critical study. Part I. Introduction and Translation. Part II. Sanskrit and Tibetan Texts. 2 vols. London: Oxford University Press, 1976. ISBN 0-19-713516-1
  • Farrow, GW & I. Menon: The Concealed Essence of the Hevajra Tantra. With the Commentary Yogaratnamâlâ. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2001. ISBN 81-208-0911-4
  • Willeman, Ch .: The Chinese Hevajratantra. Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters, 1983. ISBN 2-8017-0220-X
  • Meyer, Rainer F .: The Hevajratantra. Berlin, 2005-2006. As a PDF, see below.

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