UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

Santa Barbara

The Seven Siddhi Texts:

The Oḍiyāna Mahāmudrā Lineage in its Indic and Tibetan Contexts

A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the

requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy

in Religious Studies

by

Adam Charles Krug

Committee in charge:

Professor Vesna A. Wallace, Chair

Professor José I. Cabezón

Professor David G. White

June 2018




ProQuest Number: 10830389




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 The dissertation of Adam Charles Krug is approved.

____________________________________________
David G. White

____________________________________________
José I. Cabezón

____________________________________________
Vesna A. Wallace, Committee Chair

June 2018
 The Seven Siddhi Texts:
The Oḍiyāna Mahāmudrā Lineage in its Indic and Tibetan Contexts

Copyright © 2018

by

Adam Charles Krug


 Vita of Adam Charles Krug
2018

EDUCATION

Ph.D. Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara 2018

Buddhist Studies, South Asian Religions

M.A. Indo-Tibetan Buddhism with Language Concentrations in Sanskrit 2010

and Tibetan, Naropa University

M.A. Thesis: “A Study in Dhāraṇī: Magic and Philosophy in the Mahāyāna,

Language and Ineffability of the Absolute, and Applying Pragmatics to the
Interpretation of Dhāraṇī”

B.A. Religious Studies, Vassar College 2002

Ph.D. FIELD EXAMS

“Indian Esoteric Buddhism; Buddhist Political Theory,” with Vesna A. Wallace

“Historiography in Tibetan Buddhism; The Early Emergence and Polemics of the

Mahāmudrā Doctrine in Tibet,” with José I. Cabezón

“Supernatural Powers and the People Who Wield Them in South Asian Religion, Culture,
and Society,” with David G. White

DISSERTATION

“The Seven Siddhi Texts: The Oḍiyāna Mahāmudrā Lineage in its Indic and Tibetan
Contexts"

Committee members: Vesna A. Wallace (chair), José I. Cabezón, David G. White

RESEARCH LANGUAGES

Classical Literary Tibetan: Advanced reading proficiency, six years of formal study
Modern Colloquial Tibetan: Advanced proficiency, three years of formal study
Sanskrit: Advanced reading proficiency, six years of formal study
German: Intermediate reading ability, two years of formal study


FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS

2018 The Professor Gerald J. Larson Dissertation Award

2016-2017 Visiting Scholar, Tibet Himalayan Initiative, CU Boulder

2016 Graduate Division Dissertation Fellowship, UC Santa Barbara

2015-2016 Fulbright-Nehru U.S. Student Grant, U.S. Department of State

2015 CAORC Multi-Country Research Fellowship, U.S. Department of State

2013- 2014 Professor R. Ninian Smart Memorial Award for the Comparative Study of
Religion and Philosophy, Department of Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara

2012 FLAS Fellowship, U.S. Department of Education

2011-2014 Rowny Fellowship, Department of Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara

2011 Stephen Hay Fellowship, Department of Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara

2009-2010 SOTIP scholarship recipient, IBA, Kathmandu, Nepal

PUBLICATIONS

2017 "Tantric Epistemology and the Question of Ineffability in The Seven Siddhi Texts." In
Buddhism and Linguistics: Theory and Philosophy. Edited by Manel Herat. United
Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Edited Volume.

2017 “I’ll See You Again in Twenty-Five Years: Tibetan Buddhism in David Lynch’s
Twin Peaks and American Pop Culture in the 90s." In The Assimilation of Yogic
Religions Through Pop Culture. Edited by Paul Hackett. Maryland: Lexington
Books, Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. Edited Volume.

2016 “Pakpa's Verses on Governance in Advice to Prince Jibik Temür: A Jewel Rosary."
In Cahiers d’Extrême Asie 24: Kingship, Ritual, and Narrative in Tibet and the
Surrounding Cultural Area. Edited by Brandon Dotson (2015). Journal Publication.

2016 “A Review of Thomas Doctor’s Reason and Experience in Tibetan Buddhism:

Mabja Jangchub Tsöndrü and the Traditions of the Middle Way.” In Journal of
Buddhist Ethics. Book Review.

2015 “Siddhis.” In Ghosts, Spirits, and Psychics: The Paranormal from Alchemy to
Zombies. ABC-CLIO Publishers, Matt Cardin ed. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. August
2015. Encyclopedia Entry.


2015 “Meditation.” In Ghosts, Spirits, and Psychics: The Paranormal from Alchemy to
Zombies. ABC-CLIO Publishers, Matt Cardin ed. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. August
2015. Encyclopedia Entry.

Work in Progress

2018 "The Seven Siddhi Texts (Grub pa sde bdun): Remarks on the Formulation and
Transmission of the Corpus and its Employment in Sa skya- Bka' brgyud
Mahāmudrā Polemical Literature. In Tibetan Mahāmudrā Traditions. Edited by
Klaus-Dieter Mathes and Roget Jackson. Leiden: Brill Publishers. In review.

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS AND GUEST LECTURES

2018 "Three Chapters on Consecration in the Oḍiyāna Mahāmudrā Lineage." The

World of Abhiṣeka: Consecration Rituals in the Buddhist Cultural Sphere.
University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (May)

2017 "The Early Indian Mahāmudrā Canon and Practical Canonicity in the Esoteric
Buddhism of India and Tibet." AAR Annual Conference. Boston, MA (November)

2017 "The Advanced Tantric Yogic Observance (vrata) or Practice (caryā) and its
Modern Formulations." Himalayan Studies Conference V. Boulder, CO
(September)

2017 "Internal, Threshold, and External Economy: Toward an Economic Model for
Early Buddhist Monasticism in India." Buddhism and Business, Market and Merit
Conference. Vancouver, BC (June).

2017 "Embodied Enlightenment and the Problem of Vajrayāna Ethics," AAR Mountain
Regional Conference, Boulder, CO (March)

2016 "The Grub pa sde Bdun and Mahāmudrā Polemical Literature." Conference of the
International Association of Tibetan Studies. Bergen, Norway (June)

2016 "The Seven Texts on Siddhi." Fulbright-Nehru Annual Conference. Jaipur, India
(February)

2015 “Philosophy and Polemics in Indrabhūti’s Jñānasiddhi.” AAR Annual Conference

Atlanta, GA (November)

2015 “I’ll See You Again in Twenty-Five Years: Tibetan Buddhism in David Lynch’s
Twin Peaks and American Pop Culture in the 90s.” AAR Annual Conference
Atlanta, GA (November)

2015 “The Seven Texts on Siddhi and The Indian Origins of Tibetan Mahāmudrā.”
Interdisciplinary Humanities Center South Asian Religions and Cultures Lecture
Series, UC Santa Barbara (May)


2014 “Buddhist Ethics in the ‘Heyday of Poisons:’ ‘Phags pa bLa ma’s Advice to Prince
Jibik Temür.” AAR Annual Conference San Diego, CA (November)

2014 “Finding Balance in the Dual-System of Religious and Political Power: ‘Phags pa Bla
ma’s Advice for Prince Jibik Temür: A Jewel Rosary.” Presented at The Mongolia
Society and Mongolia Heritage Foundation of New York Conference to Celebrate the
130th Anniversary of the Dilowa Khutughtu, NY, NY (October)

2014 “Toward an Economic Theory of Early Indian Buddhist Monasticism.”

Interdisciplinary Humanities Center South Asian Religions and Cultures Lecture
Series, UC Santa Barbara (May)

2014 “Integrating Textual Scholarship and the Scientific Study of Meditation: Meditation
in Indrabhūti’s Jñānasiddhi, or Attainment of Gnosis.” Buddhist Meditation
Conference, University of Virginia (February)

2013 “Divining Exile: Divination in Tibetan Exile Narratives.” South Asia Conference,
University of Texas, Austin (November)

2012 “Buddhism in Tibet.” Guest lecture for Introduction to Buddhism, UC Santa

Barbara (November)

FIELDWORK AND STUDY ABROAD

2015-2016 Fulbright-Nehru student research fellow, India

2015 CAORC Research Affiliate, Nepal and India

2012 AIIS Sanskrit Summer Language Program, Pune, Maharashtra, India

2009-2010 International Buddhist Academy School of Tibetan Translation Program,

Kathmandu, Nepal

SERVICE

2014- 2015 Graduate Student–Faculty Liaison, Department of Religious Studies,

UC Santa Barbara

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Adjunct Positions



2018 "Tibetan Buddhism," Department of Religious Studies, University of Colorado,
Boulder, Spring

2017 "Foundations of Buddhism," Department of Religious Studies, University of

Colorado, Boulder, Fall

Teaching Assistantships

2015 “The Gods and Goddesses of India,” Department of Religious Studies, UCSB,
Spring

2015 “Asian Religious Traditions,” Departments of Religious Studies and East Asian
Languages and Cultures, UCSB, Winter

2015 “American Migrations Since 1965: Asians and Others in the United States” Asian
American Studies Department, UCSB, Fall

2014 “Religious Approaches to Death,” Department of Religious Studies, UCSB, Fall

2013 “Religions of Tibet,” Department Religious Studies, UCSB, Winter

2012 “Introduction to Buddhism,” Department of Religious Studies, UCSB, Fall

2009 “The Second Turning of the Wheel: The Bodhisattva Path,” Department of
Religious Studies, Naropa University, M.A. level course, Spring

2008 “The First Turning of the Wheel: The Nature of Mind and Emotions,” Department
of Religious Studies, Naropa University, M.A. level course, Fall

2008 “Contemplative Practice Seminar,” Undergraduate Core Curriculum, Naropa

University, Spring

2007 “Contemplative Practice Seminar,” Undergraduate Core Curriculum, Naropa

University, Fall

Language Instruction

2010 English Language Tutor, IBA Monastic Leaders Program, Kathmandu, Nepal,
Fall 2009- Spring 2010

RESEARCH ASSISTANTSHIPS

2014 Graduate Assistant, José I. Cabezón, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, Spring



2014 Graduate Assistant, Vesna A. Wallace, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara,
Winter

2013 Graduate Assistant, José I. Cabezón, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, Spring

2012 Graduate Assistant, José I. Cabezón, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, Spring

2012 Graduate Assistant, José I. Cabezón, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, Winter

2011 Graduate Assistant, José I. Cabezón, Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, Fall

2009 Graduate Assistant, Judith Simmer-Brown Religious Studies, Naropa University,

Spring

2008 Graduate Assistant, Judith Simmer-Brown, Religious Studies, Naropa University,

Fall

2008 Graduate Assistant, Religious Studies Department, Naropa University, Spring

2007 Graduate Assistant, Religious Studies Department, Naropa University, Fall

EDITORIAL EXPERIENCE

2017 Editor for Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa. Translated by Wiesiek Mical for 84,000:

Translating the Words of the Buddha.

2014 Manuscript Editor for Professor José I. Cabezón, Sexuality in Classical South Asian
Buddhism. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2017.

2014 Manuscript Editor for Professor Vesna A. Wallace ed. Buddhism in Mongolian
History, Society, and Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.

2012 Manuscript Editor for Professor José I. Cabezón. The Buddha’s Doctrine and the
Nine Vehicles: Rog Bande Sherab’s Lamp of the Teachings. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2013.

2010 Tsadra Foundation Consultant and Editor for Gdams ngag mdzod, (Treasury of
Spiritual Instructions) by Jamgön Kongtrül Lodrö Thaye (1813-1890).

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIP AND AFFILIATIONS

American Academy of Religion

International Association of Buddhist Studies
International Association of Tibetan Studies



American Institute of Indian Studies, research affiliate, 2015.
Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies, research affiliate 2015
Mongolia Society

REFERENCES

Vesna A. Wallace
Department of Religious Studies
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
[email protected]

José I. Cabezón
Dalai Lama Endowed Chair
Department of Religious Studies
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
[email protected]

David G. White
Rowny Professor of Comparative Religions
Department of Religious Studies
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
[email protected]



 ABSTRACT

The Seven Siddhi Texts:

The Oḍiyāna Mahāmudrā Lineage in its Indic and Tibetan Contexts

by

Adam Charles Krug

This study examines The Seven Siddhi Texts, a short corpus of tantric Buddhist works

that the Tibetan tradition identifies as the mahāmudrā transmission from the famed semi-

mythical land of Oḍiyāna. Owing to the nature of the corpus itself, this study is best

characterized as properly Indo-Tibetan in its scope. The Seven Siddhi Texts are first examined

here as independent treatises that reflect the development of Vajrayāna Buddhism in its Indic

cultural and historical contexts between the eighth and tenth centuries. They are then

approached as a means for examining the formulation of Vajrayāna institutions and their

attendant corpora in Nepal. Finally, they provide a case study in the phenomenon of practical

canonicity in their employment in mahāmudrā polemical literature in Tibet from the fifteenth

to seventeenth centuries.

Part I argues for the adoption of a demonological paradigm in the study of South

Asian religions. Using data from The Seven Siddhi Texts in dialogue with the Āyurvedic

discipline of demonology (bhūtavidyā), it highlights that Vajrayāna Buddhist traditions

maintained a dual apotropaic-soteriological goal in their conception of the practice of yoga.



Part II addresses the sociological implications of sect and sectarian identity in The Seven

Siddhi Texts. It presents the phenomenon of dissimulative asceticism in Vajrayāna Buddhism

as a potential social context for the highly Śaiva-Buddhist hybrid forms of ritual that emerged

with the Buddhist yoginītantras. It then addresses the issue of inclusivist and exclusivist

expressions of sectarian identity from the authors of The Seven Siddhi Texts. Part III

discusses the formulation and transmission of The Seven Siddhi Texts as a corpus of

mahāmudrā works in light of the broader phenomenon of practical canonicity in Buddhist

traditions. It presents philological evidence that The Seven Siddhi Texts were part of a known

mahāmudrā practical canon in Nepal prior to their transmission to Tibet. It then discusses

historical data and Tibetan historiography on their transmission to Tibet beginning in the

eleventh century. It concludes with a discussion of The Seven Siddhi Texts' incorporation into

two Kagyü mahāmudrā practical canons in Tibet at the turn of the sixteenth century, and the

role that The Seven Siddhi Texts played in a number of mahāmudrā polemical works

composed by the subsequent generation of Kagyü authors.



 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 1

Part I: The Seven Siddhi Texts and the Demonological Paradigm 14

Chapter 1: Demonology and the 'Pan-Indic Substratum' Model 15

I. Introduction 15

II. Issues with the Substratum Model 1: Re-examining the Case for the

Pañcavidyāshtānas as Substratum 23

III. Issues with the Substratum Model 2: Locating 'Ambient Religion' 26

IV. Issues with the Substratum Model 3: The Laukika/Lokottara Distinction in

Esoteric Buddhism 34

V. Conclusion: Demonology and Localized Spirit Cults as Substratum 39

Chapter 2: The Demonological Paradigm 43

I. Introduction: The 'Demonological Paradigm' and Bhūtavidyā as Substratum 43

II. Śaiva Assimilation of Local Spirit Cults 48

III. Buddhist Assimilation of Local Spirit Cults 53

IV. Family, Collective Identity, and other Means of Ritual Protection 62

V. Transgressive Asceticism: Reconsidering the Pāśupatas 75

V. Conclusion: Esoteric Asceticism the Demonological Horizon of Ethics 91

Chapter 3: Generating the Body of and Indestructible Being 96

I. Introduction 96

II. Embodied Realization in Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi 101

III. Embodied Realization in Anaṅgavajra's Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi 118

IV. Embodied Realization in Indrabhūti's Jñānasiddhi 122


 V. Embodied Realization in Lakṣmīṅkarā's Advayasiddhi 125

VI. Embodied Realization in Yoginī Cintā's Vyaktabhāvānugatatattvasiddhi 129

VII. Embodied Realization in Ḍombīheruka's Sahajasiddhi 138

VIII. Conclusion: What is Vajrasattva? What is the Sādhana of Vajrasattva? 140

Chapter 4: Exiting the Maṇḍala: Vajrayāna Caryā and Vrata Asceticism in The Seven Siddhi

Texts 149

I. Introduction: Demonology and Vajrayāna Caryā and Vrata Asceticism 149

II. The Demonological Paradigm and 'Anti-ritual' Siddha Rhetoric 155

III. Literalism, Connotative Semiotics, and the Transgressive Samayas 170

IV. Conclusion 184

Part II: Sect and Sectarian Identity in The Seven Siddhi Texts 187

Chapter 5: Alexis Sanderson's 'Borrowing Model' and the Issue of Sectarian Identity 188

I. Introduction: The 'Śaiva Age' Thesis 188

II. Some Lingering Issues with Sanderson's "Śaiva Age" Thesis 195

III. Epigraphic Sources and the Problem of Religious Identity 204

IV. The Emergence of a 'Substratum' in Sanderson's Argument 210

V. Conclusion 215

Chapter 6: Secrecy, Dissimulation, and Simulation in the Guhyacaryā 217

I. Introduction: Wandering Like a Ghoul: Performing Marginality 217

II. Wandering Like a Lion: Performing Invulnerability 237

III. Secrecy and the Guhyacaryā Instructions for Householders 246

IV. The Gaṇavrata: Clandestine Activities, Covert Opps, and Intelligence

Gathering 251


 V. Conclusion 271

Chapter 7: Sectarian Identity and Inter-Sectarian Rivalry in The Seven Siddhi Texts 273

I. Introduction: On the Use of the Term 'Sect' 273

II. Sect and Sectarian Identity in Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi 275

III. Sect and Sectarian Identity in Anaṅgavajra's Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi 283

IV. Sect and Sectarian Identity in Indrabhūti's Jñānasiddhi 298

V. Sect and Sectarian Identity in Lakṣmīṅkarā's Advayasiddhi, Ḍombīheruka's

Sahajasiddhi, and Kuddālapāda's Acintyādvayakramopadeśa 328

VI. Conclusion 336

Chapter 8: Inclusivism and Mahāmudrā Yogic Cosmography 340

I. Introduction 340

II. Inclusivism in the Singularity and Plurality of Mahāmudrā 344

III. Spontaneous Maṇḍala Generation and an Inclusive Yogic Cosmogony in

Kuddālapāda's Acintyādvayakramopadeśa 352

IV. Conclusion 361

Part III: The Seven Siddhi Texts as Mahāmudrā Practical Canon 365

Chapter 9: Analysis of Sanskrit Manuscript Sources for The Seven Siddhi Texts 366

I. Introduction 366

II. Philological Evidence for Nepali Precursors to The Seven Siddhi Texts 375

III. Conclusion 389

Chapter 10: Practical Canonicity and the Indian Mahāmudrā Canon 391

I. Introduction: Practical Canonicity in Buddhist Traditions 391

II. Some Issues with the Formal/Practical Canon Distinction 399


 III. Reading the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha as a Mahāmudrā Work 404

IV. The Seven Siddhi Texts in the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha 413

V. Conclusion 418

Chapter 11: The Transmission of The Seven Siddhi Texts 420

I. Introduction: The Indian Mahāmudrā Canon Takes Shape 420

II. Two Early References to the Corpus of The Seven Siddhi Texts 428

III. The Transmission of The Seven Siddhi Texts in The Blue Annals 430

IV. Conclusion 447

Chapter 12: The Seven Siddhi Texts in Two Tibetan Mahāmudrā Practical Canons and Their

Role in Sakya-Kagyü Mahāmudrā Polemical Literature 451

I. Introduction 451

II. The Seventh Karmapa's Indian Mahāmudrā Works 453

III. The Great Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü Teachings as a Mahāmudrā Practical

Canon and Curriculum 471

IV. The Seven Siddhi Texts in Tibetan Mahāmudrā Polemical Literature 481

V. Conclusion: Imagining a Homogenous "Indian Tradition" 505

Bibliography 510


 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Ākāś Bhairab shrine bordering the Kathmandu Valley...........................................51

Figure 2: Jñānaḍākinī maṇḍala, Tibet, 14th century CE........................................................152
Figure 3: Cakrasaṁvara maṇḍala, Nepal, 12th century CE.................................................. 153
Figure 4: Siddhas depicted on outer petals of Indian bronze maṇḍalas................................154
Figure 5: Folio Exempla from The Great Treasury of the Drikung Kagyu Teachings.........373
Figure 6: Final folio of NGMCP A 1012/5...........................................................................381
Figure 7: First folio of NGMCP A 137/4..............................................................................382
Figure 8: Multiple-text Sanskrit manuscripts with works from
The Seven Siddhi Texts....................................................................................................384–85
Figure 9: final folio of IASWR MBB 7-5 Guhyasiddhiḥ......................................................387
Figure 10: Passages in the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha quoting The Seven Siddhi Texts............414–15
Figure 11 Tibetan canonical and extra canonical lists of The Seven Siddhi Texts...........424–25
Figure 12: The Seventh Karmapa Chödrak Gyatso. Tibet, 17th century................................453


 Introduction

I. Methods

This dissertation examines The Seven Siddhi Texts, a group of seven tantric Buddhist treatises

composed by seven India mahāsiddhas sometime between the eighth and tenth centuries CE.

Working with a corpus such as this presents a number of methodological challenges. The

greatest challenge lies in the reliability of the current edition of the six works from the corpus

that survive in Sanskrit manuscript sources. The Sarnath edition of these works, published

under the title Guhyādi-Aṣṭasiddhisaṁgraha, was the very first work of its kind to be

published in the Rare Buddhist Text Series from the Central Institute for Higher Tibetan

Studies in Sarnath, India. This edition has been critical to my own work on The Seven Siddhi

Texts, and I am entirely indebted to the efforts put forth by this first generation of editors for

the Rare Buddhist Texts Series. However, I have come across numerous problems with the

Sarnath edition over the course of this study. For this reason, I took it upon myself at an early

stage in my research to collect all of the extant Sanskrit manuscript sources for The Seven

Siddhi Texts housed both in the Nepal National Archive and in the manuscript collection at

the Shantarakshita Library in Sarnath. The philologically minded reader may perhaps be

disappointed that this dissertation does not include critical editions and translations of these

works. They should know that I have provided a great deal of translated material in the

dissertation itself, and that these translations have been completed in consultation with the

Sarnath edition, the extant manuscript sources at my disposal, and the canonical Tibetan

translations of The Seven Siddhi Texts. While I have put aside the task of providing a critical


edition and translation of these works in this dissertation, I recognize that a critical edition

and translation remains a desideratum and will be forthcoming in the near future.

The second methodological concern lies in the survival of a living Tibetan tradition

that preserves the study and implementation of the ritual and ascetic practices that are

outlined in The Seven Siddhi Texts. This issue is particularly pressing with respect to the

advanced caryā and vrata practices that defined the transgressive ascetic culture of the

Buddhist mahāsiddhas who wrote these works. I conducted numerous interviews with

Tibetan teachers within these traditions over the course of my research and discovered that,

on the whole, my sources were largely reluctant to go on at length about these texts, their

authors, and the practices described throughout the corpus. The reasons for this reluctance

were varied. Some informants were forthcoming, but many felt that the texts themselves

were too important to their own traditions and in some cases too advanced to warrant

discussing them with anyone other than an advanced initiate who is intent on putting them

into practice. In my opinion, such reservations are entirely warranted. But while my

informants' general reticence presented an obstacle to engaging the role that The Seven Siddhi

Texts continue to play in the living Tibetan Vajrayāna traditions in detail, it also provided a

critical indication of the enduring importance that the corpus holds to this day. Still, those

readers who are more ethnographically minded might notice a relative lack of engagement

with the living tradition in this study. This lacuna is largely a result of the enduring cult of

secrecy around these texts and the practices they describe. Further engagement with the

living traditions that preserve these practices also remains a desideratum, and I plan to take

this task up in the coming years in a study devoted to the modern reformulations of siddha


style transgressive asceticism and its importance to the perpetuation of the Tibetan Vajrayāna

traditions in diaspora.

II. Theory and Interpretive Challenges

There are also a number of interpretive challenges that have shaped my engagement with The

Seven Siddhi Texts in this study. First, the works contained in the corpus have been widely

influential in at least three distinct cultural-geographical regions associated with Vajrayāna

Buddhism—India, Nepal, and Tibet. Second, the authors of these works are each concerned

with different Vajrayāna textual traditions, and working with all seven works requires a

broad level of engagement with Vajrayāna texts ranging from the kriyātantras to the yoga-

and yoginītantras. Third, while it is exceedingly clear that these works were considered a

unified corpus in Tibet, their status as a unified corpus in their original Indic context(s) is far

from certain, though my research has provided some evidence of a related Indic corpus of

seven 'siddhi' texts. Finally, the Tibetan tradition considers The Seven Siddhi Texts to be one

of the earliest corpora on mahāmudrā or the "Great Seal," and traces the origins of this

corpus to Oḍiyāna, the semi-mythical font of the Buddhist tantric revelations. The fact that

they hold such an exalted status in the Tibetan tradition thus presents a number of potential

challenges to understanding The Seven Siddhi Texts in their original Indic contexts.

In response to the issue of the broad cultural-geographic region in which these works

have had a notable influence on the development of Vajrayāna Buddhism, this study is

designed to engage The Seven Siddhi Texts within its multiple cultural and historical

contexts. It devotes a significant amount of time to situating these works in relationship to

two of the most prevalent positions in etic historiography on the development of Vajrayāna


Buddhism in India—David Seyfort Ruegg's pan-Indic religious 'substratum model' and

Alexis Sanderson's unidirectional 'borrowing model.' In terms of their influence on Vajrayāna

Buddhism in Nepal, this study analyzes the extant Sanskrit witnesses to these works, most (if

not all) of which are of Nepali origin, to discuss the potential Nepali precursors to the

formulation of these texts into a unified corpus in Tibet. The important role that the

Vajrayāna Buddhist institutions of the Kathmandu Valley played in preserving and teaching

these works is also brought to light by analyzing Tibetan accounts of their transmission from

the tenth century forward. Finally, the corpus is discussed in its Tibetan cultural and

historical context through an analysis of the role that The Seven Siddhi Texts played in the

formulation of two mahāmudrā practical canons in Tibet in the late fifteenth and early

sixteenth centuries. The formulation of these practical canons is then correlated to the

deployment of the corpus in a volley of Sakya-Kagyü mahāmudrā polemical works, some of

which continue to lend structure to the mahāmudrā curricula in these schools to the current

day.

III. A Summary of the Work

My engagement with these issues is divided over three parts, each consisting of four

separate chapters. The chapters in Part I focus on my broad argument for the adoption of a

demonological paradigm in the history of South Asian religions. Chapter one begins with an

examination of Ruegg's 'substratum model' that outlines the basic argument and a number of

issues that continue to challenge Ruegg's promotion of a pan-Indic religious substratum with

which Buddhist and non-Buddhist traditions have been in dialogue for more than two

millennia. Here I argue that although Reugg's presentation of his 'substratum model' suffers


from an inability to identify the kind of properly 'religious' substratum that it requires, a

certain religious 'substratum' can be located among the localized spirit cults that proliferate in

all corners of South Asia. The study of these traditions and their impact on the formulation of

organized religious sects in South Asia, however, requires that one approach these traditions

from the perspective of the demonological paradigm. This hermeneutic reveals that all of

these traditions, from the most popular and diffuse to the most organized and institutional,

have been in some sense in dialogue with the same basic existential perspective–that the

psycho-physical person is ultimately a open conduit embedded in a world that is overrun by a

pantheon (or pandemonium) of potentially harmful spirit beings.

Chapter two makes the case for the broad ranging impact that local spirit deity cults

have had on the formulation of institutional religion in South Asia. Here I take the Āyurvedic

science of demonology (bhūtavidyā) as evidence of the degree of influence that localized,

popular forms of religious expression in South Asia have had over their more elite and

institutionalized counterparts. I explore the issue of Śaiva and Buddhist appropriations of

local spirit religions and the preservation of familial and ritually protective structures in the

renunciatory traditions. Here I argue that despite their own rhetoric of renunciation, these

traditions maintain their own sense of familial identity along with a dossier of ritual methods

for protecting both renunciants and the institutions they formulate over time. Thus renunciant

communities and their institutions provide a kind of protective structure that, when analyzed

through a demonological paradigm, can be shown to be in dialogue with the religious

'substratum' of spirit deity cults in South Asia and to be constructed in response to the same

existential condition of an embodied personhood that is inherently vulnerable to influence

from demonic beings.


 Chapter three applies this argument to the specific case of the generation stage yogas

that came to define esoteric Buddhist ritual in the yoga- and yoginītantras. In this chapter, I

move systematically through The Seven Siddhi Texts to show the degree to which these

works and their authors construct the central soteriological purpose of the generation stage

yoga—attaining a state of spontaneous union of one's own psycho-physical body with the

deity-maṇḍala—in dialogue with the basic existential condition that is brought to light within

the demonological paradigm. This analysis reveals the practice of generating oneself as the

deity-maṇḍala that constitutes the central goal of the Vajrayāna generation stage yoga is

itself a method for rendering the psycho-physical body impermeable and invulnerable to

interference from the world of spirit beings. Through this analysis, I argue that these

traditions preserve a dual apotropaic-soteriological goal in which more philosophically-

oriented components such as the realization of the nature of ultimate reality or non-dual

gnosis are just as heavily invested in a demonological discourse as the ritual components of

generating the body as an impenetrable fortress. This dual apotropaic-soteriological goal

finds expression in the methods provided in these texts for becoming an 'indestructible

being,' or vajrasattva, a term that simultaneously describes an apotropaic vision of 'being'

that resolves the basic existential condition underlying the demonological paradigm and the

embodied enlightenment as the Buddha Vajrasattva.

Chapter four moves on to the caryā and vrata ascetic practices that The Seven Siddhi

Texts identify with the Vajrayāna completion stage yogas. Here I argue that the 'anti-ritual'

rhetoric of the Buddhist siddhas is a product of the need to demonstrate one's attainment of

the state of an 'indestructible being' at the culmination of the generation stage yoga. In this

sense, the transgressive asceticism of the Vajrayāna caryā and vrata practices represent a


stage during which the advanced Buddhist ascetic must leave the protective structure of the

physical maṇḍala behind and surrender any and all ritual means of protection from the world

of spirit beings. This highlights the dual connotations of the term 'siddhi' in this literature as

the 'proof' of 'attainment' of the state of an indestructible being (vajrasattva). I provide a

comprehensive survey of the rites and parameters for the performance of ritual that are

prescribed in The Seven Siddhi Texts and, by placing these in dialogue with the Āyurvedic

literature on demonology, reveal that nearly all of them function in some way to prevent

madness and disease brought on by demonic possession. I thus argue that the rejection of

these rites is aimed at demonstrating that the advanced Buddhist ascetic who performs the

transgressive practices of the caryā and vrata has perfected the spontaneous and embodied

realization of perfect union as the deity-maṇḍala.

Part II turns to the topic of of sect and sectarian identity to explore some of the

sociological implications of the ritual and ascetic culture at the heart of The Seven Siddhi

Texts. Chapter five provides and outline of Alexis Sanderson's 'borrowing model.' Like my

treatment of Ruegg's 'substratum model,' this chapter both affirms the value of Sanderson's

approach while also pointing out a number of enduring issues in its practical application.

Sanderson, like Ruegg, neglects the influence of non-sectarian popular religious cults on the

formulation of Śaivism. It also fails at times to identify the potential Buddhist precursors to

the emergence of Śaiva monastic institutionalism. The reified sense of sectarian identity that

the 'borrowing model' requires ignores the possibility of holding multiple sectarian

affiliations and the dynamics of egalitarian patronage practices in South Asia.

Chapter six turns to the topic of secrecy, dissimulation, and simulation in the

performance of the guhyacaryā in Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi. This work provides uniquely


detailed instructions on a number of advanced Vajrayāna ascetic practices. The chapter

examines these practices as a form of cultivated social marginality that repurposes the

Āyurvedic literature on the symptoms and pathology of madness brought on by demonic

possession. Here I point out some obvious parallels with early precursors to this kind of

asceticism among the Śaiva Pāśupata orders and their later counterparts, However, I also

argue that the Buddhist versions of these practices differ in that they are oriented toward

proving the advanced ascetic's invulnerability, not toward courting possession as they are in

the Śaiva context. The chapter then examines some of the most controversial practices in this

tradition in which it is clear that advanced Buddhist ascetics engaged in dual dissimulative-

simulative practice of both hiding their identities as initiates and disguising themselves as

members of rival ascetic orders. This dual dissimulative-simulative ascetic practice is the

primary connotation that the term guhya is meant to carry as a member of the compound

guhyacaryā. Thus, at least in this context, I argue that the term guhyacaryā signifies a kind of

'clandestine activity,' and that this practice provided a social context for the kind of

'borrowing' from Śaiva tradition that emerged in the extremely Śaiva-Buddhist hybrid ritual

systems of the yoginītantras.

Chapters seven and eight focus on identifying the sense of sectarian identity that the

authors of The Seven Siddhi Texts project in their own work. Chapter seven contains a

systematic presentation of instances in the corpus in which the authors of The Seven Siddhi

Texts express their conception of their own sectarian identity in their own words. It opens

with evidence from the corpus of the guru-disciple relationship as the primary determinant of

sectarian identity in Buddhist initiatory traditions. It then turns to examples from the texts in

which the authors direct their instructions at both members of non-Buddhist sects and


Buddhists who are not affiliated with their specific initiatory cult. These examples show that

the authors of The Seven Siddhi Text walk a fine line between exclusivism and inclusivism in

as they define their own sectarian identity over and against others. Here I suggest that this

line is drawn around the rite of consecration and initiation into a given sect itself where

inclusive rhetoric operates as a kind of missionizing strategy and public fact of the tradition

while a strict sense of exclusivism is applied to those who have already become bound by

their commitments to a specific initiatory cult.

Chapter eight discusses the rhetoric of inclusivism in mahāmudrā cosmography. This

theme appears in a number of The Seven Siddhi Texts as well as in one work from a related

corpus, Kuddālapāda's Acintyādvayakramopadeśa. Here I draw out a direct connection

between inclusivist rhetoric in this literature and the doctrine of mahāmudrā itself, arguing

that the Buddhist soteriological doctrine of the 'Great Seal' as both the origin and all

encompassing nature of reality requires our authors to find some place for the variety of

doctrinal viewpoints expressed by rival sects in their own cosmography. Mahāmudrā is thus

posited as the singular nature of all things and the ultimate origin point of all divergent

sectarian views. Our authors then posit that the variety of sectarian viewpoints is merely a

manifestation of this singular nature in a form that appeals to the variety of dispositions of

living beings. This movement of contraction and expansion is itself overlaid on the process

of the spontaneous embodied manifestation of the deity-maṇḍala that characterizes the

Vajrayāna generation stage yoga. Chapter eight then concludes by returning the to issue of

sectarian identity in light of the fundamental logic that underlies initiatory traditions and the

process of consecration. Here I argue that despite the exclusivist rhetoric of the initiatory

traditions, the process of initiation itself can only operate on the assumption that identity is a


fundamentally fluid phenomenon. I then bring the theoretical framework that I outline in

Parts I and II of the dissertation to a close by arguing that Ruegg's 'substratum model' and

Sanderson's 'borrowing model' are not diametrically opposed theories for the origins of

institutional religion in South Asia. Both approaches are valid, and to assume their opposition

posits a false dialectic that can only result in a more constrained and misrepresentative

historiography of the development and dialogical interactions that construct religious identity

in South Asia.

Part III of the dissertation focuses on the formulation of The Seven Siddhi Texts as a

mahāmudrā practical canon. Chapter nine contains a philological analysis of the extant

Sanskrit manuscripts of The Seven Siddhi Texts that are currently at my disposal. It opens

with a discussion of the foundational research that was conducted on these works in the

twentieth-century. Here I note that Malati J. Shendge, owing to the 1949 publication of

George Roerich's translation of The Blue Annals, noticed that the 'siddhi' texts she was

working with were part of a known corpus of works in the Tibetan tradition. I then introduce

one of the persistent problems in identifying the Tibetan historiography on this corpus by

pointing to the misidentification of the compound Drupnying and its permutations in The

Blue Annals as a signifier for Saraha's dohā. As it turns out, this compound actually signifies

The Seven Siddhi Texts and their attendant corpus, The Sixfold Corpus on the Essence, of

which Saraha's dohā are only one part. The chapter then turns to a detailed philological

analysis of the Sanskrit manuscript sources for The Seven Siddhi Texts at my disposal. Far

from being a merely descriptive exercise, this analysis offers material evidence for the

potential existence of a known corpus of seven works among the multiple-text manuscripts

that contain witnesses to The Seven Siddhi Texts. This evidence, combined with the correct


identification of the Tibetan compound Drupnying as a signifier for the corpus in The Blue

Annals, provides material data to support my hypothesis that there was a known corpus of

seven 'siddhi' texts that had gained widespread recognition in Nepal prior to its transmission

to Tibet in the eleventh century.

Chapter ten opens with a broad examination of the theory of practical canonicity in

Buddhist traditions that was first posited in Anne Blackburn's work on the formal/practical

canon distinction in Theravāda Buddhism. My examination of the formal/practical canon

distinction in Blackburn's research and the works of a number of other scholars in the field

results in a framework for establishing the status of any corpus of works as a practical canon.

In this framework I posit that the practicality of any corpus of works depends upon its ability

to dictate curriculum. This means that identifying contexts in which a group of works are put

to a specifically curricular purpose establishes their practicality and their status as an

institution-specific practical canon. This theoretical discussion is then put into practice as I

argue that the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha contains evidence of The Seven Siddhi Texts being

employed in a distinctly curricular work that is oriented toward teaching a mahāmudrā

doctrine. When it is combined with the material evidence for a known set of seven 'siddhi'

texts among the multiple-text Sanskrit manuscripts analyzed in chapter nine, the data

presented here from the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha suggest that The Seven Siddhi Texts may have

been recognized as a corpus of works that functioned within a broader mahāmudrā practical

canon outside of Tibet.

Chapter eleven examines Tibetan sources and historiography on the transmission of

The Seven Siddhi Texts in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The chapter opens with a

description of the various formulations of The Seven Siddhi Texts that appear in both


canonical and extra-canonical Tibetan literature. It then moves on to a brief discussion of the

two earliest witnesses to the corpus in Tibetan literature in the works of the Kagyü patriarch

Gampopa and the Sakya patriarch Sakya Paṇḍita. The mahāmudrā doctrines attributed to

these two patriarchs are at the center of the Sakya-Kagyü mahāmudrā polemical literature

that drew upon The Seven Siddhi Texts from the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries.

However, while references to The Seven Siddhi Texts in their works reveals their familiarity

with the corpus, it remains unclear whether or not either Gampopa or Sakya Paṇḍita

considered it part of a broader Indian mahāmudrā canon. The chapter then turns to historical

accounts of the transmission of The Seven Siddhi Texts to Tibet from Gö Lotsawa's Blue

Annals. Here, broadening my analysis to include all instances in which Gö Lotsawa records

the transmission of the Drupnying corpus allows for a far more robust historical account of

the various transmissions of these works beginning with Atiśa's arrival in Tibet in the mid-

eleventh century. The data from Gö Lotsawa's Blue Annals also provide further evidence that

by the eleventh and twelfth centuries the Vajrayāna institutions of the Kathmandu valley

were largely responsible for the preservation and propagation of The Seven Siddhi Texts as

part of a mahāmudrā practical canon.

Chapter twelve provides a case study in the application of The Seven Siddhi Texts as a

mahāmudrā practical canon in Tibet by discussing their incorporation into two practical

canons within the Kagyü tradition around the turn of the sixteenth century and the

deployment of that practical canon in the mahāmudrā polemical works that were produced

by a subsequent generation of Kagyü scholars. It is in this chapter that the dynamics of The

Seven Siddhi Texts as part of a broader mahāmudrā practical canon are most evident. The

chapter opens with a discussion of the historical context behind the Seventh Karmapa


Chödrak Gyatso's publication of his three-volume collection of Indian Mahāmudrā Works. It

then turns to a discussion of a similar mahāmudrā practical canon whose initial publication is

believed to trace to the Drikung Kagyü patriarch Künga Rinchen, who was himself a student

of the Seventh Karmapa and received the latter's Indian Mahāmudrā Works from his uncle

and root-guru. Here I argue that The Seven Siddhi Texts and their attendant mahāmudrā

corpora provided a basic structure for the formulation of these two Tibetan mahāmudrā

practical canons, and that these projects were carried out in an attempt to revitalize Kagyü

institutions that had fallen into disrepair with the rise of the Geluk sect in the fifteenth

century. The chapter then turns to the role that The Seven Siddhi Texts played in a volley of

mahāmudrā polemical works that were composed by Sakya and Kagyü authors from the

fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. Here I show that the primary doctrinal issue that the corpus

was used to address revolved around whether or not the conferral and realization of

mahāmudrā was exclusively related to the four-fold consecration structure outlined in

yoginītantra works such as the Hevajratantra. This analysis reveals a number of strategies

employed by Tibetan mahāmudrā polemicists such as misrepresenting or misquoting

canonical scriptures and massaging the content of The Seven Siddhi Texts themselves to

support their own position. This chapter, and the dissertation, then concludes by discussing

the hermeneutic problems of working with Tibetan authors who subscribe to and promote the

rhetoric of a homogenous "Indian Tradition."


 Part I:

The Seven Siddhi Texts and

the Demonological Paradigm

ru
 Chapter 1:

Demonology and the 'Pan-Indic Substratum' Model

I. Introduction

Theories regarding the development of Buddhist tantric traditions in India can be largely

identified as aligning themselves with two etiologies that have come to dominate the field

from the mid-twentieth century forward. The first position, formally advanced by David

Seyfort Ruegg, argues that the concordances between Buddhist and non-Buddhist traditions

reflect these traditions' participation in a shared, pan-Indic cultural and religious substratum.

The second argument, advanced by Alexis Sanderson in response to Ruegg, and specifically

within the context of the development of the Śaiva and Buddhist tantric traditions, states that

there is no evidence for such a pan-Indic substratum independent of the literary, art historical,

and epigraphic data at the historian's disposal, and these data are always inevitably bound up

in some specific sectarian identity. Thus, the appearance of common elements between

various sects must be considered an act of borrowing or appropriation, and it is the historian's

duty to discover the context and the direction of such acts of inter-sectarian appropriation.

The current chapter presents the merits and shortcomings of David Seyfort Ruegg's

'substratum' model. The discussions of Ruegg that follow are intended to lay the groundwork

for the broader argument in Part I of this study for the importance of adopting a

demonological paradigm in the study of the history of Buddhist traditions and, in particular,

the esoteric ritual and ascetic practices found in The Seven Siddhi Texts and the broader array

of textual traditions of Vajrayāna Buddhism. Unlike Sanderson's borrowing model, Ruegg's

model extends beyond those textual traditions commonly referred to as 'tantra.' Although the

rv
relevance of his substratum model to tantric Buddhism is the primary topic in this analysis,

some attention is also given to exploring this argument in the context of the more exoteric

genres of Buddhist literature.

David Seyfort Ruegg introduced his 'pan-Indian religious substratum' argument first

in a 19641 article, defending it decades later in 2001 in a short essay2 followed by a full-

length volume in 2008.3 These two later works offer a corrective to what he sees as a

potential misunderstanding of his argument by clarifying that his 'pan-Indian religious

substratum' should not be thought of as something "allogeneic, or exogenous, in relation to

the form of Buddhism incorporating it,"4 but rather as a shared 'substratum' in the sense of

both underlying and inhering within Buddhist and Brahmanical/Hindu traditions.5 Ruegg

argues that the laukika/lokottara or 'worldly/transcendent' distinction in Buddhist literature is

an emic structure reflecting his own 'substratum' model that functions as an important tool for

understanding the way Buddhists have imagined themselves in relationship with the laws and

religious beliefs of others. Following his original 1964 publication, Ruegg went on to publish

a major work in 1965 arguing that the laukika/lokottara distinction constituted an essential

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conceptual framework for the outlining of Buddhist political theory in India and its later

flourishing in Tibet.6

Ruegg focuses on applications of the laukika/lokottara model that emphasize

continuity between the worldly and transcendent, arguing that the distinction need not

necessarily represent a fixed, hermetic, and exclusive hierarchy.7 This continuity of the

laukika/lokottara distinction is perhaps best expressed within the context of the more

political applications of the term 'dharma.' Here it has served as a fundamental tenet

underlying the soteriological connection between a ruler's proper enactment of 'dharma' in

terms of his enforcement of worldly 'law' and a ruler's ultimate concern with 'dharma' in its

'trans-mundane' or lokottara sense as a vehicle for a greater soteriological goal. Such

continuity can be seen in the following verse from Nāgārjuna's (2nd century CE)

Prajñāśataka, a work within the Sanskritic genre of nītiśāstra or 'political science,'8 that is

widely referenced in the Tibetan exegetical tradition on the interrelationship of laukika- and

lokottara-dharma:

When the laws of men are practiced well,

The journey to the god realm is not far.
If one ascends the ladder of gods and men,
One is in the vicinity of liberation.9

























































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Nāgārjuna's verse supports Ruegg's argument for substratal continuity in the

laukika/lokottara distinction, expressed here with the metaphor of a ladder. This work's

location in the Dégé (Sde dge) edition of the Translations of the Treatises (Bstan 'gyur,

henceforth Tenjyur) strengthens Ruegg's argument that Buddhists themselves, or more

precisely in this case the various Tibetan redactors between the thirteenth and eighteenth

centuries who produced the stemma to which the Sde dge edition of the Bstan 'gyur bears

witness,10 acknowledged the value of literary material that was not specifically Buddhist, but

that represented the collective knowledge of a shared cultural 'substratum' deemed worthy of

preserving in the canon. Compilations of the Bstan 'gyur that follow the organizational

schema reflected in the Sde dge edition categorize this and a handful of other nītiśāstra

works as "held in common [with other, non-Buddhist traditions]" (thun mong pa). As Ruegg

notes, Buddhists also considered the first four categories in the classical schema of the five

sciences (pañcavidyāsthāna, rig gnas lnga)—grammar (śabdavidyā, sgra rig pa), medicine

(cikitsāvidyā, gso ba rig pa), logic (hetuvidyā, tshad ma rig pa), and the arts

(śilpakarmasthānavidyā, gzo ba rigs pa)—as 'common' categories of knowledge, or subjects

that were common to both Buddhists and non-Buddhists. The final category of the five

sciences termed 'our own science' (adhyātmavidyā, nang chos rigs pa), or Buddhism proper,

is explicitly distinguished from the first four, signaling that Buddhists recognized their own

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specifically Buddhist categories of knowledge as distinct-from, yet also related-to a set of

commonly held categories of knowledge that they deemed to be of value.11

Two of these five sciences, logic and medicine, are potentially important for testing

whether or not Ruegg's substratum model is able to locate broader, non-sectarian cultural

discourses of knowledge underlying a corpus of works like The Seven Siddhi Texts. Both

hetuvidyā (or pramāṇavidyā) and bhūtavidyā, or demonology (a sub-genre of cikitsāvidyā),

are central components of the esoteric Buddhist traditions,12 and there are common threads of

discourse in these fields across traditions and sectarian identities.13 Using the

pañcavidyāsthānas as an example, Ruegg correctly points out that his 'pan-Indian religious

substratum' is not, as Sanderson alleges, a collection of "entities inferred but never

perceived,"14 and that there are indeed instances in which it has left its mark on the historical

record in a genre of literature that is not necessarily directly claimed-by or affiliated-with any

specific sectarian identity.

Ruegg extends the kind of laukika/lokottara continuity acknowledged in Buddhist

formulations of the genres of nītiśāstra and the pañcavidyāsthāna to a more specifically

religious context—the relationship between Buddhist deities and their related ritual formulae

and those of the Brahmanical/Hindu traditions. He admits to there having been "some

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conflict" between Buddhist traditions and their Brahmanical contemporaries likening the

situation to a "'confrontational inclusivism' of the kind postulated by Paul Hacker."15 Yet his

analysis seems to be heavily oriented toward playing down the conflict between Buddhists

and non-Buddhists in the classical and medieval periods, a bias that has become increasingly

untenable in the wake of Giovanni Verardi's 2011 monograph on the Hardships and

Downfall of Buddhism in India. Verardi presents significant evidence that a continual and

protracted pattern of violence and conflict on the part of Vaidika Brahmins and the new

theological Brahmanism against Buddhists is to blame for Buddhism's contraction and near-

disappearance from the subcontinent by the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries of the

common era, and not the Turkic invasions and the rise of the Mughal empire.16 It is in his

extension of the laukika/lokottara distinction to the relationship between Buddhists and non-

Buddhists (and not just the relationship, conceived within Buddhist circles, between 'worldly'

and 'trans-mundane' categories of knowledge) that Ruegg's analysis overreaches in its bias

toward inclusivity.

Noting several instances in his textual, art historical, and epigraphic data that reflect a

kind of inclusivist continuity and fluidity between Buddhist and non-Buddhist traditions,

Ruegg insists that reading iconographic data such as the images of Vajrayāna deity couple

Heruka-Vajravārāhī, who stand trampling their Śaiva analogues Bhairava and Kālarātrī

underfoot,17 need not necessarily follow what he calls a "more or less secular and historicist

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interpretation...representing the agonistic or hostile relation 'Buddhism vs. Hinduism.'"18

Summarizing this argument in the introduction to his 2008 work, he states that the

interpretation of this iconography as specifically intended to portray a Buddhist deity

triumphing over its Śaiva counterpart is "not supported by the way such figures have been

understood in a large number of relevant Buddhist texts where, ichnographically, the schema

represents rather the superordination of the transmundane over the mundane and subordinate

level."19 This particular argument for a simultaneous continuity and subordination within the

laukika/lokottara distinction follows Hacker's theory of inclusivism as a strategy in which

similar elements observed in other traditions are posited as equivalent, yet somehow also

subordinate or inferior to one's own.20

Ruegg argues that the kind of continuity displayed in the laukika/lokottara schema

tends to be overlooked or entirely ignored by the proponents of what he refers to as

Sanderson's 'borrowing model.' He writes:

To affirm a certain continuity between Indian Buddhism and Indian

civilization, and to propose a ('pan-Indian') substratum model to help describe
and understand the relationship between the two, is of course by itself less a
final and definitive interpretation or judgment than it is a means of elucidating
the issues at hand. But continuity seems to be somewhat overlooked when, for
example, we hear of the borrowing of Brahmanical/ Hindu divinities in
Buddhism, a procedure which evidently implies that the Indian religious
ground or substratum is foreign and exogenous to Buddhism. To put it
pointedly, Indian Buddhists could hardly have borrowed what was already in
their religious and cultural heritage. The question is, then, just how this shared
heritage has been regarded and used by Buddhists.21

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He goes on to argue that it is this common, shared cultural and religious substratum that

provides the possibility for any degree of borrowing to take place at all (thus the 'borrowing

model' is in agreement with the argument for a substratum, but the latter is ultimately

superior in its scope). This point is essentially a reproduction of Wilhelm Dilthey's dialectical

epistemology of interpretation, quoted famously in Jonathan Z. Smith's Map is Not

Territory22 and, following Smith, in numerous subsequent works that address the often-

problematic nature of comparative methodologies.23 Dilthey writes, "[i]nterpretation would

be impossible if [past] expressions of life were completely strange. It would be unnecessary

if nothing strange were in them. It lies, therefore between these two extremes."24 In order to

transform Dilthey's argument into Ruegg's argument against Sanderson, the reader need only

substitute the term 'borrowing' for 'interpretation,' and 'Brahmanical/Hindu forms of religious

expression' for Dilthey's 'expressions of life.' Ruegg's argument against the 'borrowing model'

makes use of Dilthey's dialectic to argue for a necessary middle ground between the

imagination of 'wholly other' sectarian identities that would logically not even be able to

recognize each other let alone facilitate any level of borrowing and 'wholly similar' identities

for which any act of borrowing would be entirely unnecessary.

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II. Issues with the Substratum Model 1: Re-examining the Case for the

Pañcavidyāsthānas as Substratum

One of the strong points of Ruegg's argument for a 'pan-Indian religious substratum' as a

common source for the emergence of similar forms of religious praxis among tantric

traditions is his identification of specifically non-sectarian literary traditions that were

themselves identified as 'common' to all religious systems, at least by Buddhists, such as the

first four of the five sciences. Ruegg's clarification that his 'substratum' is in no way external

to the traditions in which it plays some role is also helpful. Yet there are some problems with

both arguments. First, the initial four pañcavidyāsthānas are considered to be held 'in

common' because Buddhists regard them as containing no religious content that might cause

them to be identified with any specific religious sect. Ruegg is, after all, arguing for a pan-

Indian religious substratum. His example of the sciences of grammar, logic, medicine, and

the arts are, by the very definition given by the Buddhist architects of this system, not

religious. Of course in the hands of Buddhist artists, the curriculum for disciplines such as

the 'science the arts' or śilpakarmasthānavidyā may take on religious aspects when they

provide schemata for drawing Buddhist deities, creating Buddhist statuary, and providing

directions for the construction of Buddhist architecture, but the category of śīlpa has a strong

literary presence across traditions, each of which will have its own approach to the 'arts,'

usually found in the textual genre of śīlpaśāstra to contain instructions and guidelines for the

construction and creation of religious objects pertaining to a particular sect.

Certain works within the 'common' sciences take on distinct sectarian identities by

being identified as the revelation of a particular deity. Ruegg points out a relevant example in

Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī. The Tibetan translation of this text preserved in the Bstan 'gyur and in

st
the works of Butön (Bu ston rin chen grub, 1290–1364) and Tāranātha (Jo nang rje btsun tā

ra nā tha, 1575–1634) consider the text to have been revealed by the Bodhisattva

Avalokiteśvara, while the inherited Brahmanical textual tradition attributes its revelation to

Śiva.25 Ruegg, following Deshpande, appeals to the argument of Avalokiteśvara or

Padmapāṇi as "the Buddhist reflex of Śiva."26 But once a specific religious identity can be

located in a work belonging to the 'common' sciences, the argument that these works provide

evidence of a pan-Indic substratum inevitably begins to weaken. While the evidence for

localized traditions that recognized the same deity as both Maheśvara and Avalokiteśvara

provides a clear example of a hybridized sectarian identity, the possibility that such a cult is

behind Buddhists and Śaiva claims to their own deity's role in the revelation of Pāṇini's

grammar does not actually remove sectarian identity from the equation—it merely introduces

the possibility of a dual or hybrid Buddhist-Śaiva sectarian identity. Such hybrid identities,

which are extremely common throughout South Asia, actually strengthen the argument

against the existence of a non-affiliated pan-Indic religious substratum because they rest on

the implicit assumption that two distinct religious sects have laid claim to the same deity. In

short, hybridity does not necessarily imply commonality.27 Perhaps more importantly, aside

from competing claims among Buddhists and Śaivas as to which deity inspired Pāṇini's

Aṣṭādhyāyi, his grammar is further evidence that the four divisions of the pañcavidyāsthāna

that are considered to be 'common' are classified in this way because they lack any religious

content.

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 The classical medical sciences, however, do contain elements that constitute a non-

sectarian and extremely widespread cultural substratum that, by some definitions, might

rightfully be termed 'religious.' These elements are found in the Āyurvedic literature on

demonology (bhūtavidyā),28 a subfield of medicine whose expansion appears to have

coincided with the tantric cults' rise to prominence throughout the first half of the first

millennium CE. The relationship between the scholastic discourse on demonology or

bhūtavidyā and the initiatory cults commonly referred to as 'tantra' is best exemplified in the

emergence of the literary genre of bhūtatantra. The bhūtatantras are recognized as a

distinctly Śaiva literary development, but there were certainly Buddhist works like the

Mahāmāyurīvidyārājñīsūtra containing taxonomies and prescriptions for addressing and

manipulating the world of spirit deities.29 It would be careless to assume that the discursive

culture of knowledge regarding the world of spirit beings that the Āyurvedic science of

bhūtavidyā, the Buddhist dhāraṇī literature, and the bhūtatantra have in common is

exclusively Śaiva. Ruegg's argument that the vidyāsthānas provide evidence of a 'pan-Indian

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religious substratum' is correct in this case, but the evidence that Ruegg provides fails to

locate a specifically religious substratum among the five sciences because it neither

addresses the topic of bhūtavidyā nor acknowledges the discourse that demonology shares

with popular religious spirit deity cults across South Asia. The Āyurvedic discourse on

demonology actually does provide evidence for the existence of a 'pan-Indian religious

substratum,' and this substratum is particularly (though not exclusively) important to the

shared ritual and ascetic cultures of Śaiva and Buddhist tantric literature. Ruegg's failure to

acknowledge this example, which would provide ample response to Sanderson's critique, is

likely a result of a long-standing bias within the modern European scholastic tradition he has

inherited toward a categorical distinction between 'magic' and 'religion.'

III. Issues with the Substratum Model 2: Locating 'Ambient Religion'

More troubling than this oversight, however, is Ruegg's appeal to the idea of an "ambient

religion," a move that seems to submerge his 'substratum model' in precisely the kind of

overly ideological quagmire for which he was accused by Sanderson. Given the fact that the

phrase is placed in the singular, not plural,30 and applied within an argument for a shared

religious substratum, "ambient religion" must be read as an indication or gesture in the

direction of a religious substratum that, by definition of its being 'shared,' must not belong to

any single sect or religious group exclusively. The use of the term "ambient" here is not just a

reference to other social and religious realities that were simply close at hand for Buddhists,

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but a reference to the existence of these social and religious realities as evidence for a pan-

Indian religious substratum. His presentation of Buddhism's relationship to this "ambient

religion" only reinforces the argument that specific sectarian identities are largely

inescapable when one deals with the material historical data for Buddhism. Ruegg writes:

[T]he Buddhists of India were after all Indians, even if we do not wish to reify
these names. To say this is, after all, merely to state what should be obvious,
namely that the ambient culture of India was the matrix from which,
historically, sprang Buddhism as well as Brahmanism/Hinduism and Jainism
and in which they developed and flourished over the centuries.31

The lack of nuance in this statement provides a clear sense of the methodological flaws

underlying Ruegg's substratum theory. Although he appears to exercise some caution against

'reifying' phrases such as "the Buddhists of India," there is no possible way to maintain as

vague a notion as an "ambient religion" or "ambient culture" without such acts of reification.

One wonders which Buddhists are spoken of here, or even more troubling, what exactly it

means to reference the existence of "India" at all prior to the late colonial period.

Ruegg supports his argument for a relationship between the Buddhist conception of

worldly law (laukika dharma) and an 'ambient religion' with number of examples from

textual sources, citing evidence for Buddhist influence in the Manusmṛti and the periodic

adoption or protest against the Vaidika varṇāśramadharma as proof of the shared social

realities between Buddhists and other religious systems. Citing an example from

Bhāvaviveka's (500–578 CE) Madhyamakahṛdayakārikā in which the author refers to "the

ultimate brahman which the gods such as Brahmā and the like do not understand" (paramaṃ

brahma brahmādyair yan na gṛhyate) as "the ultimate truth that the sage who speaks the

truth taught," (paramaṃ satyaṃ satyavādī jagau muniḥ) Ruegg that "[a]mong Buddhists...

awareness of a common matrix and milieu shared with the ambient society, religions and

























































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ways of thinking of India did not lead to the loss of a sense of identity and distinctiveness in

respect to religion, or indifferentism in respect to philosophy[.]"32 Yet the verse cited from

Bhāvaviveka's Madhyamakahṛdayakārikā does not, in fact, speak of an 'ambient' society or

religion. It is a critique of a specific set of rival philosophical traditions that employed the

language of brahman as 'ultimate reality,' and whose origins can be traced to the literature of

a specific religious sect—the Vaidika-Vedāntin literature of the Upaniṣads.

Ruegg's appeal to a common religious substratum to account for the shared

iconographic, doctrinal, and ritualistic elements between Buddhist, Śaivas, Vaidika

Brahmins, Vaiṣṇavas, and Jains might suffer from an overly simplistic model of the

'development' of Buddhism. This oversimplification is evident in Ruegg's generalized

employment of the notion of a unified "India" operating as the backdrop for a shared cultural

milieu for Buddhists and the surrounding "ambient religion:"

What accounts for the fact that gods, divinities and celestials bearing the same
(or very closely related) names are to be found in Buddhism as well as in
other religions of India? As far as Indian Buddhism is concerned, the answer,
briefly stated, may well be that these entities are Indian, that Buddhists were
Indians, and therefore that Buddhism was in the first place an Indian religion
that made use of widely spread Indian ideas. To suppose that Buddhism arose
and developed in some sort of water-tight compartment separate from its
Indian milieu and matrix would make almost impossible any treatment of
Buddhism as a religion and as a system of thinking of India.33

The accusation here that any scholar might actually subscribe to such a hermetic vision of

Buddhism's development in South Asia appears overly dialectical. It is difficult to imagine

any scholar who would actually subscribe to such a view, which suggests that the argument

hinges on positing a false dialectic.

The category of 'India' that Ruegg employs in his argument for an 'ambient religion'

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might benefit from a closer consideration of scholarship on the historical context for

Buddhism's emergence in Magadha around the fifth century BCE. Two works, Johannes

Bronkhorst's Greater Magadha: Studies in the Culture of Early India,34 and Jan Heesterman's

The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society, provide

insight into the degree to which a 'pan-Indian religious substratum' might have factored into

the emergence of Buddhism and the shift toward the ritual theory of the classical Vedic

śrauta sacrifice. Bronkhorst locates the religious 'substratum' for the emergence of the early

Buddhist saṅgha in a cultural milieu that was largely independent of Brahmanical society,

while the Heesterman argues that the impetus for the major theoretical shift in the

Brahmanical conception of the Vedic sacrifice in the first millennium BCE was entirely

internal. Both perspectives remain theoretical, of course, but they do provide potential

counter-points that might challenge the 'pan-Indian religious substratum' model's ability to

account for the relationship between Buddhist and Brahmanical traditions in the centuries

leading up to the advent of the Buddhist saṅgha.

Bronkhorst argues that the ancient kingdom of Magadha and the surrounding area of

the eastern Gaṅgā-Yamunā river basins constituted a cultural milieu that was independent

from Brahmanical influence in the early half of the first millennium BCE. He notes that

Brahmanical sources identify this region as a separate cultural area that developed to the east

of the riverine systems extending between the Indus and the Yamunā river basins.35 The

geographic area to the east of the Yamunā also appears to have been the original locus for the

























































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so-called 'second urbanization' between the ninth and eight centuries BCE.36 Śatapatha-

brāhmaṇa 13.8.1.5 refers to this region as a separate cultural sphere, noting that its

inhabitants maintain burial practices that differ from those of the Brahmins. What's more,

these burial practices just happen to sound somewhat similar to the basic architecture of the

early Buddhist stūpa:

Four-cornered (is the sepulchral mound). Now the gods and the Asuras, both
of them sprung from Prajāpati, were contending in the (four) regions
(quarters). The gods drove out the Asuras, their rivals and enemies, from the
regions, and being regionless, they were overcome. Wherefore the people who
are godly make their burial places four-cornered, whilst those who are of the
Asura nature, the Easterners and others, (make them) round, for they (the
gods) drove them out from the regions.37

Bronkhorst also provides a short list of pre-Buddhist conceptions of karma that distinguished

the cultural region of Greater Magadha from its Brahmanical counterpart to the west. This

list includes belief 1. in rebirth and karmic retribution; 2. that activity (karma) as something

that must be altogether halted in order to put an end to its effects, either through refraining

from all activity (the Jain and Ājivika models) or through realizing that the eternal Self is

inherently inactive (which would later form the basis of the karmayoga of the

Bhagavadgīta); and 3. that karmic retribution follows all deeds, not just those deemed

morally good or bad.38 Some of the broader cultural features of the Greater Magadha cultural

sphere that Bronkhorst notes are distinct from its contemporary Brahmanical counterpart

include medicine, the notion of cyclical time, and the original Saṁkhyā tradition associated

with the founder Kapila.39

When we compare the perspectives on karma that Bronkhorst identifies with the

























































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'Greater Magadha' region with Heesterman's work, the range of theoretical positions on the

workings of karma that acted as a 'substratum' for the emergence of the early Buddhist

saṅgha appear to be quite distinct from Brahmanical conceptions of karma in both the pre-

classical and classical configurations of the Vedic sacrifice. Heesterman argues that an

important shift took place in the conception of karma between the pre-classical and classical

phase of the Vedic śrauta sacrifice that coincided with the period in which the Brāhmaṇas

were composed, and that reflects a point at which the classical Vedic notion of karma

emerges. This period also happens to roughly coincide with the rise of the 'Greater Magadha'

cultural region. Heesterman locates this shift in the Jaimanīya Brāhamaṇa's mythical account

of Prajāpati and Yama's ritual battle, where Prajāpati triumphs over Yama's more archaic

rites through his discovery of the ritual technology of symbolic and numerical equivalence

(sampaḍ and saṃkhyāna). This discovery marks Prajāpati's victory over death via the

sacrifice and the end of the pre-classical agonistic model.40 Heesterman notes:

Henceforth man depends on his own (ritual) work, his own karman. He is
born in the world which he has made himself, as Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 6.2.2.27
has it. The world is no longer recreated through the contest and the exchange
between the rival parties: the single individual creates it by himself through
his own works, good as well as bad.41

The passage quoted above from Śatapathabrāhmaṇa 13.8.1.5 has already shown that the

Brahmanical authors of this literature considered themselves to be culturally distinct from

those people living in Bronkorst's 'Greater Magadha' east of the Yamunā river. The same

text, by Heesterman's analysis, indicates a shift toward the classical model of the Vedic

sacrifice in which karma continues to signify ritual action, albeit a ritual action that has

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found a new application in this context.42 We might now add Heesterman's broader argument

that the pre-classical and classical models of the Vedic sacrifice both remained relatively

unconcerned with the public function of ritual (sacra publica), and remained primarily

focused on the internal world of the sacrifice. Both models provide support for Heesterman's

argument that tradition emerges through a largely internal process of reconciling the conflict

between "its immanence in society and its transcendent aspiration to solve the fundamental

problem of human existence."43 Heesterman's broader thesis does not entirely negate the

possibility that exposure to the ritual logics of other traditions might amplify this conflict, but

it does argue that the resolution of this kind of conflict proceeds based on a tradition's own

internal logic. By this argument tradition is identified as the culmination of a largely internal

process.

Which is the 'India' to which Ruegg refers in his substratum model? If it is an 'India'

that was chronologically prior to the advent of Buddhist traditions, there is a strong

possibility that the religious milieu from which Buddhism emerged was at best only

marginally conversant with its Brahmanical contemporaries. The identification of the

territories east of the Yamunā as existing outside of the Brahmanical culture of the

Śatapathabrāhmaṇa, Heesterman's argument that the shift from the pre-classical to classical

Vedic sacrifice occurred in response to a fundamentally internal conflict, and the absence of

a sense of sacra publica in both the pre-classical and classical Vedic models suggests a

Brahmanical tradition that was geographically and theoretically detached from the doctrinal

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developments that preceded the emergence of the Buddhist saṅgha. The Buddhist conception

of karma, which is distinct from all of these models in that it emphasizes an exclusively

psychological karmic pathology, developed in dialogue with its precursors in the 'Greater

Magadha' region. Bronkhorst and Heesterman's portrayal of the distinct religious worlds

spanning the Indus and Gangetic river basins during the early stages of the 'second

urbanization' indicates that it may not be accurate or even possible to identify a religious

substratum that was common to both Brahmins and Buddhists at the advent of the Buddhist

saṅgha. Neither theory supports the existence of an 'ambient religion' that was shared

between Buddhists and Brahmins in this period. This is not to say that Buddhists and

Brahmins did not come to occupy the same cultural spaces and exert a profound degree of

influence upon each other. But these interactions are also always characterized as taking

place between two groups that recognized themselves as distinct religious sects.

It may be more accurate to say that this later dialogical process highlights a common

'substratum' shared by Buddhists and non-Buddhists that was social, cultural, and political

instead of being overtly religious. Ronald Davidson's Indian Esoteric Buddhism provides a

well-crafted argument for a shared social and political backdrop for the rise of esoteric

Buddhism and its contemporary initiatory movements. Davidson interprets the

Trilokyavijayamaṇḍala as a ritual iconography that reflects a Buddhist realpolitik in which

the political realities of the centuries following the collapse of the Gupta-Vākāṭaka Empire

were adopted as a model for the esoteric rites and iconography of the yogatantra.44 This

argument relies on a kind of 'ambient culture' or substratum that, relating to Davidson's

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critique of Ruegg's model as too 'Platonic,'45 presents epigraphic, iconographic, and textual

data for a shared socio-political culture from which the ritual technology of royal

consecration was adapted and re-deployed within a specifically religious framework. Ruegg

is aware of Davidson's work,46 yet does not seem to have acknowledged that Davidson's

argument actually affirms a common substratum behind the development of Vaiṣṇava, Śaiva,

and Buddhist tantric traditions, albeit one that signals a shared socio-political substratum

instead of a religious substratum.

IV. Issues with the Substratum Model 3: The Laukika/Lokottara Distinction in Esoteric

Buddhism

The 'pan-Indic substratum' argument also lacks adequate consideration of the implications

that the ritual world of the Buddhist tantras holds for the notion of inclusivism and fluid

continuity that he posits in the laukika/lokottara distinction. Examples from Buddhist works

point to the manipulation of the laukika/lokottara distinction toward the performance of

violent and exclusivist rites against the opponents of one's religious tradition. Such rites

exploit the vertical hierarchy between laukika and lokottara deities and stake the entire

functioning of the science of mantras upon the ability of deities of the lokottara class to

control and violently destroy if necessary those of the lower, laukika class. Yet in his analysis

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of Buddhist subjugation iconography Ruegg insists that, "in Buddhist thought the structured

opposition laukika: lokottara does not itself normally correspond to a secular antagonism, on

the historical and sociological levels, between Hinduism and Buddhism."47 Among the

elements adopted to these ends in esoteric Buddhist ritual culture are the four tantric karmas:

pacification (śāntika), increase of wealth (pauṣṭika), subjugation (vaśikaraṇa) and rites for

executing the king's enemies (abhicāraka), all of which are often accomplished through

various forms of the homa or fire offering sacrifice.48 Adaptation of the homa to a Buddhist

ritual context, if we follow Davidson's argument, might very well provide sound evidence for

the ritualization of the kind of antagonism and violence that periodically characterized the

political background for the ritual cultures that emerge in the Buddhist esoteric tradition.

The opening of chapter 50 of the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa prescribes the kind of agonistic

deployment of the subjugation imagery that one finds in the Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṁgraha

and so many other Buddhist works. The chapter outlines the theory and praxis behind a set of

rituals performed before a painting (paṭa) of the wrathful lord (krodharājā) Yamāntaka. It

specifically states that one performs these rites "for the purpose of destroying those who

bring harm to the three jewels," (ratnatrayāpakāriṇām nigrahārthaṃ), for "hindering all

wicked kings" (sarvaduṣṭarājñāṃ nivāraṇārthaṃ), and that the rite should be used against

"sentient beings such as the great yakṣas who are powerful, intent upon acts of benevolence

or oppression, and who lack great compassion" (sattvānāṃ mahāyakṣāṇāṃ mahotsāhināṃ

nigrahānugrahapravṛttānāṃ mahākaruṇāvirahitānāṃ).49 Here the text provides a list of

laukika beings that are powerful and either contradict or act with open hostility toward the

























































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Buddhist teachings. The chapter goes on to describe that the single-syllable mantra of

Mañjugoṣa, the mantra of Yamāntaka, and the mantras of a number of Bodhisattvas provide

protection from all harmful beings for all of those assembled who have taken the

commitment (samaya). It then describes the apostate who has broken this samaya by

"engaging in the dharma of commoners," (grāmyadharmānuvartite), "having abandoned all

of the excellent mantras," (tyakto mantravaraiḥ sarvaiḥ), "having no faith in the teachings,"

(aprasanneṣu śāsane), and "having decided that the sacred jewels of the dharma and saṅgha

should be rejected" (saddharmaratnasaṅghe ca pratikṣeptavyāḥ samāhite). The fate of such

apostates is clear—the text explicitly states that, "the wrathful one kills them" (teṣāṃ krodho

vināśayet).50 The list of those subjected to violent subjugation in these rites is composed of

individuals who bring harm upon the Buddha's teachings and the saṅgha as well as apostate

Buddhists who have violated and failed to repair their samaya. The conclusion of

Mañjugoṣa's proclamation of the power of Yamāntaka's samaya reads:

In every respect, all childish fools

Who are negligent, falling under the sway [of passion],
Except for those whose passions are gone forever
Such as Pratyekabuddhas, Ārhats, and Śrāvakas,

Shall all be executed and disciplined

By the Lord of Wrath without exception.51

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The description of the ritual painting of Yamāntaka described in chapter fifty-one does not

actually promote an iconographic program of 'trampling' upon a particular deity in the

manner that would become so common in the yoginītantras.52 Yamāntaka's namesake as one

who causes Yama's death (yama+antaka)53 does evoke the image a Buddhist deity

triumphing over a worldly deity that traces back to the Vaidika pantheon but his primary

significance as one who brings death to death himself is arguably not concerned with the act

of subduing a worldly deity but with Yamāntaka's power to triumph over the inevitable fate

of all living beings. However, while the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa iconography for Yamāntaka

does not depict him trampling on any worldly deities, the rites related to Yamāntaka in the

text do make use of this theme in ways that are explicitly violent.

The fifty-first chapter of the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa provides an explicit list of potential

targets for the "violent rites that bring death to one's enemies" (karmāṃ raudrāṃ

śatrūpaghātakām)54 that one can perform using the painting in tandem with a variety of ritual

techniques. The chapter specifically names those who commit offenses against Buddhist

teachings or Buddhist practitioners as targets. One of the rituals in the chapter requires that

the mantrin draw a representation of the target's tutelary deity and trample it underfoot. The

relevant verses read:

One should write the name of the deity

To whom [the target] is devoted or his astrological sign,
Make an effigy with charcoal from the cremation ground and
Place it on the ground in front of the painting.
Then, trampling upon it from the feet to the head,

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 The wrathful one should perform the mantra recitation.55

Trampling plays a role in the rites prescribed in chapter fifty-two as well. Here the text

mentions that the mantra or constellation associated with the deity to whom the target is

devoted may be trampled underfoot to perform the rite, but then goes on to say that an

exception should be made if the target's tutelary deity is a vidyā that is associated with a

Tathāgata:

The rite as it applies to all manner of gods and spirit beings is as follows: One
should trample upon the deity to which [the target] is devoted and perform the
rite. Trample upon the target's [deity] represented by its constellation or
mantra with the left foot and perform the rite, with the exception of the vidyā
goddesses who are female tathāgatas. Regarding all of [the female tathāgatā
vidyā goddesses,] one should hold them in the middle with one's big toe and
perform the rite, and should never insult them by trampling on them. [But]
one should trample upon all worldly mantra deities and perform the rite.56

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 Thus according to the Yamāntaka abhicāra rites of the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa, when a rite

performed against a potential enemy involves a Buddhist tutelary deity one does not trample

upon its effigy, but when the rite involves worldly mantra-beings (laukikamantra) it is

entirely permissible, even prescribed, that one trample upon them. The proscription against

trampling upon Buddhist or Buddhist-affiliated deities implies that a mantrin performing the

Yamāntaka rite might direct his sorcery at a Buddhist king or enemy, a point that should not

be surprising given the statements in the previous chapter on Yamāntaka's destruction of

those who violate their samaya. More importantly, it bears certain consequences for Ruegg's

apologetics regarding the yoginītantra iconography, in which Buddhist deities trample or

stand upon non-Buddhist deities. The ritual employment of this kind of 'trampling' in the

Yamāntaka abhicāra rites of the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa suggests a potential conceptual referent

for the trampling iconography that is so prevalent in the yoginītantras. If this is the case, then

the yoginītantra iconography cannot possibly said to represent an inclusivist continuum

between worldly and transcendent classes of deities. In fact the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa indicates

that there is a strict separation between these two classes of beings by prescribing a modified

version of the rite that is exclusive to Buddhist vidyā goddesses that have been elevated

beyond the status of worldly deities.

V. Conclusion: Demonology and Localized Spirit Cults as Substratum

Locating the point of maximum relevance for the yoginītantra trampling iconography in the

abhicāra rites prescribed in the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa does not provide us with an exclusively

Buddhist origin for this iconography. Rites such as those contained in the fifty-first chapter

of the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa and much of the iconography, ritual, and ascetic culture of the

tz
later yoga and yoginītantras are both products of the same culture of the cremation ground,

and as a result a number of similarities can be observed between them.57 But as Goodall and

Isaacson have shown, similar practices involving a kind of sympathetic magic in which an

effigy of the victim is pierced or smeared with various substances can be found in the

Ārthaśāstra and Atharvavedapariśiṣṭa, and the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa itself shares a great

degree of intertextuality with one of the primary textual corpuses of the Śaiva atimārga, the

Niśvāsatattvasaṁgraha.58

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All of these sources point to a particular 'substratum' that, for one reason or another, Ruegg

seems to have overlooked. At the same time Alexis Sanderson, despite his rejection of

Ruegg's substratum model, seems to affirm his own substratum in his discussion of the

charnel ground culture59 of ritual and ascetic practices aimed at manipulating and harnessing

the powers of spirit beings.

Sanderson, however, stops short of acknowledging his own affirmation of this

common religious substratum in any of his arguments against Ruegg, and seems to prefer to

keep locate his charnel ground culture in an almost exclusively Śaiva context. It is this

author's position that despite the various shortcomings of Ruegg's substratum model, the

'culture of the cremation ground' actually affirms his argument and stands as evidence of a

shared pan-Indic religious substratum underlying both Śaiva and Buddhist ritual and ascetic

cultures. This seems to be a point on which both Ruegg and Sanderson can be brought into

agreement. The remaining chapters in part one thus argue that applying a demonological

paradigm to the historiography of these traditions represents one application of Ruegg's

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model that illuminates the profound influence that the shared religious substratum of popular

religion has had on both Śaiva and Buddhist ritual and ascetic cultures.

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 Chapter 2:

The Demonological Paradigm

I. Introduction: The 'Demonological Paradigm' and Bhūtavidyā as Substratum

Religious practices dealing with the propitiation, mediation, and appeasement of the world of

spirits and unseen beings are a common religious phenomenon that has contributed to the

definition and periodic reinvention of the major religions of South Asia. The legacy of our

own discipline's bifurcation of 'magic' and 'religion' has led scholars to drastically

underestimate the degree of influence that popular religious cults concerned with the world

of unseen beings have exerted throughout the history South Asia religions. This form of

religious expression, which notoriously evades any singular or static identity, is referred to

here as 'demonology' or 'the science of spirits' (bhūtavidyā). The term bhūtavidyā is

mentioned as early as the Chāndogyopaniṣad, and the religious world of spirit beings it

signifies finds detailed and formal expression in the early Āyurvedic works of the Caraka-

and Suśrutasaṃhitās. The latter of these two works defines bhūtavidyā as a branch of

Āyurveda concerned with appeasing and making offerings to beings such as 'seizers' (graha),

who cause mental and physical illnesses and humoral imbalances, in order to pacify them and

release afflicted patients from their effects.60 The term bhūtavidyā is thus primarily a product

of the scholastic project of South Asian medical literature of Āyurveda—it is not a term that

participants in the many localized spirit cults use to refer to their customs and practices, and

to this author's knowledge no such single term exists.

The term 'paradigm' is employed here following Pierre Bourdieu's definition in his

Science of Science and Reflexivity as something that "determines the questions that can be

























































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asked and those that are excluded, the thinkable and the unthinkable; being both 'received

achievement' and a starting point, ... a guide for future action, a programme for research to be

undertaken, rather than a system of rules and norms."61 The demonological paradigm is "the

equivalent of a language or a culture" that is, unsurprisingly, directed at the boundaries and

interactions between the seen and unseen worlds and the beings that inhabit them. We can

identify a 'paradigm' pertaining to demonology in South Asian religions through its

observable ongoing discourse (a "language," to use Bourdieu's terminology) and the

observable, ongoing proliferation of broader cultural formations around that discourse. The

demonological paradigm is suggested here as "programme for research" that is specifically

oriented toward eradicating any tendency to alienate discourses on magic and the world of

spirit beings from our efforts to better understand and theorize the history and function of

religious movements in South Asia. It requires a hermeneutic of consent that refuses to treat

the spirit beings at the focus of popular religions cults as merely symbolic, allegorical, or

products of a defunct science that can be psychologized or otherwise rationalized away.

Adopting a demonological paradigm implies recognition that the pervasive presence of

traditions centering on a pantheon (or pandemonium) of spirits and other supernatural beings

has been had a long and enduring influence on religious life in South Asia. The

demonological paradigm is thus a course of study that encourages researchers to reject (or at

least challenge) the classical bifurcation of "religion" and "magic," in order to reveal any

persistent blind spots it may have caused in the study of South Asian religions.

The nineteenth and early twentieth century scholars of South Asian religions who

rejected localized spirit cults as inferior and vulgar (in all senses of the term) were not alone

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in their attitudes toward this mode of religious expression. Emic sources also refer to these

traditions in pejorative terms, describing as 'the religion of the common folk'

(gramyadharma) or simply 'worldly' (laukika) traditions. The Maitrāyaṇīyaopaniṣad, for

example, criticizes lay practitioners who offer to pacify yakṣas, rākṣasas, bhūtas, gaṇas, and

piśācas for a fee, and the Buddhist Jātaka stories devote at least one narrative to a similar

polemic against entrepreneurial exorcists.62 But even if many of South Asia's major religious

movements claim to reject the authority of popular, localized spirit cults, they have never

been able to completely get away from these traditions. Acknowledgement of the existence

of free-agent spirit mediums and exorcists in works like the Maitrāyaṇīyopaniṣad not only

confirms the existence of religious traditions that operated without any sense of a solid

sectarian identity, it also provides some indication of a certain degree of animosity and

competition between these traditions and those that cultivated more distinct and defined

religious identities.

The success of South Asian religious traditions with more structured and

institutionally bound sectarian identities has depended, at least in part, on adapting localized

spirit cults into their own metaphysical, ritual, and iconographic systems. Still, these same

traditions often openly criticized the very practices they were adopting. Such is the case with

Patañjali's distinction of the Vaidika deities and those deities that are laukika in his

commentary to Paṇini's grammar, Jain authors' efforts to define their doctrine as pāralaukika

or 'better than worldly,' and Buddhist distinctions of laukika and lokottara classes of deities.

As Robert Decaroli notes, the fact that these traditions define themselves in opposition to

such 'worldly' practices is a strong indication of the influence that informal, localized,

popular religious cults have had on their contemporaries among the more formally organized

























































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religious sects.63 The popular religious practices subsumed here under the term bhūtavidyā

were likely one of the single most influential forces in South Asian religion from at least the

late centuries BCE forward. These traditions are the wellspring from which many of the

modes of religious expression of the more organized religious traditions in South Asia

emerged. They have consistently provided logical frameworks for the economic activities

that have sustained religious institutions in South Asia from the earliest Buddhist vihāras into

the modern period, and they are one of the primary means by which the more organized and

institutionally structured trans-local traditions of South Asia have renewed and periodically

reinvented themselves.

Because they often lack their own textual traditions, the study of localized religious

spirit cults has remained largely the territory of anthropological research. These forms of

religious expression are privileged as sources for the study of contemporary 'lived' religion,

or the way that the beliefs and practices of religious communities are actually enacted 'on the

ground.' But these traditions were also an integral part of the worlds in which the textual

traditions of Śaivism and Buddhism developed, and they have much to tell the textual

historian of South Asian religions. The spirit beings whose propitiation and ritual mediation

are the central issue of concern for these traditions inhabited the same worlds as the most

erudite Brahmin, Buddhist, and Śaiva authors. What Decaroli terms 'spirit religions' have a

wealth of data to contribute to understanding the development of traditions such as Vajrayāna

Buddhism, which so thoroughly embraced the ritual idioms and theozoology of the South

Asian world of supernatural beings. These traditions provide a means for examining the basic

existential conditions that underlie even the most scholastic and rigidly institutional South

Asian religious traditions. For these traditions and their architects, any notion of 'being in the

























































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world' necessarily carried the connotation of being in a world populated, and at certain times

and places completely overrun or infested, with a broad pantheon of supernatural beings.

The refusal to recognize the historical value of these traditions has perpetuated a

number of methodological and theoretical blind spots in the study of South Asian religions.

One example has already been provided in chapter one's discussion of Ruegg's failure to

recognize popular spirit religions as the extra-sectarian, pan-Indian religious phenomenon

that his 'substratum' theory requires. Alexis Sanderson nods to the importance of popular

religion in his idea of a 'cremation ground culture' underlying much of the ritual and doctrinal

innovation that led to the development of the transgressive asceticism of the Śaiva

mantramārga, but he also tends to only acknowledge a Śaiva sectarian identity in these

phenomena. His references to the influence of popular religion on Śaivism's rise to

dominance in the medieval period are references to popular Śaivism, and 'cremation ground

culture' is meant to refer to Śaiva cremation ground asceticism.64 Perhaps the most obvious

reason that these traditions are neglected is that they have no texts of their own. Even

bhūtavidyā is an Āyurvedic appropriation and reformulation of popular spirit religion within

the framework of medical symptomology, diagnosis, and pathology. The Āyurvedic

bhūtavidyā's ritualized counterparts, the bhūtatantras, are largely lost to history, and those

fragments that remain are identified within a Śaiva sectarian milieu.65 The lack of an

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independent textual tradition for this religious phenomenon is not, however, grounds for its

dismissal as an independent, extra-sectarian factor in the history of South Asian religions.66

II. Śaiva Assimilation of Local Spirit Cults

Despite exhibiting varying degrees of contempt for localized spirit religions, Vaidika

Brahmins, Śaivas, and Buddhists frequently appropriated and assimilated aspects of these

traditions. Kunal Chakrabarti brings our attention to a similar phenomenon in his theorization

of the 'Purāṇic Process' as a Vaidika Brahmin literary strategy for appropriating and

transforming local religious cults. Chakrabarti argues that the Purāṇas functioned, among

other things, as "a medium for the absorption of local cults and associated practices," a

statement that carries far-reaching implications given the Purāṇic literature's role in defining

the parameters of much of 'Hinduism' as we know it today.67 Following Chakrabarti, we

might say that what many understand as mainstream 'Hinduism' today is largely a product of

this 'Purāṇic process' that assimilated local spirit religions into the Vaidika fold where they

were inscribed within the brahmanic pantheon, brought into agreement with a brahmanic

social ethos, and integrated into in a range of brahmanic ascetic and ritual traditions.

The Śaiva orders of the atimārga and mantramārga engaged in their own version of

this 'Purāṇic process,' as the atimārga Śaiva sects began to author their own Purāṇanic

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literature.68 Both the more orthodox atimārga Śaiva orders and their counterparts aligned

with the mantramārga oriented their ritual and ascetic cultures heavily toward the very same

environments in which the spirit beings of popular religious cults in South Asia are

commonly said to dwell. The Śaiva literature of the mantramārga in particular went to great

lengths to fully integrate various deities from popular religious cults in its ritual,

iconography, and ascetic practices. The textual record of this process is preserved in the

yāmala literature of the Śaiva bhairavatantras, a genre that focuses on worshipping and

attaining a mutual identity (yoga) with Bhairava and his circle of eight mātṛkas.69 The fruits

of these efforts can be seen in the Śaiva orders' successful assimilation of local deity cults

across South Asia into the cults of the deity Bhairava. This development established a

continual sense of Śaiva identity that extended from popular, widely accessible, local forms

of religious expression to the elite practices of the Śaiva initiates and their socially elite

clientele. The textual inclusivism of the Śaiva Purāṇas had a yogic counterpart in the

charismatic power of the initiated Śaiva ascetics of the mantramārga. Śaiva bhairavatantras

such as the Brahmayāmala/ Picumata outline a yoga or union via symbiotic possession by

the deity Bhairava as the culmination of the performance of one of a number of observances

(vrata) through which Bhairava and a host of spirit deities of various classes such as mātṛs,

guhyakas, yoginīs, śākinīs, and pūtanās are internally mapped onto the body of the elite

initiated practitioner or sādhaka.70 Viewed in this light, the mantramārga literature and its

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ritual and ascetic traditions reflects an ongoing dialogical process that reformulated the

negative possession associated with these spirit deities in their localized cults as a form of

positive possession through a skillful deployment of the concept of yoga within a broader

cultural discourse around spirit possession.

The Śaiva assimilation of popular spirit religions follows a cardinal rule of 'lords' and

'hordes,' or the belief that the hordes of inimical beings that routinely seek out vulnerabilities

in human hosts operate within their own hierarchies, and thus controlling a certain class of

spirit deity depends on winning the good graces of whatever deity (or deities) occupies the

apex of this hierarchy. Such hierarchies provided a platform for the Śaiva appropriation and

repurposing of localized spirit religions through assimilating local religious cults to the deity

Bhairava, and by extension assimilating the Śaiva ascetic, through his yoga with Bhairava, to

the idea of the bhūtanātha or the 'lord of spirits.' Although not the final stage of the ascetic

observances,71 the sādhaka's union with Bhairava via positive possession certainly could

have lent support to the idea that he had himself become a kind of bhūtanātha. This kind of a

reversal of the predatory possession of the bhūtas, grahas, and other beings, a model of

possession that Fred Smith calls a 'hostile takeover,'72 proved an effective strategy for

infiltrating local spirit religion cults and placing Śaiva officiants at their head as

intermediaries and 'lords of the spirits.'

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 The networks of Bhairavas (or Bhairabs) that encircle the peripheries of the three

original cities of the Kathmandu Valley and the valley itself provide one salient example of

the Śaiva appropriation of localized traditions. As David White notes, popular Bhairava cults

often treat the deity as a guardian or protector dwelling on the periphery who, when properly

propitiated, prevents the unwanted entry of seizers, ghosts, and other inimical beings into

civic space. The local cults of deities such as Pachali Bhairab and Ākāś Bhairab that persist

in the Kathmandu valley preserve the dynamics of Śaiva inclusivism to this day.

Figure 1: Ākāś Bhairab (author's photo), whose shrine is located just beyond the north-
west corner of the Kathmandu Valley behind the Swayambhunāth stūpa, serves as one
example of the enduring employment of bhairava as a deity marking the peripheries of
civic space.

The original, local traditions of the 'Bhairabs' of the Kathmandu Valley are, like so many

religious cults in the valley, layered with both a local and trans-local religious significance

that remains highly transparent and visible. Bhairab attained an elite status in the Kathmandu

valley quite early in the form of a Buddhist tantric deity Vajrabhairava, who is mentioned in

an inscription from the Licchāvi king Śivadeva II (ca. 694–705 CE). Śivadeva II is also said

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to have had an iconic image of Bhairava created and placed in front of his palace for

protection, and the continuation of this practice can be observed today in many of the temples

and palaces of the three original city-states of Lalitpur, Bhaktapur, and Bhasantapur that

position both black and white Bhairava images on each side of their main gates. The

emergence and persistence of Bhairava as a royal court deity in Nepal likely initiated a

process of gradual assimilation of a number of localized spirit deity cults. White also notes

that the aniconic stones now worshipped as bhairabs throughout the Kathmandu Valley

likely had other names prior to the explosion of tantric culture in the tenth century.73

In a process resembling ta kind of vassalage, these original cults were assimilated into

the trans-local Śaiva cult of Bhairava while retaining their original function as "'scarecrows'

that protect inner, domesticated space from the dead, the demonic, and enemy peoples.'"74 In

this sense White advocates for a diachronic reading of tantric maṇḍalas as historical

documents that record the appropriation of localized popular religious cults into larger, trans-

local tantric ritual systems. From this perspective the classes of beings that exist beyond the

edges of a maṇḍala, along its periphery, and at its gates represent various degrees of

appropriation and repurposing of the 'spirit deities' of local, popular cults. The imagery can at

the same time be read synchronically, as a militarized urban vision of civic space that

imposes a hierarchical schema on the maṇḍala moving from the center to the periphery of the

maṇḍala. When viewed from this perspective, White argues that Bhairava as the lord of the

spirits (bhūtanātha) is worshipped across South Asia "[as] the guardian of boundaries—of

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the permeable vessel of the human body, the bounded topocosm of the village, town, or

kingdom, between consecrated and unconsecrated space, between the living and the dead, as

well as the turning points in various stages of the human life cycle." These peripheral

Bhairavas "are the pivotal deities of local pantheons, which neutralize and drive away the

spirits they control, for the benefit of their devotees."75

III. Buddhist Assimilation of Local Spirit Cults

The Buddhist context offers a particularly rich data set for the conversion and appropriation

of local spirit religions into a trans-local, institutionally organized religious tradition.

Scholars have been aware of the strong presence of these traditions in the earliest phases of

Buddhism's development since the nineteenth century, yet thoroughgoing analyses of the

relationship between localized spirit religion cults and Buddhism's flourishing across the

subcontinent and beyond remain remarkably rare. Robert Decaroli's monograph on the

relationship between early Buddhism and localized spirit religions provides an important

response to this ongoing problem. In the introduction to his work, Decaroli points to the

construction of narratives of decline among early Buddhologists as one culprit in the

perpetuation of this lacuna:

Specifically, one of the consequences of telling Indian history in terms of

decline is that Buddhism could in no way be portrayed as dependent on or
derivative of popular religious practices that pervaded a great deal of life in
ancient India. All evidence of contact between Buddhism and popular spirit
religions of the time (seen as even more degraded than Hinduism in the eyes
of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century European academics) had to be
explained in terms of conflict or reluctant concessions to the masses.76

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In opposition to the nearly universal depiction of early Buddhist interaction with localized

spirit religions as evidence of a capitulation to the masses or a corruption of an original, 'pure

Buddhism,' Decaroli offers a refreshing inversion of such interpretations by arguing that the

appropriation and adaptation of the deities of local spirit religions in South Asia and beyond

indicates the active expansion of a thriving tradition, not a tradition in decline.77

Contact between early Buddhist institutions and localized popular religion was at

times facilitated by Buddhism's expanding function as part of the economic infrastructure for

trade in goods, currency, and information. The best documented evidence for the role that

Buddhist monasteries played in the economic expansion of South Asian dynasties appears in

the study of systems rock-cut cave vihāras that, beginning as early as the Sātavāhana dynasty

(c. 50–225 CE), played an integral role in expanding and maintaining trade networks that

connected western trading ports such as Sopara with inland markets and, ultimately, larger

urban settlements toward the eastern coast such as Amaravatī. Himanshu Prabha Ray an

others have, for instance, argued that the Buddhist cave vihāras established throughout the

remote areas of the Deccan by lay patrons belonging to various trade guilds and royal patrons

provided expanded and helped maintain trade and information networks in the region.78 The

rock-cut Buddhist vihāra complexes from this period preserve important evidence of the

economic aspects of Buddhism's expansion throughout South Asia. Richard Scott Cohen's

work on the cave vihāras of Ajaṇṭā notes that the Buddhist vihāra also performed a localized

economic function that revolved around the saṅgha's ability to act as intermediaries between

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spirit deities like the yakṣinī Hārītī and the vihāra's local patrons.79 Sites like Ajaṇṭā thus

contain a potential a wealth of art historical and archeological data for Buddhist

appropriation of local spirit religions.

Larger Buddhist monuments can also be read in terms of Buddhist inclusivist

strategies toward local spirit deity cults. The architectural structure of the Buddhist caityas

and the relocation of spirit deities such as yakṣas and yakṣiṇīs to the peripheral railings and

toraṇas evidenced at stūpa complexes such as Sanchi indicate a pattern of inclusivity that

found its iconographic expression in the negotiation of central and peripheral space. The

ritualization of this strategy appears later in the tradition in the Buddhist maṇḍala, where the

'worldly' deities of the spirit religions are repurposed as guardians of the periphery.80

Decaroli notes that the great yakṣa and yakṣiṇī statues that constitute the earliest iconic

statuary in the South Asian archeological record were carved in the round and typically

situated in the center of a platform surrounded by a peripheral fence. This design would have

supported circumambulatory practices at these yakṣa and yakṣiṇī caityas in much the same

way that these practices are supported by the circular layout of the Buddhist stūpa.

Excavations at early Buddhist stūpa sites locate this same class of deities on the peripheral

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railings and ornamented toraṇa, where they are effectively "relegated to positions of

subservience"81 to the relic cult of the stūpa. Other examples of this kind of subordination

and relegation to the periphery include the common placement of the yakṣiṇī and yakṣa

couple Hārītī and Pāñcika at the entrance of Indian Buddhist vihāras beginning in the early

centuries. From this perspective, Buddhist caitya architecture may have derived its design in

part from the yakṣa and yakṣiṇī shrines at the center of local spirit deity cults. If this is the

case then the early Buddhist caitya effectively exchanged the spirit deities located at the

center of the caitya with the Buddha and his relics, and relocated the displaced pantheon of

spirit deities along its periphery.

The structure of ancient yakṣa and yakṣiṇī shrines, which consisted of a single

platform surrounded by a small fence with a tree, an icon of the deity, or perhaps both at its

center, also offers an example of the delineation of protected and unprotected space that

likely predates its replication in the structure of the Buddhist caitya and vihāra. Decaroli

notes that Buddhist literature contains a number of stories in which the vihāra acts as an

actual refuge for individuals trying to evade harmful spirit beings. In such cases the

supernatural guardians of the monastery, those potentially dangerous beings that have been

tamed and converted to the Buddhist faith, play the role of turning back their hostile

counterparts.82 Such accounts are consistent with data representing some of the earliest

phases of Buddhist architecture and literature up through the later stages of South Asian

Buddhist esoteric traditions. Once they have been converted to the Buddhist faith, worldly

(laukika) deities act as guardians and protectors on the toraṇa of Buddhist stūpas, at the

thresholds of Buddhist vihāras, and, later, at the gates of tantric Buddhist maṇḍalas. The

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early Buddhist monuments and cave vihāras are some of the earliest structures on the

subcontinent, and thus the earliest to provide an archeological record for the incorporation of

the deities of localized popular religious cults into more formal religious traditions and

institutions. This suggests that this particular conversion strategy, also evident in the Śaiva

tantric appropriation of Bhairava and his hordes of spirit beings, may have been employed

first among Buddhists.

In addition to offering protection by acting as guardians of the periphery, the same

classes of supernatural beings could also be weaponized and set against one's enemies. This

means that major religious groups like Buddhists and Śaivas did not only have to manage a

world full of spirit beings operating as independent hostile agents, they had to contend with a

world in which these same beings could be used by one's enemies to specifically target both

individuals and the broader religious institutions to which they belonged. The examples

presented here come from two well-known works, the Śārdulakārṇāvadāna and the

Bhaiṣajyaguruvaiḍūryaprabharājasūtra (henceforth Bhaiṣajyagurusūtra). Both are pre-

tantric works that contain evidence of sorcery being performed against Buddhists.

Interestingly, the aggressors indicated in both cases bear no explicit sectarian affiliation.

The Śārdulakarṇāvadāna opens with a short account of the Buddha's attendant

Ānanda falling victim to a sorcerer's spell. After gathering his robe and bowl, Ānanda

proceeds to Śrāvastī to beg for alms. On the way, he stops and asks an outcaste girl named

Prakṛti to ladle some water into his bowl. Prakṛti is instantly smitten with Ānanda, and begins

to plot to win his affection by enlisting her mother to cast a spell, which the text terms a

vidyāmantra, to draw Ānanda to her so that she may make him her husband. Prakṛti's mother

is initially unwilling to cast the spell for her daughter, first because she notes that the Kośala

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King Prasenajit may kill her and all of the caṇḍālas if he finds out, and second because she is

skeptical that her magic will be able to work against one of the Buddha's chief disciples

because he is 'free from desire.' As discussed in greater detail below, keeping one's vows and

cultivating a mind that is 'free from desire' is considered a powerful prophylactic in Buddhist

literature against interference or possession by spirit beings. Prakṛti eventually convinces her

mother to cast the spell, the spell works, and Ānanda is summoned to the house, causing him

to wonder whether or not the Buddha has completely forsaken him. The Buddha then directs

his attention toward Ānanda and recites his own spell, freeing him from the summoning spell

cast by Prakṛti's mother. As one might imagine, Prakṛti is not exactly pleased with her mother

and demands an explanation, prompting a brief interchange between the two about the

superiority of the Buddha's ability to cast spells. Here Prakṛti's mother states, "The ascetic

Gautama's mantras are extremely powerful, ours are not. My child, when he wishes, the

ascetic Gautama can break all the mantras that have power over the entire world. Moreover, a

worldly [mantra] is not able to break the ascetic Gautama's mantras. Thus the ascetic

Gautama's mantras are the most powerful."83 The passage continues with Ānanda returning to

the Buddha's camp where he teaches Ānanda a spell that can be used to free oneself from

various forms of legal reprimand such as physical and verbal abuse. The Buddha then

prescribes that Ānanda, and of course by extension the reader, may wear the spell as an

incanted cord tied around the arm that will bring good luck and is not able to be

overpowered, except for when one's previous karma is the primary cause.84

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 The performance of sorcery in the Śārdulakārṇāvadāna appears at first to function as

another example of the 'supernatural McGuffin'85 that one finds in so many other largely

narrative, plot-driven works of South Asian literature. Here the recitation of these spells

advance the plot by introducing the outcaste girl Prakṛti's intense desire for Ānanda, which

the Buddha subsequently uses to trick her into taking ordination. The story then pivots

toward the issue of ordaining outcastes as the upper classes of Śrāvastī learn that the Buddha

has ordained a caṇḍāli girl, and the primary narrative of the story progresses from that point.

The three spells at the beginning of the Śārdulakārṇāvadāna do, however, serve a greater

purpose than functioning as a simple plot device. The author could just as easily have had the

Buddha ordain an outcaste girl without including the narrative of her soliciting her mother's

sorcery services, or without having the Buddha recite his own counter spell to free Ānanda,

or without the Buddha subsequently teaching Ānanda an entirely different spell and ordering

him to teach it to others.

The broader narrative of the Śārdulakārṇāvadāna is largely concerned with the issue

of caste and the ordination of outcastes and the work can easily be analyzed within a

sociological paradigm that might ignore the importance of the more supernatural ritual

technologies in its opening narrative. But when the concerns dictated by a sociological

paradigm are placed aside in favor of adopting a demonological paradigm, the text reveals a

potential historical layer that the former would likely miss. In all three cases, the

vidyāmantras are included in their entirety. It is as if the author wished to provide the reader

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with three types of spells—one 'worldly' summoning spell, a second spell to break that

summoning spell, and a third spell that can be recited or incanted into a piece of thread to

protect an individual from various kinds of legal reprimand, perhaps as a consequence of

being caught reciting spells (the consequences of which Prakṛti's mother appears to be well

aware). Prakṛti's mother's spell enlists the help of a class of intermediary beings through the

performance of a fire offering or homa. Here she explicitly invokes a class of grahas

(śikhagrahā devā viśikhagrahā devā) by first flattering them and then asking them to bring

Ānanda to her.86 Perhaps most importantly, there is nothing in the text to indicate that

Prakṛti's mother belongs to any specific religious order. In fact, the primary plot of the

Śārdulakārṇāvadāna's opening narrative revolves around the fact that admitting outcastes

into renunciant orders was offensive to the higher echelons of Śrāvastī society. Including the

actual formulae for these spells might lend the text a sense of believability for an audience

that lives in a world in which such acts of sorcery are commonplace, and in which lower

caste members of society who are not affiliated with any particular sect are known to have

possessed their own brand of thaumaturgic ability. Statements regarding the superiority of

the Buddha's spells in the brief interchange between Prakṛti and her mother in the opening of

the Śārdulakārṇāvadāna are also common in Buddhist literature. Such statements provide

strong evidence that the Buddhist saṅghas were heavily invested in presenting themselves as

effective mediators of the spirit world to an audience that often found itself in need of a good

























































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sorcerer, or whose own classes of local, 'freelance' sorcerers might find use for an incanting

spell to protect against the potential legal consequences of being caught practicing their craft.

The evidence for sorcery in the Bhaiṣajyagurusūtra stands follows the primary

section of the text containing the Buddha's explanation of the apotropaic power of

recollecting the Tathāgata Bhaiṣajyaguru. The passage reads:

Moreover, Mañjuśrī, there are beings who delight in calumny, who cause
mutual strife, fighting, and conflict among sentient beings. Those sentient
beings with hostile thoughts toward each other create various nonvirtues by
means of body, speech, and mind, those who wish harm upon one another
continually attack each other for no reason. They invoke a forest deity
(vanadevatāṃ), a tree-deity (vṛkṣadevatāṃ), and a mountain-deity
(giridevatāṃ). They invoke the individual spirits in the cremation grounds.
And they deprive living beings who have taken birth as animals of their life.
They make offerings to the yakṣas and rākṣasas who eat flesh and blood.
[After writing their] enemy’s name or making an effigy, they perform a
violent spell, and by enlisting a kākhorda or vetāla they desire to bring about
an obstacle to [the target's] life or to destroy his body.87

The passage goes on to state that such sorcery is ineffective when cast against people who

have merely heard the name of the Tathāgata Bhaiṣajyaguru, and suggests that those beings

who engage in such harmful acts of sorcery are themselves pacified when they hear this

name. The Bhaiṣajyagurusūtra is not a narrative text in the style of an avadāna, and this

reference to the weaponization of spirit deities is embedded in the text's larger project of

outlining the various contexts in which the devotee may invoke the Tathāgata

Bhaiṣajyaguruvaidūryaprabha for protection. It is thus not merely a didactic, narrative work

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but a practical, prescriptive text. Its reference to the weaponization of the world of nonhuman

beings is thus not merely a plot device, and should be taken as a reflection of the world that

this text's liturgy wishes to directly address, and the world in which its audience found itself.

This world is best reflected in the early esoteric Buddhist literature of the kriyātantra, and

this is precisely where one finds this sūtra in the Tibetan canon.

IV. Family, Collective Identity, and other Means of Ritual Protection

Asceticism is, in ways that are social and cultural as well as metaphysical, and

soteriological, largely about the manipulation, adoption, obfuscation, and destruction of

identity. Buddhist renunciants who 'set forth' (Skt. pra + vraj) from householder life, a

mimetic performance following the model of Śākyamuni's own path to awakening, literally

leave home, surrendering their former social and familial identities. Interpretations of the

renunciant's departure for ascetic life can easily slide into the same ideological fallacy

modeled in Weber's ideal type of Buddhist 'other-worldly mysticism.' But such

interpretations perhaps buy in too fully to the traditions own rhetoric of renunciation. As we

see modeled in hagiographical literature on the life of the Buddha, ties to family are not so

easily severed and the attempt to 'go forth' from the home does not on its own amount to

somehow entering into an entirely different world, never to return again. After all,

Śākyamuni's very name indicates continuity with his family identity despite his renunciation

of householder life. This continuity is formally expressed in narrative accounts of the

Buddha's eventual return to Kapilavastu and continued engagement with his own family. For

this and other reasons, Romila Thapar encourages scholars make a distinction between

'asceticism' and 'renunciation' in her recent remarks on the Weberian classification of

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Buddhism as an 'other-worldly mysticism.' Thapar states that "...unlike asceticism,

renunciation does not remove the person from society, it sets up an alternate society that the

renouncer can join."88 Thapar's comments align well with Sondra L. Hausner's observations

in her ethnographic work on modern Śaiva asceticism. Hausner notes that sādhus continue to

generate and participate in communal networks and communal identities despite the

normative rhetoric of seclusion and isolation that defines them as members of an ascetic

order.89 Even the most extreme forms of asceticism do not completely extract the individual

from society—they embed the ascetic in one or more of a number of social structures, both

supernatural and mundane, that operate at society's margins. Thus despite their own rhetoric

of abandoning the comforts of home and worldly life, in actuality both the renunciant and the

ascetic exchange one identity for another, or one 'family' (kula) for another. This is one way

to interpret the phrase 'a son or daughter of the lineage' (kulaputro vā kuladuhitā vā) so

frequently used in Buddhist scripture to signify individuals who have taken on a new

Buddhist identity.

Gotra, another term with strong familial connotations, is also used to identify

Buddhist ascetics and renunciants belonging to one of the three divisions of the Buddhist

path, being those whose gotra is that of a 'hearer' (śrāvaka), those whose gotra is that of a

solitary Buddha (pratyekabuddha), and those whose gotra is that of a being intent upon

awakening (bodhisattva). In this context the term gotra is often translated as a 'class,'

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'family,' or 'genus.'90 But the etymology of the term may reveal something important about

the conception of ascetic identities that has broad implications for applying a demonological

paradigm to our interpretation of asceticism and ascetic communities. These implications

also have something to offer our understanding of the social and existential dynamics at work

in the radically transgressive asceticism in the Buddhist Vajrayāna.

The Vedic etymology for gotra describes the term as a derivative of the noun go or

'cow' and an upapādasamāsa ending derived from the verbal root trai, meaning 'to protect.'

Thus a gotra is something to 'protect the cows,' or an enclosure or cow-pen. By the time the

term appears in the Chandogyopaniṣad, Śāṅkhāyanaśrautasūtra, and the Kauśikasūtra, its

original meaning has been anthropomorphized and projected onto the family unit. Here it

retains some sense of a 'pen' or 'enclosure,' and is recorded as indicating the "family, enclosed

by the hurdle [i.e. fence]" alongside its other, more familiar meanings of "family, race,

lineage, kin."91 In the Buddhist case, the act of renunciation is thus radical in one sense in

that one leaves the 'enclosure' of one's own birth family, yet it is perhaps less radical in

another sense because this action is quickly followed by one's entrance into a new 'family,'

the Buddhist saṅgha. The etymology of the term gotra as 'family' bears a strong historical

resonance with the notion of a protective structure, and these connotations are alive and well

in the very structure by which one declares oneself a Buddhist, with the community of the

saṅgha functioning as one of three forms of śaraṇa or 'refuge.'

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 The approach to identity in South Asian ascetic orders might be more accurately

understood not only in terms of the complete obliteration of personal identity, but also in

terms of a recognition the fluidity and malleability of personal identity. This is the case

whether one speaks of the transition from a 'worldly' to religious life, the transition through

various stages of religious life through ordination or initiation, the transition from one sect to

another, or the ultimately soteriological transition from fettered existence to liberation. All of

these processes involve exchanging one identity for another, an exchange that is usually

marked by the bestowal of a new name. Ascetic orders and temporary ascetic practices

adopted by all manner of religious actors in South Asia share in common the act of moving

between identities, of shedding one identity for another, and, to allow for the possibility of

the most radical if not rare cases, relinquishing one's former identity in its entirety. In the

majority of instances, the fact that ascetics inevitably take on a new identity by moving from

kula to kula indicates a seemingly inescapable re-inscription of identity within a larger family

unit, and at least one conception of the family unit, as we see in the etymology of the term

gotra, imagines it as a fundamentally protective structure. Thus becoming a 'son of the victor'

or jīnaputra, another heavily familial metaphor for a Buddhist renunciant, does not leave one

exposed, vulnerable, or unprotected. In fact it does quite the opposite.

The construction of the family as a protective unit can be juxtaposed against the

conception of the individual psycho-physical complex as a “container or conduit” rather than

“a closed, discrete system.”92 The idea of the body as a permeable container within a world

populated by beings, both human and nonhuman, who are intent upon laying siege to and

exploiting it for their own purposes has a strong presence in South Asian literature from as

























































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early as the Atharvaveda.93 The protective enclosure of one's natal family could be

transposed onto a new kind of family, the community of renunciants and ascetics with the

vihāra, the domestic space occupied by the saṅgha as a family of renunciants, offered

another level of protection against the influence of spirit beings. This protection could be

reinforced, as Decaroli indicates and as one can readily observe across Buddhist traditions,

by the conversion and re-purposing of one or more powerful spirit beings as the protectors of

the domestic space of the vihāra. But the vihāra could only protect the permeable bodies of

the Buddhist saṅgha when its members were inside its walls. Buddhist monastic life has

always contained elements that tied the monastic community to society, with the very earliest

version of this being the requirement that monks gather food by begging for alms. Buddhist

monks by no means remained cloistered in the protective structure of the vihāra, and as a

result more easily transportable methods were needed to guard the vulnerable, permeable

bodies of monastic saṅgha members from the harmful influences they might encounter

outside of the vihāra.

Protective spells (paritta) and incantations (dhāraṇī) fulfilled the need to protect

individual saṅgha members who found themselves outside of the defensive structure of the

vihāra. With the emergence of the esoteric Buddhist textual traditions, the term mantra

eventually came to reflects a continuity of this particular function of dhāraṇī and paritta.94

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This is reflected in one of the popular etymologies of the term mantra as something that

"protects" (trāṇa) the "mind" (manas).95 Beginning as early as the work of L.A. Waddell,

buddhologists have noted that paritta and dhāraṇī constitute one of "the most cherished

practical element[s] in the Buddhist religion."96 Despite these observations at the opening of

his article on dhāraṇī literature, Waddell's work prefigures a broader pattern in the field of

ignoring the role that spirit deities and popular spirit religions played in the development of

Buddhist traditions. Perhaps owing to the pejorative approach among this early generation of

buddhologists, many later studies on dhāraṇī literature have limited themselves to the term's

connotations regarding the ability to retain scripture in memory. Such studies undoubtedly

place too much emphasis on this function of dhāraṇī. Instances in which the term dhāraṇī

implies the ability to retain scriptural meaning or verse in memory are far outnumbered by

instances in which the term is used to denote a spell that can be used for a range of

apotropaic rites.97 Thus while discussions of Peircean semiotics as a framework for

interpreting the mnemonic function of dhāraṇī98 are of interest to Religious Studies scholars

writing in response to the twentieth century 'linguistic turn,' they tell us very little about the

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dhāraṇī literature's most common practical applications. This problematic hermeneutic is

directly related to the general resistance in the field toward recognizing the influence that

spirit deities, their cults, and the ritual arts that mediate between the human and the spirit

world have had on the development of Buddhist traditions.

Buddhists at all levels of society were subject to the basic existential problem of

possessing a porous, vulnerable body in a world of spirit beings that might do them harm.

This view of the person and the world they inhabit is an important factor in the basic

existential construction of the world and its inhabitants in South Asia, and Buddhist traditions

are by no means an exception to this model. In his inquiry into the status of the person in

South Asia, Louis Dumont argued that the South Asian conception of the renunciant was the

closest thing that any 'traditional' culture had to the Western notion of individualism. In his

own take on Weber's characterization of Buddhism as tradition primarily directed toward an

'other-worldly mysticism,' Dumont articulated this position in his sociological examination of

caste and the status of the individual in India as follows:

The renouncer leaves the world behind in order to devote himself to his own
liberation. Essentially he depends upon no one but himself, he is alone. He
thinks as an individual, and this is the distinctive trait which opposes him to
the man-in-the-world and brings him closer to the western thinker. But while
for us the individual is in the world, here he is found only outside the world, at
least in principle.99

But the model for renunciation in Buddhist traditions is not entirely 'other-worldly,' unless

the entire Buddhist saṅgha is reduced to a homogenous unit that was exclusively focused on

attaining the nirvāṇa of an arhat and transcending the cycle of rebirth. To claim that this is

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the exclusive function of renunciation constitutes a rather uncritical subscription to the

tradition's own normative rhetoric. Instead, the Buddhist saṅgha is more accurately

understood exactly in the way that the term saṅgha suggests, as a community. Generally

speaking, membership within a community is one of a number of means by which

individuals identify themselves in relation to the world in which they live. In a specifically

South Asian cultural context in which the person is conceived within the basic existential

condition of the demonological paradigm—where the psycho-physical constituents of the

person are part of an inherently open, vulnerable system—membership within a community

not only entails a certain degree of protection and refuge in social and political terms, it also

entails a certain degree of protection from the world of spirit beings. Thus it is the case that

the Buddhist ascetic would renounce one family only to claim membership in another in a

repetition of the kind of subject-forming function that membership to a clan or family entails

within this South Asian existential condition.

This is not to say that the ideal asceticism proposed by Dumont and others did not

play an important role in the formulation of Buddhist ascetic identities. The ascetic cultures

of transgressive observances (vrata) and practices (caryā) embodied in the Buddhist culture

of accomplished adepts (siddha) were in part a response to the normalized asceticism of the

Buddhist monastic saṅgha. The ascetic practices associated with esoteric Buddhism provided

a means to renew and re-invigorate the more radical interpretations of the tradition's own

renunciatory rhetoric by challenging the kind of identity-forming processes that are inherent

in a subject's subscription to normative modes of social conduct. In order to express this

radical reformulation, the Buddhist siddhas deliberately sought out spaces for their ascetic

practices that lay outside of worldly conventions and the protective edifice of religious,

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political, and social institutions. Such edifices were not only socially constructed, they were

also quite literally constructed in the physical structure of the vihāra and the later, more

mobile protective ritual structure of the maṇḍala.

These aspects of Buddhist ritual in the exoteric as well as esoteric systems of the

kriyā and caryātantras were are widely criticized by siddhas such as the authors of The

Seven Siddhi Texts. The terms employed to denigrate these practices all derive from the

Sanskrit root klṛp, with one derivation of this term, kalpa becoming a term of art referring to

the 'ritual manual' itself, which contains 'ordered' or 'arranged' discourses on the performance

of Buddhist rituals. The demonological paradigm can provide a greater degree of nuance in

our understanding of the dual significance that underlies the rejection of the 'constructs' of

the kalpa or 'ritual manual' in siddha literature. When variants of the verbal root klṛp are used

to critique the rituals of the kriyā- and caryātantras, the critique that these practices are

'conceptual' is not meant in an exclusively cognitive or idealist sense. Such critiques also bear

the connotations of those terms derived from the root klṛp that indicate the actual

construction and arrangement of consecrated ritual spaces and the construction of a purified

body to facilitate the successful performance of the rite within ritually consecrated space. The

interpretation of terms that are derived from the verbal root klṛp to signify the process of

conceptual construction is, in most cases, entirely appropriate. But the dual significance that

these terms take on in certain contexts requires that we interpret them as signifiers for both

the process of generating conceptual constructs and their physical expression in the

construction of ritually consecrated spaces and bodies. In this sense, the term kalpa and other

derivatives of the root klṛp point to a semantic relationship between the conceptual processes

inherent in the epistemological formation of the person and the rites prescribed in the kriyā-

xq
and caryātantras that provide guidelines for the internal and external ritual construction of

protected space in response to the basic existential problem of a personhood in which the

mind-body complex is seen as a vulnerable, open conduit. The Buddhist siddhas criticized

both the idealist and materialist aspects of this kind of 'construction.' The important role that

self-reflexive awareness (svasaṃvedana) plays in the yogic epistemology of the siddhas is

clearly a rejection of the kind of dualistic epistemology that constructs the person as a subject

in relationship to the perception of external objects. At the same time, they also rejected the

externally constructed institutional structures that stood as an initial line of defense, the

ritually constructed protective structures of the early tantras, and the socially constructed

modes of normative conduct that guarded the body against assault from the unseen world of

spirit deities. Rejecting these protective physical and conceptual constructs allowed the

siddhas to demonstrate their invulnerability to these forces. Thus the 'attainment' of the

Buddhist siddha sought to resolve of the basic existential problem inherent to the South

Asian vision of personhood. This is at least one connotation underlying the professed goal of

attaining the state of vajrasattva or an 'indestructible being.'

A variety of locations are prescribed for the performance of practices that

demonstrate the advanced Vajrayāna siddha's final resolution of the fundamental problem of

the permeable body, but none was more influential in dictating the ritual theory, iconography,

and aesthetics of tantric Buddhism than the śmaśāna or 'cremation ground.' The phrase

"culture of the cremation ground"100 was originally coined in reference to the Śaiva ascetic

movements that emerged by the middle of the first millennium CE. But Buddhists had

already been practicing their own cremation ground asceticism for centuries before this ritual

space gained a strong Śaiva presence with the advent of the Pañcārthika Pāśupata ascetic

























































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system reflected in Kauṇḍinya's (c. 4th–5th C.E.) commentary to the Pāśupatasūtra.101 It is

also clear that Buddhists had been practicing in and around cremation grounds for centuries

before the Buddhist "culture of the cremation ground" reached its full ritual, iconographic,

and soteriological expression in the yoginītantras. The Laṅkāvatārasūtra, for instance, lists

"charnel ground ascetics" or śaśānikā as one of a number of locations for the practice of

Buddhist yogins.102 Using archeological evidence that locates the sights of many of the

earliest Buddhist vihāras over megalithic burial grounds, Decaroli argues that Buddhists

positioned themselves as mediators between the human and nonhuman worlds by locating

their vihāras in many cases in the same locations as burial grounds from the megalithic

period.103 Decaroli provides several examples in which Buddhists converted both the charnel

grounds and the supernatural beings that dwelled therein and enlisted them as servants of the

saṅgha. He summarizes the relevant material from the chronicle of the Chinese pilgrim

Faxian (in India 399–414 CE) in the following excerpt:

The Chinese Pilgrim Faxian mentions in his description of the Karaṇḍa

bamboo garden near Rajagṛha that ‘North of the vihāra two or three le [less
than one mile] was the Śmaśānam... Faxian also mentions the ‘Great Heap’
monastery, which is named after a wicked demon who used to dwell at this
location. After the demon’s conversion the site was turned into a vihāra and
the formerly dangerous inhabitant was, in Faxian’s time... famous for
magically keeping the paths of the monastery swept. He also mentions a
monastery east of Kauśāmbi near the spot where the Buddha converted an
‘evil demon’ and practiced meditation.104

Faxian's account positions this vihāra between the śmaśāna and the city of Rajagṛha, an

appropriate place to construct an infrastructure that could maintain a boundary around the

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city, preventing the restless dead and the beings that haunt the cremation grounds from

interfering in civic life.

One of Decaroli's most interesting treatments of this topic appears in his analysis of

the narrative literature concerning the Buddha Śākyamuni's liberation at Gayā. As one of a

number of important locations for the performance of śrāddha rites to ensure the recently

deceased's safe passage to the ancestral realm (pretaloka),105 Gayā has maintained some

association with the management and mediation of spirit beings for nearly two millennia.106

Decaroli uses the Nidānakathā or Origin Story, a fifth century hagiography of the Buddha, to

highlight a number of themes in the narrative that reproduce aspects of Vaidika Brahmin

śrāddha rites. In light of this evidence, he argues that "[t]he Nidānakathā enlightenment tale

features Śākyamuni, a mendicant kṣatriya renouncer, assuming the role of the brahman

officiate and undertaking the rites for a low-caste woman, thereby intentionally transgressing

many of the restrictions expressed in the brahmanical codes," and thus, "[a]t least

symbolically, the implication is made that this ritual is far more effective than the traditional

śrāddha rites."107 It is possible that there is also another important thematic layer to the

Buddha's (or later Buddhists') selection of Gayā as the location for the seat of enlightenment.

The brahmanical śrāddha rites do not only provide a means for guaranteeing the safe

transition of the dead to the ancestral world, they also serve as a ritual technology for

preventing the proliferation of the restless dead in the world of the living. But śrāddha rites

are not always carried out effectively, and as a result the locations at which these rites are

























































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performed can become overwhelmed by the presence of the restless dead. This belief was

shared with me before a recent trip to Gayā in February 2016, when I was told that people

believe that there are a lot of 'bhūt' and 'pret' in Gayā because the brahmin priests do not

always perform the offerings correctly, leaving the dead to wander and create problems. This

detail provides an important perspective for the story of Śākyamuni's māravijaya or 'victory

over Māra,' the seminal moment of his awakening. As Decaroli notes, Śākyamuni appears to

have selected a site overrun with potentially harmful spirit deities when he chose to practice

his austerities on the outskirts of Gayā, and his choice of such a place would have been

perceived as a particularly brave act.108 Decaroli's analysis thus brings the story of

Śākyamuni Buddha's victory over Māra and enlightenment enticingly close to the very same

cremation ground asceticism that associated with tantric Buddhism, and considered by some

to have an entirely non-Buddhist, Śaiva derivation.

The theoretical apparatus underlying this narrative, however, differs from that of the

cremation ground asceticism of the tantric Buddhist siddhas. This difference is the best

indicator of the ethical shift between the cremation ground asceticism of the early Buddhist

traditions and that of the later esoteric traditions. In both contexts, the maintenance of vows

(saṁvaram, samayam) constitutes the ritual mechanism for demonstrating one's

invulnerability to various inimical spirit deities, but the structure of these vows differ

dramatically in the esoteric context. The original model for ritual protection from attack by

spirit deities, according to Decaroli's evidence, depended on the cultivation of moral virtue

through proper maintenance of monastic and lay vows. In the later, tantric traditions of the

siddhas, the samaya or vow by which the yogin wins the favor of the wrathful spirit beings is

specifically oriented against the maintenance of ordinary ethical modes of conduct. Both

























































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systems, however, reflect Fred Smith's observations on the intersection of morality and the

pathology of possession in South Asian literature.109 There are thus at least two theoretical

models for Buddhist cremation ground asceticism—the exoteric model that emphasizes the

cultivation of moral and ethical conduct via the detachment or eradication of desire as a

means to guard against the forces of the spirit world, and the esoteric model that prescribes a

calculated rejection of normative moral and ethical conduct through performing ascetic

observances (vrata) and practices (caryā) in locations that are overrun, like Śākyamuni's

Gayā, with potentially harmful spirit beings. These practices constitute a rejection of the

edifice of normative ethics and morality as a protective structure that guards the vulnerable,

porous, embodied person from the harmful effects of the world.

V. Transgressive Asceticism: Reconsidering the Pāśupatas

The Śaiva cremation ground ascetic tradition of the Pāśupatas as it survives in Kauṇḍinya's

Pāśupatasūtabhāṣya preserves a certain tension around ritual purification as the basis for

cultivating immunity to the negative influence of spirit deities and its requirement that an

initiate engage in social behaviors and live in locations that are broadly understood as

inherently polluting. Thus the Liṅgapurāṇa, elaborating upon the ritual prescription of

Pāśupasūtra 1.2 that "one should bathe with ash three times a day" (bhasmanā triṣavanaṃ

snāyita), outlines its explanation of the rite primarily in terms of purification through fasting,

bathing, and wearing white garments. The performance of the rite that appears in the

Liṅgapurāṇa culminates in the subject smearing his body first with ash produced from the

"Rudra fire" homa, and in a subsequent verses with ash produced from the fire of an

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Agnihotra sacrifice.110 The act of bathing in ash thus might be interpreted as an additional

purification ritual in which one purifies the body with the residue of the homa. This

conception of the preliminary rites of the Pāśupata practice is so completely dependent upon

brahmanical notions of ritual purity that it is difficult to argue for this tradition's direct

influence on the later antinomian practices in the Buddhist tantras.111 But the connection

between these two traditions has perhaps been too hastily rejected on the basis of a false

comparison between the advanced stages of ascetic practice in the Buddhist tantras and the

preliminary stage purification practice of the Pāśupatas. While the Buddhist cremation

ground culture of the tantric siddhas undoubtedly enjoyed a far more direct relationship with

Śaiva kāpālika asceticism, the kāpālikavrata, which exhibits obvious correlations with the

transgressive antinomian Buddhist vrata and caryā practices, exists as a part of a continuum

of Śaiva ascetic practices that inevitably leads one back to the Pāśupatas. What's more, when

we adopt a demonological paradigm to analyze the relationship between the Buddhist and

Pāśupata models of cremation ground asceticism, a number of structural similarities emerge

between the two traditions that render their relationship a bit more obvious.

The Pāśupata sects drew their initiates come from the brahmin caste, but the structure

of the Pāśupata vrata did constitute a rejection of the social conventions of Vaidika

























































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Brahmanism. In this sense Pāśupata asceticism is more accurately understood as a Śaiva

incorporation of brahmanical identity than a mainstream Vaidika brahmin practice.112 The

purāṇic narratives of Lakuli or Lākulīśa's own 'origin story' even provide a mythology for the

success with which theistic Śaivism inscribed itself within a broader brahmin identity. The

common mythology around the proposed author of the Pāśupatasūtra, Lakulīśa in twenty-

three of the Vāyupurāṇa and chapter twenty-four of the Liṅgapurāṇa113 recalls that

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Maheśvara incarnated himself as a brahmacārin named Lakulin by entering into a dead body

that had been discarded in a cremation-ground outside of the settlement of Kāyāvatāra (or

Kāyāvarohana).114 These accounts speak of the resurrection of brahmanical culture through

an emergent form of theistic Śaiva brahmanism by using the image of the dead body of a

young brahmacārin that has been resurrected through union or yoga with Maheśvara.

The Purāṇic accounts of the origins of the Pāśupata tradition signal some differences

between the Śaiva and Buddhist approaches to cremation ground asceticism that persisted

even as the intertextuality between these traditions escalated in the latter half of the first

millennium CE. Where the Buddhist paradigm of Śākyamuni's māravijaya preserves the

theme of negative possession in its goal of attaining victory over the world of spirits and

becoming impervious to attack by Māra and his hordes, the Śaiva paradigm in the Lākulīśa

myth foregrounds the mechanics of positive possession.115 The Lākulīśa myth might be read

as establishing a yogic mechanics of possession as a means for gaining invulnerability and

control over spirit deities through complete union with Maheśvara, while the Buddhist myth

maintains that Śākyamuni gained control over the world of spirit deities through becoming

impervious to its advances. The mechanics of positive possession embedded in the Lākulīśa

origin story would not only find broader application in later Śaiva ascetic traditions, it would

also come to be incorporated into the esoteric Buddhist goal of attaining union (yoga) with

the deity maṇḍala.

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Śaiva and Buddhist affiliated ascetics and the inevitable interactions between these two

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participants in this ascetic culture should not be underestimated. From the Śaiva side, quite

possibly the oldest stratum of this ascetic culture is found in the fourth and fifth phases of

practice for an initiated Pāśupata. The Pāśupata initiate who completed the first ‘marked’

(vyakta) stage, the second ‘unmarked’ (avyakta) stage, and the third stage of ‘victory’ (jaya)

proceeded to the fourth ‘cutting’ (cheda) stage where he lived out the remainder of his life in

a cremation ground116 before attaining the final aim of his practice, ‘the end of suffering’

(duḥkhānta), in the fifth stage of ‘cessation’ (nisthā).117 While Buddhists participated in

ascetic practices in which one took up temporary residence in this ascetic landscape, the final

two stages for the Pāśupata ascetic indicate that Pāśupatas who completed this ascetic path

most likely became permanent fixtures at the cremation grounds.

This shift in the demographics of the ascetic landscape of the cremation grounds may

have begun as early as the first or second century CE. The Mathurā pillar inscription of

Chandragupta II (380–413/15 C.E.) dating to the year 380 C.E. is the most commonly cited

epigraphic evidence for the emergence of the Pāśupata sect.118 D.R. Bhandarkar first placed

Lakulīśa in the 1st–2nd century C.E. based on his mention in the Vāyupurāṇa, commonly

dated to the early Gupta period. Later, in a 1931 publication, D.R. Bhandarkar corroborated

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these literary data through relying upon a lineage list included in Candragupta II’s Mathurā

inscription and extrapolating the tradition associated with this lineage back eleven

generations, thus locating its first member in the 1st2nd centuries CE.119 As Lorenzen notes,

most scholars accept these dates based on Bhandarkar’s work even though his conclusions

remain problematic in that neither the name Lakulīśa nor the term Pāśupata actually appear in

the inscription. Instead, the pillar inscription is connected to the Pāñcārthika Pāśupatas based

on the assumption that the ‘maheśvaras’ it mentions belonged to the lineage of the ‘Lakulin’

mentioned in the Vāyupurāṇa.120

More recent scholarship on textual references to Pāśupata ascetics has contributed

further evidence for placing the beginning of the Pāñcārthika tradition in the early centuries

CE. Diwakar Acharya’s 2013 study contains a thorough account of early textual references to

Pāśupatas. Noting that the term ‘Pāśupata’ as it relates to a religious sect appears only once

in a later section of the Mahābhārata,121 Acharya's work compares a large sampling of texts

stands as one of the best compilations of early textual references to the tradition to date. His

earliest references are taken from Bharata’s Nāṭyaśāstra (2nd–4th CE), the Lalitavistara (4th

CE), and Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośabhāṣya (4th CE). Acharya notes two instances in

which Bharata’s Nāṭyaśāstra references Pāśupatas, the first of which is an explicit reference

made in the context of depicting various ascetic orders in theatrical performance, and the

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second of which is an implicit reference to the appearance and behaviors of the Pāśupata

ascetic in the dramatic depiction of madness. The latter reference reads:

Madness, of course, arises due to the [adverse] determinant emotional

conditions (vibhāva) like separation from desired persons, loss of property,
injury, excess of [any or all of] the three [corporeal humors:] wind, bile, and
phlegm. One should act it out by ways of causeless laughing, weeping, and
crying out loud; by speaking nonsense, [now] lying down, [then] sitting,
standing up, running, dancing, singing, [and] reading; by smearing ashes and
dust on the body, by using, carrying, and decorating oneself with grasses, used
garlands, filthy clothes, rags, clay pots, bowls, and platters; with [these] many
unsettled movements and imitations which are [in this context] the consequent
emotional conditions (anubhāva).122

The behaviors prescribed here have shared correlates in the Pāśupatasūtra, in Kauṇḍinya’s

bhāṣya, and the sixth chapter of one of the most important of The Seven Siddhi Texts, the

Buddhist mahāsiddha Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi.123 The material from the Lalitavistara,

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anointing oneself with ashes, ink, the ‘dark’ substance of used garlands... carrying a water-

pot of a certain style, skull-cups, and skull-staff, the[se] deluded people hold that purity is

achieved.”124 Using these data to extrapolate back to the early second century, Acharya

argues that the “twice born in the habit of lying in ashes” in the Buddhacarita 7.1 as well as

the account of an ash-smeared ascetic who suggests prince Siddhārtha follow the Sāṁkhyā

teacher Arāḍa in the same work may possibly be a Pāśupata.125

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 The reference from Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakośa discusses the meaning of the

terms caryā and vrata in its polemic against what appear to be Pāśupata practices. The

passage follows:

‘Conduct’ means abstinence from bad conduct, [and] ‘observance’ means the
observance [vrata] of [behaving like] a dog, or a bull, or the like. And [also],
as the Nirgrantha and other like-minded ascetics [say]: ‘[an ascetic] becomes
naked, does not have any cloth.’ This is an elaboration [going beyond the
main statement].

[It also includes] adoption of [the rule of] holding a staff and a hide, [that of]
keeping matted hairs and smearing ashes, [and that of] keeping a set of three
staffs and shaving the head, and of other similar ones, seen among the
brahmins, Pāśupatas, and Parivrājakas, and other similar groups
[respectively].126

Here a brief excursus on Vasubandhu's mention of ‘behaving like a bull,’ which constitutes

the central focus of Acharya’s study, is in order. Acharya argues that this practice may

represent an early stratum of Pāśupata practice that was largely forgotten by the time that

Kauṇḍinya composed his commentary. Acharya’s data indicate that by imitating the behavior

of a bull, the Pāśupata ascetic would have engaged in precisely the kind of subversion of the

vrata that appear in later, tantric uses of the term where they intentionally contradict

orthodox brahmanical notions of purity and ritual purification. This later use of the term in

the context of Buddhist Vajrayāna and the kāpālika mahāvrata explicitly proscribes the

adherence to any and all normative codes of ritual purity, replacing these codes with one

single overarching injunction—that all judgment as to the purity and impurity of any given

action is to be entirely rejected.127

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 Based on this evidence, Acharya indicates that it is possible that the Pāśupata

sādhana was originally conceived independently of brahmanical orthodoxy and may

originally have had little to do with ritual purification. This earlier strata of the ritual was

largely lost and replaced by a Pāśupatism that was “presented in a modified and

philosophized way, perhaps long before Kauṇḍinya”128 that inscribed the govrata within a

brahmanical orthopraxy of ritual purity and purification. Fragments of the practice remain

visible in the Pāśupatasūtra in verse 5.18, which reads “godharmā mṛgadharmā vā,” and on

which Kauṇḍinya comments “[t]hough these two [a cow and a deer] have many qualities,

their common quality is being taken, that is the power of tolerating all contradictory

sensations like physical and mental feelings, etc.”129 Acharya points to the possible

connections between the prescribed behaviors related to all five of the pañcārtha and the

behavior of bulls. Among these, the ascetic practices of the avyakta stage in which a sādhaka

publicly courts disfavor hold the most obvious connections to the transgressive reformulation

of the tantric Buddhist vrata and caryā. His work indicates some overlap between the

'behavior of bulls' and the signs of ‘madness’ the Pāśupata ascetic displays in the second,

avyakta stage of the practice. These signs are subsumed under the prescription in PS 4.6 that

one “should wander alone in public like a madman” (unmatavad eko vicareta loke).

Acharya's analysis lends support to Daniel H.H. Ingalls’s suspicion that “the sūtras

concerning lechery, improper action and improper speech once referred to actions less

innocent than those specified by the commentator Kauṇḍinya."130

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 Acharya then turns to the story of Dīrghatamas from the Brahmāṇḍapurāṇa, an

elaboration on the account of this figure in the Mahābhārata [MBh 1.98.6–32], as evidence

that the short sūtra on the 'bull-observance' in the Pāśupatasūtra may in fact hide an older,

far more transgressive ascetic tradition. Here Dīrghatamas chastises a bull whom he catches

eating the kuśa grass intended for the new moon sacrifice by grabbing him by the horns. In

his own defense, the bull argues:

My dear, we have neither fatal sin nor theft. We do not distinguish at all what
is to be eaten and drunk, and what is not. And, o brahmin, we truly do not
[distinguish] what should be done and what not, nor who is fit for sexual
relation and who not. We are not sinners, o brahmin, because all of this is
known from the tradition as the nature of bulls.131

While Mahābhārata itself contains only one explicit reference to a religious sect known by

the term Pāśupata, it also contains references to a group of brahmins practicing something

called a govrata as an act of mimesis relating to the “Bhūtapati, the great lord (Maheśvara) of

all living beings.”132 Acharya also points out that the noticeable absence of specific reference

to Pāśupatas in the Mahābhārata is matched by the notable absence of the term on

Candragupta II’s pillar inscription. Perhaps Chandragupta II’s pillar inscription, which never

mentions Pāśupatas but refers instead to a lineage of ‘māheśvaras,’ contains a reference to

the very same govrata-brahmins who worship ‘The lord of beings/spirits, the great lord

(bhūtapati maheśvara)’ in the Mahābhārata? 133 In any case, Acharya’s argument surely adds

to the possibility that the ascetic practice described in the Pāśupatasūtra may at one time

have reflected an approach to an embodied, physically enacted ascetic observance that was

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offensive to orthodox brahmanical codes of purity. As the Śaiva atimārga proceeded to

assimilate itself to brahmanical culture, this observance was reimagined and inscribed within

the very system it had originally rejected as an act of purification through karmic exchange

with those who would react adversely to the behavior of the initiate. This would imply that

the original practice was not necessarily concerned with the parameters of brahmanical ritual

purity, and may have more closely approximated the collapse of the purity-impurity dialectic

demonstrated in the transgressive ascetic practices associated with the textual traditions of

the Buddhist siddhas.

This a movement away from the original intent of the govrata may be evident in the

expansion of the Mahābhārata's account of Dīrghatamas in the Brahmaṇḍapurāṇa. As if it

wasn’t enough that the brahmanical authors and redactors of both the Mahābhārata and the

Brahmaṇḍapurāṇa chose the name Dīrghatamas (lit. ‘He who is in deep darkness’ i.e.

blind)134 to describe what kind of individual engages in such a practice, the fate Dīrghatamas

suffers by following the ‘law of the bulls’ (godharma) and taking up the ‘bull-observance’

(govrata) indicates that they sought to warn their readers about the potential fate of

individuals who engage in such offensive ascetic practices. The Mahābhārata provides a

rather thin explanation as to why Dīrghatamas was cast out by his sons, who throw him into

the Ganges,135 but the Brahmaṇḍapurāṇa fills in some of the gaps in the epic's account. This

purāṇic version of the narrative informs the reader that Dīrghatamas’s own people rejected

























































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him and threw him into the Ganges because the blind seer took his govrata too far and raped

his own daughter-in-law.136 The narrative in the Brahmaṇḍapurāṇa thus cautions against

participation in vratas that prescribe transgressive behaviors, noting that they may lead an

individual to take the observance too far, and thus be rejected both by his family by society at

large.

Alexis Sanderson’s research on the Niśvāsatattvasaṁhitā suggests that the

Lākula/Kālamukha Śaiva orders bridged the gap between Pāśupatism and Āgamic Śavism

during a period in which the hard delineation between dualist and non-dualist Saiddhāntika

Śaivism had not yet developed.137 The Niśvāsamukha, the first of five sections of this

saṃhitā,138 paraphrases a number of sūtras from the Pāśupatasūtra in its description of the

two divisions of the atimārga, which are delineated based upon their particular mode or

expression of vrata. Here the Pāñcārthikas are designated as the first level of the atimārga,

which the text calls ‘the observance of those beyond the estates’ (atyāśramavratam). The

second level appears to introduce a new devotion to Rudra that it refers to as the kapālavrata

(the skull-vow), the lokātītavrata (the transmundane vow), and the mahāpāśupatavrata (the

greater Pāśupata vow).139 The significance of this characterization of the Pāśupata as one

who ventures beyond the confines of the āśrama resonates strongly with the development of

the radical modes of asceticism in Buddhist siddha traditions that rejected the protective

structures of the vihāra and the saṅgha and invoked attack from spirit deities and human

























































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beings through the public performance of a number of behaviors that would render the body

of an ordinary person vulnerable to disease, possession, and censure. The demonological

paradigm for which this chapter argues can bring this important structural correlation

between the Pāśupata model and the asceticism of the tantric Buddhist siddhas to light.

The Niśvāsa offers some insight into the apparent confusion between kāpālika and

Kālāmukha ascetics in the works of Rāmānuja (1017–1137) and his guru, Yāmunācārya (c.

1050).140 Here Sanderson cites the following passage from Yāmunācārya’s Āgamaprāmāṇya:

The Kālāmukhas too are outside the Veda; [for] they claim to be able to obtain
miraculously all that they desire whether visible or invisible simply by eating
from a bowl fashioned from a human skull, bathing in the ashes of the dead,
eating them [mixed with their food?], carrying a club, installing a pot
containing alcoholic liquor and worshipping their deity in it, practices which
all the Śāstras condemn.141

Where Lorenzen had suggested that both Rāmānuja and Yāmunācārya were engaging in a

polemical conflation of the orthodox Kālāmukhas with the more radical kāpālika ascetics,142

Sanderson suggests that there was no confusion here, intentional or otherwise. Instead both

Rāmānuja and his teacher reported what the Niśvāsa seems to confirm, that the kāpālikas

were Kālāmukha Śaivas who, belonging to this second division of the atimārga, had taken up

the kapālavrata.143 In addition to showing that the Lākulas/ Kālāmukhas served as a bridge

between the Pāñcārthika Pāśupatas and the later Āgamic Śaiva tradition, Sanderson also

supplies a lengthy passage from the ninth chapter of the Caryāpāda of the Mataṅgāgama

describing a vrata that appears to have inherited elements from both the Pāñcārthika and

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Lākula traditions.144 He then offers the following commentary on the third chapter of the

Niśvāsaguhya, which also indicates certain shared elements in the vratas performed by

Pāśupatas and Lākulas/Kālamukhas:

The first of these Vratas, in which a person accuses himself of the murder of a
cow, his mother, his father, his brother or a Brahman guest, is evidently in the
tradition of provoking unmerited condemnation through feigning sin that
characterizes the Pāñcārthika in the second stage of practice, in which he
conceals his identity from the world. The third, in which one smears oneself
with ashes, wears rags, dances, sings, laughs and babbles like a madman,
could also be said to go back to the same origin, since the Pāśupatasūtra
instructs the Pāñcārthika to provoke abuse by acting like a madman (4.6:
unmattavad vicareta). In the Lākula system there was an independent Vrata of
this name, an unmattavratam. This, according to Abhinavagupta’s
commentary on Bharatanāṭyaśāstra, was the practice of Lākulas in the
advanced ‘Paramayogin’ stage of their practice.145

Although the language of Pāśupatasūtra 4.6 does not specifically refer to a ‘madman’s vow,’

the Lākula system, which has demonstrated lines of influence from the Pāśupata system, did

make use of the term in its prescription to wander like a madman. A similar practice appears

in Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi, which provides detailed and explicit instructions on the

Buddhist version of the unmattavrata.146 Participation in the culture of the cremation-ground

among Śaiva orders of the atimārga included both the Pāñcārthika-Pāśupatas and

Lākulas/Kālamukhas. The kāpālika ascetics were most likely Lākula/ Kālamukhas who had

taken up the kapālavrata/ mahāvrata mentioned in the Niśvāsa. The third term used to

describe the Lākula observance, the mahāpāśupatavrata, is quite clear in its invocation of the

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Pāñcārthika-Pāśupatas, an ascetic tradition predating the Lākula/ Kālamukha sect that had

been appropriated and repackaged with a new emphasis on devotion to Rudra/Śiva through a

vrata of an embodied, ritual mimesis.147 Most importantly, all of these Śaiva orders were

associated with the orthodoxy of the atimārga, not the orders of the mantramārga that share

a obvious iconographic correlations and intertextuality with the Buddhist siddha traditions.

All of the data in this brief review of materials on early Śaiva ascetic orders indicate

that by the time the transgressive ascetic practices of the Buddhist siddhas emerged in the

seventh or eighth century, Śaiva initiates already constituted the majority population in the

ascetic landscape of the cremation ground. However, these data also indicate a relatively

nebulous conception of separate orders of Śaiva ascetic culture. The very fact that the

Niśvāsa found it necessary to present a more systematic and organized taxonomy of various

Śaiva sects and their associated ascetic practices might be some indication of how difficult it

was at times to distinguish which Śaiva ascetic belonged to which sect. All of these ascetic

orders engaged in deliberate acts of dissimulation, and those who sought to codify their

distinct features in texts were forced to come to terms with the challenging task of

disentangling one group of ascetics from another.148 The acts of dissimulation prescribed in

the earliest forms of cremation ground ascetic practice in the Pāśupata vrata are precursors to

the Buddhist vrata and caryā practices outlined in Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi and

Anaṅgavajra's Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi that provide the broader context for the entire

corpus of The Seven Siddhi Texts. The importance of dissimulation in the performance of the

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guhyacaryā and its role in producing the highly Śaiva-Buddhist hybridized literature of the

yoginītantras is taken up later in chapter six.

V. Conclusion: Esoteric Asceticism and the Demonological Horizon of Ethics

When we interpret the problem of ethics in the Buddhist and Śaiva ascetic cultures of the

cremation grounds within a demonological paradigm, we see that this problem emerges at the

points at which the world with its pantheon of potentially harmful spirit deities intersects

with the permeable conduit of the body. Early Buddhist communities promoted the idea that

maintaining vows guaranteed some degree of protection from the spirit world, and that the

perfection of those vows could afford total control-over and immunity-from possession and

manipulation by spirit beings. Buddhist sources draw a direct correlation between the proper

maintenance of lay or monastic vows that decrease an individual's propensity toward the core

afflictions (kleśa) of ignorance (avidyā), hatred (dveṣa), and desire (tṛṣṇā) along with an

extensive dossier of derivative afflictions and the saṅgha's power to control and guard

against assault from spirit deities. Aspects of the tradition that are commonly subsumed

under the rubric of 'Buddhist Ethics' were thus formulated, at least in part, in dialogue with

the belief that improper ethical conduct and the habitual capitulation to afflictions such as

desire left one vulnerable to assault from the world of spirit deities. As Decaroli argues, the

Buddhist saṅgha was able to position itself as a mediating force between the world of

humans and spirit beings by parlaying its maintenance of moral purity into a powerful means

of resisting attack from spirit beings such as nāgas, yakṣas, and pretas.149

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 Following Fred Smith's observations on the intersection of ethics and wellbeing in

South Asian literature, bodily and mental health could provide proof of proper ethical

conduct, whether this meant that one could effectively keep the spirit world at bay or simply

that one had accumulated a great amount of virtuous karma in the current and previous

lifetimes. This direct correlation between behavior and mental and physical wellbeing

survives to this day in the Tibetan medical arts, where the imbalance of the three humors is

directly attributed to an individual's capitulation to one or more of the three correlated root

afflictions. The Tibetan medical tradition also attributes conditions that are either incurable

or extremely difficult to treat either to possession by some persistent demonic being or to the

force of ripening karma brought on by the vāsanas that one has generated in the current or

previous lives.150

The Buddhist saṅgha could claim mastery over both through the ethical mechanics of

the pratimokṣa vows. Aside from their obvious soteriological importance, ethics and moral

conduct were thus part of an expansive portfolio of ritual methods for warding off

supernatural pathogens and protecting an otherwise highly permeable and vulnerable body.

This adds a new level of significance to the importance of performing the poṣadha or the bi-

monthly monastic practice of confessing one's misdeeds and renewing one's commitment to

the pratimokṣa vows. Management and mitigation of the spirit realm on behalf of patrons

provided a key source of social and economic support for Buddhist institutions. Holding

regular rituals for renewing the monastic saṅgha's commitments to its vows could guarantee

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that the saṅgha would maintain its authority and power over the world of spirit deities, and in

turn maintain one of its most important economic functions in South Asian societies. While

the maintenance of proper ethical and moral conduct functioned as a kind of 'preventative

care' plan to ward off disease and disease causing spirits, the recitation of protective spells,

be they paritta/parītta, dhāraṇī, mantra, or in some cases even entire texts, provided

protection in more acutely dangerous circumstances. While the logic behind Buddhist

formulations of ethical conduct (śīla) did not agree with the logic underlying ethics in the

Vaidika Brahmanical system, both systems still functioned on the premise that ethical and

morally appropriate behavior, however defined, was directly related to the concept of purity,

and, by extension, to the mental and physical wellbeing of the individual. Both also

articulated their own means by which lapses in ethics and the resulting diminution of purity

could be ritually repaired and restored.

Pāśupata asceticism broke with this premise in a very important way. The first and

most important innovation was the role that dikṣā or initiation played in removing mala or

impurity, a substance that, much like Jain (and perhaps some Buddhist)151 conceptions of

karma, was considered to have an actual physical weight bearing down on the body.152 The

tradition that has come down through Kauṇḍinya's Pāśupatasūtrabhāṣa in which initiation is

























































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followed by the performance of a vrata in which one relinquishes one's personal and

sectarian identity and surrenders one's commitment to the maintenance of normative

brahmanical codes of ethical and ritual purity marks a rather radical departure from the

traditional role of socially normative ethics in guaranteeing purity and protection from

disease and possession. The Pañcārthika Pāśupata system may inscribe its own rhetoric of

'purity' and 'impurity' on this practice, but it still marks an important step in the direction of

rejecting socially normative ethics and morality as the primary means of protection against

the spirit world. The Pāśupata system thus made clear use of the mechanics of initiation as a

means for affording protection to the initiated Pāśupata ascetic, even if that protection was

partially constructed within a dialectic of purity and impurity. The Pāśupata initiation

transformed the traditionally polluting practices of the avyakta stage in which one

relinquishes all identifying sectarian marks and wanders in public courting disfavor and

abuse into a means of purification. In this way, the Pāśupata ascetic rejected socially

normative ethics without incurring any actual moral or ethical stain and inverted the typical

relationship between morality and physical and mental wellbeing. The Pāśupata system can

be said to preconfigure the transgressive ascetic practices of the Vajrayāna in the power that

it affords the right of initiation to render the standard social ethics around behavior and codes

of purity and impurity inconsequential.

So far working within the demonological paradigm has brought a number of factors

regarding Buddhist charnel ground ascetic cultures to light. First, I have challenged the

notion that traditional modes of renunciation such as Buddhist monasticism constituted a

radical departure from the kind of protection offered by the basic social structure of the

family. Related to this point, I have also suggested that we reject the conception of asceticism

zu
as an essentially individualistic religious phenomenon. It is clear that Buddhist renunciants

simply traded one protective familial structure for another. They 'wandered forth' from the

kula of their birth only to immediately join a new kula to become 'sons and daughters of the

lineage' (kulaputro vā kuladuhitā vā) or a 'child of the victor' (jinaputra). Given the Buddha's

assumed superiority in governing over the world of spirit deities, joining the Buddhist saṅgha

would actually have guaranteed a greater level of protection than the ordinary familial unit

from the spirit world.

Following Decaroli's work and adopting a demonological paradigm has shown that

management of the world of spirit deities was an essential aspect of Buddhist traditions from

the earliest periods for which we have reliable data. Archeological and art historical evidence

reveals the movement of spirit deities from the center to the periphery of the caitya with the

advent of the Buddhist relic cult. Along that periphery, these beings retained their original

role as guardians and protectors who were inscribed within an expanded hierarchical

structure placing the Buddha and his arhats at its center. Textual and early ethnographic

evidence from Chinese pilgrims indicates that the vihāra constituted a kind of protective

structure, and that the services of powerful spirit deities could be enlisted to protect the

saṅgha within the vihāra.

This examination points to two strategies that respond to the problem of possessing a

permeable body in a world that is overrun by hordes spirit beings. The first is the generation

and maintenance of a Buddhist oecumene that is conceived as a territory to which potentially

harmful spirit deities cannot gain access or within which they are converted and enlisted as

protectors. The second is essentially a Buddhist reworking of a broader correlation

throughout South Asia between socially normative ethics and physical and mental wellbeing

zv
in which ethical conduct provides protection from possession and other forms of interference

from spirit deities. These two strategies are aimed at confronting the basic South Asian

existential condition that the demonological paradigm is designed to address—the fact that

the psycho-physical constituents of a person construct an essentially open system that is

situated in a world populated by a pandemonium of spirit beings intent upon seeking out and

exploiting any weakness them for their own gain. The cultivation of ethics and, ultimately,

realization of the nature of reality, the use of paritta, dhāraṇī, and mantra, and the caitya, the

vihāra, and later the maṇḍala all represent solutions to this problem that create and maintain

a protective barrier around the open conduit of the mind-body complex.

zw
 Chapter 3:

Generating the Body of an Indestructible Being

I. Introduction

The demonological paradigm's applications in the analysis of Buddhist ritual and ascetic

practices in chapter two suggested interpreting the Buddhist maṇḍala as a protective structure

that is internally constructed through the process of visualization and externally constructed

as an actual physical space. Unlike their Śaiva counterparts,153 many Buddhist sects likely

maintained a position of ontological non-dualism for centuries before the emergence of the

ascetic and ritual cultures associated with a fully tantric, esoteric Buddhism. Thus it was

perhaps inevitable that the ritual technology of the maṇḍala, as both a conceptually and

physically constructed space, would eventually have to either be sublimated into a non-

conceptual ontology or be rejected by those Buddhists who maintained the importance of

eliminating, unraveling, transforming, or bypassing the processes of conceptual construction

responsible for perpetuating the ignorance and delusion that lay at the root of rebirth in

cyclical existence.

The kind of pronouncements against the use of the maṇḍala and other ritual

technologies witnessed in The Seven Siddhi Texts can be read in light of the demonological

paradigm to suggest that the sādhaka's act of leaving the maṇḍala cannot be reduced to a

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purely philosophical or soteriological interpretation. There is an apotropaic aspect to both the

mental and physical construction of the maṇḍala, and the decision to adopt a form of

asceticism that specifically rejects such a protective structure and its associated ritual

practices cannot be exclusively interpreted as an ontological non-dualist rejection of such

rites as 'conceptual' constructs. The construction of a maṇḍala and its supporting ritual

techniques of mantra installation/recitation and mudrā must also be understood in terms of

the literal role that physically and mentally 'constructed' ritual spaces play in guarding the

initiate against all forms of interference from human and non-human beings. The Buddhist

rhetoric around rejecting these practices constitutes both a rejection of the ontological duality

they imply and a rejection of relying upon actual physically constructed, protective space for

the performance of tantric ritual. These two aspects of the 'construct,' the conceptual and the

physical, are not necessarily exclusive categories in a literature and tradition that

demonstrates a remarkable sense of continuity between the idealist constructions of the mind

and their material manifestations in the world.

The works contained in The Seven Siddhi Texts are consistent with the rejection of

the ritual technologies of the lower kriyā- and caryātantra systems in Buddhist siddha

literature. This chapter adopts a demonological paradigm to analyze the rhetoric around

rejection such practices as constructing maṇḍalas and the use of mudrā and mantra in The

Seven Siddhi Texts. It argues that the rejection of these practices highlights a mutual

identification of the attainment of non-dual gnosis (advayajñāna) or ultimate reality (tattva)

with the demonstration of a tantric practitioner's attainment of an indestructible and

embodied realization. The chapter presents passages from each of the works in The Seven

Siddhi Texts that demonstrate these authors' engagement with the basic existential ground for

zy
the demonological paradigm—possessing a permeable body that is embedded in a world

populated by potentially harmful spirit beings. Two models for the management of this basic

existential ground are at work in these texts. The first, the 'exoteric model,' already

mentioned in chapter two, focuses on the elimination of non-virtue and the cultivation of

virtue as strategies for protecting the body from harmful spirit beings. When viewed through

the modality of a demonological paradigm, the cultivation of ethical conduct and insight into

the nature of reality in the exoteric traditions functioned as preventative measures for

guarding against demonic possession and interference from the world of spirit deities. The

second, 'esoteric model,' builds upon the exoteric model by adding a number of ritual

technologies centered on the mastery or union (yoga) and consecration (abhiṣeka). The

incorporation of the ritual technology of initiation in this latter model, as suggested in chapter

two, has strong affinities with the initiatory asceticism that is at work in Pāśupata Śaivism.

One could also argue, at the same time, that this feature in both the Pāśupata and Buddhist

initiatory traditions has strong resonances with the earlier śrāmaṇa ascetic trope of

'wandering forth' and 'going for refuge,' where the protective structure of family identity was

given new expression in renunciant communities like the early Buddhist saṅgha. Both the

exoteric and esoteric models conceive of realization as a specifically embodied phenomenon

in which the soteriological goal of liberation from rebirth in cyclical existence is coterminous

with the attainment of an apotropaic goal of protecting the psychophysical complex of the

body and rendering it invulnerable to attack from both human and non-human beings.

The Seven Siddhi Texts contain a number of different strategies for cultivating a fully

embodied realization that resolves the problem of the permeable body's vulnerability to

possession and influence from the unseen forces of the spirit world. These strategies can be

zz
correlated to the first of the two-phased yogas of the generation stage (utpattikrama) and

completion stage (utpannakrama) and the higher consecrations that are bestowed at the

culmination of the yoga of the generation stage. When they are analyzed within the

demonological paradigm, the generation stage yogas and the higher consecration rites appear

as ritual technologies whose aim is a fully embodied realization with a dual soteriological

and apotropaic function. Their soteriological function corresponds to the realization of the

nature of ultimate reality, while their apotropaic function corresponds to rendering the actual

corporeal body invulnerable to attack from both human and non-human beings. This

interrelationship means that demonstrating mastery in terms of the apotropaic function of

these practices functions as a sign for one's mastery of their soteriological component.154 The

dual apotropaic-soteriological function of this ultimate goal on the Buddhist yogic path is

said to depend upon a number of things such as the recognition of the nature of ultimate

reality within one's own body, the generation of a spontaneous mutual identification of the

body with the deity maṇḍala, and complete establishment of that nature in the body through

the ritual mechanics of consecration. The culmination of the generation stage yoga may then

be interpreted within the demonological paradigm as a process through which a sādhaka so

thoroughly transforms the body into a maṇḍala that the protective structures of the maṇḍala

need no longer be generated at all, as an external structure or an internalized visualization.

The union (yoga) at the culmination of this stage of practice is a spontaneous (and thus not

























































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'constructed') complete identification with the deity maṇḍala. Consecration initiates,

enhances, and fully establishes the union of the disciple and deity maṇḍala. Mastery of both

union and consecration must be demonstrated by exiting the protective, consecrated space of

the maṇḍala, and this act constitutes the primary trope for the completion stage caryā and

vrata practices and the siddha asceticism these practices came to define. Thus the physically

performed act of exiting the maṇḍala after receiving a complete set of consecrations (in

whatever form, number, or sequence that might take) is coupled with the idea that the initiate

has reached an advanced stage in which there is no need to actively construct any further

protective barrier between the permeable body and the external world through practices such

as mantra recitation and maṇḍala generation. In this context, the ascetic practices of vrata

and caryā are often designed to deliberately place the sādhaka in contexts where one would

normally be vulnerable to attack from both non-human and human beings. The sādhaka's

ability to navigate these spaces then functions as a kind of proof (siddhi) of attainment

(siddhi)155 of the state of an indestructible being (vajrasattva).

II. Embodied Realization in Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi

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Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi was composed sometime between the eighth and ninth

centuries156 in a style best described as part-commentary and part-independent treatise157

elaborating upon the ritual system and ascetic practices of the Guhyasamājatantra.158 The

text's first reference to the dual apotropaic-soteriological conception of the realization of

ultimate reality and becoming invulnerable to the world of spirit deities appears in the its

opening verses, where Padmavajra describes the secret attainment (guhyasiddhim) as

something that dispels obstructing beings (vighnavikṣepakṛtyāṃ).159 The first chapter of

Guhyasiddhi then provides a sequential and condensed summary and commentary on the

topics discussed later in the work. Although the practices of the generation stage yoga are

covered in some detail in the text, its ultimate emphasis on the completion stage yoga is

immediately apparent in verses six and seven, where Padmavajra states that the elaborate

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practice of the generation stage yoga becomes an obstacle to meditation in the completion

stage, and must eventually be given up:

The elaborate rite of the generation [stage],

now long past, is a beginner's meditation.
With all one's effort, one gives it up
For the completion stage yoga. || 1.6 ||

One relies on the true nature of the tantras

That possesses the multitude of siddhis, |
Giving up the entire elaborate rite
That poses an obstacle to meditation || 1.7 ||160

The secret attainment is then described as the source of virtue, as easy, and as something that

cuts off all obstructing beings (śubhodayā nirāyāsā sarvavighnanikartanī).161

The term guhya and its synonyms cover a remarkable amount of semantic ground

throughout Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi. Early in its first chapter the term's semantic

relationship to notions of concealment is used to establish continuity between the doctrine

presented in Guhyasiddhi, its primary source text the Guhyasamājatantra, and the scriptures

of the kriyā and caryā tantras as well as the sūtra literature. Here Padmavajra writes:

And that ultimate reality is defined in the tantra

Of the Śrī Samāja where it is exceedingly clear. |
What was concealed elsewhere is explained
[There] in its elaborate, numerous, and extensive forms. || 1.28 ||

The ultimate purity that is indeed singular

Is established according to its different expressions
In the classification [of tantras] as kriyā, caryā, etc.,
[And] in the sūtra systems and baskets etc. || 1.29 ||162

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This statement is juxtaposed with an argument that is central to the embodied dual

apotropaic-soteriological doctrine at the core of Guhyasiddhi—that just as the ultimate reality

taught in the Guhyasamājatantra lay hidden in the teachings of the sūtra, kriyā, and caryā, so

too is ultimate reality concealed within the body. These statements preconfigure

Padmavajra's elaborate instructions on the generation stage yogas in chapters three and four,

where this stage constitutes the process of recognizing, affixing, and harnessing ultimate

reality's innate presence within the body, the body's yogic magnification, and its final

transformation into the divine body of the deity maṇḍala.163 Interestingly, the terminology

used to describe this innate source of ultimate reality in the body that appears later in chapter

three is not tattva, but mahāmudrā.164 Identifying this nascent realization inherent to the body

represents the initial method for mastering the dual apotropaic-soteriological applications of

the generation stage yoga. As will become clear, Padmavajra ultimately argues that the

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correct ascertainment of ultimate reality and its establishment in the body are critical to the

successful performance of the completion stage practices of the caryā and vrata.

The innate ultimate reality that is recognized as already present in the body is

augmented and enhanced with the ritual technology of consecration. The process of

consecration is thus integral to bringing about the kind of enhanced recognition of the nature

of ultimate reality that will protect the sādhaka while performing the advanced ascetic

practices of the caryā and vrata. The sequence and relationship between these modes of

practice are summarized in chapter one, where Padmavajra writes:

The Lord of Buddhas ascertained

The ultimate reality carefully concealed |
In the jewel vessel of the aggregates
According to [each] beings' particular disposition. || 1.30 ||

After understanding it through [one's own] effort,

The supremely pure bodhicitta |
Is perfectly established in one’s own body
Through the blessing of the venerable teacher. || 1.31 ||

Then one should perform the practice openly

Or meditate seated in private, |
One who is purified by the jewel of ultimate reality
Is free from all manner of doubt. || 1.32 ||

Otherwise, those who have abandoned

The divine method that practice |
The transgressive samayas, etc.,
Are roasted in the Raurava hell. || 1.33 ||

Just like when fire burns

A pile of grass and wood, etc., |
It is scattered and becomes ash
Never to germinate again, || 1.34 ||

So too those devoid of ultimate reality

Perform great miracles, but |
When they are dead they go to hell
For as long as space endures. || 1.35 ||165

























































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These verses provide a general sequence for the relationship between the disciple's

independent cultivation of realization, the reinforcement of that realization through receiving

the guru's consecration, and the disciple's progression to the performance of a post-initiation

practice (caryā). The sādhaka's success in the caryā and vrata practices prescribed here

depends entirely upon realization of an ultimate reality (tattva) that Padmavajra indicates is

explicitly outlined in his own work and in the Guhyasamājatantra. He then draws a

connection between the ultimate reality that is taught in Guhyasiddhi and the ultimate reality

that is taught in the kriyā tantras, caryā tantras, and the sūtras. This assures his reader not

only that the perspective on the nature of ultimate reality that underlies his work is indeed

Buddhist, but also that any vrata might be adopted toward realization of the secret attainment

as long as it proceeds based on this specifically Buddhist understanding of tattva or 'ultimate

reality.' The conclusion of this set of verses emphasizes the apotropaic function of both

recognizing and fully establishing this understanding of ultimate reality in one's own body,

implying that it protects the sādhaka from the negative consequences of performing the

transgressive samayas associated with the caryā and vrata practices.

The chapters on the generation stage yoga follow this sequence, beginning with

recognition of ultimate reality as the body's inherent nature and then providing instructions

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on how a sādhaka should construct the body that can support exiting the protective space of

the maṇḍala to perform the transgressive caryā and vrata practices. This becomes clear in

chapters three and four of Guhyasiddhi, which are titled respectively "The Instruction on

Manifest Awakening" (abhisaṁbodhinirdeśa) and "The Instruction on the Five-fold Mental

Image"166 (pañcākārābhinirdeśa). The first thirty-two verses in chapter three introduce the

karmamudrā, or the practice of sexual union with a physical consort, as the primary means

by which disciples identify the ultimate reality that is present in the body. These verses

describe a sequence in which the sādhaka enters into an, attainment of the emanation

body'(nirmāṇakāyādhigate) and the enjoyment [body] that is the nature of bliss (sāṃbhogike

'apyatra sukhasvabhāve) followed by the gradual manifestation of the vajra of

identitylessness (nairātmyavajraṃ).167 The combination of these three elements

approximates a classic trikāya structure of a Buddha's body, despite the fact that the

attainment of the 'body of all phenomena' (dharmakāya) is not explicitly mentioned.

Realization of the vajra of identitylessness in the karmamudrā practice is then used to

visualize the entire cosmos as an expansive body:

And the blissful feelings of exhaustion are destroyed

By the perfectly stainless vajra of identitylessness, |
[And] unified with the awakened state

























































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 In a single moment like ghee poured into ghee. || 3.16 ||

And in that [state] those blissful feelings of exhaustion

Have penetrated the impenetrable vajra of identitylessness |
That abides there, which is called the unimpeded state,
The omnipresent completely pure state of awakening. || 3.17 ||

Then one should meditate upon the entire cosmos as the great being
That is the nature of the object of knowledge, that has a divine, limitless splendor, |
That is present at the end of exhaustion,
That has the complete set of marks and form that is inconceivable, || 3.18 ||

That is completely stainless and lacks any inherent nature whatsoever,

That is a wish-fulfilling jewel said to be like a fortune-granting vase. |168

The section then culminates in a full maṇḍala visualization in which the practitioner

copulates with the various consorts and analyzes the lack of inherent nature of phenomena

within the three realms. The text then presents the actual performance of sexual union with a

karmamudrā along with instructions that are given by one who speaks the truth

(bhūtavādinā), i.e. the guru, following the interpenetration of the vajra and lotus

(vajrapadmasamāveśāt). This process is said to constitute the proper means for introducing

beginners to the nature of ultimate reality. It allows a beginner to gain an understanding of

the omnipresence (sarvatragasya) that the most advanced sādhakas attain and allows them to

understand the insight-method meditation (prajñopāyavibhāvanam), or sexual yoga, as it

truly is in the quiescent state that is the immutable source of phenomena (śānte

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dharmodayākṣare). After that, Padmavajra notes that one relies upon one's own body for the

practice instead of the karmamudrā.169

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 The sequence presented in chapter three of Guhyasiddhi thus depicts the performance

of a sexual yoga in which the bliss produced from practice with the karmamudrā is directed

toward generating the three awakened bodies of a Buddha and culminates in the generation

of an inconceivable body with the complete set of marks (lakṣyanirvartyam acintyarūpam)

that is a universal form of a great being (mahātmaviśvam) described as the completely pure

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body of the victors (jinānāṃ paramārthaśuddham), and that constitutes an initial

understanding of omnipresence (sarvatragasyāpi grahaṇam).

The chapter moves to the practice of the generation stage yoga that relies upon

mahāmudrā instead of the karmamudrā in Guhyasiddhi 3.33–60. The term mahāmudrā is

frequently employed in Guhyasiddhi to signify an ultimate soteriological principle that is

inherent to the body but is not recognized by ordinary beings. References to the term indicate

that the mahāmudrā is recognized through meditation, firmly established in the disciple

through initiation, and then expanded through performance of the generation stage yoga.170

The sādhaka's recognition of the mahāmudrā abiding in the body is described as possessing

an ordinary body that is endowed with the best of all mental images

(sarvākāravaropetam).171 The theme of generating an expansive, universal body that was

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alluded to in his instructions on the karmamudrā appears again here as Padmavajra describes

the sādhaka's continued meditation on ultimate reality that enhances the production of a new

supreme body born out of joy (ānandajam) that is an instantly produced mental image

(dhagityākārasaṁbhūtaṃ) that expands and contracts (spuratsaṃhārakārakam), illuminating

all that exists.172 The final attainment of this body is then described as follows:

Those who meditate on ultimate reality attain

A rainbow-like body |
A body that is variegated and multiple
With garlands that blaze with the fire of gnosis. || 3.79 ||

Through the yoga of meditation

And maintaining the samayas |
One attains a body like that,
Which even the Victors are not able to express. || 3.80 ||

One should meditate upon the body one possesses

In that supreme and omnipresent state |
Where there is no body, speech, and mind
Using the instruction lineage [one has received]. || 3.81 ||

Aho! It causes such wonder!

Aho! It is peace, beyond the senses! |
Aho! The ultimate profundity,
The miraculous emanation of bodhicitta! || 3.82 ||

And in this way, having attained

The ultimate stage of deity yoga, |













































































































































































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 One should then perform the caryā
In order to attain the state of buddhahood. || 3.83 ||173

The verses that immediately follow then instruct the sādhaka who has perfectly generated

this body to perform the clandestine practice (guhyacaryā) associated in this text with the

completion stage yoga. Thus in this first chapter of Padmavajra's generation stage yoga

practice, both the karmamudrā and the mahāmudrā174 are specifically centered on the body

as a locus of realization, both culminate in the expansion of that body as a universal form,

and the generation of such a body is presented as the prerequisite to the performance of the

caryā and vrata practices of the completion stage.

Chapter four of Guhyasiddhi contains an explanation of the generation stage yoga for

beginners that is somewhat different (kiñcid anyat) and discussed according to its more

elaborate form (vistararūpatas).175 This chapter provides more detail on precisely how the

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sādhaka transforms his body through the practice of the three consorts: the karma-, jñāna-,

and mahāmudrās. This transformation is presented as part of a four-stage meditation process

consisting of 1. affixing the syllables to the body (akṣaranyāsa); 2. self-generation as the

deity; 3. meditation involving an imagined consort (jñānamudrā); and 4. meditation on

mahāmudrā.176

Padmavajra's short description of the form and function of the akṣaranyāsa practice

draws upon a yogic method for transcending the epistemically bound state of the ordinary

body that is characteristic of the Vaiṣṇava Pañcarātra textual traditions. Diwakar Acharya

speaks to this point in his recent work on Early Tantric Vaiṣṇavism, where he argues that the

practice of nyāsa that is so central to the Pañcarātra traditions is likely a characteristically

Vaiṣṇava contribution to the tantric movements of medieval India that was present in the

Pañcarātra before it was reformulated to more closely approximate some of its Śaiva

counterparts. The original Vaiṣṇava nyāsa practice is in some sense a ritual performance of

the kind of omni-presencing (vibhūti-yoga) that Kṛṣṇa performs in the Bhagavadgīta when he

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reveals his universal form (viśvarūpa) to Arjuna. As Acarya notes, the Vaiṣṇava conception

of an all-pervasive deity expressed in the Bhagavadgīta is unique in that it maps all other

deities onto Viṣṇu's body, describing him as consisting of all deities (sarvadevamaya), a

feature that seems to fall away in later Pañcarātra works. 177 The Buddhist analogue for this

the term, being composed of all of the Buddhas (sarvabuddhamaya), appears among The

Seven Siddhi Texts in Indrabhūti's Jñānasiddhi, a work that is particularly interested in

arguing for gnosis as a state of pervasion.

As White argues, the episode of Kṛṣṇa's vibhūti-yoga in the Bhagavadgīta stands in

many ways as one of the earliest prototypes depicting the supreme being as a yogin.178 It

seems fitting then that the nyāsa plays an important role in the Buddhist generation stage

yoga, a practice that is intended to facilitate a yogin's self-identification as a deity who is

coterminous with the ultimate, omnipresent nature of all phenomena. Padmavajra's brief

teaching on the akṣaranyāsa practice demonstrates some clear parallels with the "self-

magnifying self" of its Vedānta precursors such as Kaṭhopaniṣad:179

The meditation that is illustrated

By the yoga of affixing the syllables |
That is taught to beginners
Is what causes [the deity maṇḍala] to descend. || 4.6 ||

Therefore, I shall explain the first

Exactly as it is established. |
The generation stage yoga
Makes what is singular fivefold. || 4.7 ||

I say that the supreme virtue is completely

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 Established in this [stage] by means of the gnosis
That is complete manifest awakening in a five-fold mental representation,
Which is correctly understood in the following manner. || 4.8 ||

Cittavajra said that, "By gradually

Becoming greater and greater |
Through the yoga of affixing the syllables,
I become the nature of the phenomenal expanse." || 4.9 ||

Bearing the characteristic of space, sublime,

Free from all conceptual imputations, |
Gnosis is completely pure, stainless
At the beginning, middle, and end. || 4.10 ||

The inherent natures of all phenomena established

In that one in their individual forms |
Are diligently analyzed
Through the yoga of lack of self and other. || 4.11 ||

Free from all mental proliferations,

A body that is supreme peace,
That gnosis is said to be
The nature of the phenomenal expanse. || 4.12 ||180

Here the akṣaranyāsa is described as a method of self-magnifying in which a yogin fixes the

phenomenal expanse (dharmadhātu) in his own body. After making that body coterminous

with the cosmos itself, he then applies the analysis of the yoga of the lack of self and other

(nairātmyaparayoga) to this expansive self, effectively lending the nyāsa practice of

expansion a specifically Buddhist function. The goal of this nyāsa practice is given distinctly

























































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Buddhist title that approximates one of the traditional five types of gnosis, gnosis of the

phenomenal expanse (dharmadhātu).

Locating a precursor for Padmavajra's akṣaranyāsa in the Guhyasamājatantra, the

source on which his Guhyasiddhi is based, presents some difficulty. The Guhyasamājatantra

contains an akṣaranyāsa practice in its eleventh chapter.181 The level of detail involved in the

practice is nowhere near that of its Vaiṣṇava counterparts, but use of the verbal root nyas and

the clear bodily locations on which one places the three mantra syllables associated with this

practice—oṃ āḥ and hūṃ placed in the heart (hṛdaye), throat (vākpathe), and the mind

(cittam) respectively—is enough to qualify it as an akṣaranyāsa. The chapter appears to be a

composite work composed of a number of short, simple nyāsa practices aimed at the

generation of particular samādhis.

The Piṇḍīkṛta- or Piṇḍīkramasādhana of the Guhyasamājatantra, attributed to the

tantric pseudo-Nāgārjuna, contains a far more elaborate nyāsa ritual. Here the practice is

used to install the tathātagatas and their consorts—the homologues for the entire psycho-

physical world that are most commonly associated with the pañcākārābhisaṁbodhi

practice—along with an array of bodhisattvas and protector deities in various places in the

body.182 The Piṇḍīkramasādhana contains two practices for installing the deities in the

yogin's body and one practice for installing them in the body of the consort.183 Here the

initial nyāsa practice follows the yogin's performance of a self-visualization as the deity in

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contrast to the practice of akṣaranyāsa as it appears in Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi where it

precedes the self-visualization.184

III. Embodied Realization in Anaṅgavajra's Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi

Anaṅgavajra's Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi is less overt in its presentation of a dual

apotropaic-soteriological theory of embodied realization than Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi, yet

the text still shows traces of these two aspects of the tradition. There is strong evidence, for

example, in Anaṅgavajra's explanation of the apotropaic function of consuming the samaya

substances. Although relevant to the current discussion of adopting a demonological

paradigm to understand the implications of embodied realization in The Seven Siddhi Texts,

this topic is addressed later in chapter four because of its direct relationship to the completion

stage practices that the sādhaka performs outside of the protective structure of the maṇḍala.

The current treatment of embodied realization in Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi is concerned

only with Anaṅgavajra's explicit use of terms that relate a yogin's successful practice to the

attainment of a specific type of body.

The extant Sanskrit versions of the text open with a homage to the "indestructible

being," or Vajrasattva, as "the stainless true nature of the Buddha that is the unequaled

dharma body (dharmaśarīra)" that is "unsullied by the film of compounded false concepts

wherever it is."185 Anaṅgavajra deviates from the standard term dharmakāya here, opting

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instead to refer to the state of an indestructible being as a dharmaśarīra, and the decision has

the effect of placing a greater emphasis on the physical, corporal body instead of the more

intangible notions of embodiment that the term dharmakāya traditionally signifies. The

connection that Anaṅgavajra's opening verse draws between the indestructible being

(vajrasattva) and a body of dharma preconfigures the characterization of caryā and vrata

practices elsewhere in the corpus of The Seven Siddhi Texts as components of the vajrasattva

sādhana or the 'practice method of the indestructible being.'186

Anaṅgavajra's first chapter on his "Detailed Explanation of Insight and Method"

(prajñopāyavipañca) opens with twenty verses that move the reader through a series of

statements on the definition of insight (prajnā), the definition of method (upāya) and the

definition of the combination of insight and method that provide a foundation for

understanding the rest of the text. This detailed definition of the union of insight and method

leads to the following verses, which outline a dual apotropaic-soteriological conception of

embodied realization:

Devoid of apprehender and apprehended object,

Free from the view of existent and non-existent, |
Liberated from signs and signified objects,
Pure, naturally stainless, || 1.19 ||

Not two and not non-dual, peace,

The quiescence present everywhere— |
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 Is unconfused insight and method. || 1.20 ||

That is the supremely marvelous

Abode of all the Buddhas, |
The divine state that brings the highest welfare
That is called the phenomenal expanse. || 1.21 ||

It is the non-abiding nirvāṇa that is honored

By the buddhas of the three times |
The delightful state of self-consecration,
The quiescence of the perfection of insight, || 1.22 ||

It is the three bodies and three vehicles,

The incalculable tens of thousands of mantras, |
The unsurpassed circle of mudrās and maṇḍalas,
That belong to [his particular] clan. || 1.23 ||

All of the gods, demigods, lords, and

Humans who have arisen from that
And others such as the ghosts, etc.,
Cease in that as well. || 1.24 ||

The entire world abides at all times

Like a wish fulfilling jewel, |
As the perfect state of worldly enjoyment and liberation
Through nature of insight and method. || 1.25 ||

The perfect Buddhas, and Sugatas of the past

Arrived at this [realization] and |
Attained buddhahood in all cases.
Those who benefit the world shall be perfectly awakened. || 1.26 ||

Because it is the state of limitless bliss

It is known as the glorious great bliss, |
The foremost Samantabhadra
Who brings about perfect awakening. || 1.27 ||

The Lords of Sages taught an ultimate reality that is

A body of supreme bliss [that benefits] oneself and others,
The equanimity of the unlimited mass of various objects of knowledge, |
Of supreme intelligence joined with desire
Of unequalled compassion that is the unique activity
That brings ruin to all of the suffering of the three worlds. || 1.28 ||187

























































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The verses advocate for a synonymy between more exoteric terms for describing the nature

of ultimate reality such as self-reflexive awareness (pratyātmavedya), the phenomenal

expanse (dharmadhātu), the perfection of insight (prajñāpāramitā), and the three bodies and

three vehicles (kāyatrayam triyānaṃ ca) with more explicitly esoteric terms such as the state

of self-consecration (svādhiṣṭānapada) and the tantric ritual technologies of mantra,

maṇḍala, and mudrā. Then, in verse 1.24, Anaṅgavajra lists a number of apotropaic results of

understanding the union of insight and method by arguing that it is both the source of all

manner of human and non-human beings and the point in which all of these things cease.

Following the general rule of 'lords' and 'hordes,'188 the implication is that realization itself is

able to provide protection from potentially harmful human and non-human beings. This level

of realization is an embodied state that Anaṅgavajra describes as a body of supreme bliss

(parasukhāṅghaṃ). Thus the realization of ultimate reality outlined in Anaṅgavajra's opening

chapter correlates exoteric soteriological terms to esoteric methods that lead to a fully

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embodied realization, and the body that one wins through these esoteric methods performs an

apotropaic function of bringing an end to all potentially harmful beings, both human and

non-human.

IV. Embodied Realization in Indrabhūti's Jñānasiddhi

Jñānasiddhi introduces the theme of realization granting a yogin protection from spirit beings

in its first chapter on "The Instruction on Ultimate Reality" (tattvanirdeśa). Indrabhūti

introduces the apotropaic function of an embodied realization of ultimate reality following

his verses praising the guru, the guru's ability to grant consecration, and the importance of

maintaining the samayas:

That yogin who is the nature of all buddhas,

Having become a lord of the world |
Shall be praised by the hosts
Including all of the gods, their hands joined. || 1.38 ||

The heroes, the bodhisattvas with their

Great powers and the buddhas too, |
The great beings who are always
Present as vajra bodies protect [him]. || 1.39 ||

He is the chief of the true dharma

Who sets forth upon the path of the buddhas. |
The respectful ones who are fully endowed
With the highest authority praise [him]. || 1.40 ||

Likewise, the guardians of the world and others

Who attack with great force |
Are there, protecting him
As he travels through all kinds of places. || 1.41 ||

And the māras and vighnas

Who are present in every region, |
Do not create any obstacle for him
And [when] frightened, they disperse. || 1.42 ||

All the gods, etc., the siddhas,

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 All who course and do not course in space, |
Who are fearful of lower rebirths
Also do not injure him. || 1.43 ||

There is a loss of vigor [and a loss]

Of the attainment of a perception of gnosis |
If, due to their delusion,
Deluded beings cause [him] harm. || 1.44 ||189

This passage is perhaps one of the most explicit indications in the corpus of The Seven Siddhi

Texts that the gnosis conferred upon a disciple through consecration is considered an

effective means to ward off attack from harmful spirit beings.

Jñānasiddhi also preserves an older conception of guarding the body against such

attacks along with this component from the esoteric, initiatory traditions. Indrabhūti's eighth

chapter on "The Method for Attaining the Accumulations of Merit and Wisdom"

(puṇyajñānasambhāraprāptyupāya) opens with a liturgy for the seven limb prayer followed

by a maṇḍala offering and a samaya rite for which the reader is referred to the

[Sarvatathāgata]tattvasaṁgraha. The transgressive element is missing from this passage,

and seems to be explicitly rejected in verse 8.19 where Indrabhūti clarifies characterizes the

samaya "established in tantras such as the Tattvasaṁgraha" as explicitly proscribing acts

such as killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, and speaking falsehood.190 Thus in this case the

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generation of bodhicitta also bears its more traditional exoteric connotation and the samayas

are directed at the cultivation of virtue and merit, not a ritualized rhetoric of transgression.

The passage does, however, indicate the specific function that consecration plays in initiating

the sādhaka into the apotropaic cult of protection from the buddhas and bodhisattvas against

a host of malevolent spirit beings. The passage reads:

One must understand this bodhicitta.

Otherwise, should one have an incorrect |
[Understanding], it is not called bodhicitta.
If there is inequality, || 8.25 ||

Gnosis that is free from beginning,

Middle, and end does not arise, |
All of the vajra-holders never
Confer the consecration, || 8.26 ||

And all of the hostile ones such as

The gods and the like do not protect him. |
Therefore, a yogin with knowledge of method
Is the only friend of all sentient beings. || 8.27 ||

Thus one should generate a completely

Non-deceptive [and] steadfast intention. |
By doing this, the perfect buddhas
Who accomplish everything are pleased. || 8.28 ||

The ones who overpower with

Great force bestow the blessing, and |
There are no misfortunes such as māras and vighnas, etc.,
Who search for an opportunity [to do harm]. || 8.29 ||

Vajrapāṇi and the like are pleased [and]

[And] always protect [him]. |
The best of human beings, [the sādhaka] attains
The purification of all misdeeds. || 8.30 ||191













































































































































































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Indrabhūti argues for a specifically apotropaic result that one attains through the proper

generation of bodhicitta and completion of the two accumulations that must be taken as

equally soteriological and apotropaic both in its motivation and its end result. Mastery of the

exoteric understanding of bodhicitta functions as a precondition for initiation into the esoteric

apotropaic cult. The elements of the exoteric model linking the cultivation of virtue and

insight into reality to the pacification of spirit beings are thus present, but they are augmented

here with the ritual mechanics of consecration.

V. Embodied Realization in Lakṣmīṅkarā's Advayasiddhi

Lakṣmīṅkarā's Advayasiddhi is a relatively brief work that is primarily concerned with the

theory underlying the performance of the ascetic practices associated with the post-

generation stage yoga caryā and vrata, referred to here as part of the 'highest sādhana of

Vajrasattva.'192 A short work of only thirty-six verses, Advayasiddhi does not contain the

kind of lengthy, explicit references to the dual apotropaic-soteriological conception of

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embodied realization that appear in the works by Padmavajra and Indrabhūti. But the text

does provide some input into the dual apotropaic-soteriological applications of embodied

realization when it directs the sādhaka to "continually meditate on the body as stainless by

nature,"193 and "always worship this body" instead of taking recourse to the usual focus of a

pūja practice in the form of a deity-image fashioned out of wood, stone, or clay. The reason

for this, and here Lakṣmīṅkarā repeats a theme that is shared across the corpus of The Seven

Siddhi Texts, is that the proper object of worship is the deity that becomes present through

meditating on ultimate reality as present in one's own body. Here the process of establishing

the deity in the body is explicitly linked to the visualization and offering of the samaya

substances:

And one should also not praise deities

Made of wood, stone, or clay. |
One who has perfect concentration
Should always worship this body. || 15 ||

One should make the offering to the vajra bearer

With visualized (bhāvitaiḥ) urine and feces |
That is mixed with vomit and flies
[And] combined with the five meats. || 16 ||

One should perform the offering to the deity

With the menstrual blood of women along with |
The milks that are the origin of the world,
Then establish [the deity] in the body by meditations on ultimate reality. || 17 ||194

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As Malati Shendge noted in her study of the text, and as the Sanskrit colophon to the work

makes clear, Lakṣmīṅkarā associates these practices with the self-consecration stage

(svādhiṣṭhānakrama) in which the advanced yogin continually renews the consecration he

has already received from his guru by performing the rite on himself.

For Lakṣmīṅkarā the svādhiṣṭhānakrama is directly associated with the performance

of caryā and vrata practices in which a yogin eschews all protective ritual techniques aside

from the practice of self-consecration as the deity in an effort to demonstrate perfection of

this practice. Roughly a quarter of Lakṣmīṅkarā's text consists of verses with direct

correspondences to Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi,195 and the majority of these are derived from

Guhyasiddhi's sixth chapter on the performance of the guhyacaryā and its attendant

Vajrayāna reformulations of a number of vrata practices. This not only proves that these two

texts are directly related, it provides a demonstrable connection between the self-consecration

stage and Vajrayāna Buddhist forms of caryā and vrata ascetic practice. The term

svādhiṣṭhāna appears nowhere in Padmavajra's work, signaling that Advayasiddhi is

incorporating a new terminology into the caryā and vrata practices presented in

Guhyasiddhi. Lakṣmīṅkarā's presentation of the self-consecration stage does not reveal any

intertextuality with the third chapter on self-consecration in Nāgārjuna/Śākyamitra's

Pañcakrama. 196 Instead, the presentation of this practice in Advayasiddhi agrees with the

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analysis of Padmavajra's caryā and vrata instructions that emerges within a demonological

paradigm, where they are presented as a variety of ascetic modes in which one adopts a range

of behaviors that might regularly elicit harm from human and non-human beings and

emerges unscathed. As discussed in greater detail below, this is one interpretation of the

practice method of an indestructible being (vajrasattvasya...sādhanaṃ) that is used to

describe the text in its Sanskrit colophon.

Advayasiddhi concludes with a single verse that establishes a direct connection

between the soteriological aspects of realizing ultimate reality and their implications for

generating the body of an indestructible being. Here she writes:

This death is a conceptual imputation.

There is no existence in anything. |
One is killed by one’s own conceptual imputation,
Due the way things appear to ordinary beings. || 36 ||197

Similar statements appear in Yoginī Cintā's Vyaktabhāvānugatatattvasiddhi198 as well as

Kuddālapāda's Acintyādvayakramopadeśa, which states, "all living beings on earth perish

due to the net of conceptual thought."199 Like Lakṣmīṅkarā's Advayasiddhi, these texts are

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clearly sympathetic to some form of the mind only view (cittamātra) that is characteristic of

Yogācāra Buddhist thought. For Lakṣmīṅkarā, the realization of ultimate reality that is

demonstrated through performing the ascetic and ritual regimen associated with the 'self-

consecration stage' is tantamount to attaining bodily immortality through realizing that all

manner of potentially harmful influences are mental fabrication. The body is foregrounded in

the ritual and ascetic practices described in Advayasiddhi in a manner that is fitting for the

esoteric traditions of the yoga- and yoginītantras, and some vision of attaining bodily

invulnerability is clearly interjected in the concluding verse of the text. Still, without any

explicit reference to the apotropaic function of her vision of embodied enlightenment, the

degree of correspondence between Lakṣmīṅkarā's rhetoric of embodied realization and the

demonological paradigm proposed in this study cannot be determined with the evidence that

is internal to the text. The clear relationship that this work shares with Padmavajra's

Guhyasiddhi and (if we can grant some accuracy to our hagiographical sources) to

Indrabhūti's Jñānasiddhi might indicate, however, that interpreting the caryā and vrata

practices through a demonological paradigm still allows us greater access the subtext of

Lakṣmīṅkarā's Advayasiddhi.

VI. Embodied Realization in Yoginī Cintā's Vyaktabhāvānugatatattvasiddhi

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elaborate upon the theme introduced at the conclusion of Lakṣmīṅkarā's Advayasiddhi that

beings are killed by their own conceptual thought, for which we might assume the existential

condition associated with the demonological paradigm provides at least part of the implicit

context. In this sense, Yoginī Cintā's treatment of the thesis that "this entire threefold world is

composed of mind" (sarvaṃ traidhātukaṃ cittamayam idam) challenges its reader to

acknowledge that the perception of an internal-external bifurcation of the body is the basis

for the belief that there are beings who act independently of one's own mind that can cause

one harm.

The work's primary importance for this study of the connection between realization of

ultimate reality and its complete embodiment within a demonological paradigm, however,

appears in its instructions for the performance of sexual yoga and the consumption of the pill

(piṇḍā) that is produced from the mixed sexual and menstrual fluids of the guru (or yogin)

and consort. Yoginī Cintā's instructions on preparing and consuming the piṇḍā are

remarkably lucid. Her interpretation of the rite offers some explanation for precisely why

consuming the combined sexual fluids and menstrual discharge of a couple who correctly

practice the sexual yoga might bring about a direct glimpse of ultimate reality in the initiate

and install this realization in the body in embryonic form. She begins by describing the

proper performance of sexual yoga in terms of the production of a self-arisen body that

manifests after transcending the limitations of the sense faculties associated with the

ordinary, corporeal form:

Then, the range one's own perception beyond the sense faculties, born
out of the increase of profound sexual bliss of the pleasure awakened by the
constantly repeated bliss ritual is born as a mass of bliss that is the essence of
saṁsāra.

rtr
 That bliss, which is endowed with signs [yet] devoid of the signs of
[ordinary] beings, is gnosis, is a self-arisen body, is sublime bliss, is empty of
mental fabrication, [and] is the mind that is arisen from ultimate reality of the
mental imprints.201

Her use of the metaphor of birth to describe the production of this self-arisen body

follows a general theme throughout the work that recognition of the innate (sahaja)

constitutes the single factor distinguishing whether or not a given action of body,

speech, or mind binds one further to cyclic existence or leads to liberation. In this

case there are two potential bodies that might be 'born' as a result of sexual union—

the 'self-arisen body' of bliss that is beyond the range of the senses, or the ordinary

corporeal body that remains bound to cyclic existence. The former 'birth,' which

results from the correct performance of this yoga, results in both parties attaining a

fully embodied realization.

Yoginī Cintā's use of the metaphor of birth also plays an important role in her

description of the collection, preparation, and consumption of the sexual fluids

produced during this yoga. Her description of the couple in sexual union penetrating

the epistemically bound condition of the ordinary body and realizing an unbound,

self-arisen body of bliss is followed by the production of another body that is

remarkably less abstract and theoretical in its description. After the yogic couple

attains a self-arisen body of great bliss (svayambhūrūpaṃ mahāsukhaṃ), the text

describes the guru's collection of the products of their union. The passage is a bit

long, but it is worth including here in its entirety:

Then the one who burns up the film over the eye of all outwardly directed
conceptual imputations that becomes apparent when one enters into [blissful]

























































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rts
 orgasm because the mental activity of [one's] mind-stream is beyond and
unimpeded by the rapid fluctuation of mental imprints that are the subtle
connection to a cyclic existence that is constructed by oneself like an illusion,
etc., the lord of the world who is the nature of bliss, whose nature is pure
being, who is endowed with wind, clasps the residual blood that has trickled
from the inside of the finest blooming eight-petal lotus from the lower-mouth
below the navel of the woman whose menstrual cycle is fully arrived along
with the related seminal fluids. After that the lotus appears there like a
blossom closed after it has bloomed. And then the two, the blood and seminal
fluid that are the origin and the innate source are mixed like the ocean of milk
and formed into a pill, and it acquires the entire heap of collections of
elemental dispositions that are gradually produced and come forth in
succession from excessive rotation of this newly formed embryo etc. And in
that [pill] in which the five [elemental dispositions] such as earth and the like
are combined, in that [there is] "the feeling that causes one to behold the
manifest state," [meaning that one sees that] the body that possesses the five
psychophysical aggregates is the nature of [that] feeling. By being in close
contact [with that feeling] and exercising restraint regarding the subsequent
feeling, one becomes all pervasive, omnipresent.202

The chapter then concludes with a passage, followed by a single verse, in which Yoginī Cintā

contrasts the feeling (vedanā) described here with ordinary feeling that leads to the

production of the afflictions and continual rebirth in the round of existence.

This passage is remarkable for a number of reasons. It describes the production of the

piṇḍā as the product of a couple whose sexual yoga results in a form of ecstasis as both

parties enter into an indistinguishable union and experience a collective body of self-arisen

bliss. This seemingly abstract immaterial body is juxtaposed to a rather concrete description

of the male partner's collection of the products of this union from the consort's vagina.

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rtt
Yoginī Cintā then compares the production of the 'pill' to the Purāṇic cosmogonic act of

churning the ocean of milk, a process that is, among other things, linked to the first

appearance of the nectar of immortality (amṛta) over which the devas and asuras are said to

be engaged in a constant struggle. The metaphor thus evokes the term amṛta, although it is

not actually employed here, one of the most frequently used terms to describe the piṇḍā. The

term piṇḍā carries a dual significance. It is first literally a 'pill' that is produced through

mixing together the seminal fluids and menstrual discharge of the yogic couple. Such 'pills'

constitute one of the most important samaya substances that a yogin or yoginī consumes

during initiatory consecration rites and during the self-consecration practice.

Its second connotation, which Yoginī Cintā brings to the forefront here, is as a 'body'

or, more precisely, the body of a human embryo in its early stages of development. The

process of combining the seminal fluids and menstrual fluid is apparently imagined here,

through the cosmogonic metaphor of churning the ocean of milk, as a kind of externalized

conception, and the zygote or piṇḍā produced by that process is glossed here with another

term for a newly formed embryo (kalala). This imagery is enhanced by Yoginī Cintā's

reference to the process of conception in the formation of this newly fertilized embryo as one

of 'acquiring the entire heap of collections of elemental dispositions'

(sakalabhūtasañcayopacayam). The most important point Yoginī Cintā makes here is that

this piṇḍā contains what she calls "the feeling (vedanā) that causes one to behold the

manifest state." Thus a trajectory is established quite clearly in the first chapter of

Vyaktabhāvānugatatattvasiddhi from the arousal of the yogic couple to their attainment of an

ecstatic bliss-body followed by the production of an entirely new, material body in the form

of a newly formed embryo that, as Yoginī Cintā appears to argue here, is imbued with a

rtu
particular 'nature of feeling' that is genealogically linked to the bliss experienced during the

yogic couple's embrace. It is the physical substance of the piṇḍā that is in turn capable of

transferring their experience onto an initiate or, in cases when it is consumed by the same

yogic couple who produced it, of reinforcing or reproducing that experience and establishing

its physical presence in the body.

Of course Yoginī Cintā's description of this process should not be assumed as the

only explanation for precisely why consuming the piṇḍā can induce a state of realization in

newly initiated disciples and renew that realization in more seasoned yogins and yoginīs. But

such vivid descriptions of the actual mechanics involved in producing the samaya substances

of the higher consecration systems are relatively rare, and this text thus provides some

explanation for the practice where so many others remain relatively vague. What is even

more unique here is Yoginī Cintā's description of this particular samaya substance in terms

of the conception of an actual newly formed embryo. Given the well-known ritual application

of this particular substance as something that is consumed during initiation rites, it follows

that such rites entail, at least by Yoginī Cintā's analysis of the process, consuming an actual

living being of sorts. It is thus not unreasonable to suggest that in the opening chapter of

Vyaktabhāvānugatatattvasiddhi, a work that is, after all, allegedly composed by a Yoginī, we

have what seems like a re-purposing of the kind of activity with which yoginīs and the

broader classes of female spirit beings in their more traditional demonological formulations

are commonly associated—namely the consumption of sexual fluids in general and the

pathology of miscarriage via consumption of a newly fertilized embryo. In Āyurvedic

demonological models for pediatric medicine, such female baby snatchers (bālagrahā) were

the assumed culprits behind failed pregnancies and childhood diseases. As Fred Smith notes,

rtv
these beings appear to be external to the Sanskritic literary traditions and were at some point

incorporated into it.203

This stands as perhaps one of the primary, albeit tenuous, examples of continuity

between the rites described in Vyaktabhāvānugatatattvasiddhi and the demonological

paradigm. To the degree that this continuity can be granted some legitimacy, it reveals yet

another connection between the generation of a fully embodied enlightenment and the

existential condition revealed within the demonological paradigm. At the very least, the fact

that the initiate or initiated practitioner acquires power from ingesting such substances is in

itself indicative of their status as "power substances." 204 In this particular case, that power

appears to be derived from the fact that these substances have been transformed, through a

kind of extra-utero fertilization process, into a living embryo. Yoginī Cintā's first chapter

presents a blending of both the substance and aesthetics of power, grounding the yogic

epistemology of her self-arisen body in an actual material substance, before describing the

power that consuming that substance has to induce a state of epistemic unboundedness.

The instructions to actually ingest this piṇḍā do not appear in Yoginī Cintā's text, but

can be assumed given the context. The verses that immediately follow the production and

description of the piṇḍā describe the exercise of restraint (atiniyata) regarding any

subsequent feelings (anuvedanā), indicating that the subject who consumes the piṇḍā must

be able to focus exclusively on the 'feeling' with which it is imbued, and which it then elicits

in the body of the consumer. The result is yet another kind of yogic magnification in which

the subject becomes all pervasive (sarvavyāpi) and omnipresent (sarvagata). This state of

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being all pervasive and omnipresent has its correlates in the yogic practices of bodily

magnification for which there is evidence presented above from Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi

and in the epistemology of gnostic pervasion in Indrabhūti's Jñānasiddhi.

To summarize, the sequence of instructions in Yoginī Cintā's

Vyaktabhāvānugatatattvasiddhi presents a discourse of embodied enlightenment that

proceeds along the following trajectory. First the yogic couple progresses through various

states of sexual arousal through a series of interactions involving bodily gestures, glances,

and touch and culminating in their bodily embrace. The couple eventually transcends their

epistemically bound corporeal bodies only to attain a collective body that is beyond the range

of the senses and composed of bliss. The products of this body in turn produce a new body as

the seminal and menstrual fluids are mixed together to form a newly formed embryo. This

embryonic body is then consumed by some-body and produces the realization of that some-

body's own body as a body that is all pervading and omnipresent. Yoginī Cintā's explanation

of the piṇḍā indicates that the act of consuming the samaya substances during initiation and

self-consecration is highly invested in the notion of embodied realization, and it offers some

explanation as to how that embodied realization might be transferred between a guru and

disciple during the consecration ritual or self-administered and reinforced by the yogic

couple during the self-consecration practice.

Yoginī Cintā's text contains a final affirmation of a fully embodied realization in its

sixth section titled "The Entire Threefold World is Composed of Mind" (sarvam

traidhātukam cittamayam), where the physical processes of cultivating this body are tied into

classical Indic aesthetic theory through the notion of the innate (sahaja). The passage reads:

Thus it is said, "Because bodhicitta is naturally pure, whatever bodily

movements issue forth from the state of sahaja are all the various types of

rtx
 mudrā, and whatever verbal expressions there are, they are the various types
of mantra, and the vibration that is the appearance of the innate that is
incessant, non-abiding, non-compounded, unlimited, that is set in motion by
the various types of sentiments, and emotional states, that is eroticism,
bravery, disgust, anger, laughter, fear, compassion, wonder, peace, etc., and
which is also desire, anger, delusion, madness, pride, envy, and jealousy, etc.,
whatever arises all has the mental representation of gnosis, has a pure nature
that reflects everything." This entire three-fold world is composed of mind.205

Here the text presents a fully developed notion of embodiment that is in accord with its

central doctrine of sahaja, and that is reminiscent of the notion of a natural connection

established between the various bodily and mental behaviors of a yogin who has attained

realization and the natural expression of the awakened state in the world. The list of the nine

sentiments (navarasam) that appears here follows the exact same set and ordering of the nine

sentiments that are ascribed to the manifestation of the deity Hevajra in Hevajratantra

II.v.26.206 The correlation between Yoginī Cintā's proclamation of this transformation of the

entire range of mental, physical, and verbal actions and behaviors from their usual, afflicted

state to their pure nature shall become clearer in chapter four as the connection between

behavior, normative social ethics, and the body's vulnerability to interference from the world

of spirit beings is brought into greater focus within the context of the performance of the

post-generation stage caryā and vrata.

VII. Embodied Realization in Ḍombīheruka's Sahajasiddhi

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Ḍombīheruka's Sahajasiddhi contains only traces of the influence of demonology on the

tantric Buddhist imagination of the body. But despite this lack of explicit engagement in the

demonological discourse on the vulnerability of the ordinary body and the yogic cultivation

of a divine, invulnerable body, it is still possible to demonstrate this work as product of the

same ritual and ascetic culture of the cremation ground described in greater detail in other

works in the corpus. Sahajasiddhi is largely concerned with the performance of a caṇḍālī

subtle-body yogic sequence drawn from (or perhaps preconfiguring) the instructions on

caṇḍālī in the Hevajratantra. The work is somewhat of an outlier in the corpus of The Seven

Siddhi Texts, and may have been included in order to have at least one of its seven works

address this practice, which became integral to the imagination of mahāmudrā following its

popularization in Buddhist circles through works like the Hevajratantra. Aside from

Sahajasiddhi, there is no explicit mention of any kind of caṇḍālī practice elsewhere in the

corpus.

The practice of caṇḍālī came to be understood as a critical component to the

successful performance of the transgressive ascetic practices of the caryā and vrata, and the

various levels of heat (uṣman, drod) that it produces are at times directly correlated to the

various levels of caryā or vrata.207 This treatment of uṣman as a means for rendering the

body invulnerable to assault by any human or non-human external influences offers one

interpretation for the common iconographic component of a ring of fire surrounding the

wrathful deities of the Buddhist tantric pantheon. Thus the caṇḍālī practice in Ḍombīheruka's

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Sahajasiddhi208 has its place within the demonological paradigm, even without the author's

explicit mention of this practice's power for guarding the body against human and non-

human assailants. In this sense Ḍombīheruka's caṇḍālī practice might be read as yet another

yogic model for cultivating a fully embodied enlightenment directly related to the kind of

dual apotropaic-soteriological goal of embodied realization that is reflected more explicitly

elsewhere in the corpus of The Seven Siddhi Texts.

VIII. Conclusion: What is Vajrasattva? What is the Sādhana of Vajrasattva?

There may be no more important term for understanding what it means for an individual to

take on the religious identity of a Vajrayāna practitioner than the term vajrasattva. It is most

often assumed as a proper noun describing the Buddha Vajrasattva, who is commonly

depicted in his saṁbhogakāya form holding a vajra in his right hand at the center of his chest

and resting a bell in his left hand on his thigh. But the term vajrasattva is not limited to its

function as a proper noun and demonstrates a wide range of meanings and connotations even

within The Seven Siddhi Texts. Within this corpus it is employed to describe an ontological

and pervasive ground of reality, the personification of this reality as a deity, the Buddha

Vajrasattva, who is the source and the original teacher of the tantric rites and ascetic

practices, a general term denoting a class of awakened beings, and a synonym for either the

guru, the accomplished yogin, or the sādhaka.

The term vajra provides a semiotic strategy for inscribing any term within a

Vajrayāna Buddhist framework, with the addition of the term vajra to any number of terms

functioning as the linguistic equivalent of the conversion and subjugation narratives that

























































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authorize and validate many of the developments of the yoga- and yoginītantras. This is

evident in certain deities of the Vajrayāna pantheon such as Vajravārāhī and Vajrabhairava,

both of whom have obvious correlates outside of any Buddhist context that likely predate

their inscription and appropriation within Vajrayāna Buddhism. In the same way, the term

vajrasattva undoubtedly holds a great deal of significance for understanding what nuance

these traditions bring to this tradition's conception of a living being (sattva). A

comprehensive genealogy of the term across Vajrayāna literature is well outside of the scope

of this study, but a more limited exploration of the way that the authors of The Seven Siddhi

Texts use the term vajrasattva does provide a useful means for identifying the impact that the

basic existential problem of being, conceived within the demonological paradigm, has

exerted on the rhetoric of embodied realization in Vajrayāna Buddhism.

The consecration rite can be said to represent the process through which the disciple

both becomes Vajrasattva and becomes a vajrasattva. The consecration rite provides a dual

apotropaic-soteriological response to the existential crisis inherent to the demonological

paradigm. It is within this context that the term vajrasattva is in fact correctly taken to mean,

quite literally, an 'indestructible being,' or one who has essentially resolved the existential

problem of existing within an inherently vulnerable body that is situated in a world full of

powerful spirit beings intent on doing it harm. Soteriological ideals like nirvāṇa,

saṁyaksaṁbuddha, abhisaṁbodhi, etc., have always had their bodily correlates in Buddhist

traditions. In the esoteric Buddhist traditions of The Seven Siddhi Texts, the soteriology of

realizing non-dual gnosis finds its apotropaic correlate in the manifestation of an

indestructible body. This kind of embodied enlightenment is signified in the literal

connotations of the term vajrasattva as 'indestructible being.'

rur
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Jñānasiddhi, and Lakṣmīṅkarā's Advayasiddhi, refer to themselves as a 'sādhana of

vajrasattva.'209 But none of these works could truly be called sādhanas in the most common

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sense of the term as denoting a genre of text containing liturgical instructions for a particular

deity and the sequence of yogic practices related to that deity's maṇḍala. This more common

understanding of the term sādhana applies to sections of Guhyasiddhi and Jñānasiddhi, but it

is certainly not a useful description of these works on the whole. In addition to the rather

broad set of referents with which they layer the term vajrasattva, the authors of these texts

must also have had a somewhat different conception of the term sādhana than more popular

definitions of the term that might be derived, for example from a collection like the

Sādhanamālā.

A careful look at the use of both terms in The Seven Siddhi Texts reveals a potential

structure for the 'sādhana of vajrasattva' that suggests the term sādhana in these works

describes the entire ritual program of consecration, mastering the self-generation of the body

as the deity maṇḍala, and performing the advanced completion stage ascetic practices of the

caryā and vrata. A brief discussion of the first two, the consecration ritual and generation

stage, as part of the sādhana of vajrasattva concludes the current chapter, while the third

component, the ascetic practice of the caryā and vrata, shall be discussed in chapter four.

Conceiving of the consecration ritual and generation stage yoga as part of this sādhana of

vajrasattva or 'method of accomplishing the state of an indestructible being' highlights the

dual apotropaic-soteriological function of these practices, both of which focus on attaining an

embodied realization of non-dual gnosis or ultimate reality within a ritually consecrated and

protected space.

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 Chapter five of Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi on "The Sādhaka's Mahāmudrā

Consecration" (sādhakamahāmudrābhiṣeka) refers to itself as a sādhana of vajrasattva in its

opening verses:

Now, I will thoroughly explain

The secret of the glorious vajra-bearer, |
The sādhana of a vajrasattva,
That is concealed by the actual practice. || 5.1 ||

The completion stage yoga

Destroys the enemy distraction, |
[Makes] the secret virtuous state easy to attain,
And accomplishes [seeing] actions as [mere] play. || 5.2 ||210

The verses immediately raise the issue of distinguishing between the potential phases of the

'sādhana of vajrasattva,' and Padmavajra makes a direct connection here between this

sādhana and the 'completion stage yoga.' The actual topic of the chapter, however, is the

consecration ritual that precedes the yogin's progression to the stage of an initiated sādhaka

and that qualifies him to perform the caryā and vrata ascetic practices of the completion

stage yoga. Padmavajra sheds some further light on this issue later in the chapter when he

reaches the point in his consecration liturgy at which the guru imparts his final command

(anujñā):

And then he should be given the command

That is prescribed in the tantra: |
“You must set the universal vajra in motion
Within the wheel of the dharma as you wish. || 5.40 ||

In the unsurpassed dharma-wheel

Of the buddhas and bodhisattvas,
Carry out the instruction that arose from
The mouth of the highest Buddha Vajrasattva.” || 5.41 ||211

























































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The actual identity of the Buddha Vajrasattva in the guru command is revealed in the

following chapter containing Padmavajra's instructions on the guhyacaryā. The chapter,

discussed at length in chapter four, opens with the following verses

Now, I will thoroughly explain

The secret practice, the arising of virtue, |
The mother of all of the buddhas
That slays the enemy distraction. || 6.1 ||

One whose mind is always liberated

Should give up comfort,
Leave the confines of saṁsāra behind, |
And accomplish the command of Vajrasattva. || 6.2 ||212

The 'command of Vajrasattva' (vajrasattvājñā) is a direct reference to the command given at

the culmination of the consecration rite in Guhyasiddhi chapter five, where it is rendered

with the term anujñā. This indicates that the reference to the 'instruction that arose from the

mouth of the Buddha Vajrasattva' in the guru's command constitutes a reference to the

Buddha Vajrasattva as the ultimate source of the tantric teachings as well as a reference to

the guru himself as Vajrasattva.

Explicit evidence for the mutual identification of the guru with Vajrasattva is made

quite clear in the following verses from the opening chapter of Indrabhūti's Jñānasiddhi:

The guru who gathers disciples

Emulates all of the Buddhas. |
Thus spoke the Lord of the World.
No other gurus are taught. || 1.27 ||













































































































































































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 Since there is indeed no comparable
Great sage worthy of being worshipped, |
A practitioner of the vrata should worship
The best of gurus with all [of his] effort. || 1.28 ||

No comparable person worthy of honor

Is found in the world with its three realms. |
Vajrasattva himself, he abides
In the world for the welfare of all. || 1.29 ||

He should be worshipped in many ways

By disciples who desire true excellence |
Who desire undiminishing merit
[And] who remove all obstructing beings. || 1.30 ||

This is indeed the unsurpassed

Samaya of all samayas. |
You must maintain this [samaya] at all times,
[For it] bestows all manner of accomplishments. || 1.31 ||213

Indrabhūti's reference to the guru as Vajrasattva is further supported in Anaṅgavajra's

Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi during the eulogy section of his chapter on the consecration rite:

Teacher of the pure meaning of ultimate reality

Who cuts through the ignorance of beings, |
Arisen from the identitylessness of phenomena—
Praise you Vajrasattva! || 3.10 ||214

If we can allow for some flexibility in reading across texts, a certain degree of clarity

emerges around Padmavajra's reference to the consecration rite in his Guhyasiddhi as a

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sādhana of vajrasattva. Guhyasiddhi reveals that the command given at the end of the

consecration rite originates with the Buddha Vajrasattva while Jñānasiddhi indicates that the

guru who administers this consecration is himself viewed as Vajrasattva. To further

complicate matters, Anaṅgavajra's Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi begins its chapter on the

consecration rite with the following verse:

Now, for the benefit of sādhakas intent on

The state of a vajrasattva, I shall accurately |
Explain the consecration that has
Authority over the three worlds. || 3.1 ||215

This adds yet another layer suggesting that the consecration is itself a means by which the

disciple becomes vajrasattva. Three different referents for the term can thus be identified in

the context of the consecration rite—the Buddha Vajrasattva as the ultimate source of the

ritual and the power it confers upon the initiate, the guru as Vajrasattva 'in the flesh,' and the

disciple who becomes a vajrasattva through receiving the consecration and performing the

subsequent yogas and ascetic practices for which he is now qualified.

Given the fact that Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi, Indrabhūti's Jñānasiddhi, and

Lakṣmīṅkarā's Advayasiddhi contain instructions on the generation stage yoga, the higher

consecrations, and the completion stage yoga,216 and that all three of these works refer to

themselves as a sādhana of vajrasattva, it seems reasonable to assume that constituent

elements of the term sādhana for these authors encompass the generation stage yogas, the

consecration rite, and completion stage yogas. As this chapter demonstrates, these works

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provide a method for dual apotropaic-soteriological goal of embodied realization. They thus

outline the methods by which the sādhaka becomes both the Buddha Vajrasattva and a

vajrasattva through installing the deity maṇḍala within his own body and completing the

self-visualization as the deity through the consecration rite. Once the maṇḍala has become

coterminous with the body through this union (yoga), the sādhaka should, in theory, be able

to wander beyond the protected boundaries of all mentally, socially, and physically

constructed structures and remain unharmed. The next stage of the sādhana in these texts, the

completion stage yoga, prescribes that the sādhaka cultivate a socially marginalized identity

that is designed to demonstrate his invulnerability to possession by spirit beings as well as

assault and censure from human beings. The sādhana of vajrasattva thus culminates in a

demonstration of perfect union between the body and the deity maṇḍala that proves that the

sādhaka no longer needs to resort to any of the protective ritual practices that are so integral

to the emergence of the maṇḍala as a locus of sacred space and ritual activity in the kriyā and

caryā tantras.

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 Chapter 4:

Exiting the Maṇḍala:

Vajrayāna Caryā and Vrata Asceticism in The Seven Siddhi Texts

I. Introduction: Demonology and Vajrayāna Caryā and Vrata Asceticism

The advanced tantric practices of the caryā and vrata take place beyond the protective

structures of the maṇḍala. Within the demonological paradigm, many of these practices can

be read as a kind of test through which sādhakas and can demonstrate the degree of success

they have had in cultivating the dual apotropaic-soteriological goal of the generation stage

yoga. In order to test whether or not the sādhaka's union with the deity-maṇḍala is complete,

all forms of ritually constructed protective structures (both mental and physical) must be

abandoned. After abandoning these safeguards, the sādhaka then acts in ways that provoke

assault from supernatural and mundane beings (both human and non-human) and frequents

locations that might otherwise be considered polluting or conducive to possession and

madness. This much is made clear in Padmavajra's allusion to the Vajrayāna caryā and vrata

at the conclusion of his instructions on the generation stage yoga, where he mentions a

familiar set of locations for the performance of these ascetic practices:

In seclusion, in a secret place, in a place with one hundred good qualities,

On a mountain, in an empty house, in an old park, in a cave, in an abode
Of the ancestral clan, in an underground chamber or somewhere pleasant, |
One who demonstrates that he has become divine by remaining purified in these
Places and locations, devoid of worldly attachment, should meditate on the jewel
Of ultimate reality that bears the vajra, that brings bliss to the region. || 4.56 ||217

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The sādhaka's ability to survive while living in the locations prescribed for the caryā and

vrata functions as a kind of proof of having attained a total transformation of his actual

physical body218 through complete union with the deity-maṇḍala. In this way, the Buddhist

sādhaka's ascetic practices demonstrate the double meaning behind the term siddhi in the

titles of The Seven Siddhi Texts, where it signifies the ability to demonstrate an embodied

realization of ultimate reality as the proof (siddhi) of attainment (siddhi).

There are a number of structural similarities between Buddhist siddha asceticism and

its Pāśupata antecedents in the general movement from the protective confines of the

maṇḍala to the perilous and unprotected space of the charnel ground. The Pāśupata’s first

phase of practice takes place in a temple grounds or a simple 'dwelling place' where he

remains within close proximity to the physical presence of the deity.219 During this phase, it

is argued here that confining the Pāśupata initiate to such a space grants him a certain degree

of protection while he engages in a number of activities, such as singing and dancing loudly

in a public space, that might otherwise render him vulnerable to attack by spirit beings. This

early stage of the Pāśupata practice finds its correlate in the Buddhist consecration rite and

generation stage yoga, both of which employ both a physically and mentally constructed

maṇḍala rituals that seal off the consecrated space of the ritual from the world around it. In

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such rituals, the maṇḍala is protected from the attack of dangerous supernatural forces from

within and without by stationing troops of various spirit beings at each of the maṇḍala's gates

and by the ritual construction of a barrier protecting the maṇḍala from the external world.

This function of the maṇḍala survives in contemporary Tibetan Vajrayāna torma (gtor ma)

rites, which include rituals in which any potentially harmful or obstructing spirit beings are

fed by being invoked into one or more dough effigies and then removed from the space in

which the maṇḍala will be generated. These effigies and the beings they contain are then

literally and physically cast out of the maṇḍala by discarding the effigy beyond the outer

wall of the monastery of temple. In this case the actual walls of the monastery or temple

provide a perimeter for the ritual space of the maṇḍala. A similar notion of an impermeable

perimeter that holds the spirit world at bay appears in Buddhist maṇḍala iconography as the

vajra cage (vajrapañjara, rdo rje ra ba), indicated by a ring of vajras, wreathed in fire,

surrounding the outer edge of the maṇḍala (figures 2 and 3) It is impossible to fully

appreciate the iconographic program of Vajrayāna Buddhist maṇḍalas and the ritual cultures

they represent without acknowledging the broad-ranging impact that popular religion and its

Sanskritized formulation in the bhūtavidyā literature on these traditions. It is also impossible

to provide a meaningful historical understanding of this iconography and the ritual culture it

represents without incorporating the demonological paradigm proposed in this study.

The function of many of the rites conducted within the maṇḍala depends upon the

belief that the body is an open, permeable conduit. Although Buddhist maṇḍala visualization

practices are incredibly diverse, they all rely at some point upon the body's ability to act as an

open conduit, whether the goal is receiving blessings, taking on specific qualities from the

deities involved in the visualization practice, or installing entire assemblies of deities in the

rvr
body itself. Thus within the maṇḍala, the body's status as a permeable, open conduit, once a

source of so much apprehension and concern over guarding the body from any potentially

harmful force, is re-purposed to the individual's advantage. This is the case in the

externalized visualization practices of the kriyā- and caryātantras as well as the self-

visualization practices associated with the yoga- and yoginītantras, where the ability to

install the deities in the body through ritual techniques such as mudrā and akṣaranyāsa play a

critical role in the sādhaka's fully embodied union with the deity-maṇḍala. In the

a.

b.
Figure 2:
a. Jñānaḍākinī maṇḍala, Tibet, 14th century CE.
b. Close-up showing siddhas in the northwest (right, possibly depicting Padmavajra) and western (center,
possibly depicting Luipa) charnel grounds, located here outside of vajrapañjara. The eight great siddhas
are depicted in this maṇḍala in the following order beginning with in the east (bottom) and moving
clockwise: Indrabhūti, Ḍombīheruka, Nāgārjuna, Ghaṇṭapāda, Luipa(?), Padmavajra(?), Kukkuripa,
Saraha.220

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 Figure 3. Cakrasaṃvara maṇḍala (top half) with Siddhas outside of vajrapañjara,
Nepal, 12th century221

systems of the yoga- and yoginītantras in which the rites performed within the maṇḍala are

overtly transgressive, the practitioner attains union with the deity-maṇḍala by performing a

number of actions that might ordinarily result in possession if they were performed outside of

a consecrated space that has been cleared of harmful spirit beings and sealed off. This is the

case with the practices such as the 'complete perfect awakening as a five-fold mental

representation' (pañcākārābhisaṁbodhi) of the generation stage in works such as

Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi, consecration rituals, and practices in which sexual yogas and the













































































































































































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repeated consecration rite are employed to bring about a complete union with the deity-

maṇḍala. Notably, the siddhas that appear in figures 2 and 3 above as well as the Pāla bronze

maṇḍalas depicted in figure 4 below are depicted outside of the protective structure of the

maṇḍala, and in some (but not all) cases, outside of the protective vajrapañjara that

surrounds the maṇḍala structure itself. The depiction of these siddhas beyond the protected

space of the maṇḍala reflects the ascetic landscapes of the caryā and vrata practices that

came to define the iconography of the Buddhist siddhas and, in turn, of the yoginītantras.

a. b. c.
Figure 4: Siddhas depicted on the outer petals of Indian bronze maṇḍala sculptures.
Image a.: Bronze Cakrasaṃvara maṇḍala with siddha 12th century Northern Indiasss
Image b.: Bronze Hevajra maṇḍala depicting Kukkuripa (lower right) 12th century
Northern Indiasst
Image c.: Bronze Hevajra maṇḍala depicting Kukkuripa 13th century (location not
specified)ssu

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rvu
II. The Demonological Paradigm and 'Anti-ritual' Siddha Rhetoric

The performance of the caryā and vrata ascetic practices in the completion stage yogas also

prohibit the sādhaka from resorting to a range of ritual methods for protecting the body. This

dynamic is prominently featured in The Seven Siddhi Texts, which contain a number of short

lists of proscribed ritual methods that would normally be used to protect the sādhaka from

harmful spirit beings. Two sources are given in Indrabhūti's Jñānasiddhi that provide some

hint of the potential textual genealogy for the proscription of such practices. The first appears

in Jñānasiddhi chapter fifteen, which quotes Guhyasamājatantra 16.16:

[One with] the ultimate reality of mantra

Should not lay the vajra thread |
And apply colored sand.
If one does it will be difficult to attain awakening. ||225

Indrabhūti supplies a short commentary on this verse that explains precisely why it is that

constructing a physical maṇḍala, as one might in the kriyā- and caryātantra textual

traditions, is forbidden after one has reached a certain level of realization:

[This means that] one should not apply colored sand, etc., using the thread-
line of a maṇḍala. [The line,] “By [one with] the ultimate reality of mantra”
means that, since it is the case that [mantra] is the protection of the mind,
"knowledge of mantra is taught to be perfect knowledge." If one acts out of
delusion, “awakening becomes difficult to do.” That means that "buddhahood
and the state of Vajradhara are difficult to attain by performing the actions of
a being who is a beginner using a maṇḍala." Therefore, drawing maṇḍalas,
entering them, and consecration, etc., is forbidden for a great yogin who is
endowed with perfect gnosis.226

























































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Jñānasiddhi makes a direct connection here between the popular Buddhist etymology of the

term mantra as 'protection of the mind' (manasastrāna)227 and the proscription against

constructing a physically consecrated maṇḍala in the Guhyasamājatantra. The 'great yogin

who is endowed with perfect gnosis' provides the proper subject for this proscription which,

as Wedemeyer has so helpfully noted, indicates that the proscriptions associated with the

performance of the caryā or vrata are not generalized statements on the soteriological power

of ritual but instructions for a relatively rarified type of practitioner at an advanced level of

ascetic practice.228

After this commentary on GST 16.16, Indrabhūti provides twenty-two verses that

describe the Guhyasamājatantra's configuration of the 'complete perfect awakening as a five-

fold mental representation' maṇḍala practice. Indrabhūti thus follows his own commentary

on a verse from the Guhyasamājatantra that specifically forbids the generation of a maṇḍala

with a detailed set of instructions on generating a maṇḍala. However, the maṇḍala

generation practice that Indrabhūti outlines is a self-visualization practice that is intentionally

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juxtaposed here with practices associated with the yogatantras (as well as the kriyā and

caryātantras) that rely on the construction of a physical maṇḍala. This juxtaposition

highlights which maṇḍala practices are acceptable, and which, at a certain point in the

sādhaka's career, must be given up.

The scriptural basis for this kind of a rejection of a physical, external support is

further reinforced in the same chapter in the following verse that Indrabhūti provides from

the first chapter of the Sarvabuddhasamāyogaḍākinījālaśaṃvara:

Yoga does not arise with respect

To images such as statues, etc. |
Yogis become deities
Due to the great yoga of bodhicitta. ||229

These references orient Indrabhūti's reader to the scriptural basis for the rejection of such

physical supports as maṇḍalas and statues, but they represent only a fraction of the total list

of ritual technologies and parameters that are proscribed throughout The Seven Siddhi Texts.

The following is a far more extensive list of these proscriptions:

1. mudrā
2. maṇḍala
3. mantra
4. bandha
5. fasting (upavāsa)
6. making a caitya (caityakarman)
7. homa
8. recitation of texts (pustakāghoṣaṇa)
9. praising the tathāgatas
10. statues
11. place (deśa)

























































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rvx
 12. time (kāla)
13. lunar day (tithi)
14. day of the week (vāra)
15. lunar mansion (nakṣatra)
16. bathing and purification (snāna and śauca )
17. severe practices (kaṣṭakalpana)
18. venerating those on the path of the three vehicles (triyānapathavartina)
19. venerating the complete awakening of the buddhas
20. verbal debate (vāgvāda)
21. edible/inedible
22. drinkable/not drinkable
23. approachable/unapproachable (for intercourse)

In her contribution to this list of proscribed ritual practices, Lakṣmīṅkarā notes that one

"should not do kriyā [practices]" (na ca kriyām),230 echoing Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi,

which also contains several passages that refer to the sādhaka who practices the caryā or

vrata moving beyond the practices of the kriyātantras as well as the generation stage

yogas.231 This provides some context for the proscription of 'place, time, lunar day, and day

of the week' in the opening verses of Advayasiddhi, all of which are common stipulations for

the successful performance of maṇḍala rites in the Buddhist kriyātantras and elsewhere.

Despite these direct references to the lower tantric systems, it is not enough to argue that the

practices proscribed for an advanced Vajrayāna ascetic performing the caryā or vrata in The

Seven Siddhi texts amount only to a critique or rejection of the kriyā- and caryātantras. There

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is more at work in the proscription of these standard techniques and parameters for the

performance of exoteric and esoteric rituals than a mere protest against these textual

traditions. The broader demonological context in which the Vajrayāna caryā and vrata

practices flourished is critical to understanding these proscriptions and their full implications

for the ritual and ascetic culture of the Vajrayāna siddhas.

Christian Wedemeyer provides a similar list of proscriptions in his work on the

connotative semiology of non-duality in Buddhist tantric literature. Although Wedemeyer's

list draws from Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi and a few other treatises, it is primarily derived

from scriptural sources, i.e. the tantras themselves. The Seven Siddhi Texts offer a wider

range of proscriptions than these scriptural sources. This distinction is a function of literary

genre. As independent treatises on the topic of 'siddhi' as opposed to formal scriptures or

tantras, The Seven Siddhi Texts are more concerned with the issue of 'proof' than in the kind

of revelatory hermeneutic of authority that we often find in scriptural sources. The

prescription and proscription of various behaviors and elements of ritual performance in the

presentation on caryā and vrata in The Seven Siddhi Texts is integral to the sādhaka's

establishment of the proof (siddhi) of their own attainment (siddhi).

The reader may notice that the most important proscription for Wedemeyer's

argument, the proscription against "value judgments/conceptuality,"232 does not appear in my

own list above. Proscriptions against acquiescing to conceptual thought appear in a wide

range of Buddhist literature and are by no means a unique feature of the Vajrayāna caryā and

vrata practices. As a result, this proscription may not offer the most effective means for

distinguishing the emergence of the advanced tantric asceticism of the caryā and vrata from

its predecessors among the lower tantras and the exoteric Buddhist traditions. Just as it is not

























































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enough to characterize the transgressive ritualism of the Vajrayāna caryā and vrata as a

protestant rejection of the ritual culture of the kriyā- and caryātantras, it is also not enough to

argue that these works proscribe various ritual techniques and guidelines simply because they

are 'conceptual' and thus useless in a general sense. Moreover, when we allow for the kind of

polysemy in our treatment of the semantic range of terms derived from the verbal root klṛp

already suggested in chapter two, it becomes clear that the above list of ritual techniques and

guidelines are not forbidden because they are based in conceptual thought (and thus

ultimately useless), but because they are perceived as entirely useful and effective methods

for guarding against spirit beings, both in the context of rituals that are performed in a

consecrated space and in the context of the individual person's ritually purified body. The

proscription of these practices acknowledges that they have valid practical applications, and

this acknowledgement is a discursive product of a tradition that is engaged in the basic

existential problem of the demonological paradigm. Their proscription thus signals a shift in

Buddhist approaches to that existential problem, not a rejection of the efficacy of these rituals

per se.

When one examines the practical application of the physically and conceptually

'constructed' elements of esoteric Buddhist ritual, a pattern emerges indicating that these

proscriptions are related to the demonological paradigm's central existential problem of the

individual person's susceptibility to negative influence from spirit beings. Again, the goal in

these texts and within the broader Vajrayāna tradition is not to attain a purely cerebral

realization of non-duality but a fully embodied realization in this life and in this body. As

demonstrated in chapter three, the recognition that The Seven Siddhi Texts and the broader

tantric literature of the yoga- and yoginītantras are concerned with attaining a fully embodied

rwq
realization that serves a dual apotropaic-soteriological purpose suggests that it would be wise

to take seriously the particular view of the body and its relationship to the world with which

these works are in conversation.

From this perspective, the 'Zeitgeist' that Wedemeyer points to in order to explain the

emergence of the cremation ground ascetic cultures of the Śaiva and Buddhist tantras may in

fact be less a "religious [Z]eitgeist of antinomian practice"233 and instead part of a broader

trend toward an increasingly sophisticated demonological discourse in tantric circles. An

increasingly complex taxonomy of geisten, accompanied by an increasingly precise and

prolific discourse on demonology, informed the transgressive asceticism of the Śaiva and

Buddhist initiatory religious movements. The evidence for this development is located in the

expanding science of symptomology, diagnosis, and pathology associated bhūtavidyā in the

Sanskrit literature of the medical sciences or Āyurveda. The pantheon of bhūtas (spirits) or

grahas (seizers) responsible for the onset of 'exogenous' (āgantuka) forms of disease and

madness in this literature increased substantially from the early centuries CE, when the

Cāraka- and Suśrutasaṁhitās were likely composed, to around the seventh century with the

composition of the Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayasaṁhitā.234 In place of a more unidirectional

'sanskritization' model, Smith argues that the expansion of bhūtavidyā in this period is

indicative of "an epistemology that flows from folk to classical and back again, producing

new and unique Indian forms of knowing."235 The important shift that this expansion of

bhūtavidyā signals in the middle of the first millennium of the common era and its potential

ramifications for the development of tantric asceticism must be acknowledged given the fact

























































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that the prescribed locations for the performance of the ascetic practices of the caryā and

vrata coincide, as Sanderson has observed in the context of Śaiva kāpālika asceticism, to

precisely those places "where the uninitiated were in greatest danger of possession."236

To be fair, the idea that these ritual methods would be rejected because they are

'dualistic' does appear in The Seven Siddhi Texts. Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi, for instance,

indicates that the entire list of proscribed rituals techniques and guidelines on the successful

performance of any ritual might be rightfully interpreted as a critique of such practices as

based on 'external supports' and thus 'dualistic.'237 However, a failure to fully appreciate the

implications of externality in the performance of the Vajrayāna caryā and vrata runs the risk

of neglecting the demonological worldview underlying the construction of rules governing

the proper performance of ritual. Many of the ritual protocols employed in tantric literature,

after all, trace back to the Atharvaveda, the compendium of rituals designed (among other

things) to counteract and prevent any negative influences from disrupting the performance of

the Vedic sacrifice. In this context such practices were 'external' in the sense they were

external to the Vedic sacrifice, and their primary function was to ward off or destroy any

potentially harmful beings who might prevent the successful completion of the primary

sacrifice.238 The meaning of Padmavajra's proscription of 'external' rites is certainly governed

in some sense by the notion that the lower tantric traditions rely upon a number of methods

that are external to the body and thus reinforce a kind of subject-object dualism. But this is

not the only implication behind abandoning things that are 'external.' The kind of 'externality'

that might be attributed to the Atharvaveda ritual systems can be invoked here as well to

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describe the abandonment of all rites that are designed to prevent interference from spirit

beings. In the context of the Vajrayāna caryā and vrata, the 'internal' component or the

consecrated site that the sādhaka retains as the locus of ritual is the body itself. Just as the

Atharvavedic rituals are an external means for protecting the internal, consecrated space of

the Vedic sacrifice, the performance of 'external' offerings and rituals in esoteric Buddhist

traditions are also understood as constructive methods for preventing the world of spirit

beings from penetrating a ritually consecrated space. The failure to engage in such

externalized ritual methods leaves one open to interference and possession by a vast

pantheon of spirit beings. This means that the advanced Vajrayāna ascetic's intentional

rejection of these methods is not only based on a rejection of ontological dualism, it also

constitutes a performance (caryā) of exactly the kind of behaviors that might render the

sādhaka susceptible to disease and possession.

Mudrā, one of the most frequently proscribed ritual techniques in The Seven Siddhi

Texts, has a far more extensive vocabulary in Buddhist than in Śaiva textual traditions.239 On

the other hand, as Goodall and Isaacson have observed, early Buddhist tantras such as the

Mañjuśrimūlakalpa do not preserve a strong mantra-based soteriology that employs the kind

of nyāsa practices discussed in the analysis of the nyāsa practice in Padmavajra's

Guhyasiddhi and its potential scriptural sources among Guhyasamājatantra literature in

chapter three of this study. Comparing the few times that the ritual method of nyāsa appears

























































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in the Niśvāsatattvasaṁhitā to the great importance attributed to this practice in later Śaiva

tantric literature, Goodall and Isaacson also suggest that the practice was at first simply

considered a protective rite and later came to be understood as a means for transforming

oneself into the deity.240 This provides evidence to support Acharya's suggestion that the

practice of nyāsa was a particularly Vaiṣṇava contribution to ritual techniques of the Śaiva

and Buddhist initiatory religions.241 The entire spectrum of practical applications of nyāsa,

from being a practice aimed at protecting the body to one aimed at transforming the body

into the deity, also bears a strong functional similarity to the Buddhist ritual applications of

mudrā. In its more soteriological applications, mudrā functions as a ritual technique by

which one might bring about yoga or union with a single deity or deity-maṇḍala. In addition

to these more lofty applications, mudrā played an integral part in the performance of a wide

range of rites aimed at manipulating minor spirit deities or their overlords to perform one's

bidding.242 The proscriptions against mudrā in The Seven Siddhi Texts should be read in light

of both its practical applications as a ritual method for transforming oneself into a deity and

as a method for bringing any number of spirit deities under one's control.

The proscription of bandha appears in conjunction with mudrā in Padmavajra's

instructions on the guhyacaryā, where he notes that the 'seals and bonds are banned'

























































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(mudrābandhastu bandhanam)243 in this practice. This is most likely not a reference to the

yogic technique of mudrābandha that appears in the much later description of the yogic

practice of mahāmudrā outlined in the Haṭhayogapradīpika as a series of "internal blocks

(bandhas) and seals (mudrās) that fan the fire of yoga (yogāgni)."244 Instead, the

mudrābandha practice Padmavajra refers to here denotes two protective techniques, one that

'seals' (mudrā) the body itself and another that 'binds' (bandha) the immediate area

surrounding the sādhaka and prevents any proximal interference. This interpretation of the

term bandha appears in the common practice of binding the directions (digbandha) that so

closely resembles the employment of the Buddhist vajrapañjara in the ritual construction and

visualization of maṇḍalas. An early example of this practice appears in one of the earliest

works of the Śaiva mantramārga, the Brahmayāmala, in its forty-fifth chapter. The following

passage addresses the daily rites of the Śaiva sādhaka that involve the installation of a

protective perimeter:

40ab He who practices the daily consecration (nityābhiṣeka) will not be

affected by [others' hostile] mantras and by hostile forces (vighna). He should
install the Weapons at the points of the compass and [perform] the Closing of
the Directions (digbandha) in the right sequence. He should perform the
Release of the Weapons (astramokṣa). He should go to the sanctuary
(devāgāra). 41cd–42 He should destroy the hostile forces (vighna) in front of
himself by visualizing his weapons as blazing and very powerful (mahāvīrya)
and enveloped in the Kavaca[-mantra]. The Sādhaka should open up the Pura
[i.e. the Maṇḍala] while reciting the syllable HUṂ.245

As Sanderson's work has so thoroughly shown, the demonstrated intertextuality between the

Śaiva Brahmayāmala and the Buddhist Cakrasaṁvaratantra leaves little room to deny that

Buddhist tantric initiates were not at least somewhat conversant in the Śaiva ritual world of

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the mantramārga.246 Padmavajra in particular, as discussed in chapter seven of this study,

was certainly conversant with a number of Śaiva ascetic practices. It is thus reasonable that

his proscription of bandha in Guhyasiddhi refers to a kind of digbandha practice.

When they are analyzed through the lens of the demonological paradigm, it becomes

clear that almost all247 of the ritual methods proscribed in The Seven Siddhi Texts function at

least in part to protect an individual from assault from demonic spirits. The rejection of these

practices is thus a rejection of any form of recourse to ritual methods that offer this kind of

protection. The apotropaic effect of performing some of the more exoteric Buddhist ritual

acts proscribed in The Seven Siddhi Texts such as constructing a caitya, reciting texts, and

praising the tathāgatas should be clear to any reader familiar with the Mahāyāna literature on

these practices. Proscriptions regarding place (deśa), time (kāla), lunar day (tithi), day of the

week (vāra), and lunar mansions (nakṣatra) can also be understood as protective strategies

that derive from guidelines outlined in the kriyā- and caryātantras (and from South Asian

ritual theory more broadly) governing the spatial and temporal parameters for the successful

performance of a particular ritual.

Many of the proscribed practices referenced throughout The Seven Siddhi Texts

appear to be in direct conversation with the demonological culture reflected in Āyurvedic

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pathologies of demonic possession. This literature outlines the various behaviors that might

result in a 'fault,' or more accurately a split or rupture (chidra), in the psycho-physical body

through which spirit beings could gain power over an individual. The potential 'faults' in the

Aṣṭāṅgahṛdaya, for instance, include things such as "being in a burial ground at night (6.4.6),

or inadequate attention to oblations and sacred texts (6.4.8)."248 This literature also tells us

that some of the ritual techniques prohibited during the caryā and vrata can even counteract

any disease that might be brought on by a moral transgression one has committed in a

previous life. As Smith notes, practicing Āyurvedic physicians often cite the following verse

when discussing the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness:

When it takes the form of disease, a moral transgression effected in another

birth may be overcome through rituals of pacification [śānta], medicines
[auṣadha], gift giving [dāna], repetition of the name of god [japa], fire
offerings [homa], temple offerings [arcana], etc.249

The final compound of the verse, japahomādi, provides an explicit example of the apotropaic

function of these practices. At the same time, the use of the suffix ādi indicates that the

implied list extends beyond recitation (japa) and fire offerings (homa) to a number of ritual

techniques.

The three major classical Āyurvedic treatises also provide evidence that any failure to

properly observe the various restrictions that govern the proper performance of rituals such

as the day of the lunar month, the time of day, and the place where the rite is performed can

leave one vulnerable to possession. Like the spirit beings they are designed to counteract, the

improper performance of a rite can function as an exogenous (āgantuka) cause of mental

illness. Time (kāla), more broadly speaking, is also an important factor in the body's

























































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susceptibility to possession. In his compendium, Caraka presents a symptomology of

madness (unmāda) due to exogenous interference in tandem with a pathology outlining "the

times and the kinds of people upon whom these forms [of madness] chance to fall."250 The

Carakasaṁhitā then follows this pathology, providing the physical, mental, and behavioral

symptoms of possession by a particular class of spirit being alongside the particular time of

the lunar month when one might be susceptible to their influence and interference. The

following excerpt provides a good example of the correspondences between days in the lunar

month (tithi) and the body's susceptibility to possession by a class of demonic spirit referred

to as a divine seizer (devagraha):

[6.9.]21.1 Under those circumstances, the devas attack [abhidharśayanti] a

person of pure behavior, skilled in religious austerities and scriptural study,
generally on the first and thirteenth lunar days [tithi] of the waxing lunar
fortnight [śuklapakṣa] after noticing a weakness [chidram].251

Caraka goes on to list the particular days of the lunar month during which one is most

susceptible to attack from eight of the most common spirit beings from among a potentially

innumerable pantheon. Even with Caraka's relatively truncated list of spirit beings the lunar

calendar becomes quite crowded, with virtually every single day of the waxing fortnight

being assigned to one or another seizer (graha). The Suśrutasaṁhitā provides a shorter list of

correspondences between spirit beings, the days of the lunar month during which they are

active, and in some cases even the specific time of day at which they strike:

[6.60]17–18. Deva grahas enter [viśanti] on the full moon day, asuras at
dawn and dusk, gandharvas generally on the eighth lunar day, yakṣas on the
first lunar day, pitṛs and serpents [uraga] on the fifth day of the waning lunar
fortnight, rākṣasas at night, and piśācas on the fourteenth lunar day.252

The Aṣṭāṅgahṛdaya, the latest of the three classical Āyurvedic works, contains some of the

























































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most comprehensive and direct correspondences between the kind of proscriptions associated

with the Vajrayāna caryā and vrata and the medical pathology of possession. Unlike the

Caraka- and Suśrutasaṁhitās, the details on this topic in the Aṣṭāṅgahṛdaya indicates that its

compilers may have had more direct knowledge of the kind of tantric cremation ground

asceticism that repurposed the mechanics of possession as a theoretical framework for the

practice of yoga by the middle of the first millennium CE. The following verses from chapter

six, the bhūtavidyā chapter of the Aṣṭāṅgahṛdaya, illustrate the increasing correspondence

between this literature and the culture of the cremation ground that came to dominate certain

currents of Śaiva and Buddhist tantras in the latter half of the first millennium. Here we get

perhaps the most overt set of correspondences between socially transgressive behaviors,

environmental conditions, and disorder with regard to the performance of rites as a

pathological framework for demonic possession:

[6.4.]4. An extreme transgression of one’s better judgment [prajñāparādhaḥ],

wherein one’s ordained life-style, religious vows, and proper behavior are
transgressed, may be due to lust and so on. In such a case, one also offends
honorable men.

[6.4.]5. Uncontrolled [bhinnamaryādam] in this way the transgressor becomes

self-destructive. The gods and others also attack, and the grahas strike at his
weak-points.

[6.4.]6–8. These weaknesses include undertaking a transgressive act, the

ripening of an undesirable action, residing alone in an empty house, or
spending the nights in burning grounds and other similar places; public nudity,
maligning one’s guru, indulgence in forbidden pleasures, worship of an
impure deity, contact with a woman who has just given birth, and disorder
with respect to tantric or Purāṇic fire offerings [homa], the use of mantras,
sacrificial offerings not involving fire [bali], vedic sacrificial offerings [ijya],
and positive actions or rites that counter negative ones [parikarma]; as well as
composite neglect of prescribed conduct in the form of daily routine and so
on.253

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The Aṣṭāṅgahṛdaya could not be clearer on this point—improper performance or disorder

with respect to ritual action is just as likely to expose a weakness in the psycho-physical

complex through which an exogenous possessing being might attack. The incorrect

performance of a ritual could also render one just as vulnerable as adopting any number of

transgressive behaviors.

III. Literalism, Connotative Semiotics, and the Transgressive Samayas254

Literal readings of the transgressive samayas are notoriously unpopular both in Buddhist

exegetical traditions and among most modern scholars of Vajrayāna Buddhism. Both

Buddhist exegetes and their etic counterparts (who often parrot the emic exegetical tradition)

appear at times to be highly invested in explaining away any literal interpretation of the

transgressive aspects of these traditions. While the Buddhist exegete's movement away from

literal interpretations of Vajrayāna literature is usually motivated by an attempt to integrate

the ritual and ascetic expressions of its radical non-dualism within a more conservative

ethical framework, modern academic exegetes are more likely motivated by the desire to

prevent these traditions from losing any relevance they might have inside a modern academic

institutional system that is governed by conventional bourgeois notions of propriety. The

final three members on the list of proscriptions generated from The Seven Siddhi Texts deal

more directly with individual behavioral patterns that are recognized as potential signs and/or

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causes of possession. These proscriptions, which require that one reject conventional notions

of edible and inedible, drinkable and not drinkable, and approachable or not approachable for

sexual intercourse, are not limited to the performance of the caryā and the vrata. They are

also included among the samayas that are bestowed upon initiates within the protective

structure of the maṇḍala during the higher consecration rites. It is this context, where the

transgressive samayas are performed within the ritually protected structure of the maṇḍala,

the argument that these actions primarily function as signifiers for a disciple or an initiate's

realization of non-dual gnosis comes to the foreground. After all, the idea that the

transgressive samayas are a deliberate inversion or rejection of normative brahmanical social

ethics as a means of demonstrating one's attainment of non-dual gnosis is, as Wedemeyer

notes, attested in the literature itself.255

But to say that this is all that is going on provides an incomplete understanding of the

more apotropaic aspect of these traditions and their specific focus on attaining a fully

embodied realization. It is highly unlikely that literalist readings are entirely inaccurate in all

cases. It is also highly unlikely that there has ever been a single interpretation of these

practices among the textual communities that produced and performed them. Instead, it is

perhaps more constructive to acknowledge a plurality of approaches to this material that fall

along a continuum between the connotative and the literal. Even a single author's

interpretation might demonstrate some fluidity, moving between connotative and literal

interpretations of these rites and shifting this interpretation depending on the level of

realization that a given practitioner is believed to have attained.256 When we allow for some

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movement from the connotative to the literal in our interpretation of The Seven Siddhi Texts,

it draws our attention to the demonological implications of rejecting normative modes of

conduct in the performance of samayas that involve consuming various types of substances

and engaging in illicit types of sexual behavior and in the advanced ascetic practices of the

caryā and vrata.

The demonological horizon of transgression in these texts does not negate the

argument that the transgressive behaviors they prescribe (and the normative behaviors they

proscribe) signify the practitioner's attainment of non-dual gnosis. First of all, in the world of

these texts and traditions, the realization of non-dual gnosis itself guards against interference

from the world of spirit deities. This means that even the rhetoric around non-dual gnosis and

the attainment of ultimate reality in The Seven Siddhi Texts is directly relevant to the more

literal demonological interpretation of transgressive samaya rituals and the performance of

the caryā and vrata. At the same time, the transgressive rites and behaviors in these texts are

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not only connotative. In the end, a more complete understanding of these traditions only

comes into view by acknowledging that they are discursive products of a cultural milieu that

accepted the taxonomies, pathologies, and symptomologies of the bhūtavidyā as a literal

account of the world. For all of their rhetoric regarding the illusory nature of phenomena, the

authors of The Seven Siddhi Texts accept the existential condition at the core of the

demonological paradigm as a real problem, treat potentially dangerous classes of spirit

beings as if they were real, and ultimately incorporate this reality into their own vision of the

goal of the two-stage yoga—attaining the state of an indestructible being (vajrasattva).257

The various bhūtas and grahas for which the Āyurvedic literature goes to such

lengths to present a coherent set of symptoms and pathologies are a key component of the

public for whom the sādhaka performs the transgressive behaviors in the samayas, the caryā,

and vrata. The symptomologies regarding madness that is brought on by demonic possession

in the Caraka- and Suśrutasaṁhitās both include elements that revolve around the

consumption of various types of food and drink as well as engaging in certain sexual

behaviors. It is not until the Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayasaṁhitā, however, that a more robust set of

behaviors associated with possession emerges that demonstrates a clear correspondence to

the transgressive Vajrayāna ritual and ascetic practices. The Aṣṭāṅgahṛdaya includes the

consumption of some of the samaya substances and the cultivation of a lustful sexual

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causes of possession. The tantric traditions in which these samayas are embedded thus appear

as participants in the same discourse on demonology that we see in the Āyurvedic literature.

Following the dual symptomology and pathology of mental illness brought on by possession

in Āyurvedic literature, the performance of the transgressive samayas and a number of

behaviors associated with the caryā and vrata might be viewed as actions that both render

one susceptible to possession and function as symptoms that one is possessed.

Anaṅgavajra's instructions for the tattvacaryā further complicate the issue of how the

demonological and the soteriological interact by arguing that the samayas play a role in

protecting the sādhaka from possession. This treatment of the demonological horizon of

transgression and its involvement in the rhetoric of the samayas offers yet another reason to

entertain a literal interpretation of these practices. Anaṅgavajra writes:

Ablaze with the fire of self-consecration,

One should practice the samayas taught |
On the mantra path in their entirety
Using a yoga that is agreeable to the mind. || 5.17 ||

One should rely upon the five ambrosias

To pacify the vighnas and māras, etc. |
This unsurpassed protection is incurred
By means of feces and urine, etc. || 5.18 ||

Fevers, diseases, poisons, sicknesses,

Ḍākinīs and seizers who cause distress, |
Māras, and vināyakās
Are all pacified by this. || 5.19 ||

One who possesses insight should eat

The five 'lamps'—[meat] that comes from a human, |
Horse, camel, [meat] that comes
From an elephant, and even a dog. || 5.20 ||

And with the other divine

Samayas that elevate the mind, |
One should satiate the one who has the vajra mind

rxu
 In order to pacify the agitation of the [vital] winds. || 5.21 ||258

The passage treats the five amṛtas as an offering to some of the most dangerous classes of

spirit beings who might interfere with the sādhaka's practice. A similar statement on the

purpose for consuming the five amṛtas appears in the following passage at the opening of

Jñānasiddhi chapter ten:

The victors, who are unrivaled in subduing

The mind, prescribe the five amṛtas |
And elephant meat and the like so that yogins
Will not have any beings that hinder [their practice]. || 10.1 ||

Even so, [ordinary beings] who eat all manner

Of living beings do not become buddhas. |
Foolish beings who lack intelligence
Do not understand [this]. || 10.2 ||259

Indrabhūti's opening statement on the point of the five amṛtas in Jñānasiddhi 10.1a is a bit

less clear when the verse is translated and adjusted to fit proper English syntax, but the

Sanskrit for these verses preserve a clear juxtaposition of two compounds that, when

translated on their own, read "the five amṛtas are for the purpose of being without

obstructing beings" (pañcāmṛtam avighnārtham).

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 There are thus two components to the samaya offering in Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi

5.17–21. First, in verses 5.17–19, the sādhaka or yogin offers the samaya substances to any

obstructing beings so that they may be satiated and not interfere with his practice. Then in

verses 5.20–21, the sādhaka or yogin consumes these substances himself in order to pacify

his own vital winds (mārutakṣobhaśāntyartha).260 Anaṅgavajra's instructions for the sādhaka

to consume the traditional five meats does leave room to argue that this constitutes a kind of

symbolic expression of non-dual gnosis that rejects the Vaidika brahmin purity-impurity

dialectic, but they also offer their own logic for the consumption of these substances that tells

a different story. The public for the samayas in this case is not a human society in which

brahmanical notions of purity dictate normative behavior but a public of spirit beings whose

behaviors are diametrically opposed to normative brahmanical codes of purity. The inversion

of normative brahmanical ethics in the consumption of the samayas thus performs the dual

function of signaling a rejection of the purity-impurity dialectic and an adoption of the

conduct of those spirit beings who exist outside of the social structures that the dualist

structure of the purity-impurity dialectic is designed to maintain. We might infer, then, that

consuming the samaya substances protects the sādhaka from the world of spirit beings not

because it demonstrates his powerful realization of non-dual gnosis, but because their

consumption demonstrates the sādhaka's adoption of the normative conduct of the demonic,

possessing spirits that dwell beyond the edge of civilization.

On the other hand, Lakṣmīṅkarā's Advayasiddhi does actually present the

consumption of the samaya substances as a visualization practice. The visualization of these

substances as an offering seems is internalized in this text as part of a subtle-body yoga, and

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the samayas themselves are understood as homologues for the five families of the tathāgatas.

The relevant verses from Advayasiddhi read:

A mantrin should always make offerings

By meditating on himself as the ultimate reality
With feces, urine, and semen, etc., |
Which originate in the nāsika. || 4 || 261

One should perform the sublime samayas

That are the origin of the five families daily |
And worship with the 'lamps,' etc., [and]
With the 'milk' [samayas] that are the origin of the world. || 8 ||262

One should make the offering to the vajra-bearer

With visualized (bhāvitaiḥ) urine and feces |
That is mixed with vomit and flies [and]
Combined with the five meats. || 16 ||263

One who is adept at yoga should always consume

The flesh of elephant, horse, donkey, camel |
[And] that which comes from a dog
Mixed together with human flesh. || 26 ||264

Lakṣmīṅkarā's Advayasiddhi only addresses the aestheticized and internalized the samaya

offering, but Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi appears to agree with Anaṅgavajra that the samayas

also function as an external offering that protects the sādhaka from potentially harmful spirit

beings while he performs the consort observance (vidyāvrata). Padmavajra writes:

One should obtain a supreme, sublime,

Pure mudrā, an abode of all good qualities, |
Who possesses manifold forms,

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 Who has completely abandoned pain and death, || 7.1 ||

Be she a goddess, female nāga, likewise

A yakṣī, demigoddess, or kinnarī, |
One who possesses the form of a gandharvī,
Or otherwise an accomplished yoginī. || 7.2 ||

And, attracting these divine women

With the ritual methods of the noose and hook, |
The yogin should worship them
With the union of meditation and ultimate reality. || 7.3 ||

Through [his] effort in the sādhana of the divine ones,

He is known as [one who holds] the samayas. |
Subdued, they become [his] servants
They do whatever [he] wishes, || 7.4 ||

And they never cause

[His] mind to waver. |
Because they are subdued by the divine samayas,
These divine women grant [him] great magical power. || 7.5 ||265

The passage continues here to mention that the yogin wins magical power from these divine

consorts and then wanders on the outskirts of the forest surrounded by them. The

performance of the samaya offering thus contains components that require a literal and

externalized interpretation of the rite, and the literal interpretation of these components is

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female spirit beings to his side provides him some degree of protection that allows him to

wander "like a lion, free from all fear."266

The passages from Anaṅgavajra, Lakṣmīṅkarā, and Padmavajra are good examples of

the variety of interpretations around the samaya offering ritual in this literature. Anaṅgavajra

treats the transgressive samaya substances as both offerings to malevolent spirit beings that

might attack the sādhaka while performing the caryā and vrata as well as substances that the

sādhaka should consume. Lakṣmīṅkarā discusses the consumption of the samaya substances

as an internal visualization in which all forms of worship and veneration are inwardly

directed. The internalization of the practice makes sense in this context, given that the yogin

or yoginī who performs the samaya offering has mastered the embodiment of a deity-

maṇḍala that is coterminous with the entire cosmos. The samaya beings that would receive

these offerings have been installed in that maṇḍala, the maṇḍala has been made coterminous

with the body, and that body is coterminous with the entire cosmos. This kind of yogic

cosmology allows for the distinction of internal and external to fall away completely. Given

that both Anaṅgavajra and Lakṣmīṅkarā refer to this stage of practice as a self-consecration,

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an internal, visualized practice. But without the kind of explicit evidence that we see in

Advayasiddhi, it is not possible to argue this point with any certainty.

Padmavajra's discussion of the samaya in his vidyāvrata chapter, which does not

actually contain explicit mention of the samaya substances,267 seems to incorporate elements

of a kind of connotative semiotics by instructing the sādhaka to worship the female spirit

deities he has drawn to his side 'using the union of meditation and ultimate reality.' Still, the

text also preserves a more literal interpretation in which the sādhaka draws these beings to

his side and makes offerings to them so that they will grant him magical power, protection,

and their company as consorts. It is worth noting that the examples from Anaṅgavajra and

Padmavajra seem to contradict a general proscription against external forms of ritual practice

that are designed to protect the body from attack by spirit beings. These authors' particular

conception of the role of samaya and the proscriptions against normative social ethics

surrounding the dialectics of edible/inedible, drinkable/not drinkable, and approachable/not

approachable actually preserve the protective function that samaya plays in the lower tantras

as a ritual means by which beings are bound together in 'contract.' Lakṣmīṅkarā arguably

resolves this contradiction by internalizing the entire process of the samaya offering. The

discrepancies between these authors' instructions on the consumption of the samaya

substances reflects the tension between literalist and figurative interpretations that have

followed these traditions for more than a millennium, and that continue to frustrate modern

scholars' attempts at reconstructing an accurate and comprehensive history of the Vajrayāna.

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 The issue of whether or not the samayas are literally performed or whether they are

only part of an internalized yogic practice is taken up in the ninth chapter of Padmavajra's

Guhyasiddhi titled, "The Chapter Illustrating the Offering to the Master of Ultimate Truth"

(paramārthācāryapūjādeśanāpariccheda). Here Padmavajra speaks to whether or not the

ritual of offering one's own consort to the guru is figurative or literally performed. The verses

in question reflect the tension between these two interpretations by adopting a dialogical

rhetorical structure. The first indication that there is a dialogical rhetoric at work occurs in

the chapter's fourth verse, which disparages the entire teaching outlined in Guhyasiddhi as

conceptual and 'only mere meditation' (bhāvanāmātrakevalā). Since it is highly unlikely that

Padmavajra would decide to use the ninth chapter of Guhyasiddhi to effectively argue that

the entire treatise is useless, the dialogical ellipsis are supplied in the verse as follows:

[According to some,]
The secret practice and observance and the mudrā,
That were explained [here] in full detail |
Are all said to be a conceptual construct [and]
Are only a mere meditation. || 9.4 ||

[However,]
What was taught [elsewhere] according to the dispositions of all beings
Is accomplished here in its entirety, |
And [the sādhaka] who is endowed with gnosis
Is established as the subject in these meditations. || 9.5 ||

In this case [the subject,] who possesses insight,

Abandons the entire expanse that arises |
From conceptual thought [and] meditates
Continually and with great effort on the mahāmudrā. || 9.6 ||

One who has repeatedly trained [in this]

Who is free from all dualities |
Attains siddhi quickly,
Just as Padmavajra has said. || 9.7 ||268

























































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This rhetorical style appears again when the chapter turns to its central topic, the

performance of the consort (mudrā) offering to the ācārya. In this case the dialogue takes

place around whether or not the mudrā offering, considered the most important of all of the

samayas, is performed externally or internally. Once again, the apparent contradiction in

these verses can only be resolved by translating them as a rhetorical dialogue:

[Some say]
One should ornament one's own mudrā
With delightful things such as fine clothes and jewelry |
And present [her] as an offering to the guru
So that one may attain the siddhi of a Buddha. || 9.13 ||

By presenting one’s own mudrā, one shall

Generate the siddhi that is taught in the tantras. |
One does not attain siddhi by some other means than
The externally indicated samayas. || 9.14 ||

This indeed is the supreme ultimate samaya

That was taught by Śrī Vajranātha |
According to the true meaning of the tantras
For the benefit of the sādhakas. || 9.15 ||

[Others say]
The offering of the innate mudrā
Is supreme among all of the samayas, [and] |
Otherwise one does not attain siddhi
By means of samayas that take an external form. || 9.16 ||

Therefore [I say that] one should make offerings to the guru

Out of devotion and with all one's effort |
With the offerings of the lotus of one’s own mudrā,
With the songs that come forth from her throat, || 9.17 ||

With the instrumental sounds of flutes,

With vajra possession dances, |

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 With the taste of the consort's lips, |
With the joys of slight embraces, || 9.18 ||

With cooked foods of various kinds

With dry and moist sweet cakes, |
With divine liquor, fish, etc., [and] |
With various other [substances] prescribed in the tantra. || 9.19 ||

And following that, the highest siddhi

Is generated in the offering of the innate mudrā. |
Otherwise there shall be no siddhi.
This is the system of not performing [the mudrā offering]. || 9.20 ||269

Padmavajra acknowledges that there are two viewpoints on the status of the externally

performed samayas. The first presents the externally performed mudrā offering as the only

way that one attains siddhi and elevates it above the other externally performed samayas,

while the second elevates the innate mudrā (nijamudrā) offering above all of the externally

performed samayas (including the externally performed mudrā offering) as the only way one

actually attains siddhi. He then resolves the issue by describing s system of not performing

[the mudrā offering] (nayam akurvataḥ) that actually combines both the externally

performed mudrā offering and the innate mudrā offering. In other words, the external mudrā

offering is still performed, even in the system of not performing [the mudrā offering] (nayam

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akurvataḥ). Padmavajra thus argues that the literal, external form and the figurative, internal

form of the rite are equally necessary. Most importantly, at no point do we see evidence that

the initial bestowal of samaya on the disciple during the mudrā offering is interpreted in a

strictly symbolic or figurative sense.

Scholars who study these traditions should take note of this passage as evidence that

there have always been factions that supported more or less literal interpretations of

performing the transgressive rites and ascetic practices of the Vajrayāna. As a result there is

simply no chance that one can present a coherent argument for the figurative over the literal

(or vice versa) and expect to provide an accurate perspective on these traditions. Authors like

Anaṅgavajra and Padmavajra who preserve literalist interpretations of these rites call for an

interpretive framework that can expose the logic behind their literalism. The demonological

paradigm adopted in this study provides such an interpretive framework for the generation

and completion stage yogas, allowing for a literalist reading of these works that sheds greater

light on the social and historical context for the ritual function of transgression in the

Vajrayāna. This is not to say that literalist interpretations of the samayas must be adopted at

the expense of their figurative counterparts. As Padmavajra has shown here, and as the dual

apotropaic-soteriological goal of these traditions suggests, it is possible to simultaneously

preserve literal and figurative interpretations of transgressive ritual and ascetic practices that

are presented in the textual traditions of the Vajrayāna.

IV. Conclusion

Although Ruegg did not recognize it as such, the shared pan-Indian religious phenomenon of

localized spirit religions and their increasing influence on the Sanskritic scholastic literature

ryu
of bhūtavidyā in Āyurvedic medical treatises had a substantive and functional impact on

Buddhist and non-Buddhist initiatory traditions in the early medieval period. In reaction to

Ruegg's oversight, chapters two and three of the first part of this dissertation have suggested

that demonology provides an indispensible analytic paradigm for understanding the

development of South Asian religions and for understanding the social and cultural milieu in

which the transgressive ritual and ascetic practices associated with Vajrayāna Buddhism

arose. This demonological paradigm also offers one avenue for tracing the ritual and ascetic

practices of both Buddhist and Śaiva traditions to a common, pan-Indian religious substratum

that is not the sole domain of any particular sect.

The supporting evidence for this argument has been presented from The Seven Siddhi

Texts, and analyzing these works from the perspective of this demonological paradigm has

highlighted the dual apotropaic-soteriological goal that underlies the ultimate goal of 'siddhi'

or 'accomplishment.' A survey of these works has revealed that their authors address issues

concerning the connection between realization of ultimate reality through the perfection of

yoga and the demonstration of that realization through becoming invulnerable to possession.

Every aspect of practice in these texts is conceived in some way to offer a solution to the

existential problem of embodiment that lies at the core of the demonological paradigm in

South Asia. It has been argued as well that the term for this mode of religious praxis among

some, but not all, of the authors of The Seven Siddhi Texts was 'the sādhana of vajrasattva.'

Here the term 'vajrasattva' is not only a reference to the sādhaka's self-generation as the

Buddha Vajrasattva, it is also a reference to the goal of becoming an 'indestructible being'

that the sādhaka attains through perfecting the union (yoga) of his corporeal form with the

deity-maṇḍala.

ryv
 Viewed from this perspective, consecration rites and the generation stage yoga

practices reveal themselves as a kind of controlled possession in which initiates maintain

certain ritual structures as a safeguard against negative possession from obstructing beings

while inviting positive possession by the tutelary deity and the deities of the maṇḍala. More

exoteric strategies for cultivating invulnerability to possession such as the accumulation of

merit and realization ultimate reality (tattva) also appear throughout The Seven Siddhi Texts,

as does the practice of installing the maṇḍala in one's own body in order to attain a corporeal

form that is no longer in danger of developing any of the various weak points (chidra) that

the Āyurvedic bhūtavidyā literature identifies as a critical factor that render a body

susceptible to possession. The completion stage yoga practices of the caryā and vrata have

likewise been treated as means by which the sādhaka demonstrates the proof (siddhi) of his

attainment (siddhi) of the state of an indestructible being (vajrasattva) by emerging

unscathed from a myriad of potentially dangerous situations in which he surrenders any

means of ritual protection and adopts specific behaviors that invite abuse and possession

from both human and non-human beings.

ryw
 Part II:

Sect and Sectarian Identity

in The Seven Siddhi Texts

ryx
 Chapter 5:

Alexis Sanderson's 'Borrowing Model'

and the Issue of Sectarian Identity

I. Introduction: The 'Śaiva Age' Thesis

Alexis Sanderson's 1994 article "Vajrayāna: Origin and Function" remains a landmark piece

of scholarship in the fields of Buddhist Studies and South Asian Religions. Sanderson's work

in this article offered a new standard for scholarly precision in support of an old argument—

that the Buddhist yoginītantras appropriated their ritual and ascetic programs from Śaiva

sources.270 While some of the earliest proponents of this argument presented thin data and

demonstrated substantial biases in their approach to esoteric Buddhism, Sanderson relied

upon a data driven approach that successfully exposed several instances of clear

intertextuality between some of the major works in the Buddhist yoginītantra textual

tradition associated with the deity Heruka or Cakrasaṃvara and a number of important

surviving Śaiva mantramārga works such as the Picumata/Brahmayāmala,

Siddhayogeśvarimata, and Jayadrathayāmala. Sanderson argues that the flow of ideas

between Śaivas and Buddhists was unidirectional, with Śaiva texts providing a large amount

of material for the reformulation of esoteric Buddhist ritual and ascetic practices that one

finds in the yoginītantras. His original argument is based on an apparent mistake made by the

Buddhist author of the Saṃvarodayatantra while copying a standard list of Śaiva pīṭha

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locations that appears to derive from the Trika Śaiva work Tantrasadbhāva.271 Sanderson has

since expanded his evidence in support of this position considerably.

This unidirectional borrowing model is framed in direct opposition to David Seyfort

Ruegg's notion of a 'pan-Indian religious substratum.' Using the ritual sequence of the

Buddhist yoginītantra system of consecrations (abhiṣeka) from Abhayākaragupta's (12th

century) Vajrāvali as an illustrative example, Sanderson opens his study by positing that

nearly everything included in Abhayākaragupta's consecration rite is Śaiva in form and

origin, regardless of the fact that it remains wholly Buddhist in function. He provides the

following argument against Ruegg's 'substratum model:'

The problem with this concept of a 'religious substratum' or 'common cultic

stock' is that they are by their very nature entities inferred but never perceived.
Whatever we perceive is always Śaiva or Buddhist, or Vaiṣṇava, or something
else specific. Derivation from this hidden source cannot therefore be the
preferred explanation for similarities between these specific traditions unless
those similarities cannot be explained in any other way.272

Sanderson's critique of Ruegg argues for a theoretical approach to the study of tantric

traditions that draws a direct correlation between sectarian identity and literary production.

Underlying this argument is the implicit assumption that Śaivism, and not some nebulous

'substratum,' is the primary source and reference for the various esoteric initiatory traditions

commonly referred to as 'tantric.' In this way, Sanderson replaces any vague idea of a non-

sectarian religious substratum with a sectarian Śaiva substratum that served as the primary

source for much of the ritual and ascetic culture that would come to be referred to as 'tantra.'

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 Sanderson has since expanded upon this argument in great detail in his 2009 article

“The Śaiva Age: The Rise and Dominance of Śaivism During the Early Medieval Period.”

This work constitutes an extensive data-driven response to critics of his 'borrowing model'

and provides a wealth of evidence for Śaiva-Buddhist intertextuality as well as a more

developed argument for the unidirectionality of this exchange.273 Relying on epigraphic data

to argue for Śaivism's quick rise to dominance from the sixth century CE forward, Sanderson

follows a number of scholars who reject the argument that the era following the collapse of

the Gupta-Vākāṭaka Empire was a kind of 'dark age' of excessive turmoil that coincided with

a contraction in the development of literature, arts, scholasticism, and religious institutions.

Instead, he argues that the post-Gupta era was marked by an expansion of the monarchical

mode of government, a proliferation of new royal dynasties, a multiplication of temples, the

emergence of new urban centers, an expansion of agrarian activity through increased

agricultural infrastructure and land reclamation projects, and, perhaps most importantly, an

increasing trend toward cultural assimilation and interaction with the populations inevitably

caught up in this expansion.274 Although not mentioned by name, this argument is most likely

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drafted in response to Ronald Davidson's employment of a post-Gupta collapse narrative in

his work on the emergence of esoteric Buddhism. 275

Marking the expansion of monarchical government as one of the primary political

factors in the expansion of the tantric initiation cults, Sanderson examines primarily post-

sixth century epigraphic sources for evidence of the religious affiliations of royal donors and

patrons across South and South East Asia. This analysis proceeds by assigning a specific

sectarian affiliation to a ruler based on the epithets that describe them in the related

epigraphic data. Thus epithets such as "atyantabhagavadbhakta," "paramabhāgavata," and

"paramavaiṣṇava"276 are taken to signify a patron who identifies as Vaiṣṇava, epithets such

as "paramasaugata," and "paramatāthāgata"277 indicate a patron who identifies as Buddhist,

and the epithet "paramamaheśvara" indicates a patron who identifies as Śaiva. Of these

three, the epithet paramamāheśvara ("entirely devoted to Śiva") is encountered with the most

frequency.278 Sanderson has expanded upon this point in his 2013 article on "The Impact of

Inscriptions," where he notes the following observation:

Of those reported in the inscriptions published in Epigraphia Indica I find that

660 are grants to brahmins (brahmadeyam)—these emanate from rulers of all
kinds, regardless of sectarian affiliation—and that of the remaining 936, 596
(64%) are Śaiva (including 73 donations to Devīs and 8 to Skanda), 164

























































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 (18%) Vaiṣṇava, 111(12%) Jain, 63 (7%) Buddhist, and 38 (4%) Saura.
Approximately the same ratios are seen in the inscriptions of the same time
range published in the Indian Antiquary279

Sanderson notes that following the sixth century CE when temple-centered religious

practices began to increase exponentially across South Asia, the epigraphic record reveals

that Śaiva temple construction projects were more numerous than those of any other sect.280

These data are used to highlight the widespread public and political influence that Śaivism

held from the sixth century forward. This rapid and widespread expansion is intended to

provide a motivation for his 'borrowing model' by demonstrating that Buddhists began to

appropriate aspects of Śaiva ritual into their own traditions in order to adapt to the

groundswell of popular and royal support for Śaivism.

After arguing for the presence of various śākta-inspired ritual elements in the

yogatantra tradition of the Buddhist Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṁgraha, Sanderson expands his

case for Śaiva-Buddhist intertextuality in the Buddhist proto-yoginītantra work, the

Sarvabuddhasamāyogaḍākinījālaśaṃvara. This work introduces the cult of the deity Heruka

to the Buddhist esoteric traditions, whose iconography mirrors that of "the Bhairavas of the

Vidyāpīṭha with their accouterments and attributes of the cremation-ground dwelling

Kāpālika ascetic."281 Other elements that appear at this point include the introduction of the

gaṇamaṇḍala practice with its circles of yoginīs and their respective identifying gestures

(chomma), a further elaboration upon the subjugation mythology from the

Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṁgraha, and the ritualization of this mythology as part of a deity-

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visualization practice.282 Sanderson also notes that the very title of the work appears to be

correlated in some way to the titles for two Vidyāpīṭha works, the Sarvavīrasamāyoga and

the Yoginījālaśaṃvara.283

The core data set behind Sanderson's study of the intertextuality of the Buddhist

yoginītantras and the Śaiva Vidyāpīṭha textual traditions lies in his examination of a number

of correspondences between the root tantra for the Buddhist deity Cakrasaṃvara, the

Laghuśaṃvara, and the Picumata or Brahmayāmalatantra. The Buddhist yoginītantras are

identified as the point at which Buddhists began a wholesale adoption of Śaiva ascetic

modalities in their formal promotion of kāpālika-style vrata and caryā ascetic practices and

iconography. The strongest argument, which comes as an expansion upon Sanderson's

original discovery of textual correspondences between several works within the

Cakrasaṃvara cycle to a handful of Śaiva Vidyāpīṭha works, is undoubtedly his extensive

catalogue of correspondences in the Laghuśaṃvara that, as he notes, "are not short passages

of one or two verses but detailed and continuous expositions that run in two cases over

several chapters, amounting in all to some 200 verses out of a total of about 700 with some

prose equivalent in length of about 80 or more."284

Sanderson challenges the argument that the rule of lectio difficilior potior indicates

that the Buddhist versions of passages that demonstrate strong Śaiva intertextuality predate

their Śaiva counterparts. Examples of this intertextuality from Buddhist sources tend to

contain a greater number of grammatical errors and metrical inconsistencies than

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presentations of the same material in Śaiva sources. This introduces the possibility, following

the principle of lectio difficilior potior, of arguing that the Śaiva versions represent later

redactions of originally Buddhist sources that have been edited to reflect proper grammatical

conventions, proper meter, and to provide clearer context wherever the Buddhist text seems

deficient or unclear. Sanderson rejects this possibility, arguing that the principle of lectio

difficilior potior cannot be taken as a universal rule to be applied on the basis of grammatical

and metrical inconsistencies alone, but must always be taken into consideration on a case-by-

case basis. In this particular case, his analysis of the metrical inconsistencies in the Buddhist

versions of this material shows that many of the problems with the texts arise where Buddhist

influence on the material is most apparent.285 Such problems are said to result from Buddhist

redactors who were not deeply familiar with the textual tradition that they were

"cannibalizing."286 As a result the commentators on these works were "caught out, as it were,

by new materials that lacked roots in the Buddhist textual corpus in which they were

trained."287 By this argument, these commentators grappled with passages that were difficult

to interpret within a Buddhist context because they had been blindly imported from an

entirely different tradition. Outcries for more supporting data from Ruegg and others in

reaction to Sanderson's 1994 article "Vajrayāna: Origin and Function," have been rendered

largely irrelevant by his 2009 article, and the criticism that his sources are largely

unpublished manuscripts to which other scholars do not have access is slowly withering

away as these sources are gradually released in critical editions and translations.

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II. Some Lingering Issues with Sanderson's "Śaiva Age" Thesis

The work that Alexis Sanderson has accomplished with his 'Śaiva Age' thesis has made it

quite clear that Śaiva sects came to dominate much of the religious landscape across South

and Southeast Asia from the sixth century CE forward. The assumptions that underlie this

position, however, have not gone unchallenged. In his Indian Esoteric Buddhism, Ronald

Davidson accuses Sanderson's thesis of being "excessively reified" and perhaps unable to

address the issues of "unique local personalities or specific movements even within these

broad heterodox groups."288 Christian Wedemeyer's more recent response to Sanderson

revolves around two primary points. Echoing Ruegg's 'substratum' argument, Wedemeyer

points out that Śaiva, Buddhist, and Jain traditions participated in a shared religious, political,

and economic culture for more than a millennium from the fifth century BCE to the sixth

century CE. He then further develops Davidson's suggestion that Sanderson's vision of

sectarian identity in the tantric and pre-tantric era exhibits a tendency toward excessive

reification. On this point, Wedemeyer states that the only way one can argue for a truly

unidirectional and wholesale plagiarizing of Śaiva literature as the source of esoteric

Buddhism is to "begin with an already fully-formed notion of Buddhism that does not

include Tantric elements," and "adopt a normative position on what 'real' Buddhism is."289

Both Davidson and Wedemeyer's critiques are well taken. Sanderson does tend to

maintain a rigid conception of sectarian identity that minimizes the possibility for individuals

to hold dual, multiple, or fluid sectarian affiliations and religious identities. This critique is

directly relevant to Sanderson's examination of donative inscriptions, one of the cornerstones

of the 'Śaiva Age' thesis, which often overlooks or brushes aside the evidence for a culture of

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egalitarian patronage that these data support. This problem has since received a thorough

treatment in his recent 2015 article on "Tolerance, Exclusivity, Inclusivity, and Persecution

in Indian Religion During the Early Mediaeval Period," in which Sanderson provides a data-

driven response to Ruegg's discussion of religious inclusivity in South Asia and a welcome

corrective to the lack of critical analysis around the implications of royal patronage in South

Asia in his 2009 work on 'The Śaiva Age.' The issue of patronage in 'The Śaiva Age' is

discussed in detail below along with Sanderson's later corrections to this original argument.

To Wedemeyer's second point, Sanderson's insistence on maintaining a strict Śaiva-Buddhist

unidirectionality does support a rather incomplete portrayal of the interaction between Śaiva

and Buddhist initiatory cults prior to the sixth century CE onset of his 'Śaiva Age.' This bias

leads him, for example, to speak of the rapid expansion of institutional Śaiva monasticism in

the middle of the first millennium as if it had no antecedent or contemporary model on which

it might have been fashioned. In general, Sanderson tends to avoid discussing any potential

influence that other religious sects may have had on Śaivism while maintaining an exclusive

focus on the theoretical conclusion of medieval Śaiva dominance. This approach causes him

to superimpose the 'Śaiva Age' thesis on his data at times when it seems unnecessary, and to

neglect alternate readings of the data where they might be possible.

Sanderson's original presentation of the 'Śaiva Age' thesis also relies almost

exclusively upon textual and epigraphic witnesses that represent an elite and institutionally

affiliated Śaivism and its royal patrons. As a result, it lacks any treatment of the topic of

popular Śaivism, or popular religion more broadly. Some degree of a corrective to this

problem is offered in his 2013 article on "The Impact of Inscriptions on the Interpretation of

Early Śaiva Literature," and his 2015 article on "Tolerance, Exclusivity, Inclusivity, and

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Persecution." Interestingly, the correctives presented in these articles begin to move

Sanderson's thesis toward something resembling a 'pan-Indian religious substratum.' These

works locate the widespread presence of Śaivism among South Asian populations as a

significant precursor to the rise of the more institutional and politically potent forms of

Śaivism. While the idea that a widespread popular Śaivism would have facilitated Śaivism's

movement to the center of South Asian political life is a strong thesis, there is also a kind of

tautology at work in this theory that essentially argues that Śaivism came to dominate in the

second half of the first millennium because Śaivism already dominated in the second half of

the first millennium. There is no room here to consider that localized deity cults that were

assimilated to the Śaiva pantheon and facilitated the rapid expansion of Śaivism had pre-

Śaiva identities, and that these identities might have had a direct effect on the shape of

Śaivism itself.290

Sanderson's so-called 'reification' of sectarian identity in the medieval period may

likely be a function of the rhetoric of the esoteric initiatory religious sects themselves. The

entire logic of initiation, after all, is exclusivist and implies that the disciple, once initiated,

adheres exclusively to a specific religious identity. Yet an overly rigid delineation of

sectarian identity does not seem to have been universally the case, despite the exclusivist and

agonistic rhetoric of the initiatory traditions. An individual's religious identity could be far

more fluid than the rhetoric behind these rites often admits. This fluidity is actually a

function of the core assumptions around religious identity that the initiatory traditions

themselves promote. The idea that one is able to assume a new identity through the ritual

























































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means of consecration can only proceed based on a more general logic of the fluidity of

religious identity and sectarian affiliation. The overt rhetoric of exclusivity around initiation

into a specific textual community masks an implicit recognition that identity is an essentially

fluid phenomenon. At the very least, the initiatory cults certainly subscribe to a more fluid

conception of identity than what one finds in the Vaidika brahmin varṇāśramadharma

system. The analysis of evidence for self-conscious recognition of inter-sectarian dynamics

in The Seven Siddhi Texts discussed later in chapter seven of this study shows that some

authors were even apprehensive about the fact that their disciples could adopt an entirely new

sectarian affiliation or religious identity by simply taking initiation in another tradition.291

Alexis Sanderson's research has initiated a new phase in the study of South Asian

religious traditions that has raised the standard for philological research on South Asian

textual traditions and rendered accessible a Śaiva literature that remained poorly

understudied prior to his own groundbreaking efforts. This work has begun to fill in some of

the large gaps in our historical understanding that have resulted from neglecting the study of

Śaivism's influence on medieval South Asian religion. The persistence of these gaps can be

traced in some part to the privileging of Buddhism as a subject of study over and against

Śaivism, a trend that only increased as the field of Tibetan Buddhist Studies expanded in the

latter decades of the twentieth century. The huge number of works of Indic origin preserved

in the Tibetan canons has been treated, to use a very Buddhist idiom, as a veritable 'treasury'

of historical data on South Asian history more broadly. The relatively recent and

unprecedented access modern scholars have had to the Tibetan canon along with access to

living representatives of the textual traditions of the Vajrayāna in Tibet has provided an

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opportunity to understand esoteric Buddhism in a way never before imagined. In contrast, the

modern formulations of institutional Śaivism are perceived as lacking a similar degree of

historical continuity. The Kaula lineages that were so important for the development of later

Śaiva scholastic tantra, for example, are all believed to have been broken by the twelfth

century with the Muslim conquest of North India.292 In the Tamil South, where it might be

possible to speak of an unbroken Kaula lineage in the surviving Śrīvidyā tradition

surrounding the Goddess Trīpurasundarī, there has been a noticeable modification and

softening of many of the originally transgressive elements of the Kaula293 that is not unlike

the popular, public face of tantra in the Tibetan cultural world. Before Sanderson began to

publish his work, the study of the Śaiva, Jaina, and Vaiṣṇava esoteric initiatory cults that

were contemporary with the emergence of esoteric Buddhism had arguably fallen behind as

efforts to understand esoteric Buddhist traditions via their Tibetan witnesses increased. In

this way Sanderson's Śaiva-centric approach has offered a much-needed corrective to this

problem.

But despite being an immense contribution to the field, a Śaiva-centric methodology

may distort or limit our view of history in certain areas. There are at least two instances in

which Sanderson has applied a unidirectional borrowing thesis to the detriment of a more

holistic reading of his data. The first involves his statements regarding the rise of Śaiva

monasticism and the role that the proliferation of a wide-reaching network of Śaiva monastic

institutions played in these traditions' eventual dominance. The second involves his

discussion of Śaiva attitudes toward members of the lowest born strata of the

varṇāśramadharma system (antyaja). Both of these examples point to a potential bias in

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Sanderson's approach that may bear consequences for his arguments for a Śaiva-Buddhist

unidirectional pattern of appropriation.

Sanderson identifies five primary factors in the South Asian medieval process

through which the cultures that produced and supported the esoteric Śaiva and Buddhist cults

rose to prominence on the subcontinent and beyond. These five are the spread of a new

monarchical model at local, regional, and supraregional levels, the emergence systems of

land-owning temples, the proliferation of new urban centers, an expansion of agrarian

economies through land reclamation and settlement, and "the cultural and religious

assimilation of the growing population of communities caught up in this expansion."294 Part

of this process involved Śaiva orders positioning themselves as inheritors and guarantors of

the brahmanical social order, a critical component of Sanderson's thesis on Śaivism's rise in

this period. As guarantors of the brahmanical social order and proprietors of their own

initiatory cult, the Śaiva orders were in a unique position to guarantee both the proper order

and function of the religious lives of a large majority of a king's subjects while also

guaranteeing the king himself access to a transcendent religious power with which he might

legitimize his rule or seek religious beatification or liberation (or both). This dual function of

the tantric court preceptor is nicely summarized in White's statement on the tantric ruler as

both a representation of the transcendent godhead and "the protocosmic representative of

Everyman," who shares in the same concerns as his subjects regarding the potential

interference in one's life by hostile supernatural beings and forces295 and, although not noted

by White, the pursuit of the soteriological goal of liberation. As Sanderson notes, Śaiva

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preceptors produced modified initiation rituals for their royal patrons that would absolve

them of the necessary commitments to ascetic practice but still guarantee them liberation.

The success that the atimārgic Śaiva orders had in positioning themselves as guardians of the

varṇāśramadharma social order meant that their support could both reinforce the perception

of a king's right to rule while also guaranteeing that the same king, as a Śaiva initiate, would

hold these traditions in higher esteem than those of the Vaidika brahmins.296

The reward for the royal initiating guru's services was paid in the form of donations,

the construction of temples and monasteries, and grants of revenue from lands designated to

support those monasteries that served as endowments for these institutions.297 The wealth

that was heaped upon a royal family 's guru would eventually lead to that guru and his

particular sect to then to act as donors and patrons by building new monasteries, issuing land

grants, supporting the arts, and building temples and entirely new settlements.298

Commenting on this dynamic, Sanderson writes "[i]n this way there developed a far-reaching

network of interconnected seats of Saiddhāntika Śaiva learning. Figures at the summit of this

clerical hierarchy thus came to exercise a transregional authority whose geographical extent

could be greater than that of any contemporary king."299 This last point is important. It

indicates that the establishment of a Śaiva trans-regional network contributed significantly to

social and cultural capital of the various Śaiva orders, making their involvement at court a

desideratum for any ruler who might want to gain access to such a wide-reaching

infrastructure. Through taking initiation and patronage of the right Śaiva sect, a king could

potentially tap into an infrastructure that could allow his name to spread beyond his own

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borders and facilitate the exchange of ideas, information, and goods. These points derive

from a well-established canon of secondary literature on the function of monastic networks in

South Asia and their importance to their many royal, guild, and merchant class patrons. This

canon of secondary literature is, however, not directed at the monastic networks of the

medieval Śaiva orders but at the monastic networks of the Buddhists that predated them.

It is difficult to think of a good reason for which Sanderson might describe the

patron-preceptor dynamics involved in the expansion of the Śaiva monastic orders without

mentioning that the Śaiva monastic orders would have found a clear model for the

establishment of this kind of network among their Buddhist contemporaries. It is widely

acknowledged that Buddhist monuments and vihāras played an integral role in the

stabilization of trade and information networks across South Asia from the Sātavāhana

dynasty (c. 1st BCE to 2nd CE) through the rise and fall of the Gupta-Vākāṭaka Empire. The

epigraphic record left during these periods on the many Buddhist sites scattered across South

Asia reveals patronage models in which monasteries were used to extend a ruler's economic

and political reach into unsettled or uncontrolled territories and to control and secure lines of

trade and communication between more substantial settlements.300 In addition to their

practical function, the construction of elaborate rock-cut cave complexes also served as

monuments to the glory of their royal patrons, extending a ruler's notoriety and prestige well

into the hinterlands of his own territories and potentially beyond. Given their similarities, it is

strange that the possibility that the Śaiva orders derived their model for establishing a broad

network of Śaiva monastic institutions from the Buddhist model receives no mention. The

























































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reason for this oversight becomes a bit clearer when we consider that to suggest that the

success that Buddhist monastic networks enjoyed prior to the expansion of Śaiva institutional

monasticism may have marked them as natural precursors for Śaiva monasticism would be to

suggest that the inter-sectarian relationships between Śaivas and Buddhists may not have

been quite so unidirectional.

The second point at which a potential Buddhist influence upon Śaivism is overlooked

in Sanderson's work can be found in his discussion around Śaiva leniency regarding the issue

of caste. There is no mention of any potential Buddhist precursor to the Śaiva initiatory

traditions' relatively liberal approach to the issue of initiating low caste members of society.

Citing evidence from commentarial works to the Mṛgendra- and Raudrāgamas, Sanderson

states that the Śaiva initiation was open to all "who have been inspired by [Śiva's] power,"

noting the importance for this relatively inclusive position to these traditions' ability to

function as a socializing force in newly conquered territories.301 Even members of the lowest-

born (antyaja) untouchable communities were drawn into the fold through a number of

simplified methods. As Sanderson notes, in opposition to the exclusivist doctrine of the

Vaidika brahmins, the Śaiva literary sources argued that the separation of the castes

(jātibheda) was not a fact of reality but was something fabricated and socially unique to the

brahmanical societies on the Indian subcontinent. The Śaiva orders offered an alternative

perspective in which utter devotion to Śiva took precedent over social caste, with the four

stages of initiation effectively filling the void for a social hierarchy in the absence of the

brahmanical varṇāśramadharma system.302 Sanderson's characterization of the Śaiva stance

on caste as a 'bold assertion' neglects that Buddhists had been saying some of the same things

























































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about caste for nearly a millennium before the Saiddhāntika literature took shape. On the one

hand, there is really nothing wrong about taking a Śaiva-centric approach to this issue given

Sanderson's broader historical project on the rise of Śaivism. But to put this evidence forth in

a work that devotes a substantial amount of energy toward supporting the thesis for Buddhist

unidirectional borrowing from Śaiva traditions without even a passing mention of any

movement in the other direction seems to betray a certain unnecessary bias. Such biases also

constitute a potential hermeneutical problem in Sanderson's interpretation of epigraphic data

on royal patronage and the rise of Śaivism.

III. Epigraphic Sources and the Problem of Religious Identity

This hermeneutical problem influences Sanderson's discussion of his epigraphic data, where

it is alleged that the primary religious affiliations of royal donors are recorded by the

particular epithets that they left on their inscriptions. As noted above, the Śaiva epithet

'paramahésvara' far outnumbers epithets representing allegiance to the other initiatory

traditions.303 The argument from this evidence relies upon the interplay of two key factors:

the personal religious affiliation of the royal patron and the religious affiliation of the

recipient of that patron's support. In a handful of instances, the relationship between these

two factors is read from opposing perspectives relative to whether or not the patron self-

identifies as Śaiva or Buddhist. The basic pattern that emerges is that any evidence of Śaiva

patrons supporting Buddhist institutions is read with the implication that such data enforce

the argument that these Buddhist institutions were somehow affected by Śaivism, while at the

same time evidence of Buddhist rulers who acted as patrons to Śaiva temples and

monasteries is also used as evidence of Śaivism's influence on Buddhism. So a Śaiva patron

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supporting Buddhism shows how dominant Śaivism had become, and a Buddhist patron

supporting Śaivism also shows how dominant Śaivism had become.

These positions are implied without any proper formulation of a general working

hypothesis regarding the relationship between a patron's self-professed religious identity and

the fact that the epigraphic data, at points, reflects the kind of egalitarian approach to royal

patronage prescribed in works designed to govern these relationships such as the Arthaśāstra.

The following presentation of Sanderson's reading of his epigraphic and textual historical

data on the Licchavi (c. 5th–8th century) and Ṭhakurī (c. 8th–13th century) kings of Nepal and

the Pāla dynasty (r. c. 750–1200 CE) highlights a number of instances where it may have

been beneficial for Sanderson to explore the tension between a ruler's personal religious

identity and his obligation to act as a patron for all religious institutions as a factor in the

construction of religious identity. This is not to say that his reading of these sources is

incorrect. My intention is simply to point out that a loosening of the kind of 'reified'

conception of religious and sectarian identity that appears in this analysis, and for which he

has been criticized by Davidson and Wedemeyer, could shed greater light on the inter-

sectarian dynamics behind Śaivism's rise in the second half of the first millennium. Finally,

Sanderson's data for these particular kingdoms have been selected because of their

importance to the religious, political, and social milieu in which The Seven Siddhi Texts were

composed. The Ṭhakurī and Pāla dynasties in particular exerted their influence during the

centuries in which all of The Seven Siddhi Texts were composed, and the geographic areas

covered by both are known to have been some of the most important for the flourishing of

the esoteric cults of the Buddhist siddhas.

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 Sanderson's presentation of his epigraphic evidence on the Licchavis, whose reign

provides the earliest available historical data on Nepal and the Kathmandu Valley, opens

with a 608 CE inscription recording a donative record for the Licchavi king Aṃśuvarman.

The inscription provides a sense of the relative importance of five major Buddhist vihāras in

the Kathmandu Valley, listing them alongside the valley's principle Śaiva site Paśupatināth

and its major Vaiṣṇava temple at Cāṅgunārāyaṇa as the recipients of the royal court's highest

level of donative support. These five vihāras, Paśupatināth, and Cāṅgunārāyaṇa all received

the same level of donative support from the Licchavis, and this level of support was double

that received by all temples and monasteries occupying the system's second tier. Concluding

his survey of Licchavi donative practices with mention of the Licchavi king Narendradeva's

(7th century) support of Buddhism, Sanderson cautions that such support was not in fact an

accurate indication of a ruler's own religious affiliation because in the epigraphic evidence,

"Narendradeva has the epithet paramamāheśvara."304 Given the large body of evidence that

the Licchavis were avid patrons of Buddhism, the argument for Śaiva dominance in this case

literally hangs on a name.305 My own reservations around using this method to determine the

Śaiva identity of a given ruler does not rest on the issue of whether or not the epithets found

in the epigraphic record can be accurately argued to reflect a ruler's actual affiliation. In

many cases they most likely can and in fact do just this. What is in question is just how fluid

a king's religious affiliation may have been in an environment dominated not by Śaivism, but

by a persistent ideal of egalitarian patronage, and the degree to which epigraphic sources can

capture this kind of fluidity. In the case of Sanderson's analysis of the Licchavi inscriptions,

























































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it appears that the Buddhists institutions receiving the highest level of royal support during

the reign of Aṁśuvarman outnumbered Śaiva and Vaiṣṇava institutions five to two, yet the

Licchavi are said here to all have declared allegiance to Śiva/Paśupati from Aṁśuvarman

forward, and are thus assumed to have been Śaiva rulers.306

The presentation of evidence from the Ṭhakurī kings shares some similarities to that

of the Licchavis. The Ṭhakurī rulers presided over a period when the majority of the

canonical Buddhist śāstras were translated into Tibetan, and, perhaps most importantly, the

period during which the Vajrayāna textual, initiatory, and instruction transmissions

associated with the latter dissemination of the dharma (spyi dar) in Tibet were passed on to

Tibetan translators. The Kathmandu valley, particularly the areas around the old kingdom

currently referred to as Pāṭan or Lalitpur, is portrayed in Tibetan sources as a busy hub of

exchange for these transmissions. Buddhism's popularity in the valley during this period is

evidenced in the epigraphic record, with a large number of donations supporting the

establishment of new Buddhist monasteries. Yet only one of the Ṭhakurī kings in this record,

Siṃhadeva (r. 1110–1126) appears by Sanderson's criteria to have self-identified as Buddhist

by taking the epithet paramasaugata.307

The conclusion Sanderson draws from these data hints at a potential over-emphasis

on the exclusive nature of a king's professed religious affiliation. Noting the relative dearth of

evidence from the Ṭhakurī period, Sanderson states that, "what there is suffices to remove

any suspicion that they were Buddhists to the exclusion of Śaivism," noting that many of the

Ṭhakurīs also supported the central Śaiva complex at Paśupatināth and supported the

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construction of new Śaiva temples.308 Given the widespread evidence across the epigraphic

data for egalitarian patronage, this statement seems out of place and reveals the implicit

assumptions that underlie Sanderson's general argument. There is no reason to argue that the

Ṭhakurī rulers' potential Buddhist affiliations would somehow have prevented them from

acting as patrons to their Śaiva subjects. The evidence here seems to point to a culture of

egalitarian patronage, not to the Ṭhakurī rulers' decision to compromise their own religious

affiliation in order to act as patrons to Śaiva institutions. Sanderson's analysis here signals a

general underestimation of the role of egalitarian patronage across South Asia. It replaces this

phenomenon with a far more reified and exclusivist vision of royal religious affiliation to

argue that, as with their Licchavi predecessors, the Ṭhakurī may have been patrons of

Buddhism but were not themselves Buddhist.

Sanderson provides an extensive analysis of the literary, epigraphic, and

archeological evidence for Pāla support of Buddhism as a model of a fully Buddhist kingdom

responsible for constructing and propagating some of the largest monastic institutions and

institutional networks in South Asia. He concludes his analysis by entertaining the possibility

that the great Buddhist monasteries under the Pālas may have functioned like the imperial

monasteries of China and Japan. The imperial Tibetan monastery at Samyé (bsam yas)

should likely be added to this list not only because it signals the emergence of state

sponsored Buddhism in Tibet, but because it is said to have been modeled on what was then

the relatively newly constructed Pāla mahāvihāra at Uddaṇḍapura. The chapter then turns to

Pāla support for Śaiva institutions, where significant epigraphic evidence is presented

regarding King Nayapāla's support of temple building projects and image installations, most

of them associated with some form of Śiva, without a single mention of his patronage of any

























































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Buddhist institution. In spite of these data it is argued that Nayapāla likely did not give up his

Buddhist affiliation because he is referenced in the epigraphic record with the name

paramasaugata and is recorded in Tāranātha's history as having had a Buddhist preceptor.

Sanderson argues that the egalitarian patronage of the Pāla rulers reflects the religious

affiliations of the wider population and shows that, despite the enormous support that

Buddhism received under the Pālas, it "was in no position to oust or diminish Śaivism."309

Instead, he notes evidence for the symbiosis of Śaivism within even the large Pāla era

monasteries.310 It might be wise at this point to question just how thoroughly a ruler's

religious affiliation impacts the religious affiliations of his subjects. It seems too much to

grant that a ruler's self-professed religious affiliation in the epigraphic record would have

somehow dictated the dominant religious affiliation of his subjects. The fact that there may

have been a direct correspondence between the specific religious affiliation among the

general populations in these kingdoms and the donative record is suspect given that these

donations reflect the flow of resources among relatively elite portions of the population.

Although it is entirely reasonable to assume that the broader population would gravitate

toward those traditions for which there existed some infrastructure for public access, this

means that the boom in the construction of Śaiva temples during the Pāla period, particularly

during the reign of Nayapāla, might have reflected that ruler's corrective to the previously

Buddhist-heavy donative practices of his predecessors. It might also signal that the Śaiva

elite had become newly interested in the work of missionizing and conversion that can often

accompany the construction of new temple complexes, perhaps because they were in a

position of relative weakness compared to their Buddhist counterparts.

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IV. The Emergence of a 'Substratum' in Sanderson's Argument

Sanderson has offered correctives to the issues of egalitarian patronage practices and the role

that popular religion may have played in the rise of the Śaiva sects in two recent articles. The

most recent of the two constitutes an effective response to Ruegg's use of inclusivism in his

'substratum' argument and provides a far more nuanced exploration of a range of approaches

to patronage and notions of tolerance, exclusivism, and inclusivism, that show up in donor

inscriptions. Here Sanderson argues that sectarian antagonism was largely motivated and

carried out by religious groups themselves and acknowledges that the general approach

revealed in donative inscriptions is one of tolerance and equal patronage as prescribed in the

smarta brahmanical literature and the Arthaśāstra. The egalitarianism that donors

demonstrate is argued to be representative of a balancing act that rulers were required to

perform to prevent any single religious sect from becoming too dominant over its rivals.311

This important distinction locates the more exclusivist trends in South Asia in the hands of

religious groups themselves, positioning the royal patron in the role of a mediator largely

committed to preventing large-scale religious sectarian conflict. Sanderson also gestures here

toward the idea that rulers in South Asia may have held more fluid conceptions of religious

allegiance than his previous work has suggested. He admits that it is incorrect to suppose that

a king's "publicly declared allegiance to one or another of these [Śaiva, Buddhist, or

Vaiṣṇava, etc.] traditions was accompanied by strict exclusivity of patronage," and that "it

was common, an no doubt politic, for him to extend support to religious traditions other than

his own."312 Whereas his previous work had focused primarily on the Khmer rulers as

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somewhat unique in their inclusivism, here further evidence is presented to argue that the

Khmers may not have been outliers in this kind of practice and that the courts of Indian rulers

were often quite tolerant of their members holding variant religious affiliations.313 But

Sanderson stops short of admitting that a ruler's practice of egalitarian patronage might also

indicate, or perhaps even require, that the king hold a somewhat fluid personal religious

identity. This possibility is compounded by the fact that sectarianism and the tendency

toward sectarian rivalry is predominately located among religious sects themselves who may

consequently not have been altogether interested in courting patronage from a ruler who had

little to no actual affinity for their tradition. Thus, even if we accept that a ruler's self-

professed religious affinity can be determined simply by his epithets in the epigraphic record,

the extent to which this allegiance was assumed at the expense of allegiance to all other

traditions is still unresolved.

The question that remains is what precisely is meant by a royal patron's professed

religious affiliation. Certainly royal patrons who declared their allegiance to any of the three

major initiatory traditions, Śaiva, Buddhist, or Vaiṣṇava, preserved a dual allegiance in their

commitment to simultaneously uphold the Vaidika social order. Why, then, should we

assume that kings could not hold, for example, dual Śaiva-Buddhist or dual Śaiva-Vaiṣṇava

identities? Furthermore, what can be said about the specificity of religious identities during

this period in general? The central theoretical consideration in this chapter and the chapters

that follow in Part II of this dissertation that fluid conceptions of religious identity were

present at nearly all levels of medieval South Asian societies despite the fact that the new

initiatory traditions promoted an exclusivist rhetoric. This fluidity of religious affiliation was

in fact built into both the Śaiva and Buddhist traditions in various ways, and the exclusive

























































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rhetoric of consecration had the effect of acknowledging the possibility of such fluidity as

well as supplying a mechanism for its facilitation. Most importantly, the possibility that

religious and sectarian identities were more fluid than is usually assumed might indicate one

reason for the ease with which various aspects of Śaiva and Buddhist traditions were able to

maintain their individual identities while so clearly also sharing many similar, and in some

cases identical, ritual technologies, yogic and ascetic practices, and iconographic

programs.314

When the role of popular religion is introduced into the 'Śaiva Age' thesis in his more

recent work, the rigid conception of sectarian identity on which Sanderson's 'borrowing

model' depends begins to give way to broader, more fluid conceptions of religious identity. A

bit of the 'substratum' model begins to make its way into Sanderson's own thesis because the

argument is actually presented in some of his sources. For instance, the ninth century Kaśmīri

scholar Bhaṭṭa Jayanta's Nyāyamañjarī includes a debate with a rhetorical Buddhist opponent

that states that Buddhism is a false tradition because it does not meet the criteria of being

accepted by the "greater society (mahājana)." As Sanderson notes, "[t]he Buddhist then asks

rhetorically, 'What is this "greater society"; what is its form; where is it located; how big is its

population; and what are its customs?' and adds that in any case the Buddhists have their own

"greater society" consisting of their own co-religionists." After this line of questioning,

Bhaṭṭa Jayanta admits to the opponent "that he has no physical or quantitative data

concerning this greater society... [b]ut he does know that its values are pervasive, to the

extent that the Buddhists themselves are unable to escape them, since they too avoid

























































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untouchables and those (the Śākta Śaivas) who indulge in orgiastic rites do so covertly, not

full believing in the rightness of their transgressive actions."315 Here Bhaṭṭa Jayanta assumes

Vaidika brahmin social convention to be so pervasive it is inseparable from his imagined

"greater society." The proposal of such a "greater society" should at this point elicit echoes of

Ruegg's 'pan-Indian religious substratum' thesis, and Jayanta's initial admission that he in fact

has no data to support its existence sounds remarkably similar to both Sanderson and

Davidson's critiques of Ruegg. Bhaṭṭa Jayanta's argument also resembles Sanderson's

argument that the Śaiva sects' ability to integrate itself into brahmanical culture as the

proprietors of the Vaidika brahmin social order was one of the strongest contributing factors

to its acceptance at the courts of South Asia's rulers and the subsequent rise of institutional

Śaivism.316

Sanderson's data on the role of popular Śaivism in the rise of the Śaiva sects in the

medieval period begins to fill in a large gap in the 'borrowing model' around the relationship

between the institutional Śaivism of court preceptors and major monastic institutions and the

Śaivism practiced by less elite strata of society. This argument integrates the role of localized

religion within the argument for Śaiva dominance and is ultimately aimed at providing

further evidence for what might have motivated a unidirectional pattern Śaiva-to-Buddhist

borrowing. Based on the frequency with which Śaiva names appear among lay donors in

Buddhist and Jain donative inscriptions, Sanderson concludes that "when Śaivism did rise to

prominence in the epigraphic record, as it did in later centuries, it did so on the basis of an

already well-established and widespread tradition of popular devotion that goes back at least

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to the second century BC."317 Embedded within a general argument for the importance of

epigraphic data in unpacking the complex social, political, and religious histories in South

Asia, Sanderson argues that Śaivism appears to have had some presence among the general

population before the earliest evidence for the formation of the atimārgic Śaiva sects and

well before these sects gained prominence in the courts of South Asian rulers. This does not

mean that the original top-down model of the 'Śaiva Age' thesis is completely surrendered for

a more bottom-up 'popular Śaiva substratum' argument. Instead the popularity of propitiating

local Mother goddesses and Bhairavas among the broader agrarian lay Śaiva base is said to

have functioned as the source not for the atimārgic Śaiva cults but for the later

mantramārgic, tantric formulations of Bhairava and his circle of yoginīs as "initiatory

Śaivism set about elaborating its own systems for the elevated, 'Tantric' propitiation of these

deities."318

This statement appears to be a nod, although not explicitly stated as such, to David

White's work on the connection between Kuṣāṇa-era mātṛka cults and the later Śaiva

mantramārga representations of Bhairava and his circle of yoginīs in such works as the

Picumata/ Brahmayāmala and Siddhayogeśvarīmatā.319 White's work on this topic is largely

concerned with pushing back against analyses of tantric traditions that rely too heavily upon

the literary production of an elite and institutionally affiliated minority at the expense of

exploring the more widespread and popular forms of religiosity that might still be rightfully

understood as tantric, or, as Sanderson hints here, may actually constitute a substratum of

sorts from which the later Bhairava and Śāktā tantric streams emerged. White has provided

an entire monograph exploring precisely the connections between the more popular,

























































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pragmatic, forms of tantric religiosity and the more elite, transcendental practices and

religious agents with whom Sanderson is exclusively concerned.320 He has also provided a

working schema of three different groups of tantric actors—elite specialists who are formally

initiated into a specific textual lineage, specialists lacking in formal initiation who are trained

through oral transmission and serve non-elite clientele, and householder non-specialists

whose personal religious practice still qualifies as tantric.321 The bulk of Sanderson's work

only addresses the first of these three groups, and regardless of whether or not one accepts

White's schema, even Sanderson seems to have moved toward an admission that the view of

Śaiva tantric traditions 'from the top' does not in fact provide a clear picture of the historical

importance of Śaivism and its connection to tantric religiosity more broadly. The two aspects

of White's schema that find no place within Sanderson's work, but which are clearly

important to understanding the emergence of the tantric textual communities and their

initiatory cults in history, both describe agents whose religious or sectarian identities were

likely more fluid than their more elite institutional counterparts. This schema is thus far more

comprehensive in scope than Sanderson's for the simple reason that it is concerned with the

understanding of a tantric culture, broadly conceived, and not the representation of that

tantric culture among its most prominent, elite Śaiva sectarian institutions.

V. Conclusion

As Peter Gottschalk points out in his study of Hindu-Muslim identities, religious identity is

itself not always the primary social and cultural determinant of identity in South Asia, despite

being treated as such by both European and American scholars of South Asian Religions.

























































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Other identity structures such as familial, collective, historical identities can and do often

overrule religious identities in South Asia.322 The colonial and post-colonial periods have

seen a marked solidification in the boundaries of religious identity across South Asia as a

product first of the broader colonial administrative project, and currently of the ongoing

nationalist project in the contemporary Indian state. However, even with these developments,

it is still not accurate today to argue that one's religious identity supersedes all other bases for

identity formation in contemporary India. And if it is not even possible to make this

argument in a contemporary India currently ruled by a Hindu fundamentalist regime, one

wonders just how it would be possible to argue for religious affiliation as the primary

determinant of identity in the past. It must be admitted first, therefore, that there is fluidity in

the degree to which religious affiliation has any ultimate influence over the parameters of

both individual and collective identities in South Asia. It is in light of this recognition that

this study now turns to the topic of the fluidity of social and religious identity in the caryā

and vrata practices outlined in The Seven Siddhi Texts as part of the first contribution that

this corpus can make to developing a greater understanding of the construction and

manipulation of identity in the culture of the esoteric Buddhist initiatory traditions.

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 Chapter 6:

Secrecy, Dissimulation,

and Simulation323 in the Guhyacaryā

I. Introduction: Wandering Like a Ghoul: Performing Marginality

If normative social codes of morality and ethics can be considered part of the discursive

parameters within which the notion of 'humanity' is constructed, then the rejection of such

normative codes of ethics effectively renders one something other-than human, be that

imagined in positive terms as super-human or negative terms as either sub-human or

inhuman. The Śāntiparvan of the Mahābhārata establishes just such a relationship in its

discussion of the behavioral determinates of caste in the following passage:

[O]riginally Brahmā created just Brahmins but those who were short tempered
and violent left their varṇa, turned red and became kṣatriyas, those who took
to cattle-rearing and agriculture turned yellow and became vaiśyas, and those
who in their delusion took to injury and untruth turned black and became
śūdras...' those who diverged still further from the proper norms and did not
recognise them became Piśācas, Rākṣasas, Pretas, and various sorts of
Mlecchas.324

Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayasaṁhitā 6.4.1–2 provides a similar set of correspondences between normative

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behavior and one's identity as a human being that moves this association closer to the realm

of demonology and the existential problem of the body as a permeable, open conduit:

1. One should take note of a person’s knowledge, understanding, speech,

movement, strength, and humanity. Whenever in a man there is an absence of
humanity, one might say there is a bhūta graha.

2. By the tenor of one’s appearance, temperament [prakṛti], speech, gait, etc.,

which one assumes in conformity with a bhūta, one may conclude that he is
possessed [āviṣṭam] by that bhūta.325

The manipulation of these dynamics of possession among the initiatory traditions was not

limited to its metaphysical applications, which often conceived of the 'union' of yoga as a

kind of positive possession—these traditions also acknowledged and used the social

dynamics of negative possession to their advantage. Ascetics and spirit beings occupy the

same social spaces on the fringes of South Asia's vision of civilized society. The yogic

ascetic traditions of the Buddhist siddhas celebrated this marginality in the ritual iconography

of the eight charnel grounds. These traditions portray the successful adept as a hero (vīra) of

the periphery who, through mastery of a fully embodied realization that could transform the

ordinary body into a deity-maṇḍala, demonstrated invulnerability to attack from spirit beings

by deliberately haunting the same spaces.

The performed marginality of the Buddhist siddhas knew its audience well, and the

siddhas were clearly not the first to use the behavioral correspondences with madness,

possession, and social marginalization as deliberate mode of dissimulative asceticism. The

dramaturgical instructions for acting out madness in Bharata's Nāṭyaśāstra presented in

chapter two of this study indicate that the markings of a Pāśupata ascetic had already become

entwined with the social and behavioral indicators for madness by the early centuries CE.

The Pāśupatasūtra instructions for the initiated ascetic who has progressed to the second

























































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stage in his practice in which he relinquishes all sectarian marks are in fact part of a larger

ascetic performative repertoire. It is thus possible to read Bharata's instructions on

performing madness as essentially a performance of a performance of madness. IN this

sense, Bharata's play actor feigning madness in the garb of a Pāśupata signals the kind of

double dissimulation that is found in the caryā and vrata practices of the Buddhist sādhaka,

in which the performer adopts a dissimulative mode by taking up an outer appearance that is

itself already dissimulative. Also like Bharata's paly actor, the Vajrayāna sādhaka performing

the caryā and vrata conceals his identity by taking on the ascetic markings associated with a

number of Śaiva ascetic practices that are themselves the product of a theistic brahmanical

dissimulative asceticism performed by brahmins who are concealing their brahmin

identities.326

The instructions in Pāśupatasūtra chapter three to "wander like a preta"

(pretaveccaret PS 3.11) and chapter four to 'wander alone in the world like a madman'

(unmatavad eko vicareta loke PS 4.6) repurpose the behavioral determinates of status as a

human being, possession, and madness that we see in the Mahābhārata and the Āyurvedic

literature toward a dissimulative asceticism in which the initiate intentionally cultivates

social marginalization. The Pāśupatasūtra recognizes the injunction to 'wander like a preta'

as a precursor to the fourth phase of the Pāśupata sādhana, the gūḍhavrata, in which the

initiate progresses from the initial dissimulative phase of relinquishing sectarian marks,

wandering like a preta, and courting public censure to a deeper level of dissimulation in

which he conceals all evidence that he is an initiate and behaves as if he is insane. In this

way, the Pāśupata gūḍhavrata simultaneously moves the initiate closer to the margins of

























































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brahmanical society, and deeper into the social landscape of the world of spirit beings.

Commenting on this practice, Chakroborti notes:

The ascetic should now conceal his learning and penances which he had
previously acquired; so he should perform his vows secretly and even keep his
utterances concealed from others. Thus concealing all these doors (vows) he
should behave as a lunatic, ignorant, epileptic, dull, a man of bad character
and the like in such a way as to be abused or condemned by the unknowing
public.327

The Nāṭyaśāstra and Pāśupatasūtra are both examples of a performed madness that

capitalizes on the emergence of a certain 'dossier' for possession that Smith argues emerges

in the narrative deployment of possession in the Rāmāyana and Mahābhārata.328 The dating

for both the Nāṭyaśāstra and Pāśupatasūtra is too speculative to make an argument for which

textual tradition may have been the first to formally introduce this kind of performed

madness. It is clear, however, that both of these works indicate a certain degree of awareness

around the ability to conceal one's identity and cultivate an intentional marginality by

adopting a set of behavioral patterns that are understood as symptoms of madness, and that

doing so shares a certain relationship with the behaviors and appearances of an ascetic.

The performed madness of Bharata's play actor and the Pāśupata initiate find

expression as a mode of esoteric Buddhist asceticism in Padmavajra's description of the

unmattavrata or 'madman's observance,' part of an amalgamation of known Śaiva vrata

practices that are re-branded as Buddhist under the umbrella term guhyacaryā in chapter six

of his Guhyasiddhi. Given that there is evidence for an ascetic observance by the name

unmattavrata in the Niśvāsatattvasaṁhitā329 and strong evidence that Padmavajra was

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familiar with some version of this text,330 it seems entirely reasonable to argue that the

practice made its way into the Vajrayāna from a Śaiva source. If we include data from the

twentieth chapter of the Brahmayāmala on "The Vidyā-Observances," the Śaiva character of

the socially transgressive asceticism proposed in Padmavajra's instructions on the

guhyacaryā becomes even more obvious. Finally, Padmavajra himself seems to admit to this

kind of hybridity in the Buddhist caryā and vrata when he instructs his reader to adopt

whatever ascetic practice they find agreeable, listing the Śaiva Pāśupata vrata and the

mahāvrata by name. The passage occurs in chapter four as his instructions on the generation

stage yoga turn to a discussion of the ascetic practices of the guhyacaryā completion stage

practices:

Thus having truly understood

The meditation on the mahāmudrā, |
One should then join it with method, and
Choose the observance one wishes || 4.51 ||

Be it Buddhist, Jain, or
Śaiva [such as the] Pāśupata [observance], |
The divine mahāvrata, or another
Which is dear to one's heart. || 4.52 ||331

Padmavajra's instructions on the guhyacaryā combine elements from a number of known

Śaiva vrata practices. He also seems quite aware of the fact that these practices are not

explicitly explained in the Guhyasamājatantra in the following passage, where he justifies

his own decision to describe them in grater detail:

The vratin should assume an appearance

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 Whose social standing is considered |
Reviled among the general population
And then practice the secret observance. || 6.8 ||

Since the caryā referred to as secret

That is contained in the Śrī Samāja [reads] |
"Those who take feces and urine as food
Shall attain a good result during the sādhana," || 6.9 || 332

And [since it is also indicated] by various other

Things that are taught in the tantra |
Such as the divine samayas, specifically the 'lamps,' etc.,
And the ultimate reality of the mudrā consecration, || 6.10 ||

I shall explain the unsurpassed

Secret caryā that was explained
By Cittavajra in these virtuous
Vajra-verses to the best of my ability. || 6.11 ||

It was concealed by Cittavajra,

[Yet] I shall explain [it] at length |
For the benefit of the lords of sādhakas
Who long for the result of Buddhahood.|| 6.12 ||333

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Despite his argument that the instructions on the various transgressive practices taught in the

Guhyasamājatantra are also instructions on the caryā, Padmavajra seems to admit almost in

the same breath that the teaching on the guhyacaryā he is about to impart was 'concealed' in

the text. It is not overly skeptical for the reader to observe that Padmavajra is making a

somewhat weak appeal to a Buddhist scriptural precedent for his guhyacaryā here. The

argument that these practices are 'concealed' in the teaching of the Guhyasamājatantra

provides one of the many potential interpretations of the terms guhyacaryā, guhyavrata, and

even guhyasiddhi—being the 'practice,' 'observance,' and 'proof of attainment' that is

concealed (gopita) in the Guhyasamājatantra. At the same time these practices are also

rightfully referred to as 'secret' because they involve a yogin secretly manifesting the

maṇḍala of his tutelary deity while he wanders in public taking on the characteristics of one

or more classes of socially marginalized personae, while 'wanders like a ghoul.'

The connection Padmavajra draws between the four transgressive samayas of killing,

stealing, adultery, and lying and the caryā that is concealed in the Guhyasamājatantra

deserves further consideration given its direct connection with a similar set of practices from

the smarta brahmanical literature. Padmavajra provides a perspective on the caryā and vrata

practices in chapter one that is absent in his extensive explanations of these practices later in

the text. In some of the very first verses of his work, he suggests a direct connection between

the transgressive samayas and the behaviors and appearances one takes up during the secret

observance (pracchannavrata):

Even those who act contrary to the dharma

Attain the ultimate awakening, |
The un-fractured threefold vajra body,
By means of the secret observance. || 1.12 ||

sst
 Those who are exiled for a period of time,334
Cruel people who have killed a living being335 |
And delight in cruel actions,
Obtain the unsurpassed state. || 1.13 ||

Those people who, having caused

Confusion with a net of lies |
Make their livelihood, they too
Quickly attain siddhi by means of the caryā. || 1.14 ||

Those who have sex with another man’s wife,

Who steal another man’s wealth, |
Even those continually engage in such
Low and reviled actions, || 1.15 ||

Having practiced that, they quickly

Go beyond the height of the desire realm. |
I speak of the sādhakas [who attain siddhi]
By means of the secret observance. || 1.16 ||

One attains the supreme divine secret caryā,

Endowed with method, that grants all of the siddhis |
And advances to the state of Vajrasattva
In this very lifetime. || 1.17 ||336

The opening verse on those who 'act contrary to the dharma' is not only a reference to

'dharma' in the sense of the Buddhist teachings. It also draws upon the term's more broadly

conceived meaning as 'the law,' though certainly both understandings of the term might also

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be preserved here. When read through the lens of the demonological paradigm, the term

trivajrābhedarūpin signifies the indestructible, non-permeable body that the sādhaka who

performs this vrata perfects through mastering the deity-maṇḍala practice of the generation

stage yoga. This body is 'un-fractured' (abheda), meaning that it that lacks the kind of 'cracks'

or 'breaks' implied by the term chidra in the Āyurvedic literature on demonology.

The ritualized prescription of these transgressive acts indicates the text's reliance

upon some version of the Guhyasamājatantra337for this practice, but here Padmavajra

provides an explicit connection between the transgressive samayas of killing, lying, stealing,

and adultery and the classical function of vrata practices preserved in brahmanical

Dharmaśāstra literature. All four of the transgressive acts prescribed as the initiate's samaya

during the higher consecrations are in fact crimes that require one to do penance for a certain

period of time by taking up some kind of vrata. Thus according to Manusmṛti, these are all

crimes for which one would be, in Padmavajra's words, 'exiled for a period of time.'338

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 The degree to which the four transgressive samayas of killing, lying, adultery, and

stealing should be taken literally is a lively topic of debate among Indian and Tibetan

exegetes as well as modern scholars of Buddhist tantric traditions. The Guhyasamājatantra,

which introduces the guhyābhiṣeka and its four transgressive samayas to the esoteric

Buddhist consecration liturgy,339 indicates in its ninth chapter that these samayas are coded

language for specific aspects of the visualization practices associated with the kulas of the

Buddhas Akṣobhya, Vairocana, Amitābha, and Amoghasiddhi.340 At first glance, Padmavajra

does not appear to be speaking about a visualization practice in Guhyasiddhi 1.12–17. In fact,

the visualization practice that is used to explain the 'coded' language of these four

transgressive samayas in the ninth chapter of the Guhyasamājatantra is precisely the kind of

elaborate, generation stage practice that Padmavajra places in direct opposition to the

completion stage yogas of the pracchannavrata.341

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 A possible resolution to this issue is provided in the opening instructions on the

guhyacaryā in Guhyasiddhi chapter six:

Having endowed one's own body with a method,

Devoid of signs and without false appearances, |
One should diligently visualize [oneself]
As Vajrasattva who is supreme bliss. || 6.5 ||342

The Vajrasattva self-generation constitutes the preliminary for taking up the vrata here, just

as committing one of the four acts of killing, stealing, lying, and adultery are prerequisites for

taking up the vrata in Dharmaśāstra literature. The instructions from chapter nine of the

Guhyasamājatantra treat these offenses as homologues for the clans of the tathāgatas, and in

this way to adopt the appearance of someone who has killed, lied, stolen, or committed

adultery becomes an instruction for generating the body as the deity-maṇḍala. Becoming

devoid of signs (nirnimittam) and without false appearances (nirābhāsam) could be

interpreted solely in terms of the Buddhist practice of dissolving the body into emptiness

prior to generating it as the deity, but it also might indicate the kind of dissimulation

prescribed in the Pāśupata sādhana in which one increasingly relinquishes all external marks

that might indicate one's identity as an initiate. Finally, in the spirit of continuing the legal

metaphor in accordance with the standard prerequisite actions one must engage in before

taking on a vrata practice as a penance for committing a crime, the idea of relinquishing

marks also bears some similarities with the act of being stripped of any indication of one's

social standing in preparation for entering into a period of forced exile.

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 A broader portrait of the social world along the margins of brahmanical society now

emerges to which we can add the figure of the convicted criminal—those who have killed,

stolen, acted as adulterers, and have thus been exiled for a period of time. Criminals, the

insane, spirit beings, and ascetics all partake in the rejection of normative social behaviors to

varying degrees, and the relationship between these marginalized groups is both

acknowledged and repurposed for the performance of the advanced ascetic practice of the

caryā and vrata. Padmavajra's first verse of instructions on the guhyacaryā illustrates just

such a relationship between the figure of the madman and the ghoul (piśāca):

One should take on the appearance of a madman,

Become one who is silent in meditative equipoise |
Who is in union with his own deity,
But wander about like a flesh-eating ghoul. || 6.13 ||343

Like the Pāśupatasūtra injunction to 'wander like a preta,' Padmavajra's instructions to

'wander like a piśāca' evoke an ascetic mode that is meant to emulate the social marginality

of a particular class of spirit beings. The instruction to 'wander like a piśāca' can be

interpreted in one sense as a prescription for the sādhaka to conduct himself in ways that

would lead to being ostracized from mainstream society, accomplishing the same kind of

marginalization affected by the Pāśupatasūtra's instructions to 'wander like a preta.' This

cultivated marginality marks an ascetic re-purposing of the intersection of behavior,

madness, and the world of spirit beings that we have already seen in the dual symptomology-

pathology of the Āyurvedic bhūtavidyā literature. The fact that the behavioral indicators of

madness function as both symptom and pathogen allows for a dual interpretation of such

injunctions as a method that allows the sādhaka to take on a new, socially marginalized

























































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position by displaying the symptoms of madness and also allows him to court interaction

with spirit beings such as piśācas through adopting the behaviors that constitute the

pathogens for possession. In the case of the Śaiva initiate this ascetic mode might be

employed to court possession itself. But in the Buddhist performance of the same ascetic

mode the sādhaka engages in such behaviors primarily to demonstrate the ability to remain

invulnerable and unaffected by the same class of beings. When viewed sociologically, the

same repertoire of behaviors might be seen as a method for obliterating one's identity and

adopting a new, marginalized status. Ultimately, there is no reason to choose between the

demonological and sociological interpretations of this practice. They are both equal

contributors to the potent symbolism of the Vajrayāna caryā and vrata. To the outside

observer, the injunction to 'wander like a piśāca' must, if correctly performed, result in others

perceiving the sādhaka as actually being insane and possessed by one of a number of

different types of spirit beings. The instructions on the madman's observance (unmattavrata)

accomplish this goal by prescribing the behavioral traits that indicate possession as a

repertoire by which the sādhaka performs his madness. This is madness in the dissimulative

ascetic mode, where the symptoms of possession by any number of 'seizers' or grahas

become a script with which the sādhaka conceals his identity during his performance, which,

after all, is another connotation of the term caryā.

Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi supplies a sequence for the performance of these practices

that begins with the unmattavrata as one of a handful of dissimulative modes signified by the

guhyacaryā and progresses to the consort observance (vidyāvrata). This order is explicit in

the concluding verse from Guhyasiddhi chapter six:

As for the sādhaka, one advances

To the extent that one does not cling to a mark. |

ssz
 But when one advances in the completion [stage]
Then one should abandon the secret caryā.
After that, one should take up
The divine consort observance. || 6.110 ||344

The performance of the unmattavrata and other dissimulative modes associated with the

guhyacaryā in Guhyasiddhi is intentionally public because these practices require an

audience, be it human or non-human, to witness the sādhaka's feigned madness. The

vidyāvrata, in contrast, does not contain such strong elements of public performance or

require an audience for its successful execution. The contrast between these two stages in the

caryā and vrata instructions in both Guhyasiddhi and Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi may be

what is intended by the two primary metaphors for the practice of wandering like a ghoul

(paryatet ti piśācavat), and wandering like a lion (siṁhavat vicaret).

The detailed instructions on the behaviors a sādhaka adopts to perform the

unmattavrata in chapter six of Guhyasiddhi bear some similarities to the Āyurvedic literature

on bhūtavidyā as well as the bhūtavidyā symptomology and pathology from the nineteenth

chapter of the Netratantra, a ninth-century Śaiva work. Some of the most ubiquitous and

easily recognizable behaviors that are intended to simulate madness and possession include

Padmavajra's instructions to randomly laugh, babble nonsense, and break out in song and

dance. The instructions for the unmattavrata go further, however, and in some cases even

approximate behavioral profiles that resemble the symptoms and pathogens of possession

related to specific classes of spirit beings. The Carakasaṁhitā's symptomology for piśāca

possession, for example, reads:

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 Let it be known that one whose thoughts are unhealthy, has no place to stay,
indulges in dance, song and laughter, as well as idle chatter that is sometimes
unrestrained, who enjoys climbing on assorted heaps of garbage and walking
in rags, grass, stones, and sticks that might be on the road, whose voice is
broken and harsh, who is naked and runs about, never standing in one place,
who broadcasts his miseries to others, and suffers from memory loss is
afflicted with unmāda [caused by possession] by a piśāca.345

The Carakasaṁhitā goes on to note that 'lusting after women,' a behavioral trait prescribed in

Padmavajra's guhyacaryā and other works among The Seven Siddhi Texts, is a behavior that

brings on possession from a piśāca or rākṣasa.346 The symptoms for rākṣasa and piśāca

possession in Suśrutasaṁhitā differ from the Carakasaṁhitā, but they still include behavioral

traits that correspond to the prescribed behaviors in Padmavajra's guhyacaryā. Here the

symptoms of rakṣasa possession include things such as desiring meat, blood, and alcohol,

acting without shame, and rejecting ritual purity, while the symptoms of piśāca demonstrate

less concordance with the guhyacaryā, but still include chattering endlessly, wandering

around, and wailing.347 The Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayasaṁhitā's symptomology demonstrates a strong

correspondence between the symptoms of piśāca and niṣāda possession and the behaviors

the sādhaka adopts during the guhyacaryā. Here the symptoms of possession by a niṣāda

even include residing in a number of locations that are a well-known part of the Śaiva and

Buddhist sādhaka's repertoire:

One whose thoughts are unhealthy, who runs around, not remaining in one
place, who is fond of leftovers, dancing, gandharvas, laughter, wine, and
meat, who becomes depressed when rebuked, who cries without reason, who
scratches himself with his nails, whose body is rough and voice trails off, who
trumpets his many miseries, whose speech freely associates what is relevant
and irrelevant, who suffers from memory loss, who enjoys nothing, who is
fickle and goes around desolate and dirty, wearing clothes meant for the road,
adorned with a garland of grass, who climbs on piles of sticks and rocks as

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 well as on top of rubbish heaps, and who eats a lot is understood to be
inhabited [adhiṣṭhitam] by a piśāca.

One who wanders around in rags taking up sticks, clods of dirt, etc. [or] runs
around naked, with a frightened look, adorned with grass, haunting burning or
burial grounds, empty houses, lonely roads, or places with a single tree, whose
eye forever embraces sesame, rice, liquor, and meat, and whose speech is
rough is believed to be inhabited... by a niṣāda.348

These basic social indicators of insanity employed as a kind of script for Padmavajra's

unmattavrata also resonate with behaviors prescribed during the Pāśupata observance and in

the performance of the vidyāvrata from the twentieth chapter of the Śaiva

Brahmayāmalatantra. The Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayasaṁhitā contains a further correspondence with

Padmavajra's guhyacaryā instructions in its description of individuals who have been

possessed for an extended period of time being followed around by a group of children,349 an

ascetic mode that also appears in the child observance (kumāravrata) prescribed in the

Brahmayāmalatantra.

Chapter nineteen of the Netratantra, which features extensive sections on the

symptomology and pathology of various types of possession, also contains behavioral

profiles that correspond to a number of behaviors prescribed for the performance of the

guhyacaryā:

Oh Devi, due to many primary causes,

They desire to kill human victims. |
Bad behavior, wickedness, impurity,
And being the most vile of men, || 19.34 ||

From not honoring one's parents,

Likewise, from neglecting Vedic study |
From excessive sex with women,
And also especially from being drunk, || 19.35 ||

From having sex at the wrong time, from fear

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 Of the unknown, likewise from confused wandering, |
And those who have abandoned the [rituals of] the junctions,
And those who have sex during the junctions, || 19.36 ||

Those who sleep at the time of the junctions

And those who do Vedic study while eating, |
Those who cause women without desire to have desire,
And [who desire] the guru's wife, my dear, || 19.37 ||

The strong ones who forcefully cause the

Young women of others to fall into ruin, |
Likewise others who speak dishonestly,
Who do harm to their masters, who are vicious, || 19.38 ||

[And] men who have sinful behaviors

That are not mentioned here— |
Due to these and other causes,
The seizers seize [those] men. || 19.39 ||350

This passage's mention of having sex at inauspicious times and at times when one should be

performing the daily rites associated with the junctions of the day is of particular interest

given that the proscription against observing such guidelines is combined with sexual yoga

practice in the performance of the vidyāvrata. According to the Netratantra, engaging in a

sexual yoga practice with one's consort without any regard for auspicious daily, lunar, or

astrological periods invites possession.

350
M.K. Śāstrī ed. The Netra Tantram with Commentary by Kṣemarāja II (Bombay: Tattva-Vivechaka Press,
1939), 137–39.
NT 19.34–39:
nidānairbahubhirdevi jighāṅsanti narānpaśūn |
durācāraṃ durātmānamaśuciṃ puruṣādhamam || 34 ||
mātāpitrorasaṃmānāttathādhyayanavarjanāt |
atistrīgamanāccaiva kṣīvatvācca viśeṣataḥ || 35 ||
akāle maithunānmohabhayātsaṃbhramaṇāttathā |
sandhyāvivarjitā ye ca sandhyāmaithunasevakāḥ || 36 ||
bhojanādhyayanaṃ nidrāṃ sandhyāyāṃ ye ca kurvate |
akāminīḥ kāmayante gurudārāṃśca ye priye || 37 ||
pradhvaṃsayanti balino balāccaivānyyoṣitaḥ |
tathānye’satyavaktāraḥ prabhudrohakṛto’śubhāḥ || 38 ||
anuktaiḥ pāpacaritairye narā saṃyutāstathā |
etairanyairnidānaiśca gṛhṇate mānuṣān grahāḥ || 39 ||

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 The sections of Guhyasiddhi chapter six that exhibit correspondences to the above

sections from the Caraka-, Suśruta-, and Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayasaṁhitās as well as the

Pāśupatasūtra and Netratantra are provided here in full:

He should wander about the roads and villages

In cities, parks, and countrysides, |
At crossroads, in charnel grounds,
And likewise in the dwelling places of deities, || 6.15 ||

And particularly, in the midst of a crowd

Wearing a crown made of leftover garlands. |
And he should meditate upon
The supreme bliss at a brothel. || 6.16 ||

Still not satiated by the performances

Of [their] crowds of dancing gandharvas, |
He should worship in a tavern or market351
With the milk and lamps. || 6.17 ||

Sometimes he should laugh,

Sometimes babble, sometimes sing, |
Sometimes dance, sometimes shake,
And sometimes [make] various noises. || 6.18 ||352

























































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Padmavajra then provides five verses that contain instructions on participating in an

assembly (samāja) that are reminiscent of the more well-known transgressive gaṇacakra

feast practices. It is difficult at this point to determine if the rite described here is an actual

performance of a gathering (melaka) that is part of the consecration ritual in Guhyasiddhi,

Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi, and Jñānasiddhi, or if the point of these verses is that the

sādhaka should treat his public sojourns into brothels, taverns, and markets as if he is

participating in a melaka. The instructions on performing the unmattavrata continue, with an

explicit reference to taking the common symptoms of madness up as a kind of script for

performing the vrata:

And he should eat a small amount

Of the five ambrosias without hesitation. |
One who has attained the state of Vairocana
Is adorned with the madman observance. || 6.24 ||

In [his] maddened state, the mantrin

Should constantly exhibit all of the symptoms (cihnāni) |
According to the rule (vidhānena)
During the secret caryās. || 6.25 ||353

The seven verses that follow this statement recapitulate a ritual sequence that describes the

deity-maṇḍala generation and self-consecration process. Although it is difficult to determine

with complete certainty, these instructions are likely an internal reproduction of the ritual

performance of a maṇḍala generation and a communal gathering or assembly (samāja) that

characterize the generation stage yogas. A similar movement from internal to external

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practice is voiced in the transition from verses 6.4–7 to 6.7–8, where the text indicates that

the self-generation practice focuses on the deity Vairocana instead of the Vajrasattva self-

generation practice mentioned at the opening of the chapter. After revisiting the internal

practice, Padmavajra once again switches from the internal maṇḍala back to the sādhaka's

public performance of the unmattavrata:

The vratin should not carry a pot

For the purpose of wandering for alms. |
[Instead,] he should take a dirty rag
From the road from which he eats. || 6.33 ||

He should wander for alms there,

And eat while he goes. |
Having eaten what is in it, satiated,
He should throw it away right there. || 6.34 ||

And furthermore, he should wear a loincloth

That is ripped and frayed, |
Or else he should be naked
And wander as he wishes. || 6.35 ||

He should have no possession,

Even if the thing is a mere sesame seed. |
The mind shall become restless
Due to the suffering of owning property. || 6.36 ||354

Padmavajra then provides three verses on how owning personal property results in mental

distraction that causes the sādhaka to suffer through a series of lower rebirths. In this way the

instructions in Guhyasiddhi on adopting transgressive behaviors that would invite possession

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deity-maṇḍala, brief instructions on recollecting the nature of ultimate reality, instructions on

participating in a tantric feast, and a number of other topics that factor into the performance

of the caryā and vrata. Padmavajra's juxtaposition of statements on the Buddhist view of

ultimate reality and the spontaneous, non-constructed manifestation of the body as the deity-

maṇḍala convert these practices, which so similar to Śaiva practices in their external form, to

a functionally Buddhist ascetic mode.

II. Wandering Like a Lion: Performing Invulnerability

Padmavajra's instructions on the guhyacaryā follow a systematic pattern that begins with the

injunction to wander like a piśāca and culminates in the injunction to wander like a lion.

Adopting the gait of a lion acts as a metaphor for the sādhaka's demonstration of complete

invulnerability to all of the human and non-human beings with whom he roams beyond the

boundary of civilized society. The phrase appears in the caryā and vrata instructions in both

Guhyasiddhi and Anaṅgavajra's Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi. Padmavajra writes:

Then, one who is firmly rooted in

The secret siddhi should wander like a lion. || 6.40 ||355

The corresponding verse in Anaṅgavajra's instructions on the caryā corresponding to

ultimate reality (tattvacaryā) in his Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi reads:

Then, having arisen spontaneously [as the deity-maṇḍala],

One who has turned away from all clinging |
Who is absorbed in meditation on ultimate reality
Should wander everywhere like a lion. || 5.10 ||356

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This movement from wandering like a piśāca to wandering like a lion corresponds in

Guhyasiddhi to a shift toward a greater proscription of a number of ritual techniques and

other behaviors that might be used as protective measures or that might identify the sādhaka

as an initiate. The reader will recognize many of the proscribed behaviors from the list

provided in the extensive discussion in chapter four of this study on the implications of such

ritual techniques within the demonological paradigm:

And wearing the guise of a madman

Who has abandoned all proper appearances, |
He should also not venerate a goddess
That is made of clay, wood, or stone. || 6.41 ||

He should not create maṇḍalas

Or do a hand mudrā even while dreaming. |
He should not venerate those who
Are on the path of the three vehicles, || 6.43 ||

Even [those on the path of] the complete awakening of the buddhas—
How much less so others such as the Liṅgats? |
And one whose thought is intent upon meditation
Should not engage in verbal debate [with them]. || 6.44 ||

[This] produces a deviation from samaya.

Due to that deviation, the mind is scattered. |
And one who understands ultimate reality must truly
Always abandon things like ritual protocols and the like. || 6.45 ||

Abandoning the pride derived from Vajrasattva,

He must no longer generate it, |
And even the performance of rites is not observed
By those established in the secret ultimate reality. || 6.46 ||

Because he analyzes through union with

The state of identitylessness, |
For one who abides in the state of non-existence and
Is endowed with the sublime method || 6.47 ||

Whatever arose conceptually

sty
 He attains non-conceptually.357 |
Through the power of the yoga of meditation,
It becomes present on its own. || 6.48 ||

In a mere instant, all of that is something

That has the characteristic of attainment. |
He should not create a maṇḍala,
And the mudrās and bonds are banned. || 6.49 ||

The mantrin should not even recite the mantra,

Which creates an obstacle to meditation. |
The body is called “the maṇḍala.”
The consort is known as “the mudrā.” || 6.50 ||

The mantrin who is the nature of Śrī Vajrasattva

Should honor and worship him. |
This should be performed on himself.
The wise one should abandon all external [practices]. || 6.51 ||358

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These verses are critical to understanding the importance of keeping the demonological

paradigm in mind when interpreting the instructions on the guhyacaryā. After providing a

sequence of instructions that combine an internal (and thus 'secret') deity-maṇḍala generation

with an external prescription to simulate the symptoms of madness, Padmavajra finally

advocates for the proscription of all manner of ritual techniques that might guard the sādhaka

from attack from both human and non-human beings. Guhyasiddhi 6.48 then informs us of

how the dual apotropaic-soteriological power of the deity-maṇḍala persists without having to

be generated as Padmavajra plays with the discursive overlap in the Buddhist treatment of

derivatives of the root klṛp denoting both conceptual and actual physically constructed

edifices. The pride (ahaṅkāra) of being the deity that is often used as a metaphor for mastery

of the generation stage yoga must be given up, and the sādhaka must now prove that he can

rely only upon a natural, spontaneous, instant union (yoga) with the deity-maṇḍala. This

instantaneous self-identification is directly correlated to the notion of a spontaneous or

instantaneous union between the yogin and the deity-maṇḍala that signals the culmination of

the generation stage yoga.

A more detailed explanation of this aspect of the advanced stages of deity-yoga

practice appears in the second chapter of Indrabhūti's Jñānasiddhi, where it is critical to his

argument that the deity body that a yogin takes on in meditation is not bound by the same

logic that governs the conceptual construction of an image as an object of meditation.

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Indrabhūti introduces this passage with a set of formal logical arguments posited by a

rhetorical opponent that culminate in the author's own counter-argument regarding two

methods by which deity yoga meditation practices are no longer conceptually constructed,

and thus not subject to the faults of a mentally constructed image:

If Vajrasattva is a constructed
Deity body, [it would follow that] |
[One has] produced something compounded,
And thus it perishes, as in the example of a vase, etc. || 2.13 ||

It then follows that oftentimes the practice for awakening

As well can arrive at state that lacks a result. |
What would be the point of meditation if
[The deity body] comes to be and then perishes? || 2.14 ||

How can a compounded mental fabrication

Be called the bodily form [of a deity]? |
And how can [the body of a deity] perish?
Listen now, you who [drift upon] the ocean of delusion. || 2.15 ||

[Some assert that]

This [deity body] is a construct of the mind that surely
Bears the characteristic of a compounded phenomenon |
[And ask] how something that is mentally
Constructed could not perish? || 2.16 ||

[Others criticize statements such as]

Endowed with arms and colors
Just as it was previously established, |
Now I meditate upon
The non-constructed form of the deity || 2.17 ||

[And argue that]

If you meditate upon a
Non-constructed form of the deity, |
You meditate upon something previously
Established as unarisen, [so] what is the point? || 2.18 ||

[One performs] the meditation [thinking]

"I shall become that body" or "I am that [body]."359 |

























































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 The yogin should practice these two meditations
During the sādhana on the form [of the deity]. || 2.19 ||

When one conceives of meditative absorption

[Thinking] “I shall become like that" |
Then meditative absorption becomes
Clear and that deity is perceived. || 2.20 ||

[Just as] one sees the body in a painting, etc.,

So too one perceives what has appeared [in the mind],
But that comes about through meditative concentration
[And] is not produced in any other way. || 2.21 ||

If the non-arisen body of the deity

Comes about in that state meditative absorption |
Due to the presence of all of the supernatural perceptions,
The [deity] body is instantaneously [present]. || 2.22 ||360















































































































































































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These verses form part of Indrabhūti's "Negation of Form Meditation" (rūpabhāvanāniṣeda)

in chapter two of Jñānasiddhi and are integral to this work's overall project to argue for a

fully cataphatic realization of ultimate reality.361 The rhetorical opponent in Jñānasiddhi

2.13–22 is reminiscent of Padmavajra's rhetorical opponent in Guhyasiddhi 9.4, where he

defends his treatise against the claim that all of the practices discussed therein are conceptual

and thus 'mere meditation.' The same argument for the nature of the deity-maṇḍala during the

completion stage as spontaneously appearing, non-constructed, and non-conceptual is also

recorded Kuddālapāda's Acintyādvayakramopadeśa, which Tibetan sources list among The

Sixfold Corpus on the Essence (Snying po skor drug), the companion corpus to The Seven

Siddhi Texts.362

This spontaneously generated, direct identification as the deity-maṇḍala implies that

the sādhaka who advances in his performance of the guhyacaryā abandons all ritual

procedures for generating the deity, but it does not mean that the notion of perfecting the

body maṇḍala is abandoned altogether. The proscription against taking recourse to the many

ritual techniques for generating oneself as the tutelary deity means that one gives up these

practices because at this stage, the sādhaka is supposed to attain a state in which the sādhaka

is spontaneously and permanently in union with the deity-maṇḍala that he has generated and

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brought to completion during the generation stage yoga. This is precisely the point at which

his ability to prove that he has become impervious to attack from both human and non-

human beings becomes an important means of testing/demonstrating his completion or

perfection of the deity-yoga. The permanence of the sādhaka's generation of the body as a

maṇḍala at this stage is explained in Guhyasiddhi 6.57cd–61. The passage follows a short set

of verses that describe the process of self-consecration in which the deity-maṇḍala is non-

conceptually generated through the performance of sexual yoga and ingesting the bodhicitta

that is the product of that union:

When he is always lustful, longing for

Intoxicating joy whatever the undertaking, || 6.57 ||

The vajra-being attains siddhi.

What more can I say? |
Without shame, always
Devoted to samaya conduct, || 6.58 ||

Wherever the silent one who wears the guise of a madman,

Who has a charnel ground as his abode, |
Meditates, he is accompanied by
The multitude of the indestructible beings' mudrās || 6.59 ||

Such as Māmakī and Locanā, and the like.

Ornamented with the various ornaments,|
He should meditate on all of them there
Through union of the vajra and space element || 6.60 ||

With the bodily appearance of the three-faced one and

With the expanse of waves of trembling gnosis |
He should draw in
The gnostic bodies of the buddhas. || 6.61 ||363

























































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Verse 6.58 contains an important use of the term vajrasattva that invites an interpretation of

the term both as a proper noun denoting the Buddha Vajrasattva and as a term for the

sādhaka himself, who has become an indestructible being through union with the deity-

maṇḍala. The passage also provides a good example of the connotation of the term guhya in

the performance of the guhyacaryā as a dissimulative mode in which the sādhaka's adopts an

external appearance, in this case the guise of a madman (unmattaveśa), that conceals his

actual identity as a yogin in union with the deity-maṇḍala of Vajrasattva.

Padmavajra concludes his instructions on the performance of the unmattavrata with

the following set of verses:

He should perform all of the samayas,

Subsisting on whatever he can obtain |
[When] the traders, brāhmins, śūdras, or anyone else who
Invites him to a feast in which an animal is slaughtered, etc., || 6.81 ||

Are satiated and throw out

The innards and bones, |
He should take them and eat the disgusting
[Food] that is desired by dogs right there || 6.82 ||

With the union of meditation and ultimate reality,

Otherwise he does not attain siddhi. |
Acting the same way toward all castes
Is the behavior of someone who is insane. || 6.83 ||

And surrounded on all sides

He is accompanied by hundreds of children|
Who dance, sing, clap their hands, [and perform]
The divine steps of the vajra dance. || 6.84 ||

Belching out the songs and melodies,

He should conceal the performance of the vajra song |
And make it appear as if it is another [song]
That is famous in the three realms. || 6.85 ||

[Singing] the song mixed with various noises,

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 He should wander about like a flesh-eating ghoul. |
Indeed, that wrathful activity
By which living beings are bound || 6.86 ||

Is also that by which, joined with method,

They are liberated from the bonds of existence. |364

This final set of instructions for performing the unmattavrata requires that the sādhaka

display the symptoms of one who has been possessed for a long time that include being

followed by a crowd of children in the Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayasaṁhitā. If Padmavajra's instructions

are interpreted chronologically, then it can be reasonably concluded that at this stage in the

guhyacaryā the sādhaka has been feigning madness brought on by possession for some time,

and the instructions to begin to display the symptoms of chronic possession would be entirely

appropriate.

III. Secrecy and the Guhyacaryā Instructions for Householders

The unmattavrata serves as the primary practice for Padmavajra's instructions on the

guhyacaryā, but a short set of separate instructions are also provided for initiates who cannot

afford to leave behind their livelihood, give up their public identity, and wander the margins

of society. This mode of the practice, designed for householders, changes the dynamics of

dissimulation that are prescribed in the guhyacaryā. The dissimulation of the unmattavrata

























































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prescribes that the sādhaka conceal his identity by adopting the behaviors of someone who

has been possessed as he performs the guhyacaryā in public. The instructions for

householders also require that one conceal one's identity as an initiate, but they do not require

the kind of publicly performed dissimulation prescribed in the unmattavrata. This mode of

the caryā might be characterized as secretive rather than dissimulative. Padmavajra's

instructions for this practice state:

Otherwise, if one is not able to

Completely abandon the entirety of his estate || 6.92 ||

Or [perform] the practice that is taught in

The glorious Guhyasiddhi that is the source of good qualities, |
Then he should stay at home
And secretly practice the samayas. || 6.93 ||

He remains one devoted to worldly conduct,

As long as it does not produce a violation [of samaya]. |
But at night he should reveal that he is
One devoted to the 'milk' [samayas] || 6.94 ||

And perform [them] with a mudrā

Who is trustworthy and no one else. |
And in this way too he should perform
The urine and excrement samayas, etc., every day. || 6.95 ||

One who is devoted to the practice of samaya

Shall attain the unsurpassed true state. |
Endowed with a secret companion
And the highest state of gnosis of ultimate reality, || 6.96 ||

He should perform the samayas and the like

That are explained in the tantra in the same manner as above |
By means of divine pleasures and divine women, etc.,
Likewise through lying with divine [women]. || 6.97 ||

One who is endowed with gnosis who has exerted himself

In meditation on ultimate reality shall attain siddhi. |
Even at home, one who is devoted to
Samaya conduct always attains siddhi. || 6.98 ||365

























































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The term samaya appears with striking frequency in these verses, and the importance of

maintaining the samayas clearly acts as the justification for choosing in the secretive mode of

the guhyacaryā as a householder over its more public dissimulative mode.

Padmavajra then reinforces his argument that the public performance of the

guhyacaryā is not critical to one's success with a reference to those who perform the Śaiva

forms of the unmattavrata or any number of other Śaiva vrata practices that resemble the

guhyacaryā:

But one who takes on the disgusting

State that prescribed here |
Whose power has not arisen
Who makes a living by running a temple, || 6.104 ||

Who performs the samayas and the like

While in the presence of lower [people], |
Who has an impotent worldly intention,
Who maintains a fire pit and a pavilion,366 || 6.105 ||













































































































































































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 Who teaches a position other than what is prescribed
Is one who destroys the teachings. |
On the other hand, one who has given up marks
Who performs the sādhana in this text || 6.106 ||

Should perform the samayas at night,

Or else secretly by day |
And in such a way that he is not seen by others
Such as śrāvakas and inferior people. || 6.107 ||

And so the mantrin should practice

In secret for the sake of his own attainment |
In such a way that he is not bothered by the public
And does not bother those who remain in the world. || 6.108 ||367

The passage indicate Padmavajra's awareness that the practices prescribed in his guhyacaryā

are not the exclusive property of Buddhists, but are very close if not in some cases identical

with the vrata practices prescribed by certain sects within the Śaiva ati- and mantramārga.

Mention here of one whose power is not arisen (anutpāditaśaktiḥ) and who makes a living by

running a temple (maṭhavṛttyā ca vartate) hint at a potential Śaiva subject of this critique, as

does his description of such a person as someone who maintains a fire pit and pavilion

(kṛtavān kuṇḍamaṇḍapaḥ). The final piece of evidence that Padmavajra is criticizing the

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Śaiva forms of the ascetic practices of his guhyacaryā comes in verse 6.106, where he

contrasts a subject who 'teaches a position other than what is prescribed' (prokto yaḥ sthito

vidinā 'thavā) and is this 'one who destroys the teachings' (śāsanocchedakṛt) with the

sādhaka who is liberated from marks (liṅgamuktaḥ). This epithet can be interpreted

according to a number of connotations that include one who has given up on clinging to

marks or characteristics (describing an advanced Buddhist meditator), one who has given up

any external indications of being an initiate, and one who has literally given up on the liṅga,

or a Śaiva apostate.

It is clear that Padmavajra was very much aware of the Śaiva vrata practices that had

gained currency among ati- and mantramārga sects by the ninth century when Guhyasiddhi

was likely composed. Passages such as Guhyasiddhi 4.51–52 indicate that he anticipated an

eclectic audience for his instructions on the guhyacaryā and make it entirely possible that one

of the reasons that aspects of the guhyacaryā so closely resemble Śaiva vrata practices is that

some the initiates performing them were Śaiva apostates. What's more, given his obvious

familiarity with Śaiva scriptures and the intricacies of Śaiva ascetic practice, it is also

possible that Padmavajra himself was a Śaiva apostate. This possibility is reinforced by the

fact that he prescribes practices whose external form are undoubtedly Śaiva, he mentions

Śaiva scriptures by name, and he assumes that his reader is familiar with both these practices

and their Śaiva scriptural sources. Despite the exclusive rhetoric of the Śaiva and Buddhist

initiatory traditions, Padmavajra and the anticipated audience for his Guhyasiddhi provide a

good example of the fluid nature of sectarian and religious identity that provides the basic

logic for the process of initiation itself. Practices such as the guhyacaryā and vidyāvrata

required the Buddhist initiate to perform his practice in the same locations that are prescribed

svq
in Śaiva texts, and the Buddhist sādhaka performing the guhyacaryā would thus be required

to interact with initiates among the various Śaiva ascetic orders. This means, in keeping with

the general practice of dissimulation at the heart of the guhyacaryā, Śaiva ascetics constituted

a population from whom the Buddhist sādhaka had to conceal his true identity.

IV. The Gaṇavrata: Clandestine Activities, Covert Opps, and Intelligence Gathering

The demonological paradigm has its benefits as a broad ranging discourse through which one

might interpret the transgressive rhetoric of the Vajrayāna. It fails, however, to account for

the some of the more social implications of the transgressive ascetic and ritual practices

prescribed in these works and in the broader Vajrayāna tradition. The distinction is muddled

by the fact that in many cases the very same behaviors that would invite attack from various

spirit beings might also invite abuse and censure from human beings. A psychological

interpretation of this phenomenon might even reduce the demonological interpretation of the

relationship between behavior, madness, and possession to a social projection originating

with the determinants of normative behavior. This study takes the position that the

demonological should not be reduced to its sociological or psychological implications.368

Understanding the demonological in The Seven Siddhi Texts on its own terms has already

been shown to be critical to understanding the dual apotropaic-soteriological goal of this

textual tradition. But while psychological reductionism brings us farther away from the world

of these texts and deeper into an etic discourse, the sociological implications of the caryā and

vrata is acknowledge in these works by the authors themselves and provides a legitimate

avenue for understanding the texts on their own terms.

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 The fact that the transgressive ascetic rites of the caryā and vrata have clear social

implications is certainly not lost on the authors of The Seven Siddhi Texts, nor is it lost on

subsequent Vajrayāna Buddhist authors in both the Sanskritic and Tibetan traditions. Chapter

eight of Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi on the "Instruction on the Gaṇa [Observance]"

(gaṇoddhṛtanirdeśa [sic. gaṇavratanirdeśa])369 is keenly aware of the potential social

repercussions of taking on a tantric consort as well as the measures that one might have to

take to ensure that one's true identity is concealed before adopting this practice. This is clear

in the opening verses of the chapter, which read:

Now I will explain the most miraculous

Sādhana of an outcaste woman |
That is taught in the tantra
Exactly as it was received. || 8.1 ||

One should abandoned the area of [one's] birth

And take on the appearance of a Lord of Gaṇas. |
Then one should enter other lands,
In which one is not recognized anywhere. || 8.2 ||

One should adopt the guise of a gaṇa,

[Meaning that one should] shave one's head |
Preserving a mass [of hair] on top
That is made into a single matted lock, || 8.3 ||

Wear a necklace on the neck

That is a mixed alternately with rudrākṣa beads |
And divine crystals that hang down
To the lower torso, || 8.4 ||

[Wear] the divine upper arm and wrist

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 Bracelets that flutter in the darkness like a firebrand, |
Make the three-fold marking [on one's forehead] and
[Place] a copper ring on [one's] index finger. || 8.5 ||

One should wear a loincloth

Over [one's] private parts, and |
A sword that hangs on the shoulder
That is made out of iron. || 8.6 ||

Having taken the form of a Lord of the Gaṇas,

His every limb ornamented, |
Hiding deep in the forest,
One should enter a place where outcastes live. || 8.7 ||

Having thus fashioned a charming disguise

For the purpose of siddhi, |
One should wander about in beautiful places370
Where one is not recognized at all. || 8.8 ||

And having entered into the midst of

Outcastes and the like who are devoted |
To The Destroyer of the Triple-city and do not
Recognize any other deity as absolute, || 8.9 ||

Who are devoted to the siddhānta,371

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 Who delight in honoring the gods by bathing them, |
Who become engaged in the view of a treatise
Based on a mere fraction of the words [they contain].372 || 8.10 ||

The determined sādhaka should thus

Enter into their midst |
[And] meditate on ultimate awakening
In a form [familiar to] the outcaste community. || 8.11 ||

And then he should teach them

A preliminary doctrine and tenet system |
Such as the purification practice in the Kālottara, etc.,
Or something that comes from the Niḥśvāsa. || 8.12 ||

And to win [their] trust,

All of them are instructed in that tantra. |
They become one's own disciples, and perform
The preliminary for the offering maṇḍala. || 8.13 ||

Then one should give the pile of things

That they donated during the guru offering |
Back to them [so that each one]
Possesses [their] property as before . || 8.14 ||

And [instead,] one should take one of their young girls

Who has a beautiful face and lovely eyes |
And make her very learned in the true nature
Of mantra and authorized [to take] the samaya. || 8.15 ||

The wise one who is determined to attain buddhahood

Should [then] practice the consort observance [and] |
He shall surely attain siddhi here, in this very life













































































































































































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 By means of the samayas that are taught in the tantra. || 8.16 ||373

Several scholars have referenced this same passage in their work. Sanderson refers to the

passage to support his Śaiva-Buddhist unidirectional appropriation thesis to argue that

Padmavajra's explicit mention of two Śaiva scriptures, the Kālottara and the

Niśvāsatattvasaṃhitā, is irrefutable evidence that Buddhist tantric ascetics were well versed

enough in Śaiva scripture to teach it and perform Śaiva maṇḍala initiation rituals.374

Davidson references this passage to argue that siddhas proselytized among tribal peoples

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who, in turn, shaped the siddha movement.375 Wedemeyer has remarked on these verses as

well to challenge Davidson's reading of the passage, noting that this is an instance in which a

Buddhist sādhaka is instructed to teach these materials to people on the margins of

brahmanical culture, not evidence of Buddhist tantric ascetics learning from tribal or outcaste

peoples.376 All of these points are well taken, yet none of these authors actually directly deal

with what the content of the passage itself has to tell us about the role that simulation and

dissimulation played in Vajrayāna caryā and vrata practices.

A more straightforward analysis of the passage requires at least some

acknowledgement that its central purpose is to instruct the Buddhist sādhaka in the

performance of both dissimulative and simulative ascetic modes. These modes, laid out quite

candidly here in Padmavajra's instructions on how to pull off an elaborate "guru con," are

critical to understanding the transition from the early transgressive ritual and asceticism of

the Guhyasamājatantra and the more thorough and overt inscription of these practices in the

literature of the Buddhist yoginītantras. The passage contains a set of instructions in which a

Buddhist sādhaka is essentially told to disguise himself as a Śaiva ascetic in order to deceive

a community of outcastes into giving him one of their daughters as tribute in exchange for a

fake Śaiva maṇḍala initiation. It would seem logical to pause and examine the reasons that a

Vajrayāna Buddhist ascetic performing the caryā and vrata might be told to disguise himself

as one of any number of Śaiva ascetic orders, particularly given the fact that the later,

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standardized versions of these practices in the yoginītantras are widely hypothesized as

Buddhist appropriations of forms of Śaiva asceticism.

The terms guhyavrata and guhyacaryā signify a culture of ascetic dissimulation and

simulation, and it is possible that this ascetic culture may have found its first detailed

expression in Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi prior to its incorporation into the yoginītantras.

Scriptural sources on the caryā such as the Hevajratantra instruct the advanced initiate to

take on the physical appearance and dress of the tutelary deity Hevajra (or Heruka in other

textual traditions), and the practice is largely interpreted as a mimetic performance in which

the sādhaka takes on the outer appearance of the central deity of the Hevajra maṇḍala. Such

practices are widely recognized as evidence of Buddhist appropriation and re-purposing of

Śaiva ascetic forms because of the striking similarities in appearance between Buddhist

deities like Heruka and Hevajra and the dress that is worn during a number of Śaiva kāpālika

ascetic practices.

The appearance of the kāpālika dress in Guhyasiddhi, however, indicates that before

these practices were mimetic, they were strategies of dissimulation and simulation that

Buddhist yogins adopted to hide their true identity so that they could mingle in the same

circles as their Śaiva counterparts. The dissimulative component of the kāpālika dress

allowed both Buddhist and Śaiva ascetics to conceal their actual identities. For the Buddhist,

however, it had the added benefit of allowing the sādhaka to conceal his identity as a

Buddhist from a specific social group—the Śaiva ascetics—in order to avoid detection while

haunting the very same ascetic landscapes. This dissimulation is complemented by a

simulative component in which the dress of a kāpālika ascetic was adopted both to conceal a

Buddhist identity and to project a false Śaiva identity. Looking at practices like the

svx
guhyacaryā and guhyavrata in this light supplies a potential social context for the exchange

of Śaiva and Buddhist ritual theory and a social context for the appropriation of forms of

ritual praxis from the former by the latter. This deception, which is an inherent component of

this ascetic mode, provides grounds for translating the term guhyacaryā as 'clandestine

activity.' The siddhas who performed this clandestine activity of the guhyacaryā might be

viewed as the deep-undercover black-ops of the Buddhist yogic world who surrendered their

Buddhist identities completely, dressed as Śaivas, infiltrated communities of Śaiva ascetics,

collected whatever intelligence they could, and repurposed it toward their own goals. The

result was the intensely hybrid Śaiva-Buddhist tantric literature of the Buddhist

yoginītantras.

Padmavajra's instructions on the guhyacaryā and vidyāvrata read as an amalgamation

of a number of 'observances' that appear in the twenty-first chapter of the Śaiva

Brahmayāmalatantra. The twenty-first chapter of the Brahmayāmalatantra consists of a set

of nine different instructions on the vidyāvrata corresponding to the nine syllables of the

Vidyā Caṇḍā Kāpālinī's primary mantra.377 There are both similarities and differences

between the nine vidyāvrata in the Brahmayāmalatantra and the various elements of these

practices that appear in Padmavajra's guhyacaryā. Alexis Sanderson has provided a wealth of

data on the similarities between the Śaiva and Buddhist versions of these practices, but it is

also helpful to spend some time acknowledging the ways in which they differ.

As Csaba Kiss notes, the observances outlined in the vidyāvrata chapter of the

Brahmayāmalatantra are all prescribed during the first phase of a Śaiva initiate's practice and

precede his assignment to one of the three classes of sādhaka that are outlined in the text.

Kiss describes the Śaiva vidyāvrata as "basically ascetic practices aiming at self-purification,

























































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the pacification of the Yoginīs and at obtaining a meeting (melaka) with them by gradually

embracing non-conventional practice (nirācāra)."378 In contrast, the Vajrayāna caryā and

vrata practices are performed at a relatively advanced stage in the sādhaka's career and

employ a doctrine of ontological non-duality that collapses the purity-impurity dialectic. The

Śaiva versions of the vidyāvrata prescribe the kind of external protective ritual techniques

that are forbidden in the Buddhist forms of the practice. A number of the Śaiva vidyāvrata

practices require that the sādhaka follow a daily ritual regimen and protect himself while

roaming in public by performing the mantranyāsa, both of which are specifically proscribed

in the Buddhist practices related to the guhyacaryā. All of the Śaiva vidyāvrata require that

the sādhaka maintain chastity, a feature that is certainly not present in the Buddhist

vidyāvrata, which is specifically oriented toward the performance of sexual yoga with a

divine or human consort. The fact that the vidyāvrata instructions are oriented toward the

goal of attracting the attention of yoginīs through maintaining chastity and that this encounter

culminates in a positive possession by Bhairava and his pantheon of attendants also stands in

opposition to the function of the vidyāvrata and the guhyacaryā in Buddhist sources. In the

latter, the goal is not to become possessed but to prove that one is impervious to possession.

In the Buddhist two-stage yoga introduced in the Guhyasamājatantra, the sādhaka has

already brought about a kind of positive possession with the tutelary deity and a retinue of

maṇḍala protector deities during the generation stage yoga, well before taking up the

vidyāvrata. The instructions in The Seven Siddhi Texts on the Buddhist consecration rites and

the generation stage yoga that engage in a kind of positive possession also demonstrate some

degree of ambivalence by emphasizing, via the doctrinal theory of mahāmudrā, that the

deity-maṇḍala and the entire cosmos that emerges from it is already naturally and

























































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spontaneously present in one's own body. The Buddhist conception of embodying the deity-

maṇḍala employs a yogic theory of positive possession, but it also reconciles this yogic

theory with a Buddhist representationalist epistemological discourse around the nature of

self-reflexive awareness (pratyātmaveda or svasaṃveda). In this respect, the central function

of the vidyāvrata in the Brahmayāmalatantra is seemingly antithetical to the entire purpose

of the Vajrayāna practices of the same name. Such discrepancies are no doubt precisely what

Alexis Sanderson had in mind by arguing that the form of ritual in Vajrayāna is derived from

Śaiva sources, but the function of those rituals remains entirely Buddhist.379

These important differences aside, there is much about Padmavajra's guhyacaryā

instructions on the unmattavrata that indicates a Śaiva source for the practice, possibly even

the Brahmayāmala itself, even though an exact one-to-one intertextuality is not evident here

as it is in the case of the almost verbatim incorporation of passages from the Brahmayāmala

into the Laghuśaṃvara and its related works. The most obvious indicator is the fact that the

unmattavrata was certainly an established Śaiva ascetic practice prior to the early to mid-

ninth century, when Padmavajra is believed to have been active.380 Both Padmavajra and the

Brahmayāmala prescribe behaviors that are ubiquitous social markers for insanity such as

randomly breaking into song, laughing for no reason, dancing, yelling, and other behaviors

that had become a part of the mad ascetic's repertoire as early as the Pāśupatasūtra. Since the

components of Padmavajra's unmattavrata have already been presented above, Csaba Kiss's

translation of the Brahmayāmala's instructions on the unmattavrata is provided here for

comparison:

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 He should always be naked, his hair unbound. He weeps, he laughs,
sometimes he bursts out in song. Sometimes the Sādhaka dances, sometimes
he jumps up, sometimes he runs [away]. He states, "I am Brahmā! I am Viṣṇu!
I am Iśvara! The gods are in my hands! They have become my servants!
"Look at me—I am Indra, mounted on [his elephant] Airāvata!" he says,
"Indrāṇī is my wife!" And, "I am a dog! I am a pig!" I am horse-headed [?]
and my body is that of a horse!" He should lie down on the road, then get up
and run. He should not set foot on the site of pantheon-worship (yāgasthāna)
and should not perform worship, not even mentally. He should salute the
junctions of the day (saṁdhyā) by [offering his own] urine. He should
sometimes pour some of it on his head. When seeing women, he should greet
them thus: "Mother! Sister!" This is how the Mantrin should engage in
conversation. He should not abuse [them]. Roaming (bhramaṇa) is [to be
performed] in the same way in this case (iha) [as taught above], as [is the
sequence of] the daily rituals (āhnika). He should not eat in the daytime, even
though [he behaves like] a madman. He should throw sesamum seeds on his
head and, pretending that they are (kṛtvā) lice, he should eat them. Or he
should kill [the 'lice'] with a big fuss in order to delude people. The Sādhaka
should, O Mahādevī, pursue the Madman-like [observance] (unmattaka) thus,
with different patterns of behavior. This is for the benefit of yogins.381

There are a number of moments in this passage where the Śaiva authors and redactors of the

Brahmayāmala have offered their own creative take on the behavioral traits that would allow

a sādhaka to feign madness. But we also see the same kind of repurposing of bhūtavidyā

symptomology here that was evident in Padmavajra's instructions on the unmattavrata as part

of the clandestine activity of the guhyacaryā. This phenomenon appears in the passage above

in its instructions to declare that one is a Brahmā or Iśvara, a behavioral indicator of madness

that resembles the symptomology of asura possession that appear in a passage quoted from

the Kriyākālaguṇottara in Netratantra chapter nineteen.382 All of the vidyāvrata instructions

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in the Brahmayāmala suggest the sādhaka alternate between performing his daily rites and

wandering around in some form of disguise. The structure of Padmavajra's guhyacaryā

instructions, which alternate between verses on perfecting union with the deity-maṇḍala and

verses on adopting the external appearance of a madman, might indicate a daily routine that

is similar to the Śaiva version of the practice but replaces its ritual components with Buddhist

practices. The passage's proscription against performing any kind of worship, even if it is

done mentally, is reminiscent of the proscriptions of a broad range of practices in the

instructions on the caryā and vrata practices in The Seven Siddhi Texts. The Brahmayāmala

elaborates upon this proscription later in chapter twenty-one in its general instructions for

practicing the nine vidyāvrata. Here the text tells us that the sādhaka must "perform the

rituals for the divinities (devakarman), [i.e.] the four daily rituals (āhnika), in a hidden, secret

place, [even/only] at night."383 This indicates that the Śaiva sādhaka performing his

vidyāvrata keeps his daily regimen of ritual practice largely concealed from public view

while projecting a public persona during his phases of 'wandering' that conceals his identity

as an initiate. This is reminiscent of at least one of the connotations of the term guhya in

Padmavajra's guhyacaryā /guhyavrata. It also indicates that both Buddhists and Śaivas

performing these dissimulative ascetic practices would have been able to keep their ritual

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activities, and thus their particular sectarian affiliations, a secret from the general public as

well as from other sādhakas. 384

The fact that the Śaiva sādhaka performed the practices that might identify him as an

initiate of a particular order while in seclusion or among a small inner circle of fellow

initiates has implications for my argument that the clandestine activity of the guhyacaryā

allowed Buddhists to live among Śaiva ascetics without being detected. The following

analysis of Padmavajra's prescription for the Buddhist sādhaka to take on the appearance of a

kāpālika ascetic brings the simulative nature of this practice to light. The sequence of

instructions leading up to this practice begins as follows:

I will give a systematic explanation

Of the ordinary mudrās. |
At first one should obtain a woman of the lowest caste
And he attain siddhi with them. || 7.13 ||

The low-caste woman [might be] a sister,

A mother, a daughter, or dyer |
Who has been born in a despised family
Or one who is otherwise easily obtained. || 7.14 ||

But in the specific case of a daughter,

She should be trained to follow the tantras |
And gradually instructed in performing
All of the samayas from childhood on. || 7.15 ||

One should make skilled and devoted to bodhicitta

And one who is able to bear the nature of reality. |
In due course the wise one shall siddhi
In she who embodies the un-fractured threefold vajra. || 7.16 ||385

























































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It is highly unlikely that the use of the terms 'sister,' 'mother,' and 'daughter' (bhaginī mātā

duhitrī) in this passage refer to a violation of the incest taboo. Not only do we get the

impression that the outcaste women in the passage come from another family, by this point

the sādhaka has already completed the ascetic regiment of the guhyacaryā and, unless he is

performing the guhyacaryā as a householder, he would likely be far away from anyone who

might recognize him, let alone his own family. The terms 'sister,' 'mother,' and 'daughter'

signify the consort's age and/or the role she plays in her own family, not her relationship to

the sādhaka.386 These verses also seem to indicate that an outcaste of low standing whose

family is particularly disliked is desirable simply because it is easier for the sādhaka to get

her (or her family) to agree to their union. It thus appears, at least in this case, that there is a

practical aspect to the injunction to take an outcaste as one's consort that may take precedent

over interpreting the practice as a rejection of the rules governing sexual relationships with

low caste women outlined in the brahmanical legal literature.

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 After he has trained his consort in the ritual and performed an offering ceremony to

her, Padmavajra's vidyāvrata instructions then tell the sādhaka to disguise himself as a Śaiva

ascetic:

The mantrin should sprinkle himself with ash

And make his own appearance and hers |
That of a holy [person] with a heap of matted locks
In [the following] specific manner: || 7.18 ||

He should be clothed in a tiger skin,

Adorned with the various ornaments, |
And bear a vajra, khatvāṅgha,
And bell along with a ḍamaru. || 7.19 ||

[He should] be adorned with fragments of bone

In his ears, on his throat, and also on his arms, |
[And hold] a human skull in the left hand,
And a ḍamaru in the right. || 7.20 ||

Likewise, they may take on a form

In which the mudrā's and one's own likeness
Is oneself as the supreme vajra-bearer
Accompanied by Māmākī, Locanā, or the like. || 7.21 ||387

One should perform the consort observance

According to the ritual system taught in the manual. |
One who is certain regarding non-duality

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 Shall attain siddhi in this very lifetime. || 7.22 ||388

As the reader may recall, Guhyasiddhi an independent treatise that provides instructions on

the generation and completion stage yogas of the Guhyasamājatantra. As we have already

seen, the nyāsa practice outlined in chapter four of Guhyasiddhi does not have a direct

correlate in the Guhyasamājatantra itself.389 This lack of direct correlation is precisely the

reason that Guhyasiddhi is less a commentary than a semi-independent work on the

Guhyasamājatantra. It appears that Padmavajra's introduction of the markings of a Śaiva

kāpālika ascetic in his vidyāvrata provide another case in point regarding the independent

nature of the text. The Guhyasamājatantra does not feature a maṇḍala iconography in which

the central deity is clothed in the kind of kāpālika style ascetic dress prescribed in

Guhyasiddhi 7.18–20.390 Padmavajra may be superimposing a style of caryā and vrata

associated with the yoginītantras onto the Guhyasamājatantra system here, but it is still not

possible to say that a sādhaka who is initiated into the Guhyasamāja system and dresses like

a kāpālika ascetic to perform a vidyāvrata is engaged in a mimesis of the primary tutelary

deity of the guhyasamāja-maṇḍala. Instead, the mimetic version of the practice is offered as

one of two options.

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 The first outfit Padmavajra prescribes for the vidyāvrata does match that of the Śaiva

kāpālika ascetic in a number of the vidyāvrata practices outlined in the Brahmayāmalatantra,

which prescribes similar manners of dress for the muktabhairavavrata, the vardhamānavrata,

and the bhairava or mahāvrata. The mahāvrata is even mentioned in by name in

Guhyasiddhi 4.52, translated above, as one of a number of non-Buddhist forms of the vrata

that the yogin who has truly realized mahāmudrā might take up. Padmavajra himself draws

attention to the discrepancy between the Guhyasamāja iconography and the prescribed

kāpālika dress of his vidyāvrata by providing an alternative mimetic option. When we

consider the simulative and dissimulative character of Padmavajra's caryā and vrata

instructions, the injunction for a high-level Buddhist initiate to dress up as a relatively lower-

level initiated Śaiva ascetic during the vidyāvrata might qualify as a form of clandestine

activity (guhyacaryā). There are other explicit allowances for simulating the appearance of

Śaiva ascetics that can support this interpretation of Padmavajra's vidyāvrata instructions as

well, such as the instructions on performing the 'guru con' in chapter eight of Guhyasiddhi.

This analysis suggests a hypothesis regarding the interactions between Buddhist and

Śaiva ascetics and their relationship to the emergence of the yoginītantra ritual culture that

Sanderson has shown to be so thoroughly Śaiva in form. It is possible that Padmavajra's

Guhyasiddhi was composed during a period in which the siddha traditions were in transition

between the yoga- and yoginītantra versions of the caryā and vrata. If this is the case, then

the text may predate the full appropriation of kāpālika ritual iconography and the wholesale

plagiarism of Śaiva textual content for which there is evidence in the yoginītantras. 391 In this

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context, Padmavajra's prescription of the clandestine activity of the guhyacaryā would have

allowed Buddhists to intermingle among Śaiva ascetics. This observation provides at least

one social context for the wholesale appropriation of Śaiva elements that would produce the

hybridized and eclectic yogic ritual iconography, rituals, and ascetic practices associated with

the yoginītantras. Adopting the external appearance of the Śaiva vidyāvrata in name and

form and prescribing that the practice be performed in precisely the same locations as their

Śaiva counterparts allowed the Buddhist sādhakas to carry out the kind of undercover work

that would have been required for the direct Buddhist appropriation and repurposing of Śaiva

ritual that emerges in the yoginītantras.

The memory of this practical application of the guhyacaryā survived in Tibet least

until the time of the fifteenth century Sakya polymath Gorampa Sönam Sengé (Go rams pa

bsod nams seng ge, 1429–1489), who wrote the following in his commentary to Sakya

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Paṇḍita's (Sa skya paṇḍita kun dga' rgyal mtshan, 1182–1251) Distinguishing the Three Vows

(Sdom gsum rab dbye):

Disguising oneself as a madman refers to performing the caryā after

concealing one's social identity, etc., and adopting the behaviors of the
madman's vow. When one has not yet attained the highest level of heat of a
great regent, [one should call it] the conduct of a young prince. When one
hides among yogins without their consent and adopts this conduct, one should
call it the guhyacaryā.392

The historical and cultural context for Gorampa's statements, like his correlation in the same

work between the stages yogic heat (drod, uṣman) and the caryā, is anachronous. Yet it does

show that my own interpretation of Padmavajra's guhyacaryā as a kind of clandestine activity

in which the sādhaka hides his identity while cohabitating with initiates who belong to an

entirely separate and potentially hostile tantric sect was accepted as a valid description of this

practice in Tibet at least until the fifteenth century.

By the time that Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi was composed, Buddhists had been

overrun and displaced by the Śaiva and Vaiṣṇava schools in virtually all corners of South

Asia aside from the territories held by the Pālas in the northeast, the Bhaumakara territories

in Orissa, and of course Sri Lanka. If we can accept that Guhyasiddhi and five of the other

works in The Seven Siddhi Texts are indeed written by authors from Oḍiyāna, and if Oḍiyāna

is rightfully identified with the area in in northern Pakistan around the Swat valley that once

served as a major overland trade route controlled by the Oḍi dynasty, this may provide

further insight into the historical context for the kind of clandestine activity prescribed in the

guhyacaryā. According to the historical narrative recently offered by Giovanni Verardi,

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Buddhism's contraction across the subcontinent was the result of a series of deliberate,

consistent, and violent attempts at purging Buddhism and its influence from brahmanical

society.393 A comparison of the reports of Chinese pilgrims who passed through the

Northwestern region of Oḍiyāna confirms that Buddhism waned in the region around the

middle of the first millennium. Importantly, and perhaps by intentional design, the

transgressive rites and ascetic practices of the yogatantra and yoginītantra do not actually

require an institutional infrastructure. In many ways, these traditions' development of a ritual

technology in which one installs the deity-maṇḍala in one's own body would be entirely

appropriate for a situation in which the physical infrastructures that the maṇḍala iconography

reflects were no longer available. The Śaiva encroachment and complete takeover of

formally Buddhist institutions and locations, sometimes even in the case of major institutions

within the Pāla Buddhist empire such as Nālandā and Bodhgayā, further complicated the

issue of maintaining an exclusively Buddhist identity. A detailed consideration of all of these

factors is beyond the scope of this study. Still, Padmavajra's instructions on the guhyacaryā

and vidyāvrata are quite candid in their engagement with the broader tantric ascetic culture

around them, and this culture was dominated in large part by Śaiva schools that were hostile

toward Buddhists. Thus we can hypothesize that Padmavajra's caryā and vrata instructions

present a dual dissimulative and simulative strategy that would have allowed Buddhist

sādhakas to perform the vidyāvrata undetected. This means that the guhyacaryā had the

potential to place these Buddhist sādhakas in the company of Śaiva ascetics who would have

recognized the feigned madness of the unmattavrata or the bone ornament markings of the

vidyāvrata as part of their own tradition. This Buddhist infiltration of Śaiva ascetic

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communities could account for the direct appropriation of Śaiva sources that we see in the

Buddhist yoginītantras.

V. Conclusion

There is a natural progression in these textual traditions from the yogin's annihilation of his

identity through union with the deity during the generation stage to the public annihilation of

his identity during the completion stage caryā and vrata. As he advanced in these practices,

the sādhaka went deeper undercover and moved progressively farther into the margins of

society. This centripetal movement is reflected in the iconographic depiction of the siddhas

of the eight charnel grounds located along the periphery of the maṇḍala iconography of the

yoginītantras.

The sādhaka's dissimulative practice then progressed from this centripetal movement

toward the margins of society in which he 'wandered like a ghoul,' to the next stage in which

his union with the deity-maṇḍala became a completely instantaneous, non-conceptual reality.

This stage of the guhyacaryā signaled his complete relinquishment of all manner of ritual

techniques that might be used to construct a maṇḍala both externally and internally, and is

described with the phrase 'wandering like a lion' to signify that the sādhaka's perfect union

with the deity-maṇḍala rendered him impervious to any human or non-human forces that

might attempt to bring him harm.

The two levels of dissimulation observed in the guhyacaryā—hiding one's personal

identity and then hiding the fact that one is actually an initiated ascetic—are a common

feature of both the Śaiva and Buddhist forms of these practices. The Buddhist performance of

this practice, however, adds a new simulative element. The Buddhist sādhaka who performed

sxr
Padmavajra's guhyacaryā concealed his broader identity from the world by feigning

madness, but he simultaneously concealed his identity as a Buddhist from the Śaiva ascetics

with whom he may have interacted while performing the caryā or vrata by adopting the

guise of a Śaiva ascetic. This final deception suggests that the complete integration of this

Śaiva ascetic culture in the yoginītantras was a product of the kind of caryā and vrata

asceticism that we see in Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi. It is thus hypothesized here that the

guhyacaryā's promotion of a culture of Buddhist clandestine activity provided the social

conditions for the kind of full-scale appropriation of Śaiva ritual, iconographic, and ascetic

forms that we see in the yoginītantras.

sxs
 Chapter 7:

Sectarian Identity and Inter-Sectarian Rivalry

in The Seven Siddhi Texts

I. Introduction: On the Use of the Term 'Sect'

This chapter takes up the 'borrowing model's' more reified sense of sectarian identity as an

analytic paradigm and provides a systematic presentation of material in The Seven Siddhi

Texts pertaining to issues of sectarian identity and inter-sectarian rivalry. Before proceeding

with this analysis, some justification for my use of the term 'sect' to describe these different

traditions is in order. Scholars of South Asian religions have noted the intensified level of

hybridity in tantric traditions from the earliest decades of the discipline. It has also been

argued that the amalgamation of ritual and ascetic practices commonly referred to as 'tantra'

constituted the primary religious culture in South Asia from approximately the middle of the

first millennium CE. until the early modern period. As a result, there is no form of religious

practice from this period that has not in some way been influenced by the initiatory tantric

traditions.394 Many readers might argue that the traditions that participated in the flourishing

of tantric religions in South Asia should be referred to as entirely separate religious orders,

not as separate 'sects' within a shared religious hegemon. This is a valid point, and for this

reason I caution the reader against an overly technical interpretation of my use of the term

'sect' in the pages that follow. Still, the issue of whether or not these traditions should be

considered 'sects' operating within a similar tantric worldview is far from resolved.

Nevertheless, this chapter adopts the language of 'sect' and 'sectarianism' to describe the ways

in which the authors of The Seven Siddhi Texts cultivate a specific identity around their

























































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particular textual traditions and the ways in which they relate those identities to the broader

Buddhist tradition and the philosophical schools and ritual and ascetic systems of their non-

Buddhist contemporaries.

Chapter six argued that the dissimulative asceticism that made its way into the

Vajrayāna with the emergence of the vrata and caryā instructions associated with the

Guhyasamājatantra provided at least one social context for the rapid increase in the

appropriation of ritual and ascetic modalities from Śaiva sources. Engagement in this social

milieu via the dissimulative and simulative performance of a Buddhist sādhaka engaged in

the caryā and vrata practices of the completion stage yoga provided the impetus for the

emergence of an intensely hybridized form of Buddhist-Śaiva literature in the subsequent

stage of Vajrayāna literature, that of the yoginītantra. To truly identify this phenomenon as a

form of inter-sectarian, adstratal appropriation, however, requires that the individuals who

engaged in this activity held a strong sense of discrete sectarian identity and affiliation. In a

broader sense, one could argue that the 'borrowing model' requires that the individuals who

engaged in this activity not only identified themselves as holding a solid sectarian affiliation,

but that they recognized the ritual and ascetic forms that they appropriated as originally

belonging to a specific sect and not just part of a broader cultural discourse. This chapter

explores the degree to which the siddha authors of The Seven Siddhi Texts and its related

works actually maintained an exclusive identity as Buddhists over and against other

contemporary religious groups or sects that made up the ritual and ascetic landscapes of

'charnel ground culture.' This chapter presents evidence from The Seven Siddhi Texts that

highlights the various ways in which the authors of these texts understood their own sectarian

identities.

sxu
II. Sect and Sectarian Identity in Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi

Padmavajra's approach to sectarian identity in his Guhyasiddhi ranges from statements that

promote an inclusivist position to statements that disparage the practices of other sects and

even prescribe acts of violence against them. Padmavajra maintains a certain degree of

allegiance to a generalized sense of Buddhist identity, but he tends to place the greatest

emphasis on allegiance to the textual lineage of the Guhyasamājatantra, holding this work to

be superior both to the systems of non-Buddhists and to the systems taught in other Buddhist

works. Guhyasiddhi suggests that the issue of primary importance in Padmavajra's

conception of sectarian identity is more the textual lineage to which one belongs than a sense

of allegiance to a broadly conceived Buddhist identity, though the latter is not entirely absent

from the text. On the whole, Padmavajra presents a sectarian identity that is constructed

along the lines of specific textual lineages of instruction that are inextricably tied to the guru

from whom one receives initiation. In this way, Padmavajra can be said to promote a more

localized sense of sectarian identity that focuses on membership within a textual tradition and

its textual community in which identifying as 'Buddhist' does play some role, but is not the

primary determinant of sectarian identity.

The more inclusivist passages in Guhyasiddhi tend to emphasize realization of tattva

or ultimate reality over allegiance to any particular sect. However, at times the very same

emphasis is also used to disparage other sects that might practice similar ritual and ascetic

systems, but that do not share the same interpretation of the ultimate nature of reality. For

Padmavajra, anyone who has realized the correct understanding of ultimate reality can take

up whatever ritual or ascetic system they wish and be attain siddhi. On the other hand, no

sxv
ritual or ascetic system is ultimately useful if it is practiced by someone who lacks this

fundamental realization.

There are several points in Guhyasiddhi at which Padmavajra makes this argument.

One of the earliest instances follows Guhyasiddhi 1.12–16, where Padmavajra states that

even those who act contrary to the law attain siddhi through taking up the guhyacaryā. These

verses express the correlation of the four transgressive samayas of killing, lying, stealing, and

adultery to actions that, according to classical brahmanical legal codes such as Manusmṛti,

require that one perform a vrata for a certain period of time as penance.395 Even such people,

we are told, can attain siddhi. But the phrase 'even those who act contrary to the law'

(dharmasyāpi virodhakā) in Guhyasiddhi 1.12d can also imply those who act contrary to the

Buddhist teachings.396 This raises the question of just how important a sense of Buddhist

identity could possibly have been for a tradition that perceived its own advanced ascetic and

ritual expression of realization in terms of a set of vows and behaviors that are in direct

contradiction with normative Buddhist ethics.

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 Padmavajra follows these verses with a statement indicating that a sādhaka's

realization of ultimate reality, and not the form of the practice, is the primary factor in

whether or not the caryā or vrata he engages in will result in the attainment of siddhi:

On the other hand, for one who lacks ultimate reality,

What use is an observance |
That is [merely] a means of livelihood
[And] causes one to attain [rebirth] in hell? || 1.25 ||

Sādhakas for whom ultimate reality is the highest aim

Attain siddhi even without the observance, [but] |
Without ultimate reality they do not attain siddhi
Even by [performing] hundreds practices and observances. || 1.26 ||

Those sādhakas who possess ultimate reality,

Who are stainless, attain siddhi in any circumstance |
By the power of meditation [and]
Are completely liberated from all impurity. || 1.27 ||397

Thus while the transgressive behaviors adopted during the caryā or vrata would normally

act as a cause for rebirth in a hell realm, Padmavajra's sādhaka, who possesses a distinctly

Buddhist realization of the nature of ultimate reality, is able to perform these practices

without suffering the same result.

In the same way, the Tibetan version of the text that fills in a lacuna in the Sanskrit

between Guhyasiddhi 1.27–28 clearly has some of the Vaidika brahmin versions of the vrata

in mind when it argues against the soteriological efficacy of a vrata in which one gives up

one's possessions to become a beggar, seeks expiation at a tīrtha or temple, or practices

austerities without holding a correct view of ultimate reality. Although Padmavajra does

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sxx
privilege the function that the vrata performs in his own tradition, his argument that the

realization of ultimate reality renders all of these practices effective also underlies the more

inclusivist approach to other sects that he adopts in other passages in the text. This position is

expressed in Guhyasiddhi 4.51–53, already discussed in chapter two, where Padmavajra

notes that the vrata or caryā ascetic practice of the completion stage can be of Buddhist, Jain,

Śaiva, or any other tradition that one prefers. This approach to the form of the vrata provides

an effective method for inscribing Guhyasiddhi's non-dualist ontology into the ritual and

ascetic systems of other traditions and preserves the dual-motion of affirmation and

subordination that is characteristic of an inclusivist strategy.

Padmavajra indicates that his own sectarian affiliation is to the textual tradition of the

Guhyasamājatantra over all other potential traditions, Buddhist or non-Buddhist, when the

Sanskrit and Tibetan texts of Guhyasiddhi resume their correspondence in Guhyasiddhi 1.28

(Tib. 1.43). This more exclusivist strategy emerges in Guhyasiddhi 1.27, after he concludes

his statements on the uselessness or the brahmanical vrata practices. Here Padmavajra

singles out the Guhyasamājatantra as the sole textual tradition that teaches the correct

realization of ultimate reality:

And that ultimate reality is very clearly

Established in the Śrī Samāja tantra. |
What was concealed elsewhere is explained
[There] in numerous elaborate details. || 1.28 ||

The ultimate purity that is indeed singular

Is established according to its different expressions
In the classification [of tantras] as kriyā and caryā etc.,
[And] in the sūtra-systems and baskets etc. || 1.29 ||398

























































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Guhyasiddhi contains a number of passages that require an advanced sādhaka to give up his

reliance upon the modes logical argumentation and ritual praxes associated with the sūtras

and lower tantras. Such statements have been shown both in Christian Wedemeyer's work

and in the discussion of ritual proscription in chapter four of this study to pertain to the

specific context of performing the advanced ascetic practices of the vrata and caryā.399 In

this sense they should not be taken as universal rejections of the use of logical analysis and

complex ritual in the exoteric and lower esoteric traditions. Guhyasiddhi does take an

inclusivist approach by simultaneously validating and subordinating the Buddhist textual

traditions of the sūtras and the kriyā and caryātantras. Then the text defers to the author's

true affiliation and reveals an allegiance to the textual lineage of the Guhyasamājatantra. In

this way, Padmavajra distinguishes his own sectarian identity from the broader Buddhist

tradition of which it is a part. His critique is notably softened when it is directed against the

Buddhist sūtras and kriyā and caryā tantras, with Padmavajra assuring the reader that these

traditions do teach an 'ultimate purity that is indeed singular' (ekam eva paraṃ śuddhaṃ) but

that it is very clearly established (sthitaṃ ... parisphuṭam) in the Guhyasamājatantra

(śrīsamāje). A hierarchy thus emerges early in Guhyasiddhi in which Padmavajra's own

articulation of his sectarian identity is tied to a specific textual lineage, and then to a lesser

extent to the broader Buddhist tradition.

Padmavajra follows his statements on the superiority of the Guhyasamājatantra

textual system with a short set of verses on the importance of the guru and the problem of the

false disciple. This section contains some of the strongest polemical language in

Guhyasiddhi, and this language is directed not at members of any rival non-Buddhist group

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but at initiates who do not maintain their samaya vows by venerating the guru, who are

duplicitous, or who refuse to participate in the initiatory cult at all:

Furthermore there are those cruel-minded ones

Who are deceitful fraudulent con artists |
Whose minds are fixated upon desire, etc.,
Who question who they should and should not obtain it from. || 1.38 ||

Having paid homage to the guru with deceit,

They focus on seeking out his faults. |
They are falsely conceited, wicked,
Always intent upon debating, || 1.39 ||

And their intention is always fixated upon

Deceiving the vajra brothers and the guru. |
Those sentient beings do not attain |
This state that is the supreme siddhi. || 1.40 ||

And there are others one sees there [who],

Having approached gurus in earnest, [praise them] |
With prostrations, worship, and reverence
As long as [they] get what they want, || 1.41 ||

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Even though it is present right in front of them, |
The wicked ones do not understand,
[And think] 'What is this? Where did it come from?' || 1.42 ||

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[Such a person] bows to him in earnest, |
But upon greeting him in the midst of
A crowd [becomes] indigent. || 1.43 ||

Beings who are like that

Do not attain the ultimate state, |
The supreme nirvāṇa taught
By the one who speaks the truth. || 1.44 ||

And one sees other inferior beings

Who slander the guru, |
Who are shameless, have bad behavior, [and]
Disparage [his] good qualities. || 1.45 ||

In that case, because they merely grasp at the truth,

syq
 They turn away from their own inherent nature.400 |
Those learned ones are not consecrated and
Do not amass an assembly of students. || 1.46 ||

And [there are] those who have only understood on their own
Who become excited after studying a text [yet] |
Lack the practice of the samayas [and]
Do not understand the ācārya at all. || 1.47 ||

They come to the aid of sentient beings

Without understanding the text, |
And they do not understand ultimate reality
Which is expressed by the one who speaks the truth. || 1.48 ||

These people and all of those

Who commit sinful acts, |
Who set on a false path
Only take rebirth as hell beings. || 1.49 ||401

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Nowhere else in the text is such a detailed description given for any group of people with

whom Padmavajra finds fault. Certainly there is no passage in Guhyasiddhi that directs a

similar pointed invective at, for instance, members of a separate or rival sect. There is a

unique degree of specificity in Padmavajra's condemnation of people who abuse or

misunderstand the guru-disciple relationship. This indicates not only that Padmavajra is more

concerned with the proper conception of the guru-disciple relationship and suggests that he

grants a greater degree of importance to the proper maintenance of this relationship over the

issue of whether or not someone belongs to any particular sect, be it Buddhist or non-

Buddhist.

Finally, Guhyasiddhi contains one of the only prescriptions of sectarian violence in

The Seven Siddhi Texts. The passage appears in the work's ninth chapter, where Padmavajra

argues for the necessity of using violent force against the rivals of Buddhist traditions:

One should strike down enemies who

Reproach the ācārya with all one's effort, |
Particularly those who harm
The three jewels and the vajra-bearer. || 9.26 ||

Such beings who do not understand

The phenomenal reality of the buddhas that is |
Equal to the sky shall not be saved,
Even having studied the highest doctrine. || 9.27 ||

And those beings who commit offenses

Against the Vajrayāna will die |
And be deprived of supreme liberation
For as many as one hundred eons. || 9.28 ||

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 And there are those who escape this calamity
By falling extremely low in cyclical existence. |
Those who commit [such a] sin fall
By taking birth in suffering and poverty. || 9.29 ||

Likewise those who disrespect

The Buddha, dharma, and saṅgha, |
Will go to Avīci hell [even] after
Taking refuge in a Buddhist image. || 9.30 ||402

These verses preserve a sense that the guru and the Vajrayāna textual traditions are the

primary locus of Padmavajra's sense of sectarian affiliation. But at the same time, his

mention in verse 9.26 of those who harm 'the three jewels,' which is reiterated in verse 9.30,

offers the clearest indication in the text that Padmavajra also subscribed to a more

generalized Buddhist identity. Still, Padmavajra seems far more concerned with punishing

those who commit offenses against the Vajrayāna in these verses. He acknowledges the

existence sectarian 'other' by using the phrase 'rivals who reproach the ācārya'

(ācāryanindanaparān), and characterizes these rivals as hostile to both Buddhism, broadly

conceived, and to the Buddhist initiatory cults. Verse 9.27 assures the reader that

missionizing efforts will not save such people, meaning that no amount of study or

instruction will allay their hostility.

III. Sect and Sectarian Identity in Anaṅgavajra's Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi

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Chapter two of Anaṅgavajra's Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi, his "Instruction on Propitiating the

Vajra Master" (vajrācāryārādhananirdeśa), contains a number of verses that echo some of

the same sentiments that Padmavajra expresses against false disciples. These verses also

contain Anaṅgavajra's first reference to rival religious sects. Anaṅgavajra begins this section

by locating the reason that such people congregate around gurus in the guru's charismatic

power, rendered here literally as his 'radiance' (tejas).

Through his radiance one attains

The supreme bliss of unending awakening, |
The highest state of all of the Buddhas
[And] in the three worlds with its animate and inanimate objects. || 2.10 ||

That is why evil-minded people,

Because of their mistaken, impure intentions |
Are drawn there to [the guru,] the embodiment
Of compassion who has unconditional love. || 2.11 ||

And they earnestly approach the venerable

True guru with false honors and salutations, |
With offerings and gifts such as milk, etc.,
Because [they] desire a long life, || 2.12 ||

But when they attain the jewel of ultimate reality

That is the abode of the qualities of all buddhas, |
The cruel ones seek out [the guru's] faults [and]
Do not inquire about [his] health.403 || 2.13 ||

So to others with poor intentions

Approach the guru vajra-holder, |
And those evil-minded ones bring injury
Upon themselves alone. || 2.14 ||

[There are those who] steal404 the guru's consort

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 And the offering to the three jewels |
[And there are] stubborn yogins
Who reject the nature of reality. || 2.15 ||

And the glorious Vajra-lord said,

"Those whose minds [experience] disgust |
During the great miracle of the samaya
Continually act in fear of their own mother.” || 2.16 ||

[Some think,] “Having honored the guru once before,

He does not treat me with kindness.” |
The wicked ones who are eager to mention his faults,
Take refuge in other [sects]. || 2.17 ||405

Anaṅgavajra progresses here from a general argument for the initial attraction that false

disciples feel toward the guru to a number of problems that might arise once they actually

become involved in the initiation cult. The first type of unfit disciple seeks only long life

through the guru's blessing yet treats him with disrespect by neglecting to even inquire about

the guru's own health. The second type of false disciple reaches a deeper level of access to

the initiation cult but abuses this access by committing such offenses as stealing the guru's

consort and the offerings to the three jewels. The passage then turns to a third group of false

disciples who are described as stubborn yogins (nirvikalpāḥ ... yogināḥ) who reject the nature

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of reality. Verse 2.16 implies that there are also false disciples that make it deeper into the

initiation cult and take the samayas, but still experience disgust during the rite despite their

advanced status. Their disgust with this rite then seems to transfer onto a general sense of

disgust with the initiation cult itself and motivates them to become a member of a rival sect.

The passage provides a glimpse at the kind of 'spiritual marketplace' that may have

accompanied the rise of tantric initiatory traditions and indicates that it was even possible for

people to become deeply involved in an initiatory cult and still eventually make the decision

to break their samaya and join another group. This contradicts the idea that these traditions

were as hermetic and 'secretive' as their own rhetoric might suggest. Anaṅgavajra continues,

presenting further evidence that initiates at a rather advanced level might still qualify as

unworthy disciples:

Enchanted and obsessed with the ācārya

[Others think], "How can he be ours?” |
Those who are driven by this alone
Are not intent upon Buddhahood. || 2.18 ||

Somehow, after gaining gnosis,

They do not think of the guru as before. |
They say, “We are the most learned."
And “no one else is [smarter] than us.” || 2.19 ||

And there are others who get angry

And say, “Take what [I have] offered. |
I am not your disciple,
You are not a proper guru.” || 2.20 ||

How could they have attainment

And even happiness in this life? |
Those despicable people who intend
To deceive the guru wander aimlessly [through life]. || 2.21 ||

And thus the glorious vajra Lord

Said the kind of beings |
Who turn their backs on their own welfare

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 Are all pure vessels. || 2.22 ||406

These twelve verses constitute one of the only sections of Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi that

actually attacks any particular group of people. The fact that they are directed at false

disciples and apostate initiates suggests that Anaṅgavajra, like Padmavajra, considers fidelity

to a particular initiation cult as the primary determinant of sectarian identity. Perhaps most

importantly, Anaṅgavajra and Padmavajra's verses on the problem of false disciples provide

rare data on the social world of medieval Buddhist initiation cults. These verses suggest that

these traditions were not as exclusive and secretive as their own rhetoric might suggest.

Instead, these verses describe a social world of the initiation cult that, driven by the

charismatic power of the guru, was populated by individuals with widely varying degrees of

commitment to the guru-disciple relationship. The exclusivist rhetoric in these passages

betrays the ultimately fluid and inclusive social world of the tantric initiation cults in which

even skeptics, critics, and people who are only driven by conceit and their own self-interest

might progress to relatively advanced levels of participation before renouncing their vows

and joining a rival cult.

While Anaṅgavajra's Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi employs exclusivist rhetoric against

false disciples, the text's fourth chapter on "Meditation on Ultimate Reality" (tattvabhāvanā)

contains reveals a more inclusive strategy in which the author attempts to translate his own

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Buddhist ontology using Śaiva terms and theological concepts.407 The chapter is strategically

placed immediately after the chapter on "The Bodhicitta Consecration" (bodhicittābhiṣeka)

and just before Anaṅgavajra's instructions on the ascetic practices of the caryā. Its primary

purpose is to outline an analytic meditation practice on the nature of ultimate reality that

provides a bridge between the ritualized expression of non-duality during the consecration

rite and the performance of this ritualized expression in the ascetic practices of the caryā.

The following verses provide evidence that Anaṅgavajra may be directing his meditation

instructions at an audience that is familiar with basic Śaiva theological concepts and

terminology:

The vajra-holder said that cyclic existence is the mind

Overwhelmed in the darkness of many conceptual imputations, |
Pulsing with the crazed lightning of a tempest, and smeared
With impurities that are hard to restrain such as passion, etc. || 4.22 ||

[And he] said the highest nirvāṇa is clear light

That is free from conceptual thought,
Not smeared by impurities such as passion, etc., |
Without apprehender and apprehended, and the highest reality. || 4.23 ||

And thus there is absolutely no efficient cause

Of the entire mass of suffering other than that, |
And, seekers of liberation, there is no primary cause
Of the production of boundless bliss other than that. || 4.24 ||408

























































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The appearance of the plural vocative mumukṣava in verse 4.24d suggests that the intended

audience for this verse was one of the two standard divisions of Śaiva initiates— the

mumukṣu—who seeks liberation over attaining worldly power.409 A single use of this term

does not constitute sufficient grounds for assuming that Anaṅgavajra's instructions for

meditating on ultimate reality are directed here at an audience familiar with Śaiva theology.

However, there are other terms and concepts employed in these verses that indicate a

potential Śaiva (or apostate Śaiva) audience for the text. Anaṅgavajra presents the nature of

ultimate reality in terms that reflect the Śaiva conception of the relationship between the

supreme godhead Śiva and mala, the 'stain' or 'impurity' that, along with karma, limits beings

to the state of a paśu or 'beast-like being' who is bound to material form and rebirth in cyclic

existence.410

The pairing of mala and karma in Śaiva traditions is comparable to the Buddhist

pairing of kleśa and karma as the determining factors that perpetuate the round of rebirth. Of

course the term mala is also quite common in Buddhist literature, and it appears frequently

throughout The Seven Siddhi Texts in its negative formulation (nirmala or vimala) to describe

the nature of ultimate reality. However, unlike the Śaiva case where mala and the other

'bonds' that bind beings to saṁsāra are considered substantial manifestations of primordial

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matter, the teleology of obstruction and revelation in Buddhist sources relies upon the thesis

that all obscurations are merely the products of mistaken conceptual processes.411 Because

they are merely the result of mistaken conceptual processes, Buddhists do not generally see

any need to establish a causal relationship between kleśa, the Buddhist equivalent of mala,

and the ultimate reality that it obscures.412 Such a relationship does, however, play a part in

the basic theodicy of the dualist Śaiva Siddhānta.

In the introduction to his translation and edition of the Śaiva theologian Sadyojyoti's

(c. 675–725 CE) Bhogakārikā, Borody notes that the subject of mundane experience (bhoga)

























































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is introduced to the text through the central Śaiva teleology in which Śiva functions as both

the source of bondage and ultimate liberation. Here, as Borody notes, Sadyojyoti justifies

composing an entire treatise on the nature of bhoga as a necessary complement to his

correlated treatise on liberation (mokṣa), the Mokṣakārikā, by reminding his reader of Śiva's

dual-role of binding beings to material existence and granting them liberation. In the opening

homage to Śiva in his Bhogakārikā Sadyojyoti writes:

I first make obeisance to the unborn and unchanging Śiva who knows all three
times and all the events occurring therein. Śiva grants both mundane-
experience and release. Mundane-experience occurs when the triadically
bound souls are yoked to kalā; release arises through the separation from
mundane-experience.413

Aghoraśiva's (12th century CE) commentary to this verse lists the three bonds as mala,

karma, and māyā, and notes that those who possess all three are referred to as 'sakalās' or

those who have come into contact 'with kalā.'414 Borody comments that "[b]y stating this at

the outset of the Bhogakārikā, Sadyojyoti is expressing a basic Saivite theological concern

that the soul is not the sole 'cause' or 'means' (nimitta) of its soteriological [sic.] station in

mundane existence. Ultimately, the Saivite argues, the supreme being, Siva, is the

instrumental cause of all of the soul's experiences."415 He goes on to observe that

Sadyojyoti's work directs its emphasis to mala as representative of the 'bond' or pāśa that is

the central "defiling power (rodhaśakti) responsible for the soul's predicament in the

condition of bhoga."416 Here Borody's own unpacking of Sadyojyoti's introductory verse

introduces the notion of mala as the result of an instrumental cause (nimitta). Śiva, acting in

his capacity of concealing (tirobhāva), is the instrumental cause for the threefold bond of

























































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mala, karma, and māyā, and the direct cause, through his activity of grace (anugraha), of

liberation. The Śaiva position thus relies upon the category of the instrumental or efficient

cause to justify a theodicy in which Śiva is said to be responsible for the state of bondage in

the material world yet remains entirely separate from it—in which God is ultimately

responsible for the existence of mala, but is not himself 'stained' by mala.

This relationship bears some resemblance to the Buddhist notion, outlined in the

buddha-nature theory (tathāgatagarbha), that ultimate reality is obscured by the impurities of

the afflictions (kleśa), but is not itself affected by them. However, from the Buddhist

perspective, such obscurations (āvaraṇa) are ultimately devoid of any material reality, and

the direct perception of their ultimate insubstantiality neutralizes their effect. This is at least

one interpretation of the following famous verse from the Ratnagotravibhāga:

Thus there is nothing to be removed,

There is nothing to be added. |
What is present should be seen as present.
One who sees what is present is liberated. || 154 ||417

As it happens, Anaṅgavajra includes a statement that bears some similarity to this verse in his

instructions on meditation on ultimate reality:

And there is absolutely no apprehender there,

Nor is there anything that is added, |
Nor is there anything to be removed,
Nor is any apprehended object found there. || 4.14 ||418

Shortly after this verse Anaṅgavajra begins his passage in 4.22–24 with a characteristically

Buddhist interpretation of the relationship between deluded and ultimate reality that

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identifies its cause in habitually mistaken cognitive processes. He then seems to depart from

this position and move closer to the Śaiva position on mala, referring to it as a kind of

substance and employing a metaphor in which mala is something that distorts one's

perception of reality when it is 'smeared' on the mind. Of course the notion that there is a

kind of covering that, when removed, reveals one's actual identity as an enlightened being is

by no means foreign to tathāgatagarbha theory in the Ratnagotravibhāga, where some

version of this same relationship accounts for the majority of the nine classical examples419

of buddha-nature.

My comparison of these two systems, however, does present a few problems. It is

possible, for instance, to argue that Buddhist tathāgatagarbha theory treats impurity as a

kind of substance that obscures ultimate reality even though it ultimately rejects the idea that

mundane existence bears any substantial nature. It is also possible to argue that the Śaiva

position presented in Sadyojyoti's Tattvatrayanirṇaya argues for a kind of 'maturation' of

mala, not a state in which the nature of the soul is 'smeared' or 'not-smeared' by mala.420 It

thus must be acknowledged that the Śaiva Siddhānta contains a far more complicated

conception of the teleology of mala than is indicated in Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi 4.22–24,

and either of these points offer a relevant counter-argument to my suggestion that these

verses represent Anaṅgavajra's attempt to present his perspective on the nature of ultimate

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reality in terms that would be familiar to an audience conversant in basic Śaivasiddhānta

theology. In response to the first problem, I would argue that allusions to the materiality of

the covering that obstructs buddha-nature in the tathāgatagarbha theory are metaphoric,

while for the Śaivas, mala is considered a material substance that is part its system of

evolutes (tattvas) of primordial matter (prakṛti). Thus the sense of materiality that the

Buddhist position grants to the forces that obscure buddha-nature provides a strategy for

engaging some of the central theological positions of the Śaiva Siddhānta without

surrendering the position that all of the obscurations are ultimately devoid of any material

reality.

Rāmakaṇṭha's commentary to Sadyojyoti's Tattvatrayanirṇaya verses 8cd makes it

clear that the materiality of mala is the primary reason that individuals are unable to remove

impurity on their own and must rely upon the intervention of Śiva via the ritual technology of

initiation. Goodall's translation of these verses from Rāmakaṇṭha's commentary reads:

Because it is a substance (dravyatvāt), like an impurity in the eye, such as a

cataract (paṭalādeḥ), it is not the case that the cessation (nivṛttiḥ) of this
[impurity], which is the cause of nescience (ajñānahetoḥ), may come about
through knowledge (jñānāt), as a result of which[, if it were the case,] (yena)
men would have power, as they do [have increased power] when mental
nescience, which is of the nature of wrong superimposition of notions, such as
the notion that something is the soul when it is not the soul (anātmādāv
ātmādhyavasāyātmanaḥ), ceases... Therefore (iti) the cessation of this
[impurity may be accomplished] only (eva) through an action of the Lord
(īśvaravyāpāreṇaiva), namely initiation (dīkṣālakṣaṇena), just as something
like a cataract [can be removed only] by the intervention of an eye-doctor
(cakṣurvaidyavyāpāreṇa).
This is taught in the venerable Pauṣkara:

The soul never attains liberation through his own power.

and also in the venerable Svāyambhuva[sūtrasaṅgraha, in verse 2:24cd]:

Initiation alone liberates and leads upwards to the glorious level

of Śiva

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 and so there is no fault [in our position].421

In this sense mala is a substance that must be acted upon in order to be removed, and this

substantiality is used to justify the necessity for an omnipotent godhead that is able both to

imbue mala with the quality of transforming and ultimately facilitate its transformation.

In the classical formulation of tathāgatagarbha theory, the insubstantiality and the

adventitious (āgantuka) characteristic of kleśa and the impurity (mala) that it represents

renders it rather unnecessary to argue for a causal relationship between the ultimate reality of

buddha-nature and the factors that keep beings bound to cyclic existence. The theistic

position of the Śaiva schools and their conception of mala as a substance that requires the

physical act of consecration (dikṣā) for its removal, however, does require a causal

relationship between Śiva and the mundane existence of bound souls. When all of these

factors are considered together, Anaṅgavajra's statement in verses 4.22–24 regarding ultimate

reality (tattva) as concealed or revealed depending on whether or not one's mind is 'smeared'

with mala, his statement that this ultimate reality is an 'efficient cause' (nimitta) of cyclic

existence as well as the 'primary cause' (hetu) of liberation, and the fact that these statements

are directed at a group of mumukṣus deviate from the classical notion of tathāgatagarbha.

This provides strong evidence that these verses are meant to inscribe the basic theodicy of the

dualist Śaiva Siddhānta within a non-dualist Buddhist ontological framework.

Like Padmavajra, Anaṅgavajra seems to understand that the caryā from the

perspective of ultimate reality (tattvacaryā) and other ascetic practices like it have non-

Buddhist correlates. Directing his statements once again to a group of mumukṣus, he begins

his instructions on the tattvacaryā in chapter five by arguing that the practice is a

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requirement for all beings who seek liberation:

Without the [caryā] that is

Praised by the vajra-bearer [and perfects]
The highest qualities of all of the perfect buddhas, |
[The sādhaka] does not produce the enjoyment of siddhi.
Seekers of liberation, [even] the buddhas
Must perform the unequalled caryā. || 5.5 ||

The tathāgatas, the trailblazers

Whose lotus feet are venerated
By Kṛṣṇa, Śakra, Śiva, Kubera, Brahmā, and the rest, |
Performed this [caryā]
That quickly destroys sin and then
An attained supreme state. || 5.6 ||422

This passage exhibits the dual validation and subordination characteristic of an inclusivist

strategy. The verses that immediately follow this statement then employ this inclusivist

strategy in what appears to be Anaṅgavajra's admission that his tattvacaryā resembles a

practice that is Śaiva:

This authentic practice was actually

Enumerated by glorious Vajrasattva
Who benefits beings, |
But there is another variety that [was taught]
By he who has dominion over the world
With all its various disciples. || 5.7 ||

The true caryā was actually

Enumerated by the glorious Vajrasattva
Who benefits beings, |
But there is another variety
That [was taught]
By the one who has dominion over the world
[With all of its various] disciples. || 5.7 || 423

























































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Anaṅgavajra seems quite aware that there are other versions of the caryā than the version

that he is about to present. Unsurprisingly, however, he subordinates the ascetic practices of

other sects much in the same way that he describes their central deities as ultimately

subordinate to the tathāgatas. The fact that he once again refers to the audience for these

comments as a group of mumukṣus suggests that he is making an argument for the superiority

of the Buddhist caryā and vrata practices over the Śaiva forms of the vrata that they so

closely resemble. Finally, Anaṅgavajra's reference to an alternate caryā that was taught by

the one who has dominion over the world with its various disciples (vineyalokasya vaśena)

indicates that the popularity of the sect to which this alternate form of caryā belongs far

exceeds that of the Buddhists. In light of Sanderson's argument for the ascendency of

Śaivism from the early medieval period forward and the many Buddhist characterizations of

this phenomenon via the mythic trope of the subjugation of Maheśvara,424 the passage should

likely be taken as a reference to specifically Śaiva forms of this mode of ascetic practice.

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IV. Sect and Sectarian Identity in Indrabhūti's Jñānasiddhi

Indrabhūti's Jñānasiddhi is often critical of a number of philosophical positions, ritual

theories, and ascetic practices maintained by both Buddhist and non-Buddhist sects. Chapters

two through seven of Jñānasiddhi focus on a series of refutations of faulty positions on the

nature of ultimate reality and the proper object of meditation, and this openly exclusivist and

polemical tone resurfaces in a few later chapters. Yet despite these polemical moments, the

first chapter of Jñānasiddhi opens with the following appeal to cultivating an equanimity that

rejects any sense of conceit regarding one's superiority over others:

One should not bear in mind conceit

Related to attaining good looks and youth, |
And to the wealth, sovereignty, and power
That have resulted from the family of one's birth. || 1.6 ||

One should not be attached to

The thought “I am a wise paṇḍita,” |
And, “I am a king who is skilled
In all of the arts and crafts.” || 1.7 ||

An ethical and learned hero

Endowed with generosity and the like |
Should not take the self as an object of perception
For the sake of one’s own and others' liberation. || 1.8 ||

Thinking, “Vajrasattva himself pervades

The minds of all beings [and] abides [in all beings,]"|
One who is intent upon yoga
Should not denigrate anyone. || 1.9 ||

There are childish people, foolish and destitute people,

People with poor ethics, and people afflicted with diseases. |
One should not think less of people
Who possess these and other numerous [faults]. || 1.10 ||

A samaya-holder who is firm in the vow

Is adorned with bodhicitta,
Has faith and devotion toward the three jewels, |
And has compassion toward all sentient beings. || 1.11 ||425

























































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Indrabhūti does not, however, always seem to take his own advice.

Following the conventions of the genre, the polemical chapters in Jñānasiddhi do not

explicitly state the identity of their rhetorical opponents. Chapters two through five are

particularly vague, most likely because the positions that they refute are not easily narrowed

down to a single sect or school of thought. These chapters deal with Indrabhūti's refutation of

various misconceptions regarding meditation on the form of a deity, whether or not gnosis is

endowed-with or devoid-of mental representations (ākāra), and the belief that an ultimate

reality that is a mere state of 'non-thought' is soteriologically effective. The arguments

presented in Indrabhūti's "Refutation of Stupor Meditation" (mūḍhabhāvanāniṣeda) in

chapter five bear to some resemblance to positions adopted by Kāmalaśīla (713–763 CE)

against the Chinese master Hvashang Moheyan (8th century CE) in the famous

gradualism/subitism debates allegedly held at Bsam yas monastery in eighth-century Tibet.

This is of particular interest given the role that the Bsam yas debates continued to play in

Tibetan mahāmudrā polemical literature, where they were periodically invoked to criticize

the mahāmudrā schools that trace their lineage to the Kagyü patriarch Gampopa (Sgam po pa

bsod nams rin chen, 1079–1153). The polemical chapters in Jñānasiddhi still offer some

perspective on Indrabhūti's conception of his own sectarian identity via their rejection of a

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number of positions regarding the nature of gnosis or ultimate reality. Barring only a few

exceptions, however, they do not contain enough information to identify which sects

Indrabhūti might be refuting with any satisfactory level of accuracy.

One exception to this problem may lie in Jñānasiddhi chapter six on "The Refutation

of [the View that] Ultimate Reality is Inhalation and Exhalation"

(āśvāsapraśvāsatattvapratiṣedha). This brief chapter of eight verses is reproduce here in full:

It is not possible for inhalation

Nor exhalation to be ultimate reality, |
Nor is [ultimate reality] present in the middle of those two.
How could wind be ultimate reality? || 6.1 ||

There is nothing in the middle [of inhalation and exhalation].

How could this be the ultimate reality? |
If wind is the ultimate reality,
It would exist in a bellows. || 6.2 ||

Wind is set in motion and

Likewise driven out by a bellows. |
[Some believe] the mind is blown into the body
Just as [wind] might blow into a bellows. || 6.3 ||

[Yet in both examples] there is no blower, nor is

Anything that causes the wind to blow [established] |
By [the argument for] an agent that moves the bodily wind
[That is like] the agent that moves the wind of a bellows. || 6.4 ||

[In this way,] yogins who see the ultimate reality

Perceive no difference between the two: |
By a man or by the mind, it is the same
With respect to the action of being a blower. || 6.5 ||

If the wind of a bellows is the same as

The wind of inhalation and exhalation,|
Since [you say] the bodily wind is ultimate reality,
The air in a bellows is [ultimate reality] as well. || 6.6 ||

[But] when the bodily wind [you say] is ultimate reality

Is completely expelled through the doors [of the body], |
It is not logical to call it ultimate reality
Because the subject [of your argument is just] a gust of wind. || 6.7 ||

tqq
 [This] incorrect explanation of ultimate reality
Belongs to complete fools who follow a path to ruin. |
They do not take birth in a good realm.
[Their] only destination is that of a hell being. || 6.8 ||426

Here Indrabhūti presents an argument associated with the Vaiśeṣika school, and more

specifically with Praśastapāda's (c. 500 CE) Padārthadharmasaṁgraha. Kapstein

characterizes this doctrine and others like it as a form of personal vitalism, or the belief "that

an animate organism lives in virtue of something other than its inanimate parts and their

interaction alone... that the organism is in possession of some special element upon whose

presence its animate condition depends."427 As Kapstein notes, a variety of positions on the

notion of personal vitalism were in circulation in Indian thought by the time of some of the

earliest Upaniṣads, and well before the advent of Buddhism. The primary notion that most

theories of personal vitalism seek to avoid, a purely mechanistic view of animate life, is

clearly at play in Indrabhūti's treatment of the bellows (bhastrā) metaphor in his refutation of

the equation of inhalation and exhalation with ultimate reality.

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 The logic of personal vitalism is notably circular in its most basic formulation. As

Kapstein shows, the point of the argument as it is presented in the Vaiśeṣika school is that the

body's animation provides the basis for inferring the existence of a self (ātman) because the

physical body must have some relationship with a self in order to be animate and alive.428

This line of argumentation essentially requires one to accept the central thesis of personal

vitalism in order to point to animate life as a proof of personal vitalism. A doctrine of

personal vitalism held by the 'tīrthika' interlocutors in the Buddhist work

Nairātmyaparipṛcchā or A Dialogue on Identitylessness provides a broader sense of the

bodily functions that his school of thought used to infer the existence of the ātman. The

opening dialogue of the Nairātmyaparipṛcchā reads:

Those tīrthikas who upheld the doctrinal view of recognition

(upalambhadṛṣṭayaḥ) who were doubtful, who were uncertain, approached a
follower the great vehicle with the palms of their hands together out of respect
and asked a question regarding identitylessness— “Oh son of the lineage, the
omniscient one said, ‘the body is identityless.’ If the body is devoid of self,
the supreme self is [also] not found [in the body, then] why is it that, due to
the presence [of some object, emotive responses] such as laughing, weeping,
play, anger, conceit, jealousy, wickedness, and the like arise? May the
Bhagavān liberate this doubt of ours—is there a supreme self in the body or is
there not?”429

This question opens a dialogical narrative in the Nairātmyaparipṛcchā that contains a

Buddhist refutation of the doctrinal view of recognition (upalabhadṛṣṭi) and its thesis that the

presence of the supreme self (parātman) can be inferred through the observation of a number

of involuntary emotional and physical processes in the body. In their response, the Buddhist

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adherents of the great vehicle (mahāyānikā) argue for the ultimate absence of any perceptual

basis (ālambhana) that underlies the various manifestations of animate life while affirming

the perception of such signs of animate life as 'like a dream, an illusion, or Indra's net'

(svapnamāyendrajālasadṛśā). The text then uses this refutation as a platform for discussing

the nature of the two truths, the characteristics of awakened mind (bodhicitta), and the merits

of meditating on the perfection of insight (prajñāpāramitā).

The view of recognition (upalabhadṛṣṭi) maintained by the Nairātmyaparipṛcchā's

tīrthikas appears in both the Nyāyasūtra (c. 1st century CE) and Kaṇāda's Vaiśeṣikasūtra.

Gautama's Nyāyasūtra I.I.10 contains a short list of phenomena that are taken as indications

of the existence of the ātman that includes desire, hatred, effort, pleasure, pain, and

knowledge.430 Kapstein compares this early Nyāya formulation of the doctrine of personal

vitalism to a similar position that appears in Vaiśeṣikasūtra 3.2.4, which adds qualities such

as inhalation and exhalation (prāṇāpāna), blinking (nimeṣonmeṣa), life (jīvana), and sensory

changes (manogatīndriyavikārā) to the qualities of ātman in the Nyāyasūtra's list.431 The

Vaiśeṣikasūtra presents the more developed argument that the involuntary functions in the

body are signs of the existence of the ātman. Here, as Kapstein notes, the Vaiśeṣika

formulation of this proof of the existence of ātman attributes a stronger sense of direct

connection between the various signs of the self (ātmaliṅga) and the fact that the ātman is the

primary cause that grants life to the material, elemental constituents of the physical body.

The example of the bellows (bhastrā) is employed in Praśastapāda's commentary on

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Vaiśeṣikasūtra 3.2.4 in his Padārthadharmasaṁgraha, where he clarifies the meaning of

prāṇāpāna or 'inhalation and exhalation' as a marker for the existence of the ātman.

Kapstein's translation of the verse reads

[The existence of the self is inferred] "by inhalation, etc.," so it is said. How
so? Because, when the vital wind (vāyu) is conjoined with the body, changing
activity is seen, as when a bellows is pumped...432

Kapstein also points to a passage from The Questions of King Milinda (Milindapañha) in

which the monk Nāgasena refutes a similar position by arguing for a strictly mechanistic

conception of the act of breathing. Here, like Indrabhūti, Nāgasena and Milinda's dialogue

concludes that inhalation and exhalation are merely bodily activities.433 It is thus possible to

extract two opposing positions regarding whether or not involuntary functions of the body

might indicate the existence of a vital force that is itself the nature of ultimate reality— 1) the

Buddhists, who reduce involuntary bodily function to a mere mechanistic view of the body,

and 2) the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, for whom the involuntary functions of the body are the primary

empirical phenomena from which one infers the necessary existence of the ātman.

Indrabhūti's presentation of the personal vitalism argument differs somewhat from the

Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika argument that the involuntary functions of the body signal the presence of a

unifying personal identity (ātman). The target of Indrabhūti's refutation, like the tīrthika

proponents of the doctrinal view of recognition (upalabhadṛṣṭi) in the Nairātmyaparipṛcchā,

have taken the position on personal vitalism one step further and made the connection

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Praśastapāda's commentary to the Vaiśeṣikasūtra to argue for a mechanistic view of the

involuntary and emotive responses of the body. Echoes of Nāgasena's argument in

Milindapañha appear here as well. For example, Indrabhūti's closing argument that when the

breath is completely expelled out of the body it is obvious that it is just a gust of wind is very

close to Nāgasena's argument to King Milinda that the breath does not re-enter the body

when someone blows a horn, a conch, or a bamboo flute, yet they do not die.434

These are some tantalizing leads on the identity of the target of Indrabhūti's

"Refutation [of the View that] Inhalation and Exhalation is Ultimate Reality," but they still

fall short of identifying the specific sectarian affiliation of this opponent with any real degree

of certainty. This is largely due to the fact that the Nyāya- and Vaiśeṣikasūtras' presentations

are just one of a number of formulations of the doctrine of personal vitalism that make an

explicit connection between the breath and ātman. To make matters more complicated, this

view was so widespread throughout the ancient and classical world that it is difficult to even

limit it to a South Asian context. The task of narrowing down this broad field of potential

targets for Indrabhūti's refutation is aided in part by his specific reference to the example of

the bellows.

Further leads on the identity of Indrabhūti's target might be derived from

Aghoraśiva's commentary to Sadyojyoti's Bhogakārikā, which contains a similar refutation of

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the view that vāyu is the 'internal organ' responsible for prāṇa or the movement and

installation of the 'life force' in the body. The topic is addressed in Aghoraśiva's commentary

to Sadyojyoti's presentation of the intellect (buddhi), ego (ahaṃkāra), and mind (manas) as

the constituents of the internal organ (antaḥkaraṇa) in the Śaiva system of tattvas. The

relevant sections of Sadyojyoti's Bhogakārikā and Aghoraśiva's commentary read:

(30A) Others establish the "life-force" (prāṇa) as the internal organ and as
that which manifests consciousness.

"Others" refers to one school of the materialists who claim that the internal
organ is simply "air" (vāyu) designated by the term "life-force". This life-force
manifests consciousness as a property which is a result of the transformation
of the elements (bhūta-parināma-viśeṣa); the life-force is the cause of sentient
existence etc. through the functions of "taking up" etc. He points out the
falsity of this view:

(30B) Without volitional activities [prayatna], there is no life-force. But then

what is the organ of the volitional activities?

Behavioral activity (pravṛtti) is indeed seen to be preceded by volitional

activity (prayatna) on account of the intermittence of the air that is of the
nature of the life-force. It is said: how can there be the drawing out of activity
(preraṇākarṣa) without the volitional activity of air? The internal organ is
consequently established in response to the question: in the establishment of
volitional activity, which is of the nature of "active effort", how should the
organ be conceived? Moreover, if it is claimed that the production of
consciousness as well arises from this air, another organ ought to be brought
forward to account for this production:

(31) The task of manifesting consciousness is attributed to this life-force.

However, describe its internal organ! As well, belonging to the life-force,
consciousness can never become manifest, because air is like the external
wind.

It is not correct to argue that the manifestation of consciousness can

belong to something unconscious (jaḍa), as this would result in the claim that
the manifestation of consciousness can belong to everything. Consciousness
does not belong to this air [qua life-force], because air is like the air that is
external [to the body].

tqw
Writing in eighth century Kashmir, likely within both temporal and spatial proximity to the

Indrabhūti who authored Jñānasiddhi, Sadyojyoti arrives at a similar thesis in his critique

that the 'air' that some equate to the life-force is no different than the 'external wind.'

The twelfth century Śaiva exegete Aghoraśiva's commentary to this work argues that

the identity of the sect that supports this school of thought is a certain school of materialists

(lokāyataikadeśā).435 Although the term 'materialist' is most often attributed to the Cārvākas,

that universally reviled punching-bag of the South Asian polemicist, it would not be

reasonable to assume that the Cārvāka are the target for Indrabhūti or Sadyojyoti because a

true materialist would most likely have absolutely no problem with admitting that the 'air'

that animates the body via the breath bears no particularly unique property that might

distinguish it from the 'external air' or a 'gust of wind.' Given his own allegiance to the

theistic Śaiva formulation of the system of tattvas, it is possible that the lokāyatas

Aghoraśiva refers to were simply individuals who do not subscribe to the views of the

theistic brahmanical movements. Bronkhorst, for instance, has suggested that the lokāyata

were those brahmins who adhered closest to the religion of the Veda, rejecting the doctrine of

karma, the soul, and rebirth that exerted increasing influence over brahmanical religion as it

came into increasing greater contact with the cultural region of Magadha.436 Thus for

Bronkhorst, the lokāyata who were known by the name Cārvāka were in fact orthodox

brahmins who resisted the effects that the doctrines of karma, rebirth, and personal vitalism

were having on the religion of the Veda.

The accusation of being a 'materialist,' however, had undergone a dramatic shift by

the time that Aghoraśiva wrote his commentary to the Bhogakārikā with the theistic neo-

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brahmanical schools' rise to dominance beginning in the early centuries CE. In the eyes of a

twelfth century Śaiva exegete writing at the height of South Asian theistic neo-brahmanical

scholasticism, the Vaiśeṣika school (or any other school that subscribed to a relatively non-

theistic interpretation of the system of tattvas) could have qualified as a kind of 'materialist'

doctrine. Unfortunately, even with this correspondence between Indrabhūti and

Sadyojyoti/Aghoraśiva's treatment of the argument that wind or vāyu constitutes the body's

life force, the variety of schools of thought that may have subscribed to this or any similar

doctrine in South Asia are too numerous, and the refutations themselves are too vague, to

allow for an absolutely certain identification of the opponent in either case. The data indicate

that the Vaiśeṣika school is a likely candidate, but there may be others as well.

Although the refutation chapters in Jñānasiddhi do not openly identify the particular

schools that Indrabhūti targets, there are some instances later in the text that provide more

specific data on the various religious sects with which Indrabhūti may have had contact and

against whom he constructed a sense of his own sectarian identity. One instance occurs in

chapter nine of Jñānasiddhi on Indrabhūti's "Instruction on Analyzing the Production and

Destruction of Sin and Merit" (pāpapuṇyotpādavināśaparijñānanirdeśa). The foregoing

discussion of the role that mala plays in Anaṅgavajra's Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi has

already given us opportunity to explore the different perspectives that Buddhists and Śaivas

held on the nature of impurity. Here we should remember that from the Śaiva perspective,

mala has a substantial material reality that both allows it to obstruct the true nature of reality

and requires physical action in the form of consecrations, rituals, and ascetic practices to be

removed. In contrast, the Buddhist notion of kleśa, in many ways the analog to the Śaiva

mala, describes a range of mental phenomena that are wholly immaterial and whose ability to

tqy
obstruct ultimate reality can be logically negated and finally removed through the application

of that logic in during meditation. Thus the Śaiva position relies upon a materialist argument

that mala must be removed through physical action while the Buddhist position relies upon

an idealist argument that all obscurations to ultimate reality are pure mental fabrications that

are negated through a meditative analysis that reveals their ontic insubstantiality. The Śaiva

and Buddhist positions on the purification of sin thus fall on opposite sides of a materialist-

idealist dialectic.

The first issue that is raised in the opening of Indrabhūti's chapter on sin and merit

introduces the question of how a mental activity such as confession (deśanā) can destroy sin

while sympathetic joy (anumodhanā) cultivates merit. The very fact that Indrabhūti sees the

need to address this issue, which would be obvious to any Buddhist audience, suggests that

his intended audience may not in fact be Buddhist or, perhaps, is an audience that is

nominally Buddhist but subscribes in some way to a more physical conception of mala. A

second issue is then immediately raised regarding the prescription of the transgressive

samayas. The opening of Jñānasiddhi chapter nine reads:

How is it that a dreadful misdeed

Is destroyed by confession? |
Likewise how does one nourish
Merit by sympathetic joy? || 9.1 ||

In one place [in the tantras] it says one

Should kill living beings, etc., |
And in one place in the tantras it says not to.
How can that not be a contradiction? || 9.2 ||

Everything such as the five amṛtas, etc.,

Is likewise not suitable to be eaten, |
Yet there are many [verses on] such unpleasant things—
How can they generate virtue? || 9.3 ||

I shall explain these [issues] systematically,

tqz
 So that slow-witted people may understand |
What was taught in this and that tantra
By all of the buddhas, by the wise ones. || 9.4 ||437

The verses that follow in Jñānasiddhi 9.5–19 largely focus on the first issue and argue that

all actions of body and speech originate with the mind, and thus the mental intention at the

root of any confession or generation of sympathetic joy is the primary factor in the

destruction of pāpa and the cultivation or puṇya. Readers familiar with the broader

Mahāyāna literature on confession and the accumulation of merit will likely recognize a

degree of similarity between Indrabhūti's arguments and the works of Śāntideva (c. 8th

century). Indrabhūti then pivots in Jñānasiddhi 9.20 from presenting his own argument for

the primacy of mental intention to an argument against the positions on expiation held by a

handful of rival sects:

Some exceedingly foolish, childish people

Who do not correctly understand logic and scripture |
Say, “Sin is just a conceptual thought,”
And bring ruin upon themselves. || 9.20 ||

[They believe] if a yogin is free from conceptual

Thought he is not smeared by sins, |
But it is not logical that [this belief brings a]
Transformation in the cause of the arising of anger. || 9.21 ||

[This position] is nothing other than

Abandoning worldly behavior. |
There is one that walks around with a skull,
Likewise the one that eats stones. || 9.22 ||

[The practice of] being tormented

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 By cold, wind, and thirst is not logical, |
And one does not remove affliction
By suffering injuries such as verbal abuse and the like. || 9.23 ||438

The 'one that walks around with a skull' (śirasā gamanaṃ yuktaṃ) mentioned in verse 9.22c

could potentially refer to either the orthodox brahmanical performance of a kāpālavrata or

any number of permutations that this ascetic mode takes on in its Śaiva contexts. Establish

the identity of the ascetics that 'eat stones' (pāṣāṇabhakṣaṇa), however, is a bit more

challenging. I have located only one reference to this particular vrata practice in an

unpublished Sanskrit manuscript of a Buddhist text that was catalogued with the title

Expiation via Observance Rites (vratavidhiprāyaścitta) in the microfilm collection of the

Institute for the Advance Study of World Religions.439 The microfilm card for the text

indicates that its genre is 'tantra,' but it contains a wide range of material related to the

expiation of sins or misdeeds and the purification of lower rebirths (durgatiśodhana) that is

likely common to a number of exoteric traditions. The reference to an expiatory rite in which

one eats stones occurs in the text's fifth chapter on "Consequences" (sākarma), which covers

a range of consequences for committing various crimes. The opening material of the chapter

addresses the punishments, observances, and expiatory rites for 'killing a member of the four

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castes' (caturvarṇādivadham), the consequences for killing various animals, and the

appropriate punishments for killing or harming a pregnant woman (gurviṇīvadha). It is here

that we find the following reference to a vrata that entails 'eating stones:'

In the case where one catches a person

That is going to kill [or] harm a pregnant woman, |
They should likewise be imprisoned in a diseased place
And [one should cut off] one foot. || 5.15 ||

And, at a distance of one yojana, they should also

Perform the vrata of being deprived of a foot. |
They should be instructed in the doctrine of karma
That relates to willingly performing misdeeds. || 5.16 ||

[During the vrata one] eats stones, bathes,

Adorns oneself with a bell as an ornament, |
Plunges into the rapids of a stream,
[Or] is struck by lightning. || 5.17 ||

And they should perform the one-footed

[Vrata] wherever death is present [such as] |
A place where a wild beast has eaten its prey or
In a forest or a house where there has been a fire. || 5.18 ||440

The performance of the vrata in which one 'eats stones' (pāṣāne bhojane) seems to describe a

mode of expiatory observance that is related to Indrabhūti's pāṣānabhakṣaṇa. This example

focuses on the performance of a vrata as part of a legal retribution for committing a crime,

but as my analysis of the caryā and vrata instructions in Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi has

shown, it would not be out of character for this expiatory observance to be repurposed as a

more generalized ascetic practice for purifying sin. In either case, Indrabhūti's argument

























































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against the belief that the physical and verbal components of expiatory practices are

ineffective on their own still applies. As Indrabhūti argues, vratas that entail enduring

various types of hardships do not actually free one from sin on their own. Instead, Indrabhūti

argues that all forms of sin and all means of expiation originate solely with the mind. By this

argument, the physical components of a vrata that are considered necessary to remove the

physical substance of impurity that one takes on by performing a sinful act are rendered

entirely ineffective.

The other target of Indrabhūti's critique, those who might believe that their 'distress'

(kheda) is relinquished 'by suffering injuries such as verbal abuse, etc.' (ākrośādyapakāra)

bears a strong resemblance to the second stage of the Pāśupata sādhana in which the initiate

intentionally courts disfavor and abuse by engaging in unacceptable behaviors in public. As

Acharya's work on the potential precursors to this Pāśupata practice show, Buddhists were

aware of the ritual mechanics assumed in this stage of the Pāśupata sādhana from at least the

time of Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakośabhāṣya and the Lalitavistara, or from roughly the

fourth century C.E.441 In his more recent work, Acharya examines the Buddhist pramāṇika

Dharmakīrti's following critique of the Śaiva rite of initiation:

The rite [of initiation], which is validated by the example of a seed and the
like, is not sufficient for the absence of [future] births of embodied souls,
because [if that is allowed] there would be the undesired consequence that
liberation by means of oil massage, burning oneself in fire, and the like [too,
is validated]. That a man who weighed heavier before becomes lighter [after
initiation] does not mean that his sin is removed. Let it even be the case that
he has no weight at all; but sin cannot be heavy because it is not embodied.442

Acharya goes on to note that this critique is made in reference to the Śaiva mantramārga

practice of weighing initiates before and after the initiation rite to prove that they had become

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lighter due to the removal of pāpa or mala, a practice that he notes is attested in the

Niśvāsamūlasūtra.443 For the atimārga Pāśupata system, however, it was not initiation alone

but initiation followed by the performance of the vrata that resulted in the final removal of

pāpa. Interestingly, Acharya identifies a Vedic precursor to the notion that an initiate's sin

might be shed via others speaking ill of him in the following passage from the

Matrāyanīsaṃhitā:

They divide the sin of that man who undergoes initiation into three portions:
he who eats his food [receives] one third [of it], he who speaks ill of him
[receives] another third, and those ants which bite him [receive] the other one
third. Therefore, surely, the food of that man is uneatable. Therefore, one
should not speak ill of [an initiated man]. Therefore, one should not procure
the clothing of an initiated man, for, there are those ants which bite him.444

Indrabhūti's critique of those who believe that their sins can be removed by carrying around a

skull and suffering censure and insult from others is likely a reference either to the classical

brahmanical vrata rites or to the Śaiva vrata rites that trace their origins back to the

Pāśupatas.

Indrabhūti then criticizes the belief that God holds the ultimate power to absolve sin

in a series of verses directed at theistic brahmanical movements like the Śaivas and

Bhāgavatas. In this passage, he addresses one of the central questions of theodicy—why it is

that an all-powerful, benevolent being would even allow something like pāpa or mala to

exist in the first place:

If one believes that

“God himself' does it all," |
[Then God] should do so before it arises!
How is he not powerful [enough to do that]? || 9.26 ||

[The argument that] "God himself does it"

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 Because [God should have] the desire to perform this
Action for those who are overcome by [such things as] greed. || 9.27 ||445

Indrabhūti thus attacks a theistic position on expiation, arguing that this belief bears the

consequence of positing a God that could prevent sin from arising in the first place and has,

for some reason, chosen not to do so.

Rāmakaṇṭha's commentary to verse twelve of Sadyojyoti's Tattvatrayanirṇaya takes

aim at a similar position. Sadyojyoti's root text notes in verse eleven that the two primary

factors that bind beings in saṁsāra to "the evolutes of primal matter" are mala and karma,

noting that mala or impurity is individual to each soul and keeps the capacity of each soul

concealed.446 Sadyojyoti then goes on in verse twelve to argue for one of the central theses of

his work, that mala ripens for certain individual souls at certain times depending on its

particular degree of maturity.447 This constitutes one of the primary responses from the

dualist Śaiva Siddhānta to the same issue of theodicy that Indrabhūti raises in Jñānasiddhi.

From the Śaiva Siddhānta perspective, Śiva alone is not directly responsible for the 'ripening'

of mala, but mala itself possesses the ability to ripen at the appropriate time through the

grace of Śiva that is granted during consecration. Rāmakaṇṭha opens his dialogue on this

topic with the following observation in his commentary to verse 12 of Sadyojyoti's text:

Those who maintain that the [grace-giving] descent of [the Lord's] power
must depend on nothing else [than the Lord's will]
(svatantraśaktipātavādinaḥ) will say (iti): 'And what if (atha), in order to
avoid this unwanted corollary, it is the Lord Himself who is the cause [of
putting and end to the occlusion by impurity of a given soul's powers]? In that

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 case (tat), why postulate that impurity's essential nature is to transform or that
it has as a quality [a certain degree of] ripeness?448

Then, in response to this svatantraśaktapātavādin opponent, Rāmakaṇṭha's commentary

reads as follows:

The particular degree of success, in other words, liberation, that was alluded
to (pratipāditaḥ = paridṛṣṭaḥ) earlier with the expression 'at a certain
moment... and in a certain particular manner' [and that is attained] by souls
through the means called initiation comes about (ghaṭate) through so-called
'time', in other words the above-mentioned ['time'] that is impurity's self-
transformatory [sic.] nature (pariṇatisvabhāvātmakāt), and because of the
quality, [i.e.] the particular [degree of] ripeness [of a given individual's
impurity]. It does not come about otherwise, [i.e.] through [the intervention
of] the Lord alone. As for Him, since he is without any difference in being
equally independent [in his actions towards all souls] and since he cannot have
affection, hatred or other such [bias], the same unwanted corollary [stated in
the introduction to verse 12] would remain unchanged (tavavasthaḥ) [if we
were to adopt the position of the svatantraśaktipātavādin].449

Unfortunately Rāmakaṇṭha's refutation of the position of his svatantraśaktipātavādin also

does not provide a specific name for the religious sect he is refuting. In this way, both

Indrabhūti and Rāmakaṇṭha's arguments may be designed to refute the notion of a theodicy in

which God alone is responsible for the removal of sin and impurity in a manner that is

perhaps broad enough to function as a refutation for any number of theistic traditions, Śaiva

or otherwise, that hold such a view of divine grace.

The second question posited in the opening of chapter nine regarding the prescription

of seemingly non-virtuous actions in the tantras is addressed at the end of the chapter and

then continues into both chapters ten and eleven. Aside from one occurrence in Jñānasiddhi

1.14 in which the transgressive samayas are actually prescribed,450 the text tends to proscribe

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the actions associated with the transgressive samayas. For instance, in direct contradiction to

Jñānasiddhi 1.14, chapter eight on "The Method of Accomplishing the Accumulation of

Merit and Wisdom," (puṇyajñānasaṃbhāraprāptyupāya) explicitly forbids killing, stealing,

adultery, and lying.451 Such apparent incongruences in the text may be the reason that at least

one Tibetan exegete felt it proper to divide Jñānasiddhi into sections using the standard

Buddhist scheme of disciples who are of lower, middling, and greater capacity.452

Indrabhūti's concluding verses to chapter nine address a general theory of relativist ethics in

which beings who possess higher levels of realization are considered to inevitably act with

compassion, regardless of whether or not their actions are in fact virtuous or non-virtuous.

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The passage evokes a classical Mahāyāna argument in which the prohibitions (niṣedhya) and

permissions (anujñāta) that dictate the parameters of ethical behavior are dependent upon the

degree to which one's mind is motivated by love for all beings.453

Indrabhūti turns to the issue of consuming the samaya substances that he raised in

Jñānasiddhi 9.3 in chapter ten on being "Free from Concepts of Pure and Impure"

(śucyaśucyakalpanāvivikta). This treatment of the purity-impurity dialectic reads as follows:

[Some say] the body is not pure since

It is of the nature of being full of all kinds [of impurity] |
[And wonder] is there anything that someone
Who eats its oozing excretions does not eat? || 10.3 ||

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 It is indeed the case that all embodied beings possess
All manner of things such as 'milk,' and the like, |
[But that] does not actually prove the purity
Of things that are designated as edible or inedible. || 10.4 ||

[For example, according to some]

All edible things are considered impure, |
Because it is apparent that their growth
Their growth in this [world] depends upon water. || 10.5 ||

The rain washes everything vile

With an abundance of water, |
Ripens all the crops, and then
Flows into the ocean, etc. || 10.6 ||

Water is evaporated by the nāgas,

Who are born from it and endowed with impurities, |
And that rain's return likewise causes
All crops to ripen and the waters to rise. || 10.7 ||

It is also the case that all types of washing

Of all kind of things [is done] in a pond, etc. |
Thus in this sense [even water] is not
Understood as entirely pure or impure, etc. || 10.8 ||454

The initial position that the various bodily excretions are impure is so widely accepted that it

would be impossible to identify a specific religious sect or group that is intended as

Indrabhūti's target. The second position that all vegetarian fare and water itself might also be

considered impure could constitute one of the potential justifications for the Jain practice of

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trz
fasting until death (sallekhana) or for the more general importance of fasting as a purification

practice, but I have yet to identify another specific textual source that makes this argument.

Indrabhūti's chapter on his "Instruction on the Characteristics of the Guru,"

(gurulakṣaṇanirdeśa) and his chapter on "The Rite of the Vajra Gnosis Consecration"

(vajrajñānābhiṣekavidhi) both contain accusations leveled against unspecified targets whom

the author accuses of being either proponents of 'māra's view' (mārapakṣā) or 'bound by

māra's noose' (mārapāśanibaddhā). The chapter on the proper characteristics of a guru is

clearly aware of the fact that there are other gurus to whom a potential initiate might have

access that belong to other religious sects. The verses that provide a list of desirable qualities

one should seek out in a guru are thus buffered on both sides by warnings to the reader to

avoid false gurus who take on disciples and lack a proper understanding of ultimate reality.

The first set of verses provide a general warning about gurus who lack such a realization:

The extremely deluded people of this world

Are fixated upon the self to attain liberation. |
One who is encouraged [in this fixation]
Falls into the abyss like rain. || 13.1 ||

Such behavior is seen

Among many embodied beings. |
They abandon the path to a good rebirth
And follow another path. || 13.2 ||

That type of person is someone

Who teaches another path. |
An inquisitive person should not ask them
How one realizes ultimate reality. || 13.3 ||

If someone who does not see it points out

The path based on [his own] ignorance, |
It is of no benefit for that traveler
Who proceeds along that path. || 13.4 ||

How can one who does not see the path himself,
Effectively guide someone else? |

tsq
 Even if the two should proceed [on the path together]
Both will suffer, of this there is no doubt. || 13.5 ||

Like the action of one who is blind

From birth who has gone into the forest, |
How could someone like that lead one
To the village a second time? || 13.6 ||

So too those who are blind from birth

Do not see the perfect gnosis. |
They lack the ability to attain that state.
How can such a person cause another to attain [it]? || 13.7 ||

Therefore the supreme victors

Said that students who have devotion |
Should practice reverence toward gurus
After having thoroughly examined them. || 13.8 ||455

The only potential indication of a specific target of the critique in these verses might be read

in verse 13.1, which warns that fixating upon the self in order to attain liberation

(mokṣārtham ātmaniścayam) is precisely the same type of habitual behavior that binds beings

to cyclical existence. A guru who encourages (pracoditaḥ) such habits in effect leads the

disciple upon the wrong path. But once again, these comments are too generalized to identify

any specific religious sect that might function as his target. After outlining the characteristics

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tsr
one should look for in a proper guru from JS 13.8–12, Indrabhūti provides a brief yet

somewhat more specific characterization of the type of guru one should avoid.

There are others who are called gurus

That are conceited and have an incorrect understanding, |
Who carry out the supreme instruction
Of the doctrine out of greed, etc., || 13.13 ||

And there are sinful spiritual friends,

Who are consecrated when a being is killed, |
Who belong to a lineage that upholds māra’s view,
Who destroy themselves and others. || 13.14 ||

Those sentient beings should be avoided.

One should neither revere them |
Nor express anger toward them.
[Such a guru] is [not] the best object of worship. || 13.15 ||

Just as the tathāgatas do not approve

Of living together with śrāvakas, |
So too cohabitating with such people
Does not enhance [one's own practice]. || 13.16 ||456

Again, Indrabhūti does not provide very much evidence to allow us to infer the identities of

his gurus who perform animal sacrifice as part of the consecration rite, and his criticism is

perhaps intentionally generalized in order to cover a number of contemporary initiatory cults

that engaged in such practices. Verse 13.16 is particularly interesting in that it contains a

prohibition against cohabitation (saṃvāsa) with such people that compares this proscription

to the common Vajrayāna proscription against living among followers of the śrāvaka vehicle.

Of course, as in all cases, we should consider that such prohibitions were necessary precisely

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tss
because Vajrayāna initiates did at times cohabitate not only with Buddhists who adhered to

the śrāvaka vehicle but also with the members of other initiatory cults who were not even

Buddhist.

Chapter seventeen may provide some indication of the potential target of Indrabhūti's

criticism in Jñānasiddhi chapter thirteen. At the conclusion of Indrabhūti's liturgy for the

guru's command (anujñā) that is imparted upon a newly initiated disciple, Indrabhūti

provides the following statement:

Those who conduct themselves according to

False doctrines bring disgrace to the world. || 17.26 ||

Do not maintain a relationship with them.

They are the opponents of the true dharma. |
They are fools who lack the dharma
Whose minds swell with selfish joy. || 17.27 ||

They have no merit, have wicked conduct,

[And] will not attain supreme awakening. |
They wander here and there in cyclic
Existence, in the six realms, || 17.28 ||

And their ethics is worldly delusion.

They are enemies of the true dharma. |
There are many [people] of that sort
Who take refuge in a mistaken doctrine. || 17.29 ||

They are not born in a good realm of rebirth, [and]

Buddhahood also [becomes] difficult to attain. |
My intelligent one, you must
Always protect [yourself] from them. || 17.30 ||

The leaders of the ritual precepts of the

Supreme being are bound by māra’s noose. |
Now, overlord of all of the buddhas, you
Yourself must work for the benefit of beings! || 17.31 ||457

























































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tst
It is worth pointing out that these are liturgical verses. They are meant to be recited at the

conclusion of the consecration rite, and as such represent an attempt to formally embed a

sense of disdain for other initiatory traditions in the consecration liturgy itself. The best

indication of the target of Indrabhūti's criticism appears in Jñānasiddhi 17.31ab, where he

references 'leaders of the ritual precepts of the supreme being' (parātmavidhināyakā) who are

'bound by māra's noose' (mārapāśanibaddhā). This provides some indication that the

initiatory cults being criticized here belong to some sort of theistic brahmanical tradition. As

in the case of other instances in the text that criticize the practices of rival sects, Indrabhūti's

decision not to provide a specific indication of just who he is targeting in his critique has the

benefit of making his critique broadly applicable to any number of theistic initiatory cults.

Finally, Indrabhūti concludes his criticism of other initiatory cults in the final verses

of his consecration chapter by including the following statement assuring the disciple there is

no higher consecration, and that he should not seek one out:

My intelligent one, now you must not

Receive the consecration again. |
Wise one, the consecration you have received
Is the perfect supreme dharma |
Honored throughout the three realms.
There is none higher than this."|| 17.33 ||458

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tsu
Again, these verses are part of the liturgy, not simply something that would be read and

contemplated in private. These verses would thus be recited, and in being recited they would

serve the function of providing a public (or semi-public) statement on the inferiority of other

initiatory cults with which Indrabhūti's vajrajñānābhiṣeka was in competition. Indrabhūti's

inclusion of this proscription against receiving any further consecration should be read in the

context of the command to avoid associating with non-Buddhist initiatory cults that, at least

in one instance, he identifies with one or more of the theistic traditions that were his

contemporaries. This proscription against seeking out further consecrations also indicates

that it may in fact have been a common occurrence. Indrabhūti thus directs the guru reciting

the vajrajñānābhiṣeka liturgy to tell newly consecrated disciples that "there is none higher,"

(nahyataḥ param) in a final effort to prevent a newly consecrated disciple from shopping

around for any additional consecrations in the future. Given his encomium against non-

Buddhist initiatory cults, we might speculate that these final verses are not simply the

standard proscription against participating in the Buddhist maṇḍala consecration rituals of

the kriyā- and caryātantra systems that we find in works like Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi,

although this proscription may apply here as well. Instead, when taken in context, the verses

can also be understood as an order to the disciple to not participate in any non-Buddhist

initiations by assuring him that no further consecrations are necessary.

Jñānasiddhi's final indication of a strong sense of polemics against non-Buddhist

initiatory cults appears in the maṇḍala visualization instructions provided in chapter eighteen

on "Performing the Rite for those with the Highest Capacities" (adhimātrendriyavidhāna).

Indrabhūti's instructions for advanced practitioners are derived from verses 6.97–108 and

5.82–91 of the Sarvabuddhasamāyogaḍākinījālaśaṃvara, though his rendering of the verses

tsv
in Jñānasiddhi omit certain material and contain a number of readings that differ from the

preliminary edition of the Sanskrit text that was provided to me by Péter-Dániel Szánto. Both

witnesses are consistent, however, in their presentation of a Vajrasattva visualization in

which the yogin ritually performs a kind of world conquest (digvijaya) in which he

overpowers and subjugates the four primary deities of the theistic brahmanic pantheon and

takes their respective consorts as his own:

Trampling the Supreme Lord underfoot,

The powerful one is victorious, |
Attracts the Umādevī, and
Indulges in her with sensual pleasures. || 18.15 ||

Trampling Nārāyaṇa underfoot,

The powerful is victorious, |
Attracts Rūpiṇī, and
Indulges in her with sensual pleasures. || 18.16 ||

Trampling Prajāpati underfoot,

The powerful is victorious, |
Obtains Praśāntadevī, and
Indulges in her with sensual pleasures. || 18.17 ||

Trampling Kāmadeva underfoot,

The powerful one is victorious, |
Tramples upon the lord of the two daughters, and
Indulges in Rati and Prīti [them with pleasures]. || 18.18 ||459

The verses that precede these instructions also come from the Sarvabuddhasamāyoga460 and

describe Vajrasattva as a royal prince or king who, as part of his performance of the deeds of

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a Buddha, must subjugate and tame an insane world using violent means if necessary. These

introductory verses move between the kind of cosmology of an all-pervading Vajrasattva and

a mimesis of the classical deeds of a Buddha, a number of which can be interpreted to fall

within the range of exhibiting the characteristics of a powerful ruler:

Everywhere, in every direction, completely,

In every way, at all times, spontaneously |
The one who is all things is present
In the world like an all [accomplishing] jewel, etc. || 18.1 ||

While pursuing the nirvāṇa of a buddha

In all of the buddha-fields, |
You must display the acts of a buddha
Using the illusory appearance of a buddha-emanation. || 18.2 ||

With the natures of the threefold universal body

Of the buddhas and vajra-holders and the like, |
Oh great prince of the three realms,
You must display all of the actions. || 18.3 ||

The kingdom, with its alliances, quarrels,

And conflict, is an illusory emanation. |
Oh great king of the three realms,
You must prevent [these things] by violent means. || 18.4 ||

This world is completely insane.

You must teach it with the manifold dances, |
The supreme and endless [emanations], etc., that are
Equal to and not equal to the expanse of phenomena, || 18.5 ||

With [emanations] extending as far as space,

Entirely encompassing the cosmos,
That are all individual objects in space.
The Tathāgata Śrī Vajrasattva || 18.6 ||

Plays by means of various

Glorious, passionate, and playful manifestations. |
In every way, by means of various types of discipline,
He subjugates the realm of beings. || 18.7 ||461

























































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The version of these verses that appears here in Jñānasiddhi notes that a certain degree of

violence is required to bring order to the world and treat this wrathful activity as an aspect of

the universal dance (viśvanartita) or play (krīḍā) of Vajrasattva that subjugates a violent

world through violent means. When this is taken together with the visualized subjugation of

the deities of the theistic brahmanical pantheon in verses 18.15–18, this advanced practice

appears as ritual method for the violent suppression and elimination of the rival theistic

traditions that were in conflict with Buddhists and that were responsible for the gradual

destruction of Buddhist institutions across subcontinent.

V. Sect and Sectarian Identity in Lakṣmīṅkarā's Advayasiddhi, Ḍombīheruka's

Sahajasiddhi, and Kuddālapāda's Acintyādvayakramopadeśa

The remaining works in The Seven Siddhi Texts contain far less indication of their authors'

sense of sectarian identity than we find in Guhyasiddhi, Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi, and

Jñānasiddhi. For this reason, and because it is also integral to my discussion of the theme of

cosmogonic inclusivism that can be found across many of The Seven Siddhi Texts in chapter

eight, I have chosen to include material from Kuddālapāda's Acintyādvayakramopadeśa here

as well even though this work is not one of The Seven Siddhi Texts. It is, however, one of the

works that Tibetan traditions count among The Sixfold Corpus on the Essence (Snying po













































































































































































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skor drug), a second corpus of Indian mahāmudrā that usually accompanies The Seven Siddhi

Texts. Thus while it is not a member of the primary corpus at the center of this study, it is

also clearly not entirely unrelated, at least in the eyes of those Nepali and Tibetan scholars

who consider these corpora to be part of the same practical canon of Indian mahāmudrā

works.

Advayasiddhi contains a single reference related to the topic of sectarian identity that

proscribes the very kind of harsh criticism toward other sects that is on such prominent

display throughout much of Jñānasiddhi.462 Lakṣmīṅkarā writes:

The mantrin, with his eyes fully opened

[And] face always smiling, |
Should fix [his] mind upon complete enlightenment
And meditate on the ocean of gnosis. || 9 ||

As long as there are animate and inanimate things

Here in the abode of the three realms, |
The vajra-holder should view them all
As in union with ultimate reality. || 10 ||

And those who are emanations

Of Vajrasattva should not |
Think less of the proponents of other [doctrines]
Who are established by the different marks [of their sects]. || 11 ||

Having made all things that emerge

Out of identitylessness into the same taste, |
A mantrin should continually meditate on
The body as stainless by nature. || 12 ||463

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From the perspective of the union of ultimate reality (tattvayogena), Lakṣmīṅkarā points to

the logical impossibility of justifying harsh treatment or criticism of the proponents of other

doctrines (paravādinaḥ) who bear different sectarian marks (liṅgabhediar vyavasthitāḥ) by

arguing that all animate and inanimate things are arisen out of the same source and are

pervaded by Vajrasattva. Advayasiddhi is a caryā text, and Lakṣmīṅkarā's proscription

against denigrating members of rival sects should likely not be taken as a definitive statement

on her rejection of sectarian identity but as a strategy that is specifically prescribed for a

yogin performing the caryā and vrata practices that, as we have seen in chapter six, would

have placed him in direct contact with members of rival sects. It is possible, therefore, to

argue that the logic of Lakṣmīṅkarā's non-dual ultimate reality works against the idea of

maintaining sectarian bias, but it is also possible to argue that her instructions to refrain from

denigrating members of other sects would have constituted a practical survival strategy for a

Buddhist yogin engaging in any of the dissimulative ascetic practices associated with the

caryā and vrata.

Ḍombīheruka's Sahajasiddhi contains two brief indications of the author's conception

of sectarian identity and inter-sectarian relations. First, in a rather cryptic verse stating that

the Hevajratantra (from which Sahajasiddhi draws a large amount of its material) is either

heard or not heard by various beings, Ḍombīheruka provides some indication of one

particular clan (kula) that is misled by a false doctrine. The passage appears in Sahajasiddhi

chapter two in Ḍombīheruka's "Instruction on the Ultimate Reality of Samaya"

(samayatattvanirdeśa) immediately following a series of verses describing the divisions of

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five clans of the Tathāgatas Akṣobhya, Amitābha, Ratnasaṁbhu, Vairocana, and

Amogha[siddhi]:

Akṣobhya, Amitābha,
Ratnasaṁbhu, Virocana, |
And Amogha as well are taught
So that beings may attain siddhi. || 2.6 ||

Akṣobhya is said to be the 'vajra' [clan],

Amitābha is the lotus [clan], |
Ratnasaṁbhu is the jewel [clan],
Vairocana is the tathāgata [clan], and || 2.7 ||

Amogha is called the 'action' [clan]:

These are the clans described in brief. |
One attains siddhi by serving [a particular] family,
As was taught by the perfect complete Buddha. || 2.8 ||

But one does not delight in terrifying the world,

[As do] the clans associated with the letter ha and others. |
Theirs is the teaching of foolish beings
For the purpose of anger, not peace. || 2.9 ||464

Ḍombīheruka's mention in Sahajasiddhi of the clans associated with the letter ha and others

(hakārādikulāni) is cryptic, but the fact that his criticism of these clans follows his outline of

the five-fold Buddhist system of initiatory clans along with his characterization of these

groups as following the teaching of foolish beings (mūrkhāṇām upadeśaḥ) indicates that this

is a veiled reference to a number of non-Buddhist initiatory cults.

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 The second point at which Ḍombīheruka offers some sense of his own sectarian

identity appears in chapter three on "The Conclusive Instruction on the Samaya Siddhi"

(samayasiddhinirṇayanirdeśa) in the context of his brief discussion of the caryā:

If one has a student, and the student's

Conduct is a brahmanic purification practice, |
[Let him] continue to do the purification practice.
Don’t cause [him] mental torment. || 3.2 ||

The nature of the object self-reflexive awareness

Is not liberated by any [type of] purity other than |
Through the purification of merit and gnosis
And the bliss that is the object of self-reflexive awareness. || 3.3 ||

But [still, some believe that] the caryā

Is taught through the use of medicinal herbs, |
And consider the practice of the sevakas that is
Based on veneration the 'caryā.' || 3.4 ||

If he does not salute the guru respectfully,

Even a disciple who has attained siddhi |
Shall instantly fall into the hells such as Avīci, etc.,
By violating the word of the guru. || 3.5 ||

[Some say] one should meditate on the entire world,

[Some that] one should not meditate on it mentally. |
[Some say] meditation that is perfect knowledge
Of all phenomena is not even meditation || 3.6 ||

[Some say one should meditate on] animate and

Inanimate things such as vines, bushes, and grass, etc. |
[And some say] one should meditate upon the supreme
Ultimate reality whose inherent nature is present in oneself. || 3.7 ||

Those [meditations] don’t have the supreme,

Self-reflexive awareness that is great bliss. |
Siddhi is self-reflexive awareness because
Meditation [on that] is self-reflexive awareness. || 3.8 ||465

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In typical fashion, these verses criticize number of positions on the nature of the caryā and

the meditation practice that renders it soteriologically effective without giving any indication

of what specific sects are being critiqued. The one exception to this is in verse 3.2, where

Ḍombīheruka cautions against prescribing the caryā for a student who maintains brahmanic

purity (brāhmaṇo śuci), presumably because the practices included in the performance of the

caryā are so at odds with brahmanic notions of purity that to perform such a practice would

potentially only the student mental torment (cittabādhanam). While we can only speculate as

to the identities of the other sects Ḍombīheruka criticizes here, the verses do make it clear

that he distinguishes his own system based on the fact that it takes self-reflexive awareness

(svasaṃvedya) as the proper object of meditation. The contrast that Ḍombīheruka sets up

between an epistemologically sophisticated view of the proper object of meditation and the

seemingly less sophisticated notion of meditating on vines, bushes, and grass (latāgulmatṛṇa)

adds a derogatory flavor to his discussion of these other, presumably non-Buddhist sects.

Interestingly, Ḍombīheruka also criticizes taking the supreme reality whose inherent nature is

present in oneself (paraṃ tattvaṃ ātmabhāvasvarūpakam) as an object of meditation despite

the fact that this object bears some similarities to the meditation instructions that we find in

other works in The Seven Siddhi Texts.466 The term tattva, however, is widely applicable to

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all systems that bear any degree of influence or permutations of the Sāṁkhya doctrine of

material evolutes of primordial matter (prakṛti), and this particular statement could also be a

reference to any number of them. In contrast, the texts within The Seven Siddhi Texts that

contain similar statements ground identify tattva itself in as the nature of self-reflexive

awareness or one of its synonyms.

Finally, Kuddālapāda's Acintyādvayakramopadeśa also contains a handful of

passages that indicate the author's construction of his own sectarian identity. First, in a brief

statement following his description of meditation on the spontaneous, self-arising maṇḍala,

Kuddālapāda argues that in order for an object of meditation to be properly Buddhist it must

not be conceived in terms of existence (bhāvaṃ) or inherent existence (svabhāvaṃ):

A mantrin should not meditate on existence,

Nor should he meditate on inherent existence. |
What more can one say? A Buddha
Is not Śiva, and is free from Viṣṇu. || 44 ||467

The verse is somewhat problematic, and the editors of the Sarnath edition appear to have

amended svabhāvaṃ to abhāvaṃ here based on the Tibetan translation, which does in fact

read the verse as a refutation of both the extreme of existence (dngos po) and non-existence

(dngos med).468 The Sanskrit manuscript sources, however, consistently read bhāvaṃ and

svabhāvaṃ here,469 and the fact that both terms are intended to be referents for theistic

brahmanical traditions related to Śiva and Viṣṇu, neither of which argue that God is

























































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fundamentally non-existent (abhāvaṃ), indicates that the Tibetan and the Sarnath edition

have introduced an error to the text.

Kuddālapāda's work also contains several verses that mention his own guru, the

mahāsiddha Bhadrapāda. He notes that he has received the lineage transmission of

Bhadrapāda (bhadrapādakramāgatam) on four separate occasions in the text470 and

repeatedly mentions Bhadrapāda's own guru Dharmapāda.471 The fact that the mahāsiddha

Bhadrapāda is remembered by the tradition to have been a pure brahmin prior to taking a

Vajrayāna guru may account for the heavily inclusivist trend throughout Kuddālapāda's text.

This inclusivism is demonstrated numerous occasions throughout Acintyādvayakramopadeśa,

and its relationship to Bhadrapāda and his predecessors appears in the text in the following

rare instance in which one of our authors actually provides an account of his own lineage.

The following lineage is provided immediately before the text switches into a yoginītantra

visualization that culminates in a set of subtle body completion stage yoga instructions:

It was taught by Bhadrapāda

From ear to ear, from mouth to mouth. |
Through numerous yoga methods
Due to Bhadrapāda's kindness. || 87 ||

Buddhahood is permanently attained

By the inconceivable yoga of meditation. |
Paramāśva, Vīṇāpāda, Indrabhūti
Together with Lakṣmī[ṅkarā], || 88 ||

Vilāsavajra, Padmācārya, [and] Mahākṛpa—

They are the ones who gradually |
Transmitted the system of Dharmapāda

























































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 To Bhadrapāda . || 89 ||472

This important set of verses partially confirm the lineage that is included in two related

works, Indrabhūti's Sahajasiddhi and its commentary by Lakṣmīṅkarā,

Sahajasiddhipaddhati, that are considered by certain Tibetan exegetes to be addenda to The

Seven Siddhi Texts. The correspondences between lineage lists in these two works, provide

some verification of the Oḍiyāna mahāmudrā lineage that is allegedly reflected in The Seven

Siddhi Texts. Kuddālapāda thus claims to have inherited the instruction lineage of three

readily identified authors of The Seven Siddhi Texts, with Vilāsavajra, alternate name for

Yoginī Cintā, as a possible fourth.473

VI. Conclusion

The authors whose works are examined in this chapter demonstrate a range of exclusivist and

inclusivist approaches to the construction of sectarian identity. Padmavajra adopts a

relatively exclusivist position on the superiority of his Guhyasamāja instruction lineage over

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ttw
all other Buddhist and non-Buddhist sects. At the heart of this approach is the initiation

lineage and the specific realization of the nature of ultimate reality that is passed on to

initiates by the guru through the consecration ritual. The importance of fidelity to one's

initiation lineage is further emphasized by his verses on the characteristics of various types of

false disciples. Anaṅgavajra's Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi follows this trend and contains an

even more detailed discussion of the various characteristics of false disciples. Some of the

most critical moments in both of these works appear in this context, which signals the

particularly high value that both authors place on initiation into a particular instruction

lineage as the primary determinant of sectarian identity.

At the same time, both Padmavajra and Anaṅgavajra also adopt more inclusivist

strategies to acknowledge that the caryā and vrata practices they prescribe have identifiable

analogues among sects that are not Buddhist. While Padmavajra tends to simply argue that

these practices are ineffective if they are not performed by a sādhaka who has realized the

nature of ultimate reality, Anaṅgavajra attempts to describe this perspective on ultimate

reality using terms that might be familiar to an audience that was aware of some of the basic

theological positions of the dualist Śaiva Siddhānta. In these instances both authors' strategies

demonstrate a classically inclusivist pattern that validates the form of the vrata as it is

practiced by members of other sects while subordinating the theoretical approach of these

other sects to the perspective on the nature of ultimate reality that is employed in the

Vajrayāna textual traditions.

Guhyasiddhi contains the only passage among The Seven Siddhi Texts that openly

prescribes sectarian violence, but Indrabhūti's Jñānasiddhi is still arguably the most

exclusivist work in the corpus. The sectarian identity that Indrabhūti constructs in his

ttx
Jñānasiddhi emerges out of a number of polemical attacks on the positions of other Buddhist

and non-Buddhist sects. Indrabhūti also argues that other sects' expiatory vrata practices are

ultimately ineffective, but the context for these arguments is quite different from the context

for Padmavajra and Anaṅgavajra's inclusivist approach to sectarian identity and the outer

form of the vrata. Indrabhūti presents his argument for the superiority of the consecration rite

in Jñānasiddhi by degrading the consecration rites of other sects and advising the newly

initiated disciple not to seek any further consecrations elsewhere. The most advanced deity-

maṇḍala visualization presented in this text, which derives from the

Sarvabuddhasamāyogatantra, expressed the author's relative hostility toward non-Buddhist

sects in a ritualized re-enactment of the theme of Buddhist tantric deities subjugating deities

of the Hindu pantheon that is introduced in the yogatantra Maheśvara subjugation mythology

and is prominently featured in the iconography of the yoginītantras.

Of the remaining works in The Seven Siddhi Texts, Lakṣmīṅkarā's Advayasiddhi

contains echoes of the kind of prohibition against denigrating members of other sects that

also appears in the first chapter of Jñānasiddhi (even if Indrabhūti does not seem to take his

own advice in the text itself). Ḍombīheruka's Sahajasiddhi contains one passage that

denounces the practices of a particular clan (kula), but the specific identity of this group is

stated in relatively vague terms. Later in the text, Ḍombīheruka outlines his own sense of

sectarian identity through arguing for the superiority of his own traditions' adoption of self-

reflexive awareness (svasaṃvedya) as the proper object of meditation over the objects of

meditation that are taken up by other traditions. Finally, Kuddālapāda's

Acintyādvayakramopadeśa contains one passage that distinguishes this author's sectarian

identity by distinguishing its view of the nature of ultimate reality from the theistic Śaiva and

tty
Vaiṣṇava positions on the nature of God. Although it is not considered part of the same

mahāmudrā corpus, Kuddālapāda provides a positive description of his own sectarian

identity by supplying a lineage list that includes several of the authors of The Seven Siddhi

Texts.

ttz
 Chapter 8:

Inclusivism and Mahāmudrā Yogic Cosmography

I. Introduction

The final topic in Part II of this dissertation on conceptions of sect and sectarian identity in

The Seven Siddhi Texts addresses a theme that is common to a number of works in the

corpus. This topic, characterized here by the phrase 'mahāmudrā yogic cosmography'

emerges out of a correlation in these texts between yogic epistemology and inclusivist

strategies for constructing sectarian identity. The term 'yogic cosmography' describes the

expansive, cosmogonic aspect of the generation stage yoga in which generating one's body as

the deity-maṇḍala results in the yogin attaining an expansive and all-pervasive form, one of a

handful of connotations that the term mahāmudrā is meant to convey. The cosmographies

presented in these works are 'yogic' in the sense that they present their own version of a kind

of retraction and expansion that accords with certain elements found in the classical yogic

system of Patāñjali and a number of systems of ṣaḍāṅgayoga.474 The movement from

meditative absorption to the spontaneous expansion of the entire cosmos described here

establishes the yogin in perfect union with the deity-maṇḍala, which when recognized as the

nature of the entire cosmos constitutes union with the mahāmudrā. The 'tantric' component of

this yoga can be found in the methods that are employed to allow the yogin to recognize this

mahāmudrā as innately established in the yogin's body and in all externally perceived forms.

These methods include, but of course are not limited to, sexual yoga practices that require a

physical consort (karmamudrā) and other means by which the yogin recognizes the sublime

























































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bliss (mahāsukha) that is non-dual gnosis. This yogic cosmogony's sequence of retraction,

recognition of self-reflexive awareness, and expansion, mirrors the twofold inclusivist

motion of subordination and validation475 as they account for the presence of rival sects and

philosophical systems within a unified vision of the singular nature and manifold expression

of all things.

There are two related strategies at work throughout The Seven Siddhi Texts that

demonstrate this particular inclusivist construction of sectarian identity. The first is a

function of those yogic techniques associated with a retraction from external sensory

phenomena combined with meditative analysis that, by allowing the yogin to enter into

meditative absorption in self-reflexive awareness, result in the realization of the nature of

ultimate reality. In such contexts the authors of The Seven Siddhi Texts apply a kind of

reductionist logic in their inclusivism, arguing that this ultimate reality is the source and true

identity of all phenomena (be it described using the term tattva, sahaja, or mahāmudrā), to

which the divergent views of religious sects are subordinate. But neither the authors of our

texts nor the traditions that they represent were content with a purely ontological inclusivism.

The second strategy shows the authors of The Seven Siddhi Texts accounting for the diversity

of religious sects in a more specific manner in order to situate them within the yogic

cosmography of the cosmos-as-deity-maṇḍala. The need to provide an account for all things,

even rival sects, emerges as a function of the self-magnifying, expansive process of

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tur
generating the body as the deity-maṇḍala that is the central feature of the generation stage

yoga. All of the cases of this phenomenon that we find in The Seven Siddhi Texts describe a

motion from singularity to pervaded-plurality, and thus from an ontological to an

epistemological account for the manifestation of various religious sects in the world.

The fact that the vajradhātumaṇḍala and its variants (such as its reformulation in the

maṇḍala generation practices of the Guhyasamājatantra) maintain such a strong presence in

the generation stage yogas presented by the authors of The Seven Siddhi Texts gives us some

indication of the corpus' heavy reliance upon the Buddhist yogatantras. Some works such as

Jñānasiddhi contain proto-yoginītantra material from the Sarvabuddhasamāyogatantra while

other works such as Ḍombīheruka's Sahajasiddhi and Kuddālapāda's

Acintyādvayakramopadeśa are clearly concerned with the generation and completion stage

yogas of the yoginītantra. But while the textual lineages of our authors vary, they tend to

agree on the importance of meditation on self-reflexive awareness (rendered either as

pratyātmavedya or svasaṃvedya) as the point at which a yogin recognizes the nature of

ultimate reality and from which he experiences the spontaneous emergence of the deity-

maṇḍala at the culmination of the generation stage yoga.

The relationship between self-reflexive awareness and the emergence of the deity-

maṇḍala can be traced to the pañcābhisaṁbodhikrama, the sequential yogic practice

introduced in the Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṁgraha that culminates in the complete

manifestation of a yogic cosmography in the form of the vajradhātumaṇḍala.476 The final

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tus
generation of the vajradhātumaṇḍala following the Bodhisattva Sarvārthasiddhi's awakening

in the opening narrative in this work provides what Davidson refers to as the emergence of an

imperial metaphor in Buddhist ritual iconography and practice that reflects a re-imagination

of becoming a ruler or overlord (rajādhirāja) as the goal of the Buddhist yogin.477 But the

importance of this new yoga is not limited to the social implications of Davidson's esoteric

Buddhist realpolitik thesis. For the subjects who actually engaged in these practices, the

powers over which a yogin seeks control through perfecting union with a deity-maṇḍala such

as the vajradhātumaṇḍala and its derivatives are elemental and cosmological, not just

political. The five female and male tathāgata layout of the vajradhātumaṇḍala is thus a

homologous system that is designed, ideally, as a cosmography or representation of the

cosmos in its entirety.

In their attempts to elaborate upon this conception of the maṇḍala as all-

encompassing cosmography, both Kuddālapāda and several authors of The Seven Siddhi

Texts find themselves in the position of having to account for the existence of rival religious

sects and philosophical systems. The rival religious sects of the Jains, Śaivas, Vaiṣṇavas, and

Vaidika Brāhmins are, after all, a part of the world in which the Buddhist yogin found

himself, and their presence must be accounted for by any cosmographic enumeration of the

various manifestations of ultimate reality. The subordinating component of this yogic

cosmogony is introduced in the Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṁgraha's narrative the subjugation of

Maheśvara that immediately follows the text's introduction of the vajradhātumaṇḍala. As

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mentioned in chapter seven, Indrabhūti's Jñānasiddhi reproduces a visualization practice

from the Sarvabuddhasamāyogatantra that ritualizes this theme as the yogin takes on the

form of Vajrasattva and proceeds to trample and subjugate four of the primary deities of the

Hindu pantheon. These subjugation narratives and their correlative visualization practices

represent the subordinating mode of the yogic cosmography of the Buddhist deity-maṇḍala

in which the model of embodying an all-encompassing, all-pervading form requires one to

account for the presence of the deities and representatives of rival sects. They preserve a

notably violent mode of subordination in which the deities of rival sects are converted by

force and rendered subordinate to the deities of the tantric Buddhist pantheon. The examples

that follow from The Seven Siddhi Texts and from Kuddālapāda's Acintyādvayakramopadeśa

represent notably more inclusivist attempts to account for the existence of rival religious

sects than the examples presented in the Maheśvara subjugation narrative in the

Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṁgraha and in the sādhana iconography from Jñānasiddhi and the

Sarvabuddhasamāyogatantra. These authors present this inclusivity within the framework of

a yogic system that posits an ultimate reality that is non-dual, that constitutes the only true

origin of all phenomena, and that pervades all things. Realization of this ultimate reality is

accessed through meditation on self-reflexive awareness and is identified with the term

mahāmudrā.

II. Inclusivism in the Singularity and Plurality of Mahāmudrā

The richest data on this inclusivist yogic cosmography is found in those texts that contain

extensive explanations of the practices related to the generation stage yogas. The two works

that provide the most extensive data on the employment of the kind of yogic retraction and

tuu
expansion associated with the generation stage are Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi and

Kuddālapāda's Acintyādvayakramopadeśa. Other works among The Seven Siddhi Texts are

briefly noted here for their author's particular presentation of the yogic dynamics of retraction

and expansion and its relationship to the general yogic epistemology of pervasion at the heart

of such practices, even if these authors do not explicitly direct their descriptions of these

practices toward accounting for the proliferation of rival religious sects in the world.

With one important exception in its fourth chapter, many of the instructions on the

dynamics underlying the yogic cosmography of the generation stage yogas in Padmavajra's

Guhyasiddhi are seemingly unconcerned with accounting for the existence of rival religious

sects. When Padmavajra first introduces the generation stage yoga's movement from a

singular ontological reality to a plurality of its expressions in the world in verses 1.29–30, he

seems to find it sufficient to connect this movement to the existence of various Buddhist

schools of thought. Here Padmavajra presents a yogic argument for the single vehicle

(ekayāna) thesis by stating that the various textual traditions of the kriyā and caryātantras as

well as the sūtras are all simply various expressions of the same ultimate reality that is

concealed among the psycho-physical aggregates and revealed in a variety of teachings that

accord with beings' various dispositions (sattvāśayānubheda).478

Padmavajra expands upon the dynamics of pervasion and the general theme of a

movement from a singular ultimate reality to a plurality of its expressions in the second

chapter of Guhyasiddhi, which contains his exposition on the introductory verse

(nidānavyākhyā) of the Guhyasamājatantra. In many ways, the very same logic underlying

























































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tuv
the yogic movement from singularity to pervasion that leads our authors to provide an

account for all phenomena within the yogic cosmographies of the generation stage maṇḍala

is also at work in the exegetical convention of the nidānavyākhyā. Following this exegetical

convention, an author locates the fundamental truth that a tantra expresses in its initial two

syllables (usually the syllables evaṃ or athaḥ) and then expands this strategy to show that the

initial verse acts as a mnemonic, coded signifier for the entire work. Padmavajra his second

chapter with an account of Vajrasattva's instructions on the fully blossomed bodhicitta

(bodhicittavijṛmbhita) to the buddhas of the assembly who have fallen into a swoon upon

witnessing unified sameness of all phenomena (sarvadharmasamaikatvā). The passage

introduces the notion of supreme joy (paramānanda) that results from the sexual yoga of

engagement of the vajra with the lotus (padmavajraprayoga) as a form representing the full

manifestation of bodhicitta or ultimate reality. Padmavajra's account of Vajrasattva's

monologue then moves to the issue of central concern in the chapter, an explanation of the

opening verse of the Guhyasamājatantra that equates the letters 'e' and 'vaṃ' respectively

with the female and male sexual organs and their combination in the term 'evaṃ' with the

union of the male and female sexual organs that constitutes the foundational practice for the

production of the 'great bliss' (mahāsukha). He then uses Vajrasattva's monologue to locate

the term 'evaṃ' and all that it symbolizes as the essential nature and origin point for all things

in the following passage:

"There is no pure state of phenomena other than

The letter that is the source of phenomena |
In which the buddhas are arisen [and]
Established in the awakening of a buddha." || 2.27 ||

Do not be afraid, for there

The vajra-woman is present in the pure, |
Non-abiding ultimate reality, in the quiescent state,

tuw
 In the letter that is the source of all phenomena. || 2.28 ||

The entire world with all its animals, etc.,

Is arisen from that, |
Not to mention you Victors
Who have all become afraid!" || 2.29 ||479

As Davidson notes, the verses quoted here in Guhyasiddhi provide a polemical critique of the

more moderate Mahāyāna tradition that admits to the potentially offensive and shocking

nature of the new esoteric revelation of the Vajrayāna for which Padmavajra, unlike other

commentators, is unapologetic.480 The verses also lead to Padmavajra's explanation of the

importance of recognizing the physical consort (karmamudrā) as the source of gnosis of the

threefold vajra in conventional form (saṃvṛtirūpeṇa trivajrajñānasaṃbhavā). The bliss that

arises during the practice of sexual yoga and the physical consort herself are identified with

the ultimate reality and source of all phenomena, the starting point from which the pervasion

of that ultimate reality extends throughout the cosmos.

This description of the karmamudrā in the second chapter of Guhyasiddhi is

eventually transferred to the mahāmudrā in Padmavajra's discussion of the generation stage

yoga in chapter three. Here, Padmavajra indicates that once a beginner has attained a certain

level of realization via the karmamudrā reliance on a physical consort should be abandoned

altogether. This passage contains some of the most frequently quoted verses from

Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi (particularly verse 3.34) and directly equates self-referential

awareness (svasaṃvedya) with mahāmudrā:

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 The karmamudrā is deceitful and cruel,
And so too is the jñānamudrā. |
Having abandoned the multitude of conceptual constructs,
One should meditate on the mahāmudrā. || 3.34 ||

One should abandon the human mudrā,

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That is unified with method in one's own body. || 3.35 ||

The vidyā481 that is self-reflexive awareness

Is the supremely auspicious mahāmudrā |
Located in the innate abode of the body
And invisible to those with little insight. || 3.36 ||482

These verses are important for the direct correlation they draw between mahāmudrā and

svasaṃvedya, which essentially moves the process of identifying the source of phenomena

from the external practice of sexual yoga into a more classical yogic practice of retraction

from the senses and cultivation of a direct perception of ultimate reality via self-reflexive

awareness. It is within the context of this discussion of mahāmudrā that Padmavajra begins

to elaborate upon the pervasive nature of ultimate reality, moving the reader from an account

of its singularity to its pervasion into a plurality.

This process initiates a movement toward the kind of yogic cosmography that will

eventually require Padmavajra to account for the existence of rival religious sects. Verses

3.49–50 reiterate the common hermeneutic in Buddhist literature that doctrinal pluralities are

dependent upon the various dispositions of beings. Padmavajra begins the process of

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expanding his yogic cosmography beyond the scope of the Buddhist teachings by employing

this hermeneutic in the following passage:

Everything that has arisen there,

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Is wholly and completely grounded in the
Delightful state of the threefold world. || 3.53 ||

It is the seed of all things and

The ultimate state of the siddhis, |
The supreme abode of the buddhas,
And the expression of Sukhāvati. || 3.54 ||

Thus, all of the gods, demons,

And humans have issued forth from that. |
The entire threefold world,
Is completely established there. || 3.55 ||483

Finally, as Padmavajra's yogic cosmography expands to encompass the world of human

beings, he is compelled to account for the fact that there are human beings who teach

doctrines that are in fact at odds with the ontology proposed in his own system of the

Guhyasamājatantra:

All of the incalculable tens of millions

Of human beings issue forth from that, |
Some of whom [maintain] trustworthy doctrines,
That teach an authentic system. || 3.58 ||484

But while these verses seem to uphold a critical, exclusivist distinction between those

doctrines that are trustworthy (āptāgama) and those that are not, a passage that appears in

Padmavajra's expanded instructions on the generation stage yoga in chapter four of

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Guhyasiddhi applies the same underlying logic to arrive at a more inclusive perspective.

These verses only survive in the Tibetan translation of the text:

4.81 [Everything] proceeds and comes from it,

But there are no migrating beings at all in it.
Ultimately there is no meditation,
Meditator, and object of meditation.

4.82 Ultimate reality, the unique

Supreme state, is known as 'bodhicitta.'
Its various divisions are inconceivable,
Spreading into the tens of millions.

4.83 The sublime purity of all beings

Is not established by just one verbal expression, [but]
Due to the different types of dispositions of sentient beings,
[Its many expressions] pervade the entire three realms.

4.84 It is labeled [according to] so many systems of classification

Such as the Śaivas [who call it] the supreme principle,
The exponents of the Veda who call it Brahmā,
The Buddhists who call it supreme awakening,

4.85 The Jains who call it the soul, [and]

The Sāṁkhya scholars who call it consciousness, etc.
How can one articulate them all?
Having proliferated into a multiplicity,

4.86 One is not able to articulate

These essences in their various modes of expression.
The sublime state is established following its division, [so]
[Beings] explain the perfect ultimate state in many ways. 485

























































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These verses contain the only explicit example of Padmavajra's conception of a set of

philosophical systems (darśanas) and their relationship to the ultimate reality. The equalizing

factor between the various schools of the Śaivas, Vaidikas, Jains, Sāṁkhya, and Buddhists

lies in their common reliance upon language to express something that is ultimately beyond

linguistic expression. A more radically inclusivist reading of these verses that borders on a

kind of pluralism is possible as well, and results from the mechanics of pervasion that

underlie Padmavajra's presentation of an ultimate reality that is both the singular source from

which all things proliferate and simultaneously pervades all things.

Anaṅgavajra's Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi contains one passage in which the author

seeks to justify the existence of various schools of thought as manifestations of the same

ultimate reality. The reference occurs in the text's fourth chapter, Anaṅgavajra's explanation

of "Meditation on Ultimate Reality" or tattvabhāvanā:

This is the ultimate bodhicitta

That is said to be non-dual, [that is] |
The vajra and Śrī Vajrasattva,
The completely awakened one and awakening. || 4.17 ||

And this is the perfection of insight,

That is composed of all of the perfections, |
And this is the sameness that is called the highest
Meditation of all the buddhas. || 4.18 ||

The entire world with its animate

And inanimate nature is born right here. |
And [so are] endless bodhisattvas,
Perfect buddhas, śrāvakas, etc. || 4.19 ||486













































































































































































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The passage is notable for its unabashed equivalence between ultimate reality as it is defined

in the esoteric tradition and ultimate reality as it is defined according to the exoteric system

of the perfection of insight (prajñāpāramitā). It also contains an attempt to account for this

ultimate reality as the origin point from which all manner of awakened beings are born.

Anaṅgavajra does limit his account of the proliferation of various religious doctrines to that

of the perfections (pāramitās), associated with the buddhas and bodhisattvas, and that of the

śrāvakas. However, it is possible, given his proclivity for tailoring his text toward the

adherents of theistic brahmanical traditions already demonstrated in chapter seven, that the

compound śrāvakādaya in line 4.19d might be read as inclusive with respect to the vehicles

of śrāvakas and all other sects, not simply an ellipsis for the inclusion of the vehicle of

śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, and bodhisattvas. This reading is strengthened by Anaṅgavajra's

statements regarding the importance of performing the advanced ascetic practices of the

caryā and vrata in verse 5.6, where he establishes a continuity between Buddhist and non-

Buddhist schools of thought by stating that the tathāgatas, all of whom performed the caryā,

are worshipped by the highest deities of the brahmanical pantheon.

III. Spontaneous Maṇḍala Generation and an Inclusive Yogic Cosmogony in

Kuddālapāda's Acintyādvayakramopadeśa

Other works among The Seven Siddhi Texts such as Indrabhūti's Jñānasiddhi and Yoginī

Cintā's Vyaktabhāvānugatatattvasiddhi contain examples of the same kind of movement

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from a singular ultimate reality to its pervasion and proliferation into the kind of yogic

cosmography associated with the culmination of the generation stage yoga. Hints of the

instantaneous, non-conceptual maṇḍala generation at the culmination of the generation stage

yoga are found in Guhyasiddhi 3.74, where Padmavajra describes the bodily form arisen

from joy (rūpam ānandajam) as something that instantly arises as a mental image

(dhagityākārasaṃbhūtaṃ) that expands and contracts in such a way that it illuminates all

three levels of the world.487 Indrabhūti also devotes sections of his chapter his "Refutation of

Form Meditation" (rūpabhāvanāniṣeda) to the argument that deity forms that arise out of

meditative concentration (samādhi), whether they arise gradually or instantly, are necessarily

non-constructed (akṛta) and thus not a compounded (saṃskṛta) phenomenon that is subject to

inevitable destruction. But none of these works devote nearly as much time integrating the

existence of rival religious sects into this cosmography than Kuddālapāda's

Acintyādvayakramopadeśa. Kuddālapāda's thus provides a more thorough account of the

yogic dynamics of spontaneous maṇḍala generation at the culmination of the generation

stage yoga than any of the works among The Seven Siddhi Texts.488

The opening verses of Acintyādvayakramopadeśa describe the 'inconceivable non-

duality' (acintyam advayam) as a 'gnosis that arises on its own' (svayam utpadyate jñānaṃ),

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and the topic is reiterated nine times in this short work of one hundred and twenty three

Sanskrit verses. Like the authors of The Seven Siddhi Texts, Kuddālapāda presents a kind of

yogic representationalist epistemology that describes the origin point for the spontaneously

arising deity-maṇḍala as an non-dual image (advayākāra), the image of the same taste [of

phenomena] (samarasākāra), a non-conceptual object (nirvikalpārtha), a naturally luminous

image (prakṛtiprabhāsvarākāram), and an infinite image (anantākāra).489 This mental image,

the product of samādhi that is brought on by meditative analysis in the opening phase of the

generation stage yoga, is eventually listed as another term for mahāmudrā in the following

verses:

Non-dual gnosis, the great bliss

That is beyond form, sound, and taste, |
That is free from smell, touch, and the like
Arises at that point. || 30 ||

Composed of the dharmadhātu, pure,

The ultimate non-dual gnosis is |
Free from all conceptual imputations [and]
Devoid of apprehended and apprehender. || 31 ||

An abode that is naturally pure,

The non-dual ultimate truth |
Is not destroyed, is not produced,
Is unchanging, and is non-abiding. || 32 ||

This mahāmudrā is the endless

Supreme non-dual gnosis |
That is called the mind, the substratum
Of the [bodily] humors and the qualities. || 33 ||

In it, gnosis, supreme omnipresence,

Is naturally without waves. |
Gnosis is arisen on its own.
One should not meditate on anything. || 34 ||490

























































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Kuddālapāda then takes the reader from the opening section of his text in which he outlines

the various synonyms and terms used to describe mahāmudrā or the non-dual image of

gnosis into the sequence (krama) by which the deity-maṇḍala spontaneously unfolds:

Due to the lack of conceptual constructs,

Everything is seen as the source of glorious bliss. |
The form of the numerous deities,
The body of Vajrasattva and the others, || 36 ||

And the buddha image,

The entire circle of the yoginī horde |
Or the assembly of wrathful kings
As well as the Vidyā-goddess, || 37 ||

And the divine maṇḍala circle,

A stainless, luminous image, |
The collection of sūtras together with the vinaya,
As well as the system of the perfections, || 38 ||

So too the mantras and mudrās as well as the vidyās

[That one] invites into the heart [of the maṇḍala],
The entire mantra doctrine |
With its maṇḍala, homa rite, || 39 ||

And ritual of mantra recitation offering

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 Arises on its own in succession. |
And the philosophical systems, the Śaiva and
Saura, likewise Arhant and Vaiṣṇava || 40 ||

And [those who hold] the ultimate authority of the Veda

Ultimately arise on their own. |
This union with the omniscient state
Is inconceivable and without conceptual thought. || 41 ||

The divine state called samantabhadra that is

Like a wish-fulfilling jewel, is non-dual. |
The subterranean [siddhi], the sword, pill,
Yakṣiṇī, shoe, [and] vase [siddhis], || 42 ||

Alchemy, collyrium, and the divine [siddhis]

Are accomplished on their own and not in any other way. |
Due to [this yoga's] non-conceptual orientation,
It all arises on its own. || 43 ||491

Here Kuddālapāda takes his reader through a progressive expansion of the deity-maṇḍala as

its various expressions emerge from the inconceivable non-dual image of mahāmudrā. He

recounts what is roughly a movement from the center to the periphery of the maṇḍala,

though, perhaps intentionally, he does not provide an adequate level of detail to identify the

specific maṇḍala system with which he is working. In the process of describing the

spontaneous unfolding of this yogic cosmography, Kuddālapāda seems compelled in verses

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38–41 to account for a variety of modes of religious thought and expression, both Buddhist

and non-Buddhist. As he does so, he provides a glimpse of the variety of non-Buddhist

philosophical systems with which he was familiar, listing the Śaiva, Saura, Jain, Vaiṣṇava,

and Vaidika brahmins by name.

Kuddālapāda follows this passage with a preface to his instructions on mahāyoga in

which the sense faculties and sense perceptions are sublimated into the yogin's perception of

gnosis. This leads to a somewhat cryptic instruction on the performance of sexual yoga in

verse 71 that is explained as the primary focus of mahāyoga in verse 72. The text then moves

into an internal yogic cosmography that lists the homologous relationships between five

psycho-physical aggregates, the five types of gnosis, and the five buddhas of the

pañcatathāgata schema aligned at the centers within the subtle body during such practices.

This internalized mahāyoga visualization practice prompts Kuddālapāda once again to

provide some justification for the existence of rival religious sects within his yogic

cosmography:

Conceptual constructs that are the nature of conceptual thought

[Are understood as] the self-arisen, single non-duality |
By [gnosis that is] mirror[-like], equanimity, accomplishing,
Discriminating, and [equal to] the expanse of phenomena. || 76 ||

[It appears manifold] due to the proliferation of philosophical

Systems [that accord with] the dispositions of beings, |
But the omniscient one, be he Śaiva, etc.,
Vaiṣṇava, or Brahmā, is non-dual. || 77 ||

It is devoid of the defect of the eye, etc.,

[And] its scope is beyond the mind. |
The ultimate truth is called non-duality,
But [its] verbal elaboration is a relative truth. || 78 ||

At the point from which the ultimate truth is divided and descends
There is no buddha, nor is there non-duality, |
But the proliferation of [its] verbal expression is explained

tvx
 By the union of conceptual thought and space. || 79 ||492

Then, after taking a few verses to list the many different terms by which ultimate reality is

enumerated in Buddhist treatises in order to argue for their ultimate inability to actually

express it, Kuddālapāda expands his yogic cosmography beyond its expressions across

various religious sects to the animate and inanimate matter that makes up the entire threefold

world:

Since everything in all of the three realms

Has the cause of arising and abiding, |
All living beings arise
Out of non-dual gnosis. || 83 ||

The oceans, mountains, trees,

Grass, bushes, and vines, |
Issue forth from non-dual gnosis,
There is no doubt in this. || 84 ||493

He then moves into an account of the instruction lineage that he received from Bhadrapāda,

interweaving his own lineage into this yogic cosmography by describing the process by

which the singular, non-dual ultimate reality proliferates and pervades all phenomena. These

verses are not simply an account of Kuddālapāda's instruction lineage, they describe the way

in which he himself gained access to the instructions on the true nature of ultimate reality in

terms of the cosmographic proliferation of its various expressions. His motivation for

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providing an account of his own lineage is as cosmographic as it is historical, and is meant to

situate his own instructions among the divergent systems of a number of philosophical

systems and religious sects. This is evident in the fact that he transitions from describing his

own instruction lineage to a number of religious sects, each of which teach the same non-dual

ultimate reality according to their own particular conventions:

They all had one goal—

Ultimate, non-dual gnosis. |
[This is also the goal of] the entire mantra doctrine
As well as the system of the perfections. || 90 ||

In this sense there is one non-dual great bliss [taught]

Among the compendia of the sūtra collection, etc. |
The Arhant, Saura, Śaiva etc.,
And even the Somasiddhānta, || 91 ||

Vaiṣṇava, and the dharma of Manu

Are taught based on non-duality. |
Since there is no language for non-duality,
There are gods, demigods, humans, and lower beings. || 92 ||

But everything one sees according to its

Particular appearance is non-dual gnosis. |
One who has non-duality along with compassion,
Who is endowed with insight and method, || 93 ||

Who has analyzed emptiness in detail,

Who is composed entirely of buddhas, the guru |
Is the supreme ocean of gnosis
According to Bhadrapāda's understanding. || 94 ||494

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These verses convey a sense of the inclusivist view that Kuddālapāda takes up in response to

the implications of the yogic cosmography he outlines as he moves from a description of

non-dual ultimate reality to the proliferation of its expressions in both the material world of

forms and in the variety of expressions one finds in that world among various religious sects.

The verses provide a greater sense of the various sects with which Kuddālapāda was familiar.

Verses 93cd–94 appear to indicate precisely what distinguishes his own instruction lineage

from others, and he makes this distinction despite the fact that the doctrines held by all

religious sects are in fact based in the same non-duality. As is fitting for an initiatory cult,

Kuddālapāda ends here by elevating the guru as the most reliable source for the teachings on

non-dual gnosis, providing some grounds on which to argue that the emergence of guru-

centric initiatory cults constitutes a response to an expansive and potentially misleading

plurality of religious doctrines.

Kuddālapāda concludes his Acintyādvayakramopadeśa with a sequence of completion

stage yoga instructions that begin with a yoginīmaṇḍala visualization and move into a subtle

body yoga instruction employing the purāṇic cosmogony of the churning of the ocean of

milk as the initial phase of the visualization. Here, as in Yoginī Cintā's reference to the same

cosmogonic myth,495 the notions of 'churning' and the production of amṛta must be taken as a

metaphor for the performance of sexual yoga:

Every image [that arose] from churning

The ocean of milk arises as the supreme state. |

























































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 And those things that were praised by Brahmā,
Viṣṇu, Maheśvara and Buddha, etc., || 95 ||

[Such as] the sun, moon, and stars

Arise from the ocean of gnosis |
[As do] Lakṣmī, Sarasvatī, [and]
The supreme elixir of the amṛta. || 96 ||

All of them, human beings together with

The gods and asuras, are arisen from amṛta. |
And [so too does] the so-called thirteen-fold ground,
Who is the lovely Vajradharī. || 97 ||496

This version of the myth is adapted for Kuddālapāda's purposes as an allegory for the

emergence of the entire cosmos out of the bliss of non-duality that is generated through the

sexual union of mahāyoga as he repositions the amṛta, a term frequently used to describe the

products of a yogic couple's sexual union, at the font of his cosmography. As in the classic

purāṇic versions of this cosmogonic myth, the churning of sexual union that produces the

amṛta is posited as the source of all phenomena, including all manner of various gods and

goddesses, be they Buddhist or non-Buddhist.

IV. Conclusion

The yogic epistemology and mahāmudrā cosmogony outlined in these works tells us

something about their authors' own conceptions of sectarian identity. The chapters that have

preceded this discussion of sect and sectarian identity in The Seven Siddhi Texts have all in

some way indicated that these identities remained relatively fluid and inclusive despite the

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twr
exclusive rhetoric of the initiatory traditions in which they are outlined. Chapter six provided

examples of Buddhist yogins adopting the outer appearance of rival sects as part of the

clandestine activity of Padmavajra's guhyacaryā. Chapter seven demonstrated a range of

inclusivist and exclusivist approaches to the formulation of sectarian identity in The Seven

Siddhi Texts. This chapter has demonstrated that the central practice of deity-maṇḍala

generation in these works was employed as a hermeneutic for the simultaneous sameness and

difference of sectarian identities as expressions of a fundamentally non-dual ultimate reality.

In many instances, the authors of The Seven Siddhi Texts offer a number of examples that

push back against the kind of reified sense of discrete sectarian identities for which Alexis

Sanderson's 'borrowing model' has been criticized.

At the same time, there is also evidence throughout The Seven Siddhi Texts that the

formulation of discrete sectarian identities was a historical reality, and the authors of these

works are forced to account for this historical reality in some way in their work. It would be

rather shortsighted to entirely neglect these data by doing away with the role of discrete

sectarian identities in the 'borrowing model' altogether. Much in the same way that Ruegg's

'substratum model' was shown to be a valid approach to interpreting the ritual and ascetic

world of The Seven Siddhi Texts by adopting a demonological paradigm, the conception of a

reified and exclusive sense of sectarian identity that underlies Sanderson's 'borrowing model'

also has its constructive applications. In short, these two scholars and the positions that they

propose have been placed in somewhat of a false dialectic. There is no need to adopt one

approach at the expense of the other. Ruegg is correct to introduce the idea of a shared pan-

Indic religious substratum, and that substratum can be identified among popular religious

movements and their formalized expression in the Āyurvedic literature on demonology.

tws
Sanderson is correct to identify the phenomenon of direct appropriation and exchange

between members of discrete and rival sects, and several authors of The Seven Siddhi Texts

openly admit to this phenomenon in their need to justify why exactly the external form of the

ascetic practices they prescribe so closely resemble the practices of other sects. Both

approaches are thus equally valid and illuminating hermeneutics, and one need not adopt one

of them at the expense of the other.

They also both speak to the central argument for Part II of this dissertation—that the

initiatory traditions function based on the logic that identity is a fluid phenomenon. This fluid

conception of identity appeared earlier in Part I as well, where the notion of membership to a

particular family or religious order provided the first indication that one of the central themes

in South Asian renunciatory traditions was the exchange of one identity for another. It also

appeared in the discussion in Part I of the existential condition of the person as viewed

through the demonological paradigm. In this analysis the behavioral determinants of demonic

possession account for a complete shift in identity in their negative formulation and an

ascetic adoption of an alternate identity in their positive formulation during the Vajrayāna

generation and completion stage yogas. Part II of this dissertation has shown that sectarian

identity itself implies its own fluidity, and this fluidity—the ability to adopt and entirely

different sectarian identity—is the fundamental logic that underlies all initiatory traditions,

regardless of any rhetorical stance they might take to the contrary. Of course the logic of

fluidity that underlies the ritual mechanics of consecration is by no means exempt from the

consequences of its own implied dialectic between discrete and fluid conceptions of sectarian

identity. In this sense there is also no justifiable reason to discount Sanderson's adoption of a

more reified sense of sectarian identity, for undoubtedly there were those among the

twt
historical agents that participated in the medieval South Asian world of tantric initiation cults

that both adopted and promoted just such an approach. However, etic historiographers must

accept the responsibility of avoiding any tendency to adopt this approach at the expense of

recognizing the broader logic of fluidity that justifies the ritual process of consecration and

initiation.

twu
 Part III:

The Seven Siddhi Texts as

Mahāmudrā Practical Canon

twv
 Chapter 9:

Analysis of Sanskrit Manuscript Sources

for The Seven Siddhi Texts

I. Introduction

In the preface to his 1925 edition of the Sādhanamālā Vol. I, Benoytosh Bhattacharya

identified Anaṅgavajra's Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi and Indrabhūti's Jñānasiddhi as two of

the most important works among the Sanskrit editions that were currently being prepared for

publication in Gaekwad's Oriental Series.497 Bhattacharya relied heavily upon these two

works as well as Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi in his introduction to the second volume of his

edition of the Sādhanamālā, where they played an integral role in his theorization of the

origins of Vajrayāna Buddhist esoteric literature. Drawing upon Scheifner's work on

Tāranātha's History of Buddhism in India (Rgya gar chos 'byung), Sarat Chandra Das's

edition of Sumpa Khenpo Yéshé Peljor's (Sum pa mkhan po ye shes dpal 'byor, 1704–1788)

Auspicious Wish-Fulfilling Tree (Dpag bsam ljon bzang), and Palmyr Cordier's Catalogue du

Fonds Tibétain,498 Bhattacharya's introduction to the Sādhanamālā Vol II reconstructs a

largely Tibetan vision of the development of the Vajrayāna in India that identifies The Seven

Siddhi Texts and their authors as the progenitors of the movement.

Bhattacharya's introduction to the second volume of the Sādhanamālā takes the

Guhyasamājatantra as a textual marker for the origin of the Vajrayāna and then quickly

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draws out the connection between this text and Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi. It then moves to

matters of geographical location, discussing the four pīṭhas of Kāmākhyā, Sirihaṭṭa,

Pūrṇagiri, and Oḍiyāna,499 referred to here as the "sacred spots of the Vajrayānists."500 As he

triangulates between Sumpa Khenpo's Auspicious Wish-Fulfilling Tree, Cordier's Tenjyur

catalogue, and the Sanskrit manuscripts of a number of works belonging to the corpus of The

Seven Siddhi Texts, he eventually settles on Oḍiyāna as the likely point of origin for the

Vajrayāna, leaving its precise location unresolved but suggesting Bengal as a likely

candidate.501 He then presents his "Chronology of Vajrayāna," which he bases on two

lineages, the first from Cordier's Catalogue du fonds Tibetain and the second from Sumpa

Khenpo's Auspicious Wish-Fulfilling Tree. The former features all seven authors of The

Seven Siddhi Texts, adding an eighth, Līlāvajra, between Lakṣmīṅkarā and Dārikapāda.502

Bhattacharya goes so far as to speculate on the time period in which the members of his

lineage lists lived and provides dates from the seventh to the eighth century for the authors of

The Seven Siddhi Texts. Finally, he devotes some time to the doctrinal developments of the

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Vajrayāna through the voices of these authors in brief synopses of Guhyasiddhi,

Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi, and Jñānasiddhi.503

It is likely that Benoytosh Bhattacharya was not fully aware that the narrative he

presented on the origins and development of Vajrayāna Buddhism was in part a product of an

older narrative preserved within particular sects in Tibet that considered The Seven Siddhi

Texts to be the earliest treatises on the system of mantras (mantranaya) and their authors to

be the progenitors of this tradition. Nor does it appear that Bhattacharya was aware that this

argument was contested among Tibetan scholars.504 Despite the fact that he does not seem to

have been aware of their role in Tibetan historiography, he does appear to favor this account

of the origins of the Vajrayāna. There are two likely reasons for this. First, Bhattacharya was

at the time working on Sanskrit editions of Indrabhūti's Jñānasiddhi and Anaṅgavajra's

Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi for publication in Gaekwad's Oriental Series, a project that came

to fruition in 1929 with the publication of his Two Vajrayāna Works.505 The introduction to

Two Vajrayāna Works marks a continuation of the historical narrative outlined in the second

volume of his edition of the Sādhanamālā, rehearsing what have now become a number of

rather well-known narrative tropes in his formulation of the Vajrayāna's role in Buddhism's

decline in India.506 The second reason, already alluded to above, is that The Seven Siddhi

Texts and their authors were indeed considered by some Tibetans to represent an important

early tantric lineage from Oḍiyāna. Although Bhattacharya was not aware that three of the

works upon which he drew in the introduction to his edition of the Sādhanamālā are

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considered part of a broader corpus of Indian mahāmudrā works or that the lineage list for

the Oḍiyāna siddhas on which he based his argument for the origin of Vajrayāna Buddhism

was closely related to this corpus, he still managed to parrot certain Tibetan etiological

narratives that were invested in The Seven Siddhi Texts' claim to authority. This coincidence

is likely a function of the role that Oḍiyāna plays in certain Indian and Tibetan accounts of

the revelation of Buddhist esoteric literature507 and the fact that the extant Sanskrit

manuscripts for a number of The Seven Siddhi Texts, at least one of which Bhattacharya

certainly had in his possession, explicitly claim Oḍiyāna as the locus of activity for their

authors.508

This influence from certain Tibetan factions regarding the origin of the Vajrayāna

combined with his own exposure to seemingly early esoteric works like Jñānasiddhi that

provided Sanskrit textual witnesses to their authors' geographical location in Oḍiyāna

undoubtedly influenced Bhattacharya's own historical narrative. Perhaps it was also a bit of

wishful thinking on his part that led him to emphasize the Oḍiyāna narrative, which

conveniently located the authors of the two Sanskrit editions he was currently working on at

the center of the emergence of the Vajrayāna. This certainly would have constituted an

effective strategy to argue for the broad relevance his Two Vajrayāna Works might hold for

opening up a field of study in what was then a relatively undervalued and poorly understood

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textual tradition. It is certainly the case that a great deal of important information on early

Vajrayāna philosophy, ritual, and ascetic practices can be gathered from The Seven Siddhi

Texts, but it cannot be said that these texts offer anything in the way of a definitive data set

for understanding Buddhist tantric literature. This literature is too vast and its authors often

too committed to their own creative projects, to argue that any one Buddhist tantric work or

corpus might provide definitive perspective on Vajrayāna Buddhism on the whole.

After Bhattacharya, Malati J. Shendge is the only other twentieth-century scholar to

devote a significant amount of attention to any of the works contained among The Seven

Siddhi Texts. Shendge also seems to have been the first non-Tibetan scholar working with

these materials in the modern period to realize that the Tibetan tradition considered them to

be part of a unified corpus. She was also the first to speculate about this corpus' potential

precursors among some of the Sanskrit multiple-text manuscripts preserved in Nepal. The

introduction to her 1964 publication of Lakṣmīṅkarā's Advayasiddhi includes the following

statement on this point:

The present work is included in a photographic collection of Buddhist Tantric

manuscripts preserved in the library of the Oriental Institute, Baroda, along
with some other relevant works, like Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi, Jñānasiddhi,
Guhyasiddhi etc. These texts seem to form a collection, as in the Tib. Trans.
also they are found collected together in a series. This fact can be explained
by a reference in the Blue Annals Vol II, p. 856 where a collection of seven
siddhis, grub pa sde bdun, is mentioned which forms an important part of the
teachings of Vajrayāna.509

Shendge would go on to publish an edition and translation of another short work contained

among The Seven Siddhi Texts, Ḍombīheruka's Sahajasiddhi.510

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 An important development had taken place between Bhattacharya's publication of his

Two Vajrayāna Works and Shendge's editions and translations of Advayasiddhi and

Sahajasiddhi that allowed her to make this connection—the publication in 1949 of George

Roerich's translation of the Tibetan scholar Gö Lotsawa Zhön nu Pel's (Gos lo tsā ba gzhon

nu dpal 1392–1481) The Blue Annals (Deb ther sngon po).511 Shendge's 1964 publication of

Advayasiddhi follows the above comments with an excerpt from the most detailed account in

The Blue Annals on the Indian paṇḍita Vajrapāṇi's (Rgya gar phyag na, c. 11th century CE)

transmission of The Seven Siddhi Texts to Tibet. The incredible influence that Roerich's

translation of The Blue Annals has had on the study of the history of Buddhism in Tibet

cannot be underestimated. This is particularly true of the extensive information that this work

contains on the period of concern here, that of the 'later spreading' (phyi dar) of the Buddhist

dharma in Tibet from roughly the mid–eleventh century to the visit of the so-called 'last

paṇḍita' Vanaratna (14th–15th century CE) in the first half of the fifteenth century. As chapter

eleven demonstrates, the account of Vajrapāṇi's teaching of The Seven Siddhi Texts is not the

only example of this corpus' transmission to Tibet that is recorded in The Blue Annals, it is

simply the most obvious one. Shendge's observations highlight that Roerich's translation of

The Blue Annals has been critical to identifying the historical significance of The Seven

Siddhi Texts and its two Indian mahāmudrā corpora, The Sixfold Corpus on the Essence

(Snying po skor drug) and The Corpus of Teachings on Mental Non-Engagement (Yid la mi

byed pa'i chos skor). However, Roerich's translation also created some barriers to fully

exploring the transmission of this lineage by misidentifying these corpora in a number of

locations throughout Gö Lotsawa's Blue Annals.

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 Bhattacharya and Shendge's early work on several of the works contained among The

Seven Siddhi Texts demonstrates their progressive recognition as part of a unified corpus.

Toward the end of the twentieth-century, The Central Institute for Higher Tibetan Studies

published a new edition of the Sanskrit and Tibetan texts for six of The Seven Siddhi Texts as

a part of its Rare Buddhist Text Project. This diplomatic edition has been an invaluable

resource for the current study. However, the editors and translators of this edition also appear

either to have overlooked their primary significance among the Kagyü schools of Tibetan

Buddhism as a corpus of Indian mahāmudrā works. In this way all of these sources, perhaps

following Bhattacharya's lead, have considered these important works for understanding the

history of Vajrayāna Buddhism broadly conceived and neglected to acknowledge their

importance as a mahāmudrā corpus in Tibet and, quite possibly, South Asia.

This problem might be attributed to the mistranslation of a particular Tibetan

contracted compound that is used throughout The Blue Annals and elsewhere to denote the

entire set of early mahāmudrā corpora, a grouping that Roger Jackson has convincingly

argued constitutes the oldest strata of the Indian mahāmudrā canon.512 The Tibetan titles

Drup pa Dédün (Grub pa sde bdun) and Nyingpo Kordruk (Snying po skor drug) are

frequently referred to in Tibetan sources with the collapsed compounds Drupnying (Grub

snying), Drupnying Kor (Grub snying skor), or Drupnying gi Kor (Grub snying gi skor). This

shortened title is universally mistranslated in both academic and non-academic writing as

something along the lines of "The Essence of Attainment," and is often taken as shorthand for

Saraha's dohā trilogy.

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Non-Tibetan authors and translators are not the only ones to conflate the Nyingpo Kordruk

and the Nyingpo Korsum. The recently discovered copy of The Great Treasury of Drikung

Kagyü Teachings ('Bri gung bka' brgyud chos mdzod chen mo),513 for example, makes

precisely this mistake on its original, hand-written title page (see figure 5).

a.

b.

c.
Figure 5:
a. The modern, computer generated title page for the first volume of The Great Treasury of the Drikung
Kagyü Teachings bearing the title "Volume Ka: The Drupnying" (Sgrub snying pod ka pa bzhugs so)
b. The hand-written title page to the manuscript of volume one of The Great Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü
Teachings
c. Folios 4r.2–4r.5 of The Great Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü Teachings, clearly list the contents of the
volume as The Seven Siddhi Texts (Grub pa sde bdun), The Sixfold Corpus on the Essence (Snying po skor
drug) and Maitrīpa's Twenty-five works on Mental Non-Engagement (Yid la mi byed pa nyi shu rtsa lnga).

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This original title page notes that the contents of the volume are The Seven Siddhi Texts,

Threefold Corpus on the Essence, and The Corpus of Teachings on Mental Non-engagement

(grub pa sde bdun dang snying po skor gsum yid la mi byed pa'i chos skor) when in fact the

first volume contains The Seven Siddhi Texts, Advayavajra/Maitrīpa's works on Mental Non-

Engagement, and their attendant corpus, The Sixfold Corpus on the Essence (Snying po skor

drug). The Threefold Corpus on the Essence (Snying po skor gsum) that the scribe for this

volume has mistakenly included on its cover page is actually the alternate title for Saraha's

dohā trilogy. Figure 5c demonstrates that this is clearly not the subject of the first volume in

The Great Treasury of Drikung Kagyü Teachings, indicating that the Tibetan scribe (or

perhaps subsequent generations of scribes and redactors) committed the very same error that

is so common among modern authors and translators of identifying the shortened compound

Drupnying Kor (Grub snying skor) and its derivatives with the cycle of Saraha's three

dohā.514

When the erroneous attribution on its title page is corrected to match the content of

the volume, The Great Treasury of Drikung Kagyü Teachings provides a clear example of

the proper interpretation and translation of the compounded title Drupnying and its

derivatives, and it is through this document that I first came to suspect that this compound

has been widely misunderstood and mistranslated. Roerich's translation of The Blue Annals

consistently mistakes the various formulations of this compound as an alternate name for

Saraha's dohā. This confusion likely stems from the fact that Saraha's King, Queen, and

People's Dohā are sometimes also considered a short Indian mahāmudrā corpus in their own

right referred to as the Nyingpo Korsum (Snying po skor gsum) or Threefold Corpus on the

























































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Essence. To complicate things further, the first work in the Nyingpo Kordruk is often listed as

Saraha's Dohākoṣagīti, making it even easier to confuse the term 'Nying' as a stand-in for

Saraha's dohā trilogy when one reads or translates the compounds Drupnying, Drupnying

Kor or Drubnying gi Kor. The identification of the compound with Saraha's dohā works is

thus not entirely inaccurate, but it neglects the fact that various formulations of the

compound Drubnying gi Kor actually signify a more diverse set of texts.515

The Seven Siddhi Texts are believed to only have taken shape as a known corpus

when they were transmitted to Tibet. In this chapter, I begin to challenge this position by

examining the material evidence for The Seven Siddhi Texts as part of a known corpus in

South Asian Sanskrit sources. Through a philological analysis of a number of extant Sanskrit

witnesses to The Seven Siddhi Texts, I offer data in support of Shendge's hypothesis that there

is in fact evidence for a known set of seven works bearing the titles 'siddhi' that appear

together along with a number of other works in the extant Sanskrit multiple-text

manuscripts516 from Nepal.

II. Philological Evidence for Nepali Precursors to The Seven Siddhi Texts

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The Sanskrit manuscript sources for The Seven Siddhi Texts used in this study have been

gathered from the Nepal National Archive in Kathmandu and the Shantarakshita Library at

the Central University for Tibetan Studies in Sarnath, India. The staff at the Shantarakshita

Library also kindly provided electronic copies of the relevant manuscripts from the

International Association for the Study of World Religions' (henceforth IASWR) Buddhist

Sanskrit Texts microfilming project. I have unfortunately not yet obtained copies of the

manuscripts indicated in Bhattacharya and Shendge's work that are held at the archives in

Baroda and Calcutta. However, judging from remarks made by these authors regarding the

manuscripts at their disposal, it appears that their sources preserved the same general pattern

to which the Nepali manuscripts bear witness and, in some cases, may have even been copies

of the very same multiple-text manuscripts housed in Nepal. The following analysis of

Sanskrit multiple-text manuscripts containing works included among The Seven Siddhi Texts

begins with those currently held in the Nepal National Archive. My contact with these

sources has been through microfilm and electronic copies of microfilm, and I have not yet

had the opportunity to examine the original copies in person. As a result, much of the

material data presented here has been derived from the Nepali-German Manuscript

Cataloguing Project (henceforth NGMCP) database. The Nepali manuscripts are analyzed in

the order in which their reel numbers occur in the NGMCP database, unless, as is the case

with one witness, I have found that the same manuscript has been microfilmed and

catalogued a second time under a different NGMCP reel number. This analysis is followed

by a brief consideration of the IASWR manuscripts of Guhyasiddhi, Jñānasiddhi, and

Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi.

txw
 The first manuscript to appear in the NGMCP microfilm reel series, NGMCP A

117/5, is catalogued under the title Sahajasiddhitattvasiddhi, but the actual title page for the

work contains three layers of notation. The first layer can be identified because it is an

orthographic match for the scribal hand for the manuscript itself as well as the shorthand title

listed on each of the manuscript's folios. This original layer bears the abbreviated title "Śrīḥ

Bu Prā Taṃ." This appears to be the manuscript that Shendge used from the Bir Library in

Nepal for her edition of Ḍombīheruka's Sahajasiddhi, where she speculates that the title may

be shorthand for the terms "Bauddha prācinā tantra." Shendge's record of the markings "Bu

taṃ" and "guru" appearing alongside the folio numbers on the upper left and lower right side

on the recto side of each folio also matches NGMCP A 117/5, making it almost certain that

this is the manuscript that she used.517 The other two titles recorded on this manuscript's

cover page both read "Sahajasiddhi" and are recorded once in a roughly penned modern

Devanāgarī written above the original scribe's title and once on a cataloguing strip at the

bottom of the page bearing a version of the work's old National Archive Kathmandu

(henceforth NAK) accession number 3/755, recorded here both in Devanāgarī as tṛ/755 and

with its corresponding romanized alpha-numerical C/755. The NGMCP database records the

dimensions of the manuscript as 30x12 cm, notes a total count of 18 folios, and has

catalogued the text under the subject matter "Bauddhadarśana." The contents of this multiple-

text manuscript are as follows:

1. Sahajasiddhiḥ Ḍombīheruka folios 1r.1– 2v.1

2. Vyaktabhāvānugatatattvasiddhiḥ folios 2v.1–6r.1
3. Śrītattvasiddhināmaprakāraṇaṃpravṛtatantra folios 6r.1–14r.9
4. Acintyādvayakramopadeśaḥ folios 14r.9–18r.10

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txx
The verso side of the manuscript's final folio records the date that this copy was produced as

"Śrī saṁ[vat] 1971," corresponding to the year 1914 CE. At one point the pagination on this

copy of the manuscript skips from folio 17r to folio 18r, but no actual content is missing.

The second multiple-text manuscript, NGMCP A 134/2, is catalogued with the title

Guhyasiddhyādināgārjunapādādi. The dimensions of the manuscript are recorded at 31x12.5

cm and the work is noted as containing a total of 48 folios, though the folio count provided

on the manuscript itself ends at folio 49r. The materials for the manuscript are not specified,

the work is written in Devanāgarī, it is classified under the subject heading 'Bauddha

(vividha)' or 'various Buddhist [works],' and it bears the NAK accession number 5/45. The

folio numeration is recorded in the upper left and lower right of each recto folio side, along

with the word 'rāmaḥ' written in the lower right. The manuscript contains a table of contents

listing the following ten works, for which I have provided more precise folio numeration:

1. Guhyasiddhiḥ folios 2–14v.1

2. Advayasiddhiḥ folios 14v.1–15r.12
3. Jñānasiddhiḥ Indrabhūtipāda iti folios 15r.12–29r.5
4. Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhiḥ Anaṅgavajra folios 29r.5–33v.2
5. Sahajasiddhiḥ Herukapāda iti folios 33v.2–34v.4
6. Tattvasiddhiḥ folios 34v.4–37r.10
7. Tattvasiddhiḥ Śāntarakṣitaḥ folios 37r.10–44r.8
8. Advayakramopadeśaḥ Kuddālapādaḥ folios 44r.8–47r.3
9. Samayamudrā Nāgārjunaḥ folios 47r.3–48r.10
10. Sekanirṇayaḥ Advayavajraḥ folios 48r.10–49r.9

The manuscript is missing its entire first folio covering the opening verses of Guhyasiddhi

corresponding in the Sarnath edition to Guhyasiddhi 1.1–40ab. The sixth text in the above list

that is given the title Tattvasiddhi corresponds to Yoginī Cintā's

Vyaktabhāvānugatatattvasiddhi. The work labeled Samayamudrā by Nāgārjunapāda derives

its title from the section colophon as it appears in the manuscript

txy
(samayamudrāpurūṣakāraphalanirdeśaḥ).518 This corresponds to the sixth work in Shastri's

1927 Advayavajrasaṁgraha and the eighth work in the Taisho edition of the same group of

manuscripts, to which both assign the title Caturmudrā.519 Shastri, correctly identifying the

title Samayamudrāpurūsakāraphalanirdeśa as the title for only the fourth section in the

discussion the four mudrā in this work (and not the title of the text itself) seems to have

initiated the convention of referring to this work as the Caturmudrā. He justified this

decision based on his reported possession of another manuscript copy of the work bearing the

title Caturmudropadeśa that is attributed to Nāgārjuna. Unfortunately Shastri does not

provide a citation for his source, and also appears to have conflated this work with the

Tibetan translation of the Chakgya Shi Mengak (Phyag rgya bzhi'i man ngag,

*Caturmudropadeśa) included among Advayavajra's Corpus of Teachings on Mental Non-

Engagement (Yid la mi byed pa'i chos skor) in the Tenjyur. This work is not, however, the

same work by Advayavajra that appears among the Tenjyur under the title Chakgya Shi

Mengak, and the problem with Shastri's analysis here might cast further doubt on his alleged

possession of a Sanskrit manuscript of a Caturmudropadeśa that is explicitly attributed to

Nāgārjuna.520

This particular multiple-text manuscript was microfilmed and catalogued twice by the

NGMCP staff. Its second copy appears in the NGMCP microfilm database under the reel

numbers A 915/3 with the title Paramārtha(...)tantrasadbhāvaguhyasiddhi and the title

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Tattvasiddhisekanirṇaya on its NGMCP microfilm catalogue card. The fact that this is

indeed a duplicate photo-representation of the same manuscript and that the duplication

process occurred over the course of the NGMCP microfilming project is clearly the case

given that both copies share the same original NAK accession number (NAK 5/45). NGMCP

A 915/3 appears to have been microfilmed second, as this microfilm copy contains some

additional notation in the upper left of its table of contents page that is not visible in NGMCP

A 134/2. The information card for the second cataloguing provides a bit more data on the

manuscript, noting the materials used as light brown and yellow loose-leaf Nepali paper

(likely describing the color on the recto and verso of each folio) and that the manuscript was

procured for microfilming from the private collection at the Royal Manuscript Library

(rastriya abhilekhālaya). It also provides a microfilming date of July 30, 1984.

The next two manuscripts have separate NGMCP catalogue numbers but are actually

part of a single multiple-text manuscript. The first, NGMCP A 137/4 is listed as

Guhyasiddhyādijñānasiddhi[sādhanopāyikā] in the NGMCP database, but the NGMCP

microfilm information card simply titles the work Guhyasiddhi. The actual text of

Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi, however, does not appear in this section of the manuscript.

Instead, the microfilm for A 137/4 begins on folio 20v with a verse corresponding to

Advayasiddhi 18b in the Sarnath edition. The recto of each folio is marked with a folio

numeration in the upper-left and lower-right corner with the words 'guhya' and 'siddhi' above

each number respectively. No table of contents is provided, but the titles and folio numbers

for each work are as follows:

1. Advayasiddhiḥ folios 20v.1– 21r.4 (fragment, beginning with AS 18.b)

2. Jñānasiddhiḥ folios 21r.4–41r.6 (folio numeration skips 40v)
3. Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhiḥ folios 41r.6–41r.10 (four-line fragment)

tyq
The manuscript appears to skip folio 40v in its numeration, but no actual material is missing.

The next manuscript was procured from the Shantarakshita Library at CUTS where it

is catalogued under the title Guhyasiddhi and bears the NGMCP reel number A 1012/5. This

NGMCP number no longer appears to be valid, and is the current reel number for a

manuscript of the Varāhapurāṇa bearing the NAK accession number 6/882. The

manuscript's NGMCP microfilm information card does indeed record the reel number as A

1012/5, with the title Guhyasiddhādijñānasiddhi [sic.] and the NAK accession number of

4/71. This NAK accession number matches NGMCP A 137/4, and this manuscript should in

fact be collated with NGMCP A 137/4 as it matches this witness in both its orthography and

content. Figures ### and ### below demonstrate the orthographic match between these two

manuscripts and show that folio 20r if NGMCP A 1012/5 breaks at precisely the same verse

of Advayasiddhi that picks up again in NGMCP A 137/4.

Figure 6: final folio 20r of NGMCP A 1012/5 reading parasvaharaṇaṃ kuryāt paradārā (courtesy
of the Shantarakshita Library at CUTS, Sarnath)

tyr
 Figure 7: first folio 20v of NGMCP A 137/4 reading niṣevanaḥ | (photo courtesy of the Nepal
National Archive, Kathmandu)
By combining the two folios depicted in figures 6 and 7, we get the verse parasvaharaṇaṃ
kuryāt paradārāniṣevanaḥ | Translated as "One should steal the property of others, One should
have sex with others' wives, |" which corresponds to Advayasiddhiḥ 18ab in the Sarnath edition.

This set of microfilm contains the opening twenty folios for NAK 4/71 which bear witness to

the following texts:

1. Guhyasiddhiḥ folios 2r.1–19v.9

2. Advayasiddhiḥ folios 19v.9–20r.11 (fragment picks up again in A 137/4)

This copy of Guhyasiddhi is also missing its first folio, and begins at precisely the same spot

as the copy of Guhyasiddhi preserved in NGMCP A 134/2 (also NGMCP A 915/3)

corresponding to Guhyasiddhi 1.1–40ab in the Sarnath edition. Unlike NGMCP A 134/2

which begins with folio 2r, this manuscript begins with folio 2v, indicating that the missing

material here may have included a title page with the missing material constituting the first

forty verses of Guhyasiddhi taking up folio 1v–2r. It is telling that exactly the same material

is omitted in both NGMCP A 134/2 and NGMCP A 1012/5. Both versions of the text start at

exactly the same location, in the middle of the compound '[vañcanā]baddhacetasa'

corresponding to the final five syllables of Guhyasiddhi 40b in the Sarnath edition. One

potential explanation is that the manuscripts derive from the same stemma, which itself was

already missing the opening material of Guhyasiddhi when it was copied. However if this

were the case, why would the folio numbers not match as well? Moreover, how is it possible

tys
that the microfilm technicians could have had NGMCP A 1012/5 folio 2v in their possession

and not folio 2r? These questions cannot currently be answered with the materials at hand.

What it is clear is that NGMCP A 1012/5 provides the missing opening material to NGMCP

A 137/4, and that the collated manuscript is in likely some way related to NGMCP A 134/2.

If this is a direct relationship, we can speculate that the collated manuscript NGMCP A

1012/5-A 137/4 is itself still incomplete, which is already indicated by the fact that it

concludes with a four-line fragment of the opening verse of Anaṅgavajra's

Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi. When we combine these manuscripts, the order in which the

texts appear in NGMCP A 1012/5 and A 137/4 matches the order in which they appear in

NGMCP A 134/2, from which we can assume that the combined manuscripts of NGMCP A

1012/5 and A 137/4 could also constitute another multiple-text manuscript containing the

entire grouping of ten works witnessed in NGMCP A 134/2. If future research on these

manuscripts is able to justify this argument, that means that NGMCP A 1012/5-A 137/4

provides the second witness to a multiple-text manuscript containing nearly all of The Seven

Siddhi Texts.

The final multiple-text manuscript is catalogued as NGMCP E 1474/4 and does not

have a corresponding NAK accession number, likely because the manuscript was sourced

from the private library of M.V. Vajrācārya and was only microfilmed as part of the NGMCP

project. It is catalogued under the subject 'B [i.e. Bauddha] tantra' and contains a total of

sixty-three folios on 27.7x9.9 cm loose leaf Nepali paper. The manuscript is written in

Newāri script and its NGMCP microfilm information card bears the title Jñānasiddhi. It is

catalogued in the NGMCP online database, however, under the titles of the eight different

works that it contains, perhaps due to the fact that the folios in the microfilm scan of the

tyt
manuscript are jumbled and completely out of order. The first folio of the manuscript, which

for some reason has been given the numeration folio 1r (most likely by the microfilm

technicians) actually begins with the conclusion to Jñānasiddhi chapter sixteen. Fortunately,

the NGMCP microfilm technicians did provide the following list of titles, no doubt derived

from the colophon material that one finds scattered throughout the manuscript:

1. Jñānasiddhiḥ
2. Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhiḥ
3. Sahajasiddhiḥ
4. Mantranītiśāstraparamarahasya
5. Tattvasiddhināmaprakaraṇam
6. Acintyādvayakramopadeśaḥ
7. Samayamudrāpuruṣakāraphalanirdeśaḥ Nāgārjunapāda
8. Śekanirnnaya
9. Folio 1 (?) A: Jñānasiddhau upāyaniddeśanaparichedaḥ śidaśamaḥ [sic]

Here the microfilm technicians catalogued Yoginī Cintā's Vyaktabhāvānugatatattvasiddhi

under the alternate title from its Sanskrit colophon, Mantranītiśāstraparamarahasya,

whereas above in NGMCP A 134/2 the same work is listed with the title Tattvasiddhi. All of

these works are jumbled out of order and the entire microfilm of the manuscript needs to be

re-organized. However, if the order of works listed above by the microfilm technicians is in

fact correct, it appears that this manuscript may preserve yet another witness to the same

multiple-text manuscript group as NGMCP A 134/2 and NGMP A 1012/5-A 137/4 that is

missing only the opening two works Guhyasiddhi and Advayasiddhi.

The correspondences between all of the various manuscript sources analyzed above

are made evident here in figure 8.

A A A A A 1012/5 E
117/5 134/2 137/4 915/3 1474/4
Guhyasiddhi X X X
Advayasiddhi X X X X
Jñānasiddhi X X X X
Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi X X X X

tyu
 Sahajasiddhi X X X X
Vyaktabhāvānugatatattvasiddhi X X X X
Tattvasiddhi of Śāntarakṣita X X X X
Acintyādvayakramopadeśa X X X X
Samayamudrā of Nāgārjuna X X X
Sekanirṇaya of Advayavajra X X X
Figure 8: Chart of multiple-text manuscripts held in the Nepal National Archives containing works from The
Seven Siddhi Texts

This analysis of the manuscript sources currently available to me from the Nepal National

Archive confirms Shendge's suspicion that there was a known set of seven texts bearing the

title 'siddhi' that correspond almost exactly to the set of seven works listed in Gö Lotsawa's

account in The Blue Annals of The Seven Siddhi Texts that were transmitted by

Advayavajra/Maitrīpa's disciple Vajrapāṇi. The one intact witness to this collection preserved

in NGMCP A 134/2 (also NGMCP A 915/3) supplies an ordering of ten works that is

repeated throughout the other available multiple-text manuscripts, albeit in fragmentary form.

Thus if this ordering is applied to NGMCP A 117/5, the collated NGMCP A 1012/5-A 137/4,

and NGMCP E 1474/4, it appears possible that these constitute three additional witnesses to

a multiple-text manuscript containing an identical grouping of texts.

A final piece of evidence for this grouping of 'siddhi' texts, although less substantial

than those presented above, can be found among the IASWR manuscripts of

Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi (IASWR MBB 7-3), Jñānasiddhi (IASWR MBB 7-4), and

Guhyasiddhi (IASWR MBB 7-5).521 These three manuscripts appear to constitute a set of

works that are likely copies of Nepali originals. All three are written by the same hand in

modern Devanāgarī and formatted according to a western bound-book style, with material

























































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distributed on the left and right side instead of the recto and verso of each folio. IASWR

MBB 7–5 is of particular interest in that it preserves the only complete version of

Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi of which I am aware, supplying the verses corresponding to

Guhyasiddhi 1.1–40ab in the Sarnath edition that are missing in all of the other extant

microfilm copies of Guhyasiddhi currently housed in the Nepal National Archive. The

microfilming for the IASWR project was conducted more than a decade prior to the NGMCP

microfilming project. This means that if the one complete copy of Guhyasiddhi that survives

in the IASWR collection is in fact from Nepali source, either identical to or derived from the

same stemma as the witnesses attested above, the copyist for the IASWR project had access

to these sources before the opening verses of Guhyasiddhi were either lost, for reasons

unknown to us, were removed from the manuscripts received by the NGMCP microfilm

technicians. If they share the same stemma, this means that the front material for

Guhyasiddhi in those multiple-text manuscripts that currently begin with the fragmentary

verse 40b could have been intact perhaps only a little over a decade before the fragmented

versions were microfilmed and catalogued by the NGMCP.

These three works are clearly part of a set, but at first glance it seems that the

ordering of the texts as they appear in the IASWR catalogue contradicts the ordering of this

collection in the Nepali sources that seem to follow the standard that appears in NGMCP A

134/2. However, figure 9 reveals that the final folio of Guhyasiddhi in IASWR MBB 7-5

offers a piece of evidence that may indicate otherwise.

tyw
 Figure 9: final folio of IASWR MBB 7-5 Guhyasiddhiḥ, courtesy of the Shantarakshita Library at
The Central University for Tibetan Studies in Sarnath, India

This folio shows us the final verse of Guhyasiddhi chapter nine followed by the text's

colophon material, but the copyist appears to have continued on to a work that immediately

followed the colophon to Guhyasiddhi in the original source. As it happens, the fragment of

text added on the final folio of IASWR MBB 7-5 corresponds to the opening verses of

Lakṣmīṅkarā's Advayasiddhi 1–2a in the Sarnath edition. We can infer, then, that the copyist

for IASWR MBB 7-5, being the same copyist for MBB 7-3 and MBB 7-4, had in their

possession a source text in which Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi was immediately followed by

tyx
Lakṣmīṅkarā's Advayasiddhi and, perhaps in haste, mistakenly continued on to the next text

in the original manuscript before realizing the error. The multiple-text manuscripts preserved

in the Nepal National Archive testify to an ordering that places Guhyasiddhi as the first work

in a series of seven 'siddhi' texts followed by Lakṣmīṅkarā's Advayasiddhi. Thus we might

make the tentative case that the ordering of these three texts in the IASWR catalogue is

arbitrary, and that they may have been copied from a collection of manuscripts that followed

the ordering preserved across the Nepali multiple-text manuscript witnesses. If this is the

case, then one of the collections of 'siddhi' texts contained in the Nepali manuscript sources

for which I have argued above, albeit in a more complete form than we receive them today,

could easily have served as the source text for the copies preserved in the IASWR microfilm

collection.

To conclude, analysis of the extant manuscripts from the Nepal National Archive

available to me that contain works included among The Seven Siddhi Texts confirms that

there was a known set of seven works bearing the title 'siddhi' that survives in multiple

Sanskrit works in Nepal. The ordering and titles of this group of seven 'siddhi' works,

following the one intact witness to the collection preserved in NGMCP A 134/2, is as

follows:

1. Guhyasiddhiḥ of Padmavajra
2. Advayasiddhiḥ of Lakṣmīṅkarā
3. Jñānasiddhiḥ of Indrabhūti
4. Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhiḥ of Anaṅgavajra
5. Shajasiddhiḥ of Ḍombīheruka
6. [Vyaktabhāvānugata]tattvasiddhiḥ of Yoginī Cintā
7. Tattvasiddhiprakaraṇaḥ of Śāntarakṣitaḥ

The ordering of these seven texts does not exactly correspond to their ordering in Tibetan

sources. Also, one of these works, Śāntarakṣita's Tattvasiddhiprakaraṇa, does not make it

tyy
into any of the Tibetan lists of The Seven Siddhi Texts of which I am aware. However, it does

replace a text by a similar title, Dārikapāda's Dekhona Nyigyi Mengak (De kho na nyid gyi

man ngag, *Tattvasiddhyopadeśa), that constitutes the seventh work among The Seven

Siddhi Texts in the standard Tibetan canonical list of the corpus. The fact that six of The

Seven Siddhi Texts appear here as a group, and the fact that they appear among a collection

containing at least three more texts that Tibetan traditions include among corpora related to

The Seven Siddhi Texts, namely Kuddālapāda Acintyādvayakramopadeśa, Nāgārjuna's

Caturmudrā (both counted among The Sixfold Corpus on the Essence), and the Sekanirṇaya

of Advayavajra (part of The Corpus of Teachings on Mental Non-Engagement) strengthens

the argument for a collection of seven 'siddhi' texts among the Sanskrit witnesses in Nepal

and suggests that this Nepali grouping may even demonstrate some level of awareness of the

relationship between these 'siddhi' and the two other corpora that constitute the early Indian

mahāmudrā canon in the Tibetan tradition.

III. Conclusion

The fact that a corpus such as this demonstrates a certain degree of fluidity in the ordering of

its texts and the inclusion or exclusion of various works can be accounted for by analyzing

these works in light of the phenomenon of practical canonicity. The next chapter turns to this

topic and its implications for the employment of The Seven Siddhi Texts in the

Subhāṣitasaṁgraha, a work that was never translated into Tibetan but that provides a

window onto a potential South Asian mahāmudrā practical canon, and that may in fact

qualify as an 'Indian mahāmudrā work' in its own right. This is followed in chapter eleven by

a detailed analysis of the colophon data and various accounts of The Seven Siddhi Texts'

tyz
transmission to Tibet. When taken together with the material evidence in this chapter, it

becomes quite possible that The Seven Siddhi Texts were also a known corpus at least among

the Vajrayāna Buddhist institutions of the Kathmandu Valley.

tzq
 Chapter 10:

Practical Canonicity and the Indian Mahāmudrā Canon

I. Introduction: Practical Canonicity in Buddhist Traditions

Anne Blackburn is largely credited for introducing the formal/practical canon distinction to

the field of Buddhist Studies in her early work on vinaya literature in Sri Lanka.522 Blackburn

observed that the vinaya actually in use among monastic communities in her twelfth through

thirteenth and eighteenth century sources was in no way representative of the Pāli

Vinayapiṭaka in its full form, noting that until monks became elders (theras) few of them

directly encountered the full collection of the Vinayapiṭaka. Instead, the texts that were

widely in use and through which monks were introduced to the vinaya included only a few

canonical works that were augmented with commentaries and later vernacular works on

monastic discipline. Based on these and similar observations by a handful of scholars

working with Theravāda traditions, Blackburn proposed conceiving of canonicity in

Theravāda Buddhism as twofold, formal and practical, in which the formal canon, the 'ideal'

canon or the canon-as-concept, acts as the ultimate locus of interpretive authority and the

practical canon exhibits a far more open-ended structure incorporating material drawn from

























































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the formal canon that is then augmented with further commentaries and works that may or

may not themselves also be considered canonical in the formal sense.523

Blackburn's comments on the methodological issues at stake in the formal/practical

canon distinction are worth considering more closely. Observing the disconnect between

notions of canonicity as it is conceived among Buddhologists and the canon as it may have

been conceived and functioned for Theravāda monastic Buddhist communities in pre-modern

Sri Lanka, Blackburn frames the central problem addressed by the formal/practical canon

distinction as follows:

Today, caught up in the important work of editing, translating and analyzing

canonical Pali texts and their commentaries, we have only begun to notice that
the assimilation of and reflection on Buddhist ideas has in most times and
places not occurred through exposure to the Pali tipiṭaka in its entirety.524

Here Blackburn builds on comments from Charles Hallisey, Steven Collins, and Charles

Keyes on the various problems that arise as a result of compiling a comprehensive, formal

canon. Hallisey525 and Collins526 both note that the size and complexity of the vinaya

literature becomes an obstacle to direct engagement with the canon. Keyes, writing a number

of years prior to Hallisey and Collins, is quoted at length in Blackburn's presentation of her

formal/practical canon distinction, and the passage she has selected to highlight the ongoing

issue of how scholars of Buddhist traditions conceive of canonization is worth reproducing

here in full. Keyes writes:

The relevance of texts to religious dogma in the worldview of any people

cannot be assumed simply because some set of texts has been recognized as
belonging to a particular religious tradition... There is no single integrated
textual tradition based on a "canon" to the exclusion of all other texts... The

























































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 very size and complexity of a canon leads those who use it to give differential
emphasis to its component texts. Moreover, even those for whom a defined set
of scriptures exist will employ as sources of religious ideas many texts which
do not belong to a canon... Moreover, for any particular temple monastery in
Thailand or Laos, the collection of texts available to the people in the
associated community are not exactly the same as those found in another
temple monastery.527

Blackburn then notes Collins' suggested terminology of the 'ritual canon'528 to describe the

works that are actually in use in among any given Buddhist community, noting that Collins

also made use of the term practical canon to denote such collections of works.529 Blackburn's

formulation of the formal/practical canon dichotomy is thus developed in response to the

same essential methodological problem around Buddhologist's conceptions of canonicity that

a number of other scholars have observed. This problem is a product of long-standing

prejudices in the field that have granted precedent to studying the formal canon of the Pāli

Tipiṭaka while neglecting those works that have a more practical and immediate applicability

to Buddhist communities themselves. A practical canon is in this sense a category describing

those compendia of texts that held canonical authority at specific periods in history, in

specific geographic locations, and among groups with specific institutional affiliations.

Blackburn argues for three potential benefits that the formal/practical canon

distinction might have for the practice of scholarship of Buddhist traditions. First, she argues

that this distinction lends itself to micro-historical analyses that focus on the particular type

of Buddhism in practice in specific locations, times, and institutions. Second, she argues that

these considerations might allow for greater understanding of the shifts in Buddhist practice

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tzt
in these same locations through observing which texts seem to move in and out of practical

utility. Third, she argues that the practical/formal canon distinction may allow scholars to

examine new ways in which Buddhists themselves articulate textual authority. Here

Blackburn suggests that examining actual groups of texts used in a particular time, at a

particular place, and among particular Buddhist communities along with the specific ways in

which these practical canons are linked through commentary to the formal canon might allow

scholars to "identify a set of textual strategies through which the formal canon is made

relevant to textual production."530 She concludes her introduction to the formal/practical

canon distinction with the hope that this analytic paradigm might also be of use to scholars

who work in other Buddhist traditions.

Phillip Stanley takes Blackburn's suggestion and applies the notion of a

practical/formal canon dichotomy across Buddhist traditions. Stanley also introduces an

important component—sectarian identity—into the dynamics of practical canon formation.

Drawing from scholars of Judeo-Christian traditions who point to the creation of a 'canon-

within-the-canon' as a fundamental step in the construction of orthodoxy, Stanley notes that

the construction of a practical canon is particularly important when the primary or 'formal'

canon contains diverse and contradictory material.531 Following Blackburn, Stanley defines

the practical canon as a collection composed of "the texts actively used in a specific tradition,

which typically include a select canon-within-the-canon among the texts in the formal

canons," noting that "different sectarian groups within a broader tradition thus have different

practical canons that emphasize different portions of the formal canons and different treatises

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tzu
that are outside the formal canon."532 According to Stanley, the practical canon may be

considered a response to the unwieldy nature of the formal canon and, in instances where the

formal canon is relatively heterogeneous and inclusive, a response to the problem of the

formal canon's inclusion of contradictory material. In the latter case, the formulation of a

practical canon represents a process by which contradictory material in the formal canon may

be accounted for or suppressed in the service of constructing a more exclusive orthodoxy. In

contexts in which the formal canon is extremely inclusive and preserves a wide variety of

material, some of which inevitably stands in contradiction to other sections of the canon, the

impulse to construct orthodoxy through generating a selective 'canon-within-the-canon'

functions as an important strategy for grounding sectarian identity in textual, canonical

authority. When these conditions are present, as they certainly are in the case of the Tibetan

canonical Translations of the Scriptures (Bka' 'gyur, henceforth Kanjyur) and Translations of

the Treatises (Bstan 'gyur, henceforth Tenjyur), the orthodoxy of the practical canon can then

provide the basis for an orthopraxy that is related to specific institutional and sectarian

identities.533

Stanley's formulation of the formal/practical canon distinction contains an important

observation regarding the locus of canonical authority in Buddhist traditions and its distinct

character from the authority-granting structures at the core of Judeo-Christian traditions.

Here he writes:

... Christian traditions have practical "canons" and inclusive "canons," but
their canonicity is understood to be far more derivative, i.e., stemming solely
from the formal canon of scriptures. Buddhist treatises outside their respective
formal canons are also understood as being rooted in the treatises and
scriptures of the formal canons and, in the end, as being rooted specifically in
the scriptures of the sūtras and tantras. However, the great Buddhist masters

























































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tzv
 are understood as sharing to varying degrees in the wisdom, compassion,
skillful means, and even enlightenment of the Buddha. Their works thus can
be direct expressions of such enlightened qualities rather than merely being
indirect reflections of the scriptures of the formal canon. The practical and
inclusive canons of Buddhists thus have a stronger sense of canonicity in their
own right while they have a more indirect or "borrowed" sense of canonicity
in the Christian traditions since their concept of a "canon" is typically
restricted to their formal canon.534

This is arguably the mechanism by which Tibetan Tenjyur eventually acquired a sense of

canonical authority that matched that of the canonical Kanjyur. As Stanley notes, the Tibetan

canonical Tenjyur is itself a kind of secondary canon to the Kanjyur,535 yet it is through this

common tendency toward innovation-over-derivation in Buddhist conceptions of canonical

authority, a function of the tradition's own soteriological structure, that a 'secondary' canon

such as the Tenjyur can exercise an equal or even greater degree of canonical authority than

those scriptural sources believed to have been taught by the Buddha himself.536 Through this

observation, Stanley concludes that "the restricted Christian usage of the term 'canon' is not

appropriate in discussions of the Buddhist traditions and that the broader understanding of

'canonicity' expressed in such concepts as the 'practical canon' and 'inclusive canon' is in

accord with the emic sense of canonicity in Buddhism."537 In other words, Stanley appears to

be willing to do away with the notion of formal canonicity as a useful category for Buddhist

traditions, at least to the extent that it is constructed based on a conception of the formal

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canon as static, exclusive, and essentially closed. In place of a more closed and exclusive

conception of formal canonicity he proposes that Buddhist formal canons "are not

exclusionary collections, but are rather symbolic collections that implicitly affirm the

canonicity of the entire canonical continuum."538

Anne Blackburn and Justin McDaniel move the discussion of practical canonicity

toward its implications as a function of curriculum development in their respective 2001 and

2008 monographs.539 In her work in Buddhist Learning and Textual Practice, Blackburn

directs her original formulation of a formal/practical canon distinction in Buddhist traditions

toward the 'textual communities' that both define the parameters of orthodoxy and perform

the orthopraxy of the practical canon. She locates the origins of the idea of textual

communities in Brian Stock's study of rising literacy rates in twelfth and thirteenth century

Europe and the emergence of vernacular language in textual media. Here Stock uses data on

these phenomena to argue for the emergence of a text-based rationality that "affected the way

that men and women understood their own experience as individuals and as members of

social groups," and argues that the emergence of textual communities coincided with the

emergence of "new religious groups distinguished by their dismissal of beliefs and practices

not legitimized through texts."540 Blackburn then offers her own definition of textual

communities as "a group of individuals who think of themselves[...] to at least some degree

as a collective, who understand the world and their appropriate place within it in terms

significantly influenced by their encounter with a shared set of written texts or oral teachings

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based on written texts, and who grant special social status to literate interpreters of

authoritative written texts."541 Quoting Martin Irvine's work,542 Blackburn adds that a textual

community emerges out of a received canon and an interpretive commentarial tradition that

"accompan[ies] the texts and institute[s] their authority"543 Blackburn's 2001 Buddhist

Learning and Textual Practices represents a natural progression of the theory and

methodology implied in her original designation of the formal/practical canon dichotomy. At

its core, this work invites scholars of Buddhist traditions to move beyond universalized

claims to authority as the assumed property of the formal canon and challenges them instead

to study canonical authority as constructed by specific Buddhist textual communities.

Blackburn's study focuses only on eighteenth century Theravāda monastics in Sri Lanka, but

her observations are undoubtedly relevant to the study of Buddhist textual cultures more

broadly.

Justin McDaniel's Gathering Leaves and Lifting Words focuses on the practice of yog

sab, the Lao and Northern Thai commentarial method of 'lifting words,' in which a

commentator or teacher provides extensive vernacular commentary on classical Pāli terms as

a method for developing curriculum for both lay and monastic Buddhists. McDaniel grants

refreshing priority to the idea of examining "how Buddhists teach Buddhists to be

Buddhists"544 throughout this work, pointing to the importance of curricula in the study of

localized constructions of Buddhist identity. Analyzing the particular terms that are 'lifted'

out of scripture and embedded in textual commentaries, the practice of yog sab is posited as a

method for exploring the variety of Buddhist textual communities in Laos and Northern

























































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Thailand and their varied and particular constructions of Buddhist identity from the sixteenth

century to the present. In broader consideration of the idea of textual communities, McDaniel

argues that "[t]exts... are polyvalent parts of a curriculum, rather than simply parts of a

canon, liturgy, library, or reference collection, and they exist in a context of relationships

between orality and textuality, temporality and timeless authority, lay life and monastic life,

the local and the translocal."545 Taking the commentarial genres of nissaya, vihāra, and

nāmasadda as case studies in the practice of yog sab or 'lifting words,' McDaniel comments

that such works "[...] must be seen as particular moments in a history of articulations of

Buddhism," that "evince the ways local agents were reaching back and reaching toward

Buddhism."546 McDaniel's work draws our attention to the potential for expanding the notion

of Buddhist practical canons and their textual communities to account for curriculum, and to

the implications that this analytic approach might have for cultivating a methodology in

Buddhist Studies that attends to localized and institution-specific histories of the various

ways in which Buddhists have constructed their own identities.

II. Some Issues with the Formal/Practical Canon Distinction

Blackburn's original characterization of formal canonicity may overreach a bit in its idealism.

Is it possible to say that a formal canon is ever, as Blackburn defines it, merely a 'canon-as-

concept?' At the same time, Stanley's characterization of Buddhist conceptions of canon as

essentially inclusive may also be too quick to do away with the applicability of the notion of

a closed, formal canon. There is a sense in Tibetan traditions that the Kanjyur and Tenjyur

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eventually came to represent a closed, formal canon of some sort.547 By Stanley's own

argument, there is also reason to believe that this was the case in India, where it is evinced

through the struggle among various proponents of the Mahāyāna to develop strategies to

integrate their literature into the structure of an already-established formal canon.548 If the

notion of formal canonicity was as abstract and idealized as Blackburn suggests, or if notions

of formal canonicity were largely irrelevant to the Buddhist conception of canon as Stanley

suggests, there would be no need for this kind of tension. The fact that this is not the case—

that canonicity is inevitably tied to actual textual works that, in turn, are claimed to preserve

the specific views and proprietary knowledge through which institutions and their

participants cultivate a sense of identity and mutual belonging—is precisely the reason why

canonical status can be and has repeatedly been a matter of contention among Buddhists.

The elasticity that Buddhists tend to demonstrate around the notion of canon might

speak to a generally open and inclusive notion of canonicity, but the diachronic perspective

on Buddhist notions of canon, which demonstrate a tendency toward inclusivity over time,

should not lead us to conclude that the formal canon remained a mere idea or abstraction for

Buddhists themselves. Such a conclusion would neglect the material reality of the formal

canon in deference to a wholly idealistic notion of formal canonical authority. This

perspective also neglects the empirical reality that the formal canon is not simply a symbolic

collection, it is in many cases an actual collection of physically tangible works often found

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installed in Buddhist institutions, though its content and the degree of comprehensive

representation of Buddhist literature might vary. This is particularly the case in Tibetan

Buddhist traditions. Broadly speaking, and allowing for variation in the form in which

canons might be preserved from one Buddhist institution to the next, the 'canon' is in most

cases represented by an actual collection of works that do not remain purely symbolic but can

be directly encountered through reading the volumes it contains.

The hardline-materialist response to this problem is to assert that in fact no canon,

formal or practical, is simply an idea. Canons are physical collections of works, and as

physical collections of works they are inevitably limited and exclusive. This is the case even

for traditions that preserve an open, inclusive conception of formal canonicity. In any given

time or place, even an inclusive canon is bound by its own physicality and, as a result,

necessarily exclusive. Thus the idea that canonicity implies a kind of closed and exclusive

body of works need not be traced, as Stanley argues, to the presuppositions scholars bring to

the study of canon from its connotations in the Judeo-Christian traditions. Limitation and

exclusivity is actually a function of any canon's physicality or its location in a given place, at

a given time, and within a given institutional setting. This consideration becomes clear when

one adopts the formal canon not as a locus for the 'idea' of canonical authority, but as a

physical set of reference works for its derivative canons.

The authority that a formal canon grants is also not implicit. It is quite explicit, and a

formal canon's ability to lend authority to any number of practical canons rests on its explicit

expression as they appear in the works that constitute any practical canon. The development

of a practical canon is largely contingent upon the ability to directly invoke the words that are

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physically written-down in the actual, physical volumes of the formal canon.549 This

authority is, in theory if not always in practice, able to be verified by subsequent generations

of readers through their ability to have direct, physical contact with the formal canon. This is

how the authority of a formal canon is inscribed, and re-inscribed, within new, practical

contexts.550 It is thus possible to say that the notion of canonicity carries a certain degree of

fluidity in Buddhist traditions that can be demonstrated from the perspective of diachronic

analysis, but to argue that Buddhists have held a fundamentally open notion of canon at all

discrete points in time seems to neglect some of the material and institutional realities behind

the historical processes at work in the formulation of both Buddhist formal and practical

canons. Another way of putting this is to say that canonicity in Buddhist traditions exhibits a

certain degree of fluidity, inclusivity, and openness when analyzed diachronically, while a

synchronic analysis of the same phenomenon reveals a more closed and classically formal

conception of canon.

In order to return a bit of materialist formality to the notion of the formal canon in

Buddhist traditions, I argue that such collections are fluid and open in some sense,

particularly when undergoing the actual process of canon-formation, yet unavoidably

exclusive and closed once this process has come to completion. Although some degree of

fluidity and openness may remain even after the construction of a formal canon in Buddhist

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traditions, there is good reason to leave room for Buddhist conceptions of a closed, exclusive

formal canonicity. There is a sense of inclusivity in Buddhist constructions of formal

canonicity when they are analyzed over time, but when analyzed at any given point along

that same temporal continuum one will undoubtedly find evidence to support a sense of an

exclusive, closed canon of Buddhist works. There is thus a certain degree of fluidity and

openness that is evident in the construction of the practical canons one encounters across the

various spatial and temporal landscapes of Buddhism. To some extent this greater fluidity is

a function of the fact that while the practical canon remains in use by a given community, it

may itself be undergoing a process of formal canonization. During this period in their

development practical canons remain fluid in order to perform their primary function—to

facilitate the construction of orthodoxy in service of orthopraxy, or to the practical

application of those works considered authoritative and representative of a given sect or

tradition's construction of its own Buddhist identity.

The material evidence of formal canonicity can be located among those collections of

Buddhist scriptures and treatises that fall within a number of organizational schema551 and

are presented as a comprehensive collection of received textual tradition within a specific

textual community. The material evidence for practical canonicity can be located in the

curricula developed by individual textual communities that seek to inscribe and re-inscribe

canonical authority within the community's own orthodoxy through direct appeals to the

formal canon. In the process these textual communities bring their own practical canons into

increasingly greater focus. Thus in order to make a case for the practicality of any given

collection of works, one must find data to support its actual use as curriculum. Simply

























































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locating citations of texts is not a sufficient proof of their practicality. In order to show that it

actually has had some form of practical application, the particular text in which a work or set

of works is cited must itself have some kind of demonstrable didactic, curricular application.

When a work or set of works is cited in a text that has a demonstrably curricular function,

this constitutes a 'practical' use of that source, and thus the work cited might correctly be

characterized as part of a practical canon. In this way, the works that we find cited in

curricular texts provide a means by which scholars of Buddhist traditions might reverse-

engineer the practical canon of a specific Buddhist textual community.

This kind of inference is unfortunately the only means of exploring the practical

application of The Seven Siddhi Texts in Indic sources. Tibetan sources, however, are another

matter. In the latter, there is clear evidence of the actual compilation and publication of two

practical canons that understand The Seven Siddhi Texts and their ancillary works to

constitute small Indian mahāmudrā canon, and these published practical canons can be

shown to have informed polemical writing in the Kagyü lineages in the generation

immediately following their publication. The formulation of these practical canons and their

implementation in Kagyü polemical and curricular works is taken up in chapters eleven and

twelve. Before moving on to the Tibetan context, the balance of the current chapter presents

data from one work that provides a potential Indic example of the implementation of The

Seven Siddhi Texts as part of a known practical of mahāmudrā works.

III. Reading the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha as a Mahāmudrā Work

There is strong evidence to suggest that The Seven Siddhi Texts formed part of an early core

set of works that became integrated into two practical canons of Indian mahāmudrā works in

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Tibet. The evidence for their employment as a practical canon in Indic sources is less

obvious. The works contained in The Seven Siddhi Texts are quoted in Indic sources, but I

have yet to find any explicit example of a reference to the corpus as a known set of

mahāmudrā works in any Indic source. The title *Saptasiddhisaṁgraha, one potential back-

translation of the Tibetan Drup pa Dédün, does not appear in any Indic source of which I am

aware. In contrast, a search on the Buddhist Digital Resource Center's database for the

Tibetan title for the corpus (Grub pa sde bdun) conducted during my research in the spring of

2016 turned up at least sixty references to the corpus sourced from thirty-one different

authors across forty-seven different texts spanning from the eleventh to the twentieth

century.552 Among these references, direct evidence that The Seven Siddhi Texts had a

practical, curricular application may be located in at least one Tibetan source that refers to

the corpus as belonging to the literary genre of supplemental works (zur 'debs).553

There is however one Indic source, the anonymously authored Compendium of

Eloquent Statements (Subhāṣitasaṁgraha), rendered in diplomatic edition more than a

century ago by Cecil Bendall, that may contain evidence of the employment of The Seven

Siddhi Texts in a didactic work intended as a kind of curriculum that is specifically oriented

toward a comprehensive introduction to the doctrine of mahāmudrā. The Subhāṣitasaṁgraha

is relatively well known owing to Bendall's edition, which was published at a remarkably

early period in the development of the field of Buddhist Studies. Bendall's edition has more

recently become rather infamous as a clear example of scholarly bias against the study of

























































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tantric Buddhism in the field. Borrowing from an overly doctrinally driven narrative of the

decline of Buddhism in India that scapegoated the Buddhist tantras, Bendall's edition

preserves a now entirely outdated view of this literature as a wholly corrupt form of

Buddhism. Bendall makes little effort to conceal his own sense of disgust with the subject

matter of the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha in the following passage from his introduction to the

edition:

Though a considerable portion of the contents of the present book will be

distasteful and even sometimes repulsive to modern readers, its publication
seems necessary and at the present time specially appropriate for the due
understanding of the history of Buddhism in India.554

Later, in the introduction to the 'second half' of his edition, Bendall includes the following

comments in a footnote on the phrase "Tantrik teachings:"

I have printed text, and even, where extant, also commentary on this
extraordinary phase of soi-distant Buddhism, thinking it well that scholars at
least should know the worst. To me it all reads like an obscene caricature of
the teachings both of earlier Buddhism and of the legitimate Yoga. We are
not, I take it, in a position to solve the doubt very properly suggested by M
Barth (Bulletin, III Bouddhisme [1900], p.9), as to whether such teachings
were officially received. One would be only too glad to discover a
contemporary denunciation of them. In any case, it seems to me, they have
their historical importance in suggesting how Buddhism came to be
discredited in India, and finally disappeared.555

The highly problematic nature of the scholarly milieu in which Bendall found it entirely

reasonable to characterize tantric Buddhist literature as 'soi-distant Buddhism' and the

persistence of this kind of narrative is covered extensively in Wedemeyer's work, and need

not be rehearsed again here.556 Needless to say, this particular take on the narrative of

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Buddhism's decline in India is largely to blame for the relative paucity of scholarship on

Buddhist tantric material until the second half of the twentieth century.557

Bendall's statements on 'Tantrik' teachings above are made at the introduction to the

'second part' of his edition of the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha. The purpose for his arbitrary division

of the text is clear in the subtitle to his edition, which refers to the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha as "An

Anthology of Extracts from Buddhist Works Compiled by an Unknown Author, to Illustrate

Doctrines of Scholastic and Mystic (Tāntrik) Buddhism."558 Bendall superimposes an entirely

arbitrary scholastic/mystic dichotomy onto this text that seems in some sense to be concerned

with reinforcing the difference between the largely exoteric material referenced in the 'first

half' of his edition and the primarily esoteric material referenced in its 'second half.' When

Bendall's arbitrary division is done away with, however, it becomes clear that the entire point

of the work may in fact be to ground the later esoteric material in the text in its exoteric

counterparts. In addition, as I will show, it appears that this is done in service of an

explication of the doctrine of mahāmudrā. Bendall's apparent self-loathing and disgust for

the subject matter of his own chosen topic of study in the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha is symptomatic

of a broader pattern of neglect in the first century of Buddhist Studies of a vast amount of

tantric literature composed over at least half a millennium of Buddhist history. It is also very

likely to blame for the fact that the actual structure and content of the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha

has, as far as I am aware, not received the attention that it deserves to date.559

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 My engagement with the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha thus far has led me to believe that the

topic central concern of this work is in fact a presentation of the doctrine of mahāmudrā

according to sūtric, tantric, and śāstric sources. When we eliminate Bendall's arbitrary two-

part division of the text, it becomes apparent that mahāmudrā constitutes a consistent topic of

discussion throughout the work. The anonymous author of the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha introduces

the topic of mahāmudrā after a lengthy opening section of quotations from a variety of

works, among them some of The Seven Siddhi Texts, that address the importance of the guru.

This presentation, conducted through citations of both scripture and treatises, evolves out of

the author's own opening homage to the deity Hevajra, signaling that the entire work is in

fact in conversation with the initiation cults of the yogatantra and yoginītantra despite the

fact that it also contains a large amount of material quoted from the exoteric sūtra and śāstra

literature. The author introduces the topic of mahāmudrā following these opening passages

on the importance of the guru, and provides a direct connection to the Prajñāpāramitā

literature and Asaṅga's Yogācārabhūmi that suggests this literature constitutes an appropriate

avenue through which a beginner might be introduced to the doctrine of mahāmudrā:

Thus [the importance of the guru has not been discussed] at length.560 ||

And in [The Aṣṭasahasrikaprājñāpāramitā] it says:

Bringing about the benefit of others is considered

The preeminent result561 of the Buddhas. |
But other in addition [terms such as] buddhahood, etc.,
It is also proper that [the perfection of wisdom] is called the result. ||

That [verse] and this entire [text] also [states] that the supreme result is
brought about by meditation on the non-dual union of mahāmudrā. |

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 Just as it is mentioned in the Āryaprajñāpāramitā, | Śrāvakabhūmi too
[it indicates that] one who is interested in studying this [i.e. a beginner or
śikṣitukāmaḥ] should study the Prajñāpāramitā since this yoga can be found
right here in the Prajñāpāramitā. | Likewise [this yoga can be found] in the
Pratyekabuddhabhūmi and it is also [discussed] at length in the
Bodhisattvabhūmi. |
The Bhagavati Prajñāpāramitā bears the unrivaled name mahāmudrā.
Due to being the nature of non-dual gnosis, she possesses the Bhagavān who
is the nature of the dharmakāya and the true nature of the vajra of bodhicitta, |
which [is what it means when the text] says | "Prajñāpāramitā is non-dual
gnosis. She is a tathāgat[ā]." ||562

The passage then transitions to discussing the issue of why it is the case that there is a

division of various vehicles (yāna) that bear the same result. The argument that the perfection

of insight (prajñāpāramitā) is the equivalent of mahāmudrā, and that the non-dual union of

mahāmudrā (mahāmudrādvayayoga) can be found in the Śrāvaka-, Pratyeka-, and

Bodhisattvabhūmis is meant to justify the author's argument that a beginner can gain some

understanding of mahāmudrā through studying the exoteric textual tradition. This, in turn,

justifies the author's own decision to draw upon the eloquent statements (subhāṣita) from a

broad range of exoteric works and place then in dialogue with the esoteric doctrine of

mahāmudrā.

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 The author tells us that mahāmudrā is the primary topic of the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha

again in his comments to a set of excerpts from the ninth chapter of Śāntideva's

Bodhicāryāvatāra, notably another exoteric text:

The definitive meaning [of emptiness] is different than that (taditarā), but it is
said that interpretable meaning is an effective means of introducing [someone]
to emptiness. Thus the Bhagavān taught a meditation instruction in mental
proliferations in order introduce meditation on the non-dual union of
mahāmudrā without mental proliferations.563

The material quoted here indicates that the author of the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha considered it

entirely appropriate to introduce beginners to the ultimate realization of the mahāmudrā-

siddhi, a term describing a characteristically tantric formulation of the highest soteriological

realization, via the instructions contained in exoteric literature. Here the author draws a

parallel between the argument for introducing a beginner to the doctrine of emptiness via its

interpretable meaning (neyārtha) so that they may gradually realize its definitive meaning

(nītārtha) and the fact that the 'lower,' more conceptually-based meditation practices provide

a means for eventually realizing the non-dual union of mahāmudrā. This statement and the

passages that follow it bear some fascinating resonances with those traditions established

among the Kagyü lineages in Tibet that argue for the possibility of teaching mahāmudrā

outside of a tantric context. The debate around this topic would ignite in the thirteenth

century between the Kagyü and Sakya sects, and is one of the polemical contexts in which

both sides evoke material from The Seven Siddhi Texts. Since the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha is a

verifiably Indic work that was never actually translated into Tibetan, possibly originating in

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Bengal,564 this reading indicates an Indic correlate to the non-tantric mahāmudrā instruction

supported among various factions of the Kagyü.

As enticing as these passages might be for making a case for an Indic precedent for

the Kagyü 'sūtra-mahāmudrā' traditions, my point in highlighting these passages is not to

identify the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha as a potential Indic 'sūtra-mahāmudrā' work but to highlight

that mahāmudrā constitutes the primary topic of the entirety of the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha. But

in order to argue that the works cited in the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha constitute an Indic

mahāmudrā practical canon, we must make a case for the curricular nature of the text. To

identify it as such is to pinpoint the text's practical application, and thus make the case that

the variety of works from which it draws constituted a kind of practical canon. The two

excerpts noted above have already given some indication of the curricular orientation of the

text, and both of these passages demonstrate the text's intention to relate a broad range of

exoteric and esoteric works to the doctrine of mahāmudrā. One of these examples even

mentions the beginner (śikṣitukāma, lit. 'one who is eager to learn') as the intended subject for

the author's statements on the ability to use exoteric material as a first introduction to the

non-dual union of mahāmudrā. The fact that both passages are in the author's own voice is

also worth noting. Instances in which the author speaks in his own voice are relatively rare in

the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha, and the fact that there are two substantial passages here that both

show the author directing the reader to the topic of mahāmudrā is further indication of its

importance to the text's broader purpose.

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 The strongest piece of evidence that the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha is a didactic work, and

that the works from which it draws thus constitute a practical canon for a mahāmudrā

curriculum, appears in the text's colophon. Here the author writes:

They say that "Systematically attending to all objects/topics (viṣaya) brings

about the mahāmudrā-siddhi," thus one shall come to understand [ultimate
reality that is taught] through the guru's verbal instruction by using a
compendium of eloquent statements. This concludes the
Subhāṣitasaṁgraha.565

True to its commitment to a distinctly Vajrayāna orthopraxy, the colophon to the

Subhāṣitasaṁgraha holds the guru's instruction (guruvaktra) as the critical factor in a

disciple's attainment of awakening. However, the fact that this instruction is also said to be

accompanied by "the aide of a compendium of eloquent sayings"

(subhāṣitasaṃgrahadvāreṇa), a reference both the title of the work and its literary genre,

tells us about the specifically curricular purpose of the text as a supplement the instructions

one receives from one's own guru. To identify the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha as a fundamentally

curricular work implies that the works it cites might be now be identified as part of a

practical canon. This might even suggest a broader argument that the way in which the term

subhāṣita is employed in this text to indicate a distinctly pedagogical genre of literature that

can offer a window into the dynamics of practical canon formation.566 Here, rather than a

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collection of stand-alone verses, the term subhāṣita describes references that are drawn from

specific textual sources. This results in a collection of eloquent statements

(subhāṣitasaṁgraha) that is essentially a reference work similar to the medieval European

reference genre of the florilegium, which were essentially compendia of important citations

of other works designed to compensate for the scarcity of textual resources.567 Unfortunately

in this case we know far too little about the origin of this work, and even less about its

author, to have any sense of the particular institution and textual community that developed

and implemented the mahāmudrā curriculum outlined in the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha.

IV. The Seven Siddhi Texts in the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha

The fact that all seven works contained in the Tibetan canonical grouping of The Seven

Siddhi Texts are quoted in the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha, often at great length, suggests that these

works were part of the practical canon in use among the particular textual community for

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whom this 'compendium of eloquent statements' would have been implemented as a

curriculum. The table in figure 10 provides a list of all instances in which works from The

Seven Siddhi Texts are quoted in the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha. The chart also includes instances in

which some of the ancillary works that end up being incorporated into the Tibetan practical

canons of Indian mahāmudrā works are referenced, such as Keralipa's Śrītattvasiddhi, and all

of the passages quoted from Kuddālapāda's Acintyādvayakramopadeśa.568

Title of Work Cited and Author Verse(s) Cited (pg # in Bendall's edition)

Guhyasiddhi of Padmavajra v.3.1, 8.35cd–36, 8.37ced–38ab,last verse

unidentified [Uses the title
Guṇavratanirdeśaḥ569 for GS Chapter 8]
(44–45); v.6.45cd–49ab (60–61); 6.13,
6.33–35 (48)
Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi of v.2.5a–28, 2.34(5–8);1.16–18, 1.25–26 (32
quoted from Padmavajra's Advayavivaraṇa-
Anaṅgavajra prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi); 4.5–8, 5.42,
4.12, 5.11, 5.30, 5.32–33; 5.38–41, 5.45,
5.48 (41–44)
Jñānasiddhi of Indrabhūti v.1.24 (9); 1.47 (45)
Advayasiddhi (Mahalakṣmīsādhana) of v.30, 33 (8–9); 4, 10–11, 15, [lacuna in
Lakṣmīṅkarā edition], 17–18 (40–41);
Vyaktabhāvānugatatattvasiddhi of Yoginī [misattributed to Saraha?] Ch 1 [Sarnath
Cintā edition p 171], 4.7, 5.8 + extensive
commentary (46–47); 8.9, 8.17 + one verse
not attested in Sarnath edition (48)570
Sahajasiddhi of Ḍombīheruka v.1.13 (45)
Śrīguhyamahāguhyatattvopadeśa of Tib. v.19–20 (48)
Dārikapāda (Skt. fragment. Text only
survives in Tibetan)
Śritattvasiddhi of Keralipa (Skt. fragment. Tib. v.1.23d–24c (49)
Text only survives in Tibetan)

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 Acintyādvayakramopadeśa of 1st verse unidentified, v.33cd–34ab, 42cd–
Kuddālapāda 43ab, 53cd–54ab, 56cd–57ab, 59cd, 60cd?,
(One of the Snying po skor drug) 65, 88cd–90ab (lineage verse), 97cd–99ab,
114cd (51–52);
Figure 10: Passages in the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha quoting The Seven Siddhi Texts

Another 'siddhi' text that is not included in any Tibetan list simply because it has not yet been

translated into Tibetan, Padmavajra's Advayavivaraṇaprajñopāyasiddhi, is quoted

extensively in the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha as well. This work is included in the Sarnath edition of

the Guhyādi-aṣṭasiddhisaṁgraha along with the six of The Seven Siddhi Texts for which

there are extant Sanskrit witnesses.

In many instances, the author of the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha rearranges material from The

Seven Siddhi Texts by rendering verses that occur in different sections of a particular work as

a single concatenated passage. These and other deviations from its source texts range from

instances in which the author skips over a few verses within the same chapter to instances in

which material from different chapters is presented as if it were arranged in sequence in the

original text. This is likely not a result of the author relying upon fragmented copies of The

Seven Siddhi Texts or versions of these texts that attest to alternate arrangements of material,

because the same phenomenon can be observed in the author's inclusion of well-known

exoteric works such as Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā.571 The fact that the author does

this with such a well-known exoteric work has a number of possible implications for the way

that this particular textual community approached the relationship between the formal canon

and its own practical canon. It might imply that the anticipated audience was aware of the

original, formal canonical versions of these works and simply did not see anything wrong

with rearranging material from its source texts. It also could imply that the intended audience

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prioritized the authority of its own practical canon to such an extent as to not even consider

verifying references to canonical material in its own curriculum. Finally the author may have

done this because they were aware that the audience for the text would not have access to the

formal canonical versions of the text, and would thus not even have the ability to verify any

citations in their original contexts. Other options are of course possible, but these few

considerations provide sufficient grounds to argue that the way in which the author of the

Subhāṣitasaṁgraha treats the texts source material for the text indicates a general tendency

toward re-packaging sources to best suit the work's own curricular agenda. The text thus

grants greater priority to the practical application of these sources for a particular community

of readers than to preserving the structure and content of these sources as they appear in their

formal canonical versions. The author's purpose in quoting canonical material is less to

impart an entirely accurate and uncorrupted reading of the source texts onto the reader than

to find a practical application of the source texts, re-arranging their content if necessary,

toward conveying a particular point. It appears that the reader of a work like the

Subhāṣitasaṁgraha would have encountered its source texts through the author's own

interpretive framework, and in such scenarios it is entirely possible that the fragmented and

re-arranged presentation of a source text may in fact become the primary form in which the

reader accesses the source text's content.572 This is the point at which we can see a textual

community's practical canon, as a function of its curriculum, takes precedent over its broader

formal canon.

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 After recognizing the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha as a curricular text, it becomes possible to

reverse-engineer the practical canon that its author and related textual community relied

upon. The Subhāṣitasaṁgraha is a curricular work, its practical application is as a

supplementary work to the guru's instructions, and it is oriented toward explaining the nature

of mahāmudrā in both exoteric and esoteric terms. This opens up the possibility that the

textual community that produced the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha knew of the works contained

among The Seven Siddhi Texts as mahāmudrā works. Still, the conclusions presented here on

the employment of The Seven Siddhi Texts as part of a practical canon for the

Subhāṣitasaṁgraha must remain somewhat speculative in the absence of a few factors that

would be necessary to truly determine the nature of the textual community it may have

served. The lack of information on the author's name and institutional affiliation limits our

ability to locate the text in a specific time and place. As for the author's use of all seven of

The Seven Siddhi Texts, the absence of any specific reference to these works as a known

corpus also means that we should exercise caution in speculating the extent to which the

author conceived of these texts as a comprehensive corpus, though the fact that all seven are

quoted here is an enticing indication that this may have been the case. The same issue is

observed with respect to Nāgārjuna's Pañcakrama. The Subhāṣitasaṁgraha quotes four out

of five of the works commonly associated with Nāgārjuna's Pañcakrama, the

Sarvaśuddhiviśuddhikrama of Śākyamitra,573 Nāgārjuna's Svādhiṣṭānakrama,

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Abhisaṁbodhikrama, and Yuganaddhakrama, yet it addresses these works by their individual

names and not by the title used to describe them as part of a comprehensive corpus of five

works.574 It is possible in this case that the author of the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha was entirely

unaware of the fact that these four works belonged to a known corpus of five 'krama' texts.

However, it would be irresponsible to completely rule out the possibility that the author was

familiar with the Pañcakrama as a corpus, despite the fact that they are not referred to as

part of a unified corpus of works in the text itself. In the same way while there is no

irrefutable evidence that the author of the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha was aware of The Seven Siddhi

Texts as a known corpus, it would be irresponsible to completely rule out this possibility

given the fact that the author is clearly familiar with all seven works and draws upon some of

them extensively. When the philological data discussed in section II of this chapter above

regarding the evidence for a known set of seven 'siddhi' texts in the surviving Sanskrit

sources is taken into account, it seems even more plausible that the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha

contains evidence of an Indic author who was aware of The Seven Siddhi Texts as part of a

known corpus.

V. Conclusion

This chapter has argued that at least one Sanskrit work, the anonymously authored

Subhāṣitasaṁgraha, provides evidence of the employment of The Seven Siddhi Texts as part

of a broader practical canon that supported a mahāmudrā curriculum. However, without any













































































































































































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further information on the author of the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha it is currently not possible to

determine the particular institution for which this work may have served as part of a broader

curriculum. Also, because each of The Seven Siddhi Texts are referenced using their

individual titles instead of the title granted to the corpus itself, it is not possible to state with

complete certainty that The Seven Siddhi Texts were known as a unified corpus to the author

of the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha. However, there is enough evidence in this work alone to suggest

that their identification as a known mahāmudrā corpus in the Sanskrit Vajrayāna literary

tradition cannot be entirely ruled out either.

The data from the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha allow us to speculate that The Seven Siddhi

Texts were part of mahāmudrā practical canon, but they cannot support any claim to their

widespread or acknowledgement throughout South Asia as a known corpus of Indian

mahāmudrā works. Practical canons and the curricula they generate are localized, institution

or lineage-specific phenomena, and one cannot always expect to find evidence for their

application on a broader, trans-local scale. Still, the recognition that The Seven Siddhi Texts

were part of the mahāmudrā practical canon employed in the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha provides

some support for Tibetan claims that The Seven Siddhi Texts were part a known corpus of

Indian mahāmudrā works before they were translated into Tibetan in the eleventh century.

With these points in mind, the next chapter of this dissertation turns to an analysis of Tibetan

sources on the emergence of The Seven Siddhi Texts as a practical canon of Indian

mahāmudrā works from a period covering their original translation into Tibetan up to the

year 1478, when Gö Lotsawa completed The Blue Annals.

urz
 Chapter 11:

The Transmission of The Seven Siddhi Texts

I. Introduction: The Indian Mahāmudrā Canon Takes Shape

The data that support recognition of The Seven Siddhi Texts as a corpus of related texts that is

part of a practical canon of Indian mahāmudrā works are far less ambiguous in Tibetan

materials. It is in fact possible to say that the Tibetan tradition, and particularly the lineages

of the Kagyü, is primarily responsible for the fact that these works are remembered as a

practical canon of mahāmudrā instructions. This is not to say that the Tibetan tradition is

entirely responsible for organizing these works in a single corpus and identifying them as

mahāmudrā treatises. The data presented in chapters nine and ten have shown that the

formulation of The Seven Siddhi Texts as a mahāmudrā practical canon in South Asia does

have some supporting evidence outside of Tibetan sources, and surely some room must be

left for this possibility. Still, it is undeniably in Tibet where these texts enter fully into

Vajrayāna Buddhist literature as a corpus.

The early Tibetan data on the formulation of the Indian mahāmudrā canon has

already been discussed by Roger Jackson, who locates the earliest evidence for the

association of at least four corpora of Indian works in translation with the doctrine of

mahāmudrā in the writings of Butön.575 Jackson also notes that a sixteenth-century source,

Pema Karpo's ('Brug chen padma dkar po 1527–1592) The Victor's Mahāmudrā Treasury

(Phyag chen rgyal ba'i gan mdzod), points to Chökyi Tsangpa (Chos kyi gtsang pa rgya ras

pa 1161–1211) as the first to include The Seven Siddhi Texts in his threefold rubric of

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mahāmudrā corpora.576 By the early sixteenth century The Seven Siddhi Texts came to be

prominently featured in at least two Tibetan practical canons, the Seventh Karmapa Chödrak

Gyatso (Chos grags rgya mtsho, 1454–1506) three volume Indian Mahāmudrā Works (Phyag

rgya chen po'i rgya gzhung)577 and The Great Treasury of Drikung Kagyü Teachings ('Bri

gung bka' brgyud chos mdzod chen mo)578 believed to have been initially compiled by the

Drikung patriarch Künga Rinchen (Kun dga' rin chen, 1475–1527).579

There exists an additional Tibetan practical canon of mahāmudrā works with the title

Indian Mahāmudrā Works (Phyag chen rgya gzhung) that survives in a single manuscript

from the monastic seat of the Drikung Kagyü at Drikung Thil. This collection consists of a

single volume of roughly 819 folios in hand-written headless (dbu med) script. Its contents

are, as noted in the publisher's comments in the volume's opening pages, a record of the

mahāmudrā tradition of the Marpa Kagyü, and a quick look at the table of contents provided

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by the publisher reveals that the volume is primarily concerned with texts that represent the

transmission of special instructions from the mahāsiddha Tilopa through Nāropa, and on to

Marpa and his immediate disciples. This collection thus appears to be concerned with the

mahāmudrā instructions associated with the standard professed line of transmission for the

Kagyü, and not the kind of broad textual heritage that is reflected in the Seventh Karmapa

and Künga Rinchen's collections.580 The Seven Siddhi Texts constitute the better part of the

first volume in both of the latter collections, where they are augmented by a number of

ancillary materials and additional works that also have the term 'siddhi' in the title. The

combination of material data from the multiple-text manuscripts examined in chapter nine,

the supporting data from chapter ten on the Subhāṣitasaṁgraha as a mahāmudrā work that

references all of The Seven Siddhi Texts some of the works from The Sixfold Corpus on the

Essence, and the historical data from the Tibetan colophons to these works as well as

accounts of their transmission in The Blue Annals examined in this chapter indicate that The

Seven Siddhi Texts may have undergone three phases in the course of their incorporation into

these Kagyü practical canons. The first phase likely occurred in India and then Nepal under

the direction of Maitrīpa and his direct disciples, the second phase occurred in the initial

transmission of these works to Tibet, and the third and final phase is marked by their

incorporation into the Seventh Karmapa and Künga Rinchen's mahāmudrā practical canons

in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.

Data from Sanskrit sources on The Seven Siddhi Texts' first phase of formulation into

a unified corpus has already been presented in chapters nine and ten. Further data on this

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early stage in the corpus' development can be found in The Great Treasury of Drikung Kagyü

Teachings as well as in the Tibetan translation of Lakṣmīṅkarā's Sahajasiddhipaddhati (Lhan

cig skyes grub kyi gzhung 'grel).581 The latter work is undoubtedly related to the historical

material appended to The Seven Siddhi Texts in The Great Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü

Teachings. It is also a work that is incorporated into both of the primary Kagyü mahāmudrā

practical canons produced in the sixteenth century. The gradual development of a Tibetan

historical narrative around The Seven Siddhi Texts and the mahāmudrā lineage from Oḍiyāna

is best understood as part of a broader project eventually came to support the Kagyü

institutional florescence of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, when it played an

important part in the development of a practical canon and curriculum that would inform the

works of some of the most influential Kagyü authors whose literary careers immediately

followed the publication of these volumes. This topic is explored at length in chapter twelve.

The table in figure 11 provides an overview of various organizational schema for The

Seven Siddhi Texts from a range of Tibetan sources and authors. The first grouping on the

chart is derived from what is referred to here as the standard canonical grouping of The Seven

Siddhi Texts, or the contents of the corpus as it appears in the various formal canonical

formulations of the Tenjyur. The second grouping reflects the corpus' contents in the two

primary practical canons in which it is included, the Seventh Karmapa's Indian Mahāmudrā

Works and The Great Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü Teachings. These compilations

augment the standard list from the Tenjyur with additional 'siddhi' texts and, in the case of

The Great Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü Teachings, exegetical and historical data on each

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individual work. The final grouping of texts included in The Seven Siddhi Texts is taken from

a number of Tibetan authors who list the contents of the corpus in their own various works.

Lists in
Canonical
Practical Lists from Individual Authors
Lists
Canons
A B C D E F G H I J K L
Guhyasiddhi
(Padmavajra/
Saroruhavajra/ X X X X X X X X X X X X
Mahāsukhanātha)
Jñānasiddhi
(Indrabhūti) X X X X X X X X X X X X
Prajñopāyaviniścaya-
siddhi X X X X X X X X X X X X
(Anaṅgavajra)
Advayasiddhi
(Lakṣmīṅkarā) X X X X X X X X X X X X
Gsang ba chen po de
kho na nyid kyi
man ngag X X X X X X X X X X X
(Dārikapāda)
Sahajasiddhi (Ḍombī
Heruka) X X X X X X X X X X X X
Vyaktabhāvānugata-
tattvasiddhi
(Yoginī Cintā/Cinto/ X X X X X X X X X X X582
Vilāsavajra)

Lhan cig skyes pa'i

grub pa (Indrabhūti) X X X X

Lhan cig skyes pa'i

grub pa gzhung 'grel X X X X
(Lakṣmīṅkarā)

Dpal de kho na nyid

grub pa (Keralipa) X X

Thabs dang shes rab

rnam par gtan la dbab
pa'i grub pa bsdus pa X X
(Ācārya Camari)

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 Dpal 'khor lo sdom
pa'i snying po de kho
na nyid grub pa X
(Ācārya Jalandra)
'Chi med grub pa
(Virwapa) X
Bdag byin gyis brlabs
pa grub pa (Saraha) X
Figure 11: Tibetan canonical and extra canonical lists of The Seven Siddhi Texts
Chart Key:
A. Snar thang/Pe cing/Gser 'bris ma Tenjyur (Rgyud 'grel; mi)
B. Sde dge/Co ne Tenjyur (Rgyud; wi)
C. Phyag rgya chen po'i rgya gzhung (7th Karmapa Chödrak Gyatso ed.)
D. 'Bri gung bka' brgyud chos mdzod chen mo (*Künga Rinchen ed.)583
E. Gö Lotsawa, The Blue Annals584
F. Gorampa, Sdom pa gsum gyi rab tu dbye ba'i rnam bshad rgyal ba'i gsung rab kyi dgongs pa bsal ba585
G. Dönyö Drup pa, (Dge slong don yod grub pa, 15th century) Sdom pa gsum gyi rab tu dbye ba'i TI ka bstan
pa'i sgron me las so thar sdom pa'i rnam bshad586
H. Künga Rinchen, Gsan yig byin rlabs rgya mtsho'i dpal 'bar587
I. Pema Karpo, Phyag rgya chen po'i man ngag gi bshad sbyar rgyal ba'i gan mdzod588
J. Panchen Chökyi Gyeltsen (Blo gsang pan chen chos kyi rgyal mtshan, 1570–1662) Dge ldan bka' brgyud rin
po che'i bka' srol phyag rgya chen po'i rtsa ba rgyas par bshad pa yang gsal sgron me589
K. Könchok Tenpé Drönmé (Dkon mchog bstan pa'i sgron me, 1762–1823) Phyag chen khrid kyi zin bris zhal
lung bdud rtsi'i tshigs phreng590
L. Karma Tashi Chöpel's (Karma bkra shis chos dpal, 19 th century) Phyag chen rgya gzhung glegs bam gsum
pa'i dkar chag yi ge'i 'byung gnas su ji ltar bkod pa'i dkar chag bzhugs byang mdor bsdus la shog grangs 591

These lists of The Seven Siddhi Texts exhibit varying degrees of divergence in both the order

in which texts appear and the particular texts that they include. The most widely divergent

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list comes from the Sakya polemicist Dönyö Drup pa (Dge slong don yod grub pa, 15th

century), whose substitution of Virwapa's Attainment of the Deathless State ('Chi med grub

pa) for either Dārikapāda's Instructions on Ultimate Reality (De kho na nyid kyi man ngag)

or Yoginī Cintā's Vyaktabhāvānugatatattvasiddhi indicates this author's decision to

manipulate the contents of the corpus to reflect a particular sectarian allegiance, in this case

including the siddha author who is the source of the Sakya lamdré (lam 'bras) tradition in the

list of The Seven Siddhi Texts. The list in fact comes from this author's mahāmudrā polemical

work, A Commentary on Distinguishing the Three Vows: A Lamp for the Teachings (Sdom pa

gsum gyi rab tu dbye ba'i TI ka bstan pa'i sgron me), discussed in greater detail in chapter

twelve.

The lists of The Seven Siddhi Texts in the Tibetan Tenjyur are uniform, where they

appear alongside works belonging to The Sixfold Corpus on the Essence (excluding

Āryadeva's Cittaviśuddhaprakaraṇa)592 and The Corpus of Teachings on Mental Non-

Engagement. This suggests that these three corpora's collective status as a mahāmudrā

practical canon was important enough to have a measurable impact on Butön's organization

of the formal canon of the Tenjyur. For example, it was considered more important to keep

Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi in its proper order in relation to The Seven Siddhi Texts than to

group it together with other works by the same author or place it in close proximity to other

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commentaries on the Guhyasamāja textual tradition for which it is such an important

supplementary work. This carries some implications for the relationship between a practical

and formal canon. First, it indicates that practical canons can provide ready-made

organizational structures for the construction or expansion of a tradition's formal canon.

Second, the preservation of these micro-canons within the Tenjyur runs counter to the

assumption that a formal canon necessarily precedes a practical canon's formulation or

supersedes it as an ultimate locus of interpretive authority.593 The grouping of The Seven

Siddhi Texts in the Tenjyur together with the other two known corpora of Indian mahāmudrā

works might suggest an alternate model in which the formal canon is in part derivative or a

conglomerate of a number of practical canons.

The Seven Siddhi Texts and its two related corpora of the early Indian mahāmudrā

canon were thus a known set of works prior to their incorporation within the larger structure

of the Tibetan formal canon. This is not to say, however, that The Seven Siddhi Texts and the

other early mahāmudrā corpora did not also eventually come to enjoy a strong degree of

derivative authority from the formal canon itself. At a certain point in Tibetan history,

capitalizing on the derivative authority these works held as authentically Indian sources that

are widely recognized as worthy of inclusion in the formal canon was undoubtedly what

made their employment in Sakya and Kagyü mahāmudrā polemical and curricular writing so

appealing. Had they only retained their status as part of an institution-specific, sect-specific,

localized practical canon, they would likely not have been able to be employed in polemical

literature with nearly as great affect.

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II. Two Early References to the Corpus of The Seven Siddhi Texts

Some of the earliest data on The Seven Siddhi Texts come from the patriarchs of the two

schools of Tibetan Buddhism (the Sakya and the Kagyü) that would eventually generate a

volley of mahāmudrā polemical literature through the seventeenth century and that has

shaped the curriculum of both schools to this day. Tibetan textual witnesses from the two

figures at the root of the Sakya-Kagyü mahāmudrā polemical debates, Gampopa and Sakya

Paṇḍita, testify to the presence of a corpus by the name of The Seven Siddhi Texts in the

twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The earliest reference appears in The Dialogues with Düsum

Khyenpa (Dus gsum mkhyen pa'i zhus lan) in Gampopa's Collected Works (Gsung 'bum/

Bsod nams rin chen). Here the recorded dialogue between Gampopa and his disciple Düsum

Khyenpa (Dus gsum mkhyen pa, 1110–1193), recognized retroactively as the first in the

Karmapa incarnation lineage, contains the following reference to the corpus:

As for the method for determining the view, [guru Mila] said [the practices of]
nāḍī, vāyu, and cakra are said to be the most important. He said it was
necessary for one to teach [the view] from all of the dharma teachings based
on [one's own] meditative experience. When it is perceived based on internal
meditative experiences, no tenet system can capture it. It is not captured at all
by the position that is the self-luminous mind of the mind-only school, the
absence of arising of the middle-way, or the emptiness of the mantra [system].
But when it is verbally expressed according to an external perspective [by
someone who has directly experienced it], it does not contradict The Seven
Siddhi Texts that were spoken by the siddhas and the tantras that were spoken
by Vajradhara.594

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Here Gampopa tells his disciple Düsum Khyenpa that the tantric subtle-body yogas that work

with the channels, winds, and cakras of the body are essential for obtaining a direct

experience of the proper view of ultimate reality, and that one must have this direct

experiential realization. This, we are told, is the only way that one can teach the view without

contradicting works such as The Seven Siddhi Texts and the tantras themselves, all of which

propound a doctrine of internal, direct, experiential realization while upholding a rhetoric of

ineffability with respect to ultimate reality.595 As will be made clear in the translator

colophons and references to the corpus from The Blue Annals analyzed below, The Seven

Siddhi Texts were translated and appear to have been disseminated rather rapidly in Tibet in

the eleventh century. The Dialogues of Düsum Khyenpa remains the earliest Tibetan textual

reference to The Seven Siddhi Texts as a known corpus of which I am currently aware. The

fact that this is the case should not be taken lightly given that it is among the various lineages

of the Kagyü descending from Gampopa that The Seven Siddhi Texts would be officially

integrated into the practical canon of Indian mahāmudrā works and, as a result, come to

constitute a prominent feature in Kagyü mahāmudrā curricula.

The second early reference to The Seven Siddhi Texts as a unified corpus appears in

Sakya paṇdita's famous work, A Treatise that Clarifies the Sage's Intent (Thub pa'i dgongs

pa rab tu bsal ba'i bstan bcos). This reference is worth noting because it provides an explicit

indication that The Seven Siddhi Texts were also part of early Sakya curriculum and may

have been part of the broader Sakya practical canon in the thirteenth century:

The secret mantra, however, requires that one study The Three Commentaries
of the Bodhisattva, The Seven Siddhi Texts composed by the mahāsiddhas,
and the treatises that were composed by the Ācārya and Lord of Yoga
Virwapa, King Indrabhūti, and Vajraghaṇṭapa etc., all of which are of

























































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 authentic origin. In brief, the Buddha taught, the compilers compiled, the
siddhas meditated, the paṇḍitas explain, the lotsāwas translate, [and all of
them] must be called the wise ones. One must study, explain, meditate, and
attain siddhi by means of what was taught by the Buddha. If there is a single
dharma that contradicts these, no matter how profound it may seem, since it is
not the Buddha's teaching it is not fit to be studied, explained, meditated upon,
and accomplished. There are also skillful imitations among the tīrthikas and
others [who practice a] false dharma. Because these are not the Buddha's
teaching, one should throw them away. 596

This passage provides a clear indication that Sakya Paṇḍita understood The Seven Siddhi

Texts as part of the practical canon that was used to support the Sakya curriculum for

studying and practicing the Vajrayāna. Like the previous passage from Gampopa's Dialogues

with Düsum Khyenpa, however, it does not provide any indication that Sakya Paṇḍita

considered The Seven Siddhi Texts to be one corpus among a known Indian mahāmudrā

practical canon.

III. The Transmission of The Seven Siddhi Texts in The Blue Annals

Although its historical data must be taken in light of its author's own sectarian affiliations and

biases, there is still a great deal of value to the accounts of The Seven Siddhi Text's

transmission to Tibet and its dissemination among various Tibetan figures in Gö Lotsawa's

The Blue Annals. A close reading of these references supports a potential Nepali origin for

their status as a known corpus that was included among short canon of Indian mahāmudrā

works. The core narrative of the transmission of these works revolves around an account of

























































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Maitrīpa's disciple Vajrapāṇi teaching The Seven Siddhi Texts along with its two ancillary

mahāmudrā corpora and a number of other works to a figure referred to as Drok José ('Brog

jo sras). This account is referred to here as the primary narrative of the transmission of The

Seven Siddhi Texts as a known mahāmudrā corpus. The remaining references to the

transmission of The Seven Siddhi Texts in The Blue Annals have largely gone unnoticed

owing to the widespread mistranslation of the compounds Drupnying Kor (Grub snying

skor), Drupnying Gikor (Grub snying gi skor), or simply Drubnying (Grub snying). As noted

in chapter ten, these compounds most often describe a grouping of two corpora: The Seven

Siddhi Texts (Grub pa sde bdun) and The Sixfold Corpus on the Essence (Snying po skor

drug). This identification makes it possible to locate a number of additional accounts of

Tibetans receiving the transmission of The Seven Siddhi Texts outside of the primary

narrative of Vajrapāṇi's mahāmudrā transmission that have previously gone unnoticed. It

also means that some of the scholarship on the transmission and reception of Saraha's dohā in

Tibet should be corrected to reflect the fact that instances in The Blue Annals that record the

transmission of the Drupnying Kor are not speaking exclusively about the dohā but refer

instead to an early set of at least two corpora that some considered to be the earliest exempla

of mahāmudrā literature to be composed in India. In light of this discovery, the reader should

know that my own presentation of the data on the transmission of The Seven Siddhi Texts

from The Blue Annals assumes that this text's references to the Drubnying Kor and variants

of this compound includes the corpus of The Seven Siddhi Texts. I do this in full recognition

that these passages do not record data solely regarding the transmission of The Seven Siddhi

Texts, but the transmission of a larger pair of corpora of which The Seven Siddhi Texts were

one component. The references analyzed here are also limited to the transmission of these

utr
works in the eleventh century, and exclude at least one reference to their later transmission

within the Kagyü.597

The first reference to the transmission of The Seven Siddhi Texts in The Blue Annals

occurs quite early in the text and briefly mentions the primary narrative of Vajrapāṇi teaching

"the precepts of the Grub snying... to twenty-one great scholars and others in Upper Gtsang"

following the death of Drokmi Lotsawa ('Brog mi lo tsā ba, 992/93–1043/72).598 This is a

clear reference to the primary narrative of the transmission of The Seven Siddhi Texts that is

described at greater length later in The Blue Annals. However, despite privileging this

particular narrative, The Blue Annals indicates some awareness of the fact that it was not the

first transmission of The Seven Siddhi Texts. The fact that this was the case is also borne out

in the translator colophon data for the Tibetan translations of The Seven Siddhi Texts.

Vajrapāṇi is not mentioned as having collaborated with any of the translators who produced

the canonical translations of The Seven Siddhi Texts preserved in the Tenjyur and the Pelpung

xylographs of the Seventh Karmapa's Indian Mahāmudrā Works. The compiled list from

these sources of Indian Paṇḍitas and Tibetan translators for these works is as follows:

Guhyasiddhi—Kṛṣṇapaṇḍita and Naktso Lotsawa (Nag 'tsho lo tsā ba 1011–1064)599

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 Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi—Śāntibhadra and Gö Lhétsé ('Gos lhas brtsas c. 11th
century)600
Jñānasiddhi—Śraddhakaravarma and Rinchen Zangpo (Rin chen bzang po 958–
1055); later edited by Nagtso Lotsawa601
Advayasiddhi—Śradhakaravarma and Rinchen Zangpo602
Vyaktabhāvānugatatattvasiddhi—Śāntibhadra and Gö Lhétsé603
Sahajasiddhi—Tibetan translator colophon not available604

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 Tattvopadeśa—Śāntibhadra and Gö Lhétsé605

If Vajrapāṇi was solely responsible for transmitting these works to Tibet, he is conspicuously

absent from these translator colophons. The exact dates for Gö Lhétsé are currently

unknown, but according to some sources on the dates for Drokmi Lotsawa, every other

Tibetan translator that appears in the translator colophon material for The Seven Siddhi Texts

appears to predate Vajrapāṇi's visit to Tibet. As Gö Lotsawa notes, Vajrapāṇi came to teach

in Tibet following Drokmi Lotsawa's death and, as we learn in the expanded description of

this event in the primary narrative of this transmission below, he was invited to perform

Drokmi's funeral rites as well as provide teachings on mahāmudrā. The later dates for

Drokmi place his death in 1072, which would mean Vajrapāṇi's visit occurred after most if

not all of The Seven Siddhi Texts had been translated into Tibetan.606 The fact that Vajrapāṇi

features prominently as one of the translators for The Corpus of Teachings on Mental Non-

Engagement combined with the fact that this corpus is considered part of the received

mahāmudrā lineage from Vajrapāṇi's guru Maitrīpa/Advayavajra and his other core disciples,

The Seven Siddhi Texts were likely translated into Tibetan prior to Vajrapāṇi's arrival and

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may have taken on their association with the newly collected works of Maitrīpa/Advayavajra

in Tibet and his core students at a later date. This might explain why the compound

Drupnying appears to only refer to two of the three corpora, The Seven Siddhi Texts and The

Sixfold Corpus on the Essence. It also gives us reason to believe that the arrangement of

these two corpora as the Drupnying is the oldest configuration of the early Indian

mahāmudrā canon. Gö Lotsawa, at least, appears to present the works of Maitrīpa and his

students contained in The Corpus of Teachings on Mental Non-Engagement to have been a

later addition to this original set of two.

The next reference to The Seven Siddhi Texts in The Blue Annals refers to the corpus

using the contracted title Drupnying and occurs in Gö Lotsawa's account of an early member

of the Khön clan by the name of Chögyel Khönphuwa (Chos rgyal 'Khon phu ba 1069–

1144).607 The Blue Annals records Khönphuwa as the brother of Machik Zhama (Ma gcig zha

ma 1062–1149) and a disciple and attendant of Machik Zhama's consort, the eleventh-

century Tibetan translator Ra Lotsawa (Rma lo tsā ba dge ba'i blo gros, c. 1044–1089). The

account of Khönphuwa's life notes that he studied "the exposition of the Grub snying" under

Marpa Sengdzi (Mar pa seng rdzi, dates unknown) in the region of Latö prior to making his

way to Nepal to study with two figures referred to only as Yerangwa (Ye rang ba, dates

unknown) and Phamtingpa (Pham thing pa, dates unknown).608 As Davidson notes in his

study of Marpa Lotsawa's (Mar pa lo tsa wa chos kyi blo gros, 1002/12–1097/1100) trips to

India and Nepal, the various Nepali teachers known under the name Phamtingpa were likely

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active at the vihāra complex in modern Pharping adjacent to the famous Yangleshö cave,

where they continued to propagate the teachings of Nāropa after their guru's passing.609

It is possible that the names Yerangwa and Phamtingpa do not indicate the names of

individual gurus and only give us a general sense of where Khönphuwa studied while in

Nepal. This interpretation would indicate two geographical areas, Yerang, which Turrell

Wylie has identified with the city of Pāṭan or Lalitpur on the southern side of the Kathmandu

valley,610 and Pharping, a small village in the hills outside of Pāṭan that remains a hotbed of

Vajrayāna and Śākta tantric traditions to this day. If the chronology of Gö Lotsawa's account

is accurate it would appear that Khönphuwa's introduction to the Drupnying in Tibet

preceded his trip to Nepal to study among the Vajrayāna enclaves in Pāṭan and the more

remote vihāras of Pharping. Seeing that the primary narrative in The Blue Annals of The

Seven Siddhi Text's dissemination traces to Maitrīpa's disciple Vajrapāṇi, whom Gö Lotsawa

tells us settled in Yerang in roughly 1066 C.E. when he was fifty years old,611 it seems

reasonable to suggest that the account of Khönphuwa's tutelage under 'Yerangwa' and

'Phamtingpa' indicates his attempt to move closer to the perceived source of the Drupnying

instruction lineage, whether that be a specific institution or simply the city of Pāṭan and the

centers for studying the Vajrayāna in Pharping. This allows us to speculate that Pāṭan and

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Pharping were the specific locations of the Vajrayāna institutions for which the Drupnying

constituted part of a mahāmudrā practical canon in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, where

they were part of the mahāmudrā curriculum of Nāropa and Maitrīpa's disciples. Shortly

after this account of Khönphuwa's life, Gö Lotsawa offers further evidence of the Drupnying

as an active part of the curriculum in Latö in his account of the life of another figure

associated with Ra Lotsawa's lineage, Möntön Jungné Shérap (Mon ston byung gnas shes rab

1075–1160), noting that Möntön studied "the exposition of logic, the Grub snying..., the

Vārahī, the Dohā ... and other Cycles" while in Latö.612 This provides some indication of a

corresponding Tibetan geographical location, Latö, where future research might reveal the

specific institution where the Drupnying constituted an active part of the curriculum during

the same period.

The most detailed accounts of the transmission of The Seven Siddhi Texts occur as Gö

Lotsawa directs his attention at the history of mahāmudrā in the eleventh chapter of The Blue

Annals. The section begins with a brief synopsis that traces the mahāmudrā teachings from

Saraha to Śabara, and then from Śabara to Maitrīpa in a basic outline of the lineage that is

likely familiar to readers who are aware of the Tibetan and Sanskrit hagiographic sources on

the life of Maitrīpa.613 After outlining a number of historical schema for the mahāmudrā

transmission to Tibet, Gö Lotsawa provides an account of the mahāmudrā lineage of the

Drubnying, tracing it from Maitrīpa to Atiśa (980–1054), who then taught these works to

Dromtön ('Brom ston rgyal ba'i 'byung gnas 1004/1005–1064). Noted as the "early"

mahāmudrā transmission of the upper translation school (stod 'gyur), The Blue Annals

























































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indicates that this teaching lineage for The Seven Siddhi Texts may not have continued after

Dromtön. As Gö Lotsawa notes and other sources confirm,614 Dromtön did not teach these

works widely because he was disturbed by the potentially harmful influence that they might

have on Tibetans.615 He is reported to have become concerned with this literature after

reading verses from Saraha's dohā that rejected standard ritual practices such as offering

butter lamps and making offerings to deities. However, given the fact that the literature

referred to as the 'dohā' here is in actuality the two core mahāmudrā corpora of The Seven

Siddhi Texts and The Sixfold Corpus on the Essence, it is likely that the Tibetan historical

sources chose to present a rather benign reason for Dromtön's reservations about this

literature, perhaps because the more transgressive practices these works prescribe were

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deemed inappropriate for reproduction in historical writing.616 The passage notes that Atiśa

taught the Drupnying Kor while in Chimpu (Mchims pu), and mentions that at Gö Lotsawa's

time there still existed a Tibetan version of Indrabhūti's Jñānasiddhi that had been translated

by Dromtön, despite Dromtön's alleged reservations about teaching these texts.617

A reconsideration of Gö Lotsawa's account of The Seven Siddhi Texts' transmission

from Atiśa in light of the Tibetan translator colophon data for The Seven Siddhi Texts

indicates that the corpus may in fact have been passed on following this initial transmission.

Even if Dromtön did not widely disseminate them out of fear that they would exert a

corrupting influence on the Tibetan people, other disciples of Atiśa, notably all three of the

primary translators who worked on The Seven Siddhi Texts, Rinchen Zangpo, Naktso

Lotsawa, and Gö Lhétsé, could have continued Atiśa's early transmission of these works. The

fact that these translators' work, and not the work of some later figure, resulted in the

canonical versions of The Seven Siddhi Texts preserved in the Tenjyur suggests that this may

have been the case. Thus despite Dromtön's alleged reservations about The Seven Siddhi

Texts and The Sixfold Corpus on the Essence, it appears that his decision not to teach this

material did not prevent these works from entering into the circulation of newly available

esoteric Buddhist literature in the early gsar ma period.

Gö Lotsawa's next two biographical accounts in his "History of Mahāmudrā" both

contain elements indicating that the two Indian figures they discuss, Vairocanarakṣita (c.

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11th–12th century?) and Karopa (c. 11th–12th century?), may also have studied The Seven

Siddhi Texts, but the references are in this case a bit too vague to determine this for certain.

The account of Vairocanarakṣita mentions a period in which he studied "the a ma na si class,

the dohā and other texts, the cycle of mahāmudrā, the system of Maitrīpa, the precepts of

Hevajra, and the precepts of rasāyana" while studying under a yogin named Surapāla in the

vicinity of Nālandā for eight years.618 The account of Karopa's life story emphasizes that he

was one of Maitrīpa's disciples, but contains no direct reference to the textual corpora he may

have studied with his guru.

Further mention of The Seven Siddhi Texts does appear, however, in the curious story

of the life of the Tibetan master Korchungwa (Dam pa skor chung ba c. 11th–12th century?),

named here as one of Karopa's disciples. The narrative of Korchungwa's life story appears to

be largely concerned with supplying a narrative account of the way in which consecrations

and tantric rites were performed in Nepal and India during the eleventh century. The

accuracy of Gö Lotsawa's account is of course up for debate, but its implications are

intriguing enough to pause and consider here. The story provides an account of

Korchungwa's struggle to find a guru and his gradual progression over a number of years

through the series of higher tantric consecrations.619 Because Korchungwa's life story focuses

on a sequential account of the consecrations he received, it provides some indication of the

point in a Vajrayāna yogin's career at which he might study and feel confident in practicing

the instructions from The Seven Siddhi Texts. The corpus is mentioned here after

Korchungwa has received the third and fourth empowerments, where Gö Lotsawa writes:

























































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 After that he studied the entire Drupnying cycle, and felt proud at his ability to
understand it. Afterwards he was sent into the presence of one who had
practiced secret Tantric rites in the suburb of an Indian town, and he
proceeded there.620

The text then tells us that Korchungwa proceeds to a small chapel where he meets a monk

returning from his alms round. At night, the monk removes a painting hanging on the wall

revealing a small door. He opens the door and a number of mudrās or tantric consorts emerge

dressed in full costume for the performance of a maṇḍala rite, which the monk proceeds to

perform along with the mudrās. In the morning the mudrās return to their secret chamber, the

door is covered with a painting, and the monk tells Korchungwa, "We Indians practice the

secret Tantric rites in this manner."621 The fact that Korchungwa is said to have studied and

actually been able to fully understand the Drupnying after receiving the guhyābhiṣeka, taking

a consort, and then receiving both the third and fourth consecrations provides some

indication of the point at which Gö Lotsawa, and perhaps other Tibetan scholars like him,

considered it efficacious and appropriate to actually put some of the instructions taught in

The Seven Siddhi Texts into practice. The story of Korchungwa's tutelage with a tantric

Buddhist monk on the outskirts of an Indian town in which the maṇḍala rite includes a

costumed performance with a number of consorts whom he keeps hidden from public view

accords with at least one mode of 'clandestine practice' or guhyacaryā that is recorded in

Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi. It is also reminiscent of one interpretation of the advanced tantric

ascetic mode of the practice in which one secretly gives everything up (kun 'dar gsang ste

spyod pa, *avadhūtiguhyacaryā) in the writing of the Sakya scholar Gorampa Sönam

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Sengé,622 a contemporary of Gö Lotsawa, that remains one current understanding of

performing advanced tantric practice among the Sakya.623 This mode of advanced yogic

ritual may also bear some relation to the Newari practice of caryānṛtya that also remains a

living tradition to this day.624 These tantalizing parallels aside, it is at least clear that the story

of Korchungwa in The Blue Annals locates the point at which a disciple might study The

Seven Siddhi Text at the moment following the disciple's final advancement through all of the

higher consecrations and immediately before proceeding to engage in the post-initiatory

stages of advanced tantric ascetic practices.625 Korchungwa's life story then proceeds to take

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a bizarre turn when it merges with the story of the Indian siddha Nirūpa via the yogic

mechanics of taking over another's body (parakāyapraveśa).626

The primary narrative of the transmission of The Seven Siddhi Texts in The Blue

Annals627 attributes the tradition of this corpus' identification with the doctrine of

mahāmudrā to the India teacher Maitrīpa by way of his disciple Vajrapāṇi. The transmission

from Vajrapāṇi is recorded as having occurred in two phases, the first while he was residing

in Pāṭan (Ye rang) in Nepal and the second during a visit to Tibet. This account is the most

well known record of the transmission of The Seven Siddhi Texts because it mentions The

Seven Siddhi Texts and The Sixfold Corpus on the Essence by name and provides a full list of

the works that they contain. This account is the source for the list of The Seven Siddhi Texts

recorded from Gö Lotsawa above in the chart in figure 11. The passage also lends greater

support to my argument that the compound Drupnying should be identified with The Seven

Siddhi Texts and The Sixfold Corpus on the Essence, but the specific mention of these titles

was perhaps too far removed from the passage's preceding mention of the Drupnying for

Roerich and others to make this the connection.

Both phases in this second or "intermediate" transmission of the upper translation

school from Maitrīpa's disciple Vajrapāṇi involve a figure by the name of Drok José, who

until now has not yet been properly identified. It is suggested here that Drok José is likely a

reference to "the son of" (sras) Drokmi Lotsawa, though I must admit that I am not aware of

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any other reference to Drokmi having had a son who carried on his activities following his

death. This figure may potentially be identified with Drok José Dorjé Bar ('Brog 'jo sras rdo

rje 'bar, dates unknown) who is listed among those who received teachings from Vajrapāṇi

on The Seven Siddhi Texts during his visit to Tibet. It is also possible that the name Drok José

is an honorific for any disciple of Drokmi. But the fact that Gö Lotsawa extends the trope of

Drokmi Lotsawa as the quintessential 'greedy lama' to Drok José in The Blue Annals' account

of the second mahāmudrā transmission from Vajrapāṇi provides some evidence that the

name is in fact related to Drokmi Lotsawa, whether it be read as either a reference to one or

more of Drokmi's disciples, to Drokmi's actual son, or perhaps both.628 This is also

corroborated by the fact that the second phase of Vajrapāṇi's transmission of The Seven

Siddhi Texts occurred in tandem with his performance of the funeral rights for the father of

Drok José, which coincides with Gö Lotsawa's account of Vajrapāṇi visiting Tibet following

the death of Drokmi already mentioned above.629

At least one source discussed again in chapter twelve of this dissertation for the

important role it played in shaping the Sakya-Kagyü mahāmudrā polemical debates and

curricula, Gorampa's Clarifying the Intent of the Victor's Teachings: A Complete

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Commentary on Distinguishing the Three Vows (Sdom gsum gyi rab tu dbyed pa'i rnam

bshad rgyal ba'i gsung rab kyi dgongs pa gsal ba), offers evidence of the transmission that

Khön Könchok Gyelpo ('Khon dkon mchog rgyal po 1034–1102) received of The Seven

Siddhi Texts.630 Here Khön Könchok Gyelpo is said to have studied The Seven Siddhi Texts

under Mel Lotsawa (Mal lo tsā ba blo gros grags pa, 11th century), who is also noted as one

of Sachen Künga Nyingpo's (Sa chen kun dga' snying po's 1092–1158) teachers. The account

of this transmission is embedded within the broader narrative of the Khön clan's

abandonment of many of the tantric teachings they received during the early dissemination of

Buddhism in Tibet in favor of the teachings of the new translations (gsar 'gyur). The passage

as it appears in Gorampa's work is provided here in full:

At that time, during a great festival in the land of the Dro clan, some of
the mantrins [emerged] from inside, where many various types of
performances take place, wearing masks of the twenty-eight iśvarīs. They held
the symbolic implements in each hand. They had adopted the wrathful
expression of the mamo with their matted hair. [The people] there were very
entertained by the performance of the masked dance and it won over the
crowd.
Khön Könchog Gyelpo saw them, and asked his older brother what
just happened. [The elder brother replied] "Now the secret mantra is going to
be thrown into chaos. There will be no siddhas. I shall hide all of our texts,
sacred images, and tantric implements as a treasure. I am old, but since you
are young, in Mankhar there is a certain Drokmi Lotsāwa who is learned in
the profound new translation school of secret mantra. You should study with
him. [I] shall conceal all of the old scriptures as treasures." Then he took on
the magical display of a dharma protector and threw out a summary and
description of the deity Kīla, the two sections on the torma ritual and the
fifteenth rosewood Kīla [works], and the sun and moon Mārīcī tormas that
were fashioned based the actual form that Mārīcī herself revealed to Khön
Rog Sherab Tsultrim ('khon rog shes rab tshul khrims, b. 11th century). He
destroyed the ceremonial tormas [offered] by [his] ancestors. Then Khön
Könchog Gyalpo [went] to the Yarlung charnel ground where there was a
disciple of Drokmi's called Khyin Lotsawa ('Khyin lo tsA ba, b. 10th/11th
century). He received The Two-Part [Hevajratantra] and then, when [Khyin
Lotsawa] was about to die, in his dying words he said [to Khön Könchok

























































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 Gyelpo] "Now you must spread the dharma, so make a request to Drokmi
Lotsāwa in Mankhar."
After that [Khön Könchog Gyelpo] went to Mankhar. During his
tutelage under Drokmi he received the three tantras and the later corpus on
the path. Having understood those well, he thought about requesting the ritual
procedure of that [system] and the special instructions. He sold all that he had
been able to fit in the field of Jagshong in Yarlung. After offering what was
left over to the saṅgha members that he met along the way, he arrived
carrying with him a load that equaled seventeen horses in value and offered it
to the guru. He requested the [lamdré] oral instructions (gsung ngag) but
[Drokmi] did not give them [to him]. [Instead,] he gave him all of the textual
cycles in their entirety [and] he gave him various special instructions such as
the Acintya (bsam mi khyab) and The Twenty-four fold Visualization of the
Mantra Mothers (ngag du ma mo'i dmigs pa nyi shu rtsa bzhi), etc.
In addition [to his tutelage under Drokmi], he studied the Samāja and
other works under Gö Khukpa, he studied the fivefold corpus of Tilaka and
other works under the Oḍiyāna Paṇḍita *Prajñāguhya (ū rgyan paṇḍi ta shes
rab gsang ba, b. 10th/11th century), [and] he studied the Saṁvara root tantra
and corpora of [The Seven] Siddhi [Texts] and [The Sixfold Corpus on] the
Essence (grub snying gi skor rnams) under Mel Lotsawa. He also received
many dharma teachings from Bari Lotsawa (Ba ri lo tsā ba, 1040–1112),
Lama Kyichuwa (Bla ma skyi chu ba, b. 11th century), Puhrang Lotsawa (Pu
hrangs lo tsā ba, b. 11th century), the brother/disciple of Namkhupa (gnam
kh'u pa sku mched, dates unknown), and Kyurakyap (skyur a skyabs), etc., and
he became a lord of the dharma.631

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The passage mentions Drokmi's famous refusal to give Khön Könchok Gyelpo the complete

oral instructions of the lamdré (gsung ngag) and serves as a further example of the literary

caricature of Drokmi as the quintessential 'greedy lama' collecting exorbitant payments from

his would-be disciples while refusing to ever impart the entirety of his teachings upon any

one individual.632 It then goes on to list various instructions that Khön Könchok Gyelpo

received from a number of other figures, listing the Drupnying Kor among the works that he

studied under Mel Lotsawa. It is unfortunately not possible to determine if this means that

Drokmi himself was in possession of his own instruction lineage for The Seven Siddhi Texts,

but the evidence of his son/disciples requesting these instructions from Vajrapāṇi indicates

that this was likely not the case.

IV. Conclusion

This chapter adds some further data on the South Asian origins of The Seven Siddhi Texts as

a known corpus to the philological analysis of Sanskrit multiple-text manuscript sources of

these works in chapter nine. The textual references and historical accounts on the

transmission of this corpus presented here are thus meant to address the question of whether

or not these seven works were conceived of as a comprehensive set of mahāmudrā texts prior

to the eleventh through thirteenth centuries, when they were translated and disseminated in

Tibet. The notion of practical canonicity and Buddhist textual communities outlined in

chapter ten of this study has provided the theoretical reference point for the analysis of these

data. The idea of the practical canon provides a conceptual framework that might allow us to

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uux
judge the degree to which these works were considered part of a cohesive corpus prior to

their earliest recognition as part of a larger group of corpora associated with mahāmudrā

appears in the works of Butön.

This chapter has presented materials for identifying The Seven Siddhi Texts as a

practical canon in the formative decades of the Dakpo Kagyü by locating at least one

reference to the corpus in the recorded teachings of Gampopa. This effectively pushes the

dates for the recognition of these works as a corpus back to the eleventh to twelfth centuries.

These dates coincide with the period covered in the historical accounts provided in The Blue

Annals, so it may be assumed that Gö Lotsawa's accounts of The Seven Siddhi Texts as a

known corpus in the early period of their transmission to Tibet are likely reliable. Another

early reference has been located in Sakya Paṇḍita's A Treatise that Clarifies the Sage's Intent

that contains an explicit prescription for studying The Seven Siddhi Texts in order to

understand the mantra system. This provides clear evidence that this corpus was part of the

Sakya Vajrayāna curriculum by the early thirteenth century. Both of these early references,

however, do not contain an explicit indication that the corpus was identified as part of a

broader mahāmudrā practical canon.

The evidence on the history and transmission of The Seven Siddhi Texts from The

Blue Annals has been greatly expanded beyond the primary narrative of these works'

transmission by recognizing that the compound Drubnying Kor is in fact a shortened title

describing the two corpora of the early Indian mahāmudrā canon, The Seven Siddhi Texts and

The Sixfold Corpus on the Essence. It has been suggested both here and in chapter ten of this

study that this compound be expanded to read Grub pa sde bdun dang Snying po skor drug gi

skor, or 'The Corpora of The Seven Siddhi Texts and The Sixfold Corpus on the Essence.'

uuy
This finding has allowed me to generate a far more robust data set on The Seven Siddhi Texts'

transmission to Tibet from The Blue Annals that provides potential geographical locations for

the institutions that taught and disseminated the corpus in eleventh and twelfth century India,

Nepal, and Tibet as well as some indication as to the stage at which a disciple might study

and put the instructions these works contain into practice.

Gorampa's account of the origins of the 'Khön clan at the opening of his famous

commentary to Sakya Paṇḍita's Distinguishing the Three Vows indicates that his intention

was not simply to produce a commentary to Sakya Paṇḍita's text, but to produce a work that

might satisfy the requirements of a more comprehensive curriculum. There is no doubt that

Gorampa achieved his goal with this work, which remains an active part of the curriculum

among the Sakya lineages to the current day.633 Part of the task in expanding a single corpus

or commentary into a more comprehensive curriculum is providing a full background on the

text (or texts) and its author. In this case Gorampa has provided an extensive account of the

early Khön lineage that culminates with the life of the Sakya Paṇḍita, effectively carving out

a space in which he might generate a sense of continuity between his own work, and the

broader Sakya lineage. The point of such and introduction is, as it is with so much Tibetan

historical writing, to generate a sense of faith and reverence in the audience toward the author

of the text and the lineage to which he or she belongs in order to facilitate a greater

appreciation for the work's content and a greater willingness and capacity to seriously engage

the subject matter at hand. By providing the historical background for a given text and its

























































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uuz
author the commentator allows the root text to enter into history and, in the process,

generates a sense of historical relevance around the commentary that might allow it to be

integrated into a more comprehensive curriculum. This means that, at least in Tibet,634

historiography played an integral role in the development and legitimization of institution-

specific practical canons, and the integration of historical data into a practical canon allowed

for a more robust curriculum. This process is also directly related to the formulation of a

strong sense of sectarian identity. In this case, because Sakya Paṇḍita's Distinguishing the

Three Vows played an instrumental role in the formulation of a distinct Sakya doctrinal

identity in the thirteenth century, Gorampa goes to great lengths to explain all of the various

good qualities that this author exemplified in his life, spending the first forty-three folios of

the work on the history of the Khön lineage and Sakya Paṇḍita's life story. Aside from its

ability to elicit a sense of devotion in a more advanced scholar, this is not content that one

would provide to an audience that was already familiar with the text and its author's lineage.

Its inclusion thus makes Gorampa's text a valuable teaching tool for readers at a variety of

levels of familiarization with the Sakya lineages. The Great Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü

Teachings engages in a similar strategy, far surpassing the goal of simply compiling

materials together as a practical canon of Indian mahāmudrā texts. This collection along with

the roughly contemporary project of the seventh Karmapa's Indian Mahāmudrā Works is

discussed at length next in chapter twelve, where it shall become clear that these projects and

the support they lent to the mahāmudrā polemical works composed by the first generation of

scholars with access to a newly organized mahāmudrā practical canon were directly involved

in the emergence of a strong Kagyü sectarian identity.

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uvq
 Chapter 12:

The Seven Siddhi Texts in Two Tibetan Mahāmudrā Practical Canons

and Their Role in Sakya-Kagyü Mahāmudrā Polemical Literature

I. Introduction

The three primary Indian mahāmudrā corpora of The Seven Siddhi Texts, The Sixfold Corpus

on the Essence, and The Corpus of Teachings on Mental Non-Engagement occupy the first

volumes of both the Seventh Karmapa Chödrak Gyatso's Indian Mahāmudrā Works and the

sprawling one 151 volume Great Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü Teachings. Both of these

collections follow the standard convention of listing The Seven Siddhi Texts first in the series

of three corpora. This indicates that The Seven Siddhi Texts and its two companion corpora

carried a significant degree of authority among a large number of mahāmudrā works from a

range of equally authoritative mahāsiddha authors found in the subsequent volumes of these

collections. Their location within an already privileged practical canon of Indian mahāmudrā

works and the fact that they are consistently grouped together may offer evidence that they

were recognized as short mahāmudrā canon in India before being transmitted to Tibet.

Following the general rule among the Tibetan schools of the latter dissemination (phyi dar)

of the dharma in Tibet that for a text to be of authentic Indian origin is to carry superior

authority over any text that might be shown to have originated in Tibet or China, The Seven

Siddhi Texts, The Sixfold Corpus on the Essence, and The Corpus of Teachings on Mental

Non-Engagement may carry an elevated status within these practical canons of Indian

mahāmudrā works precisely because Tibetans considered their designation as corpora and

canon to be Indian in origin. As a result, the authority that both Sakya and Kagyü Tibetan

uvr
mahāmudrā polemicists from the thirteenth century forward evoke through referencing these

works by their collective title rests on the validity of historical claims that The Seven Siddhi

Text's designation as a mahāmudrā corpus is itself originated in India.

This chapter treats the Indian Mahāmudrā Works and The Great Treasury of the

Drikung Kagyü Teachings as a set of roughly contemporary mahāmudrā practical canons that

were constructed around this received practical canon of Indian mahāmudrā works. It begins

with a discussion of the historical context for the Seventh Karmapa's compilation of his

Indian Mahāmudrā Works. It then proceeds to explore the potential relationship between

both collections by establishing a connection between the Seventh Karmapa's efforts to

revitalize the Kagyü in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and his relationship with his

disciple Drikung Künga Rinchen, the sixteenth abbot of Drikung Thil who is believed to

have initiated the early stages of compiling The Great Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü

Teachings. Both collections are presented as practical canons designed to support a more

organized and systematic mahāmudrā curriculum that could be shared in common between

the various lineages of the Kagyü, and that could in turn revitalize these institutions in

response to the general state of disrepair into which many of them had fallen as the Geluk

school rose to power in the fifteenth century. The chapter concludes with a detailed analysis

of the role that The Seven Siddhi Texts came to play in Kagyü mahāmudrā polemical

literature in the generations immediately following the Seventh Karmapa's publication of his

Indian Mahāmudrā Works. This analysis reveals a clear trajectory that moves from the

compilation and propagation of the Kagyü mahāmudrā practical canon around the turn of the

sixteenth century to its eventual generation of a more systematic Kagyü mahāmudrā

curriculum that endures to the present day.

uvs
II. The Seventh Karmapa's Indian Mahāmudrā Works

Figure 12: The Seventh Karmapa Chödrak Gyatso. Tibet, 17th

century bronze. Photo courtesy of Tibet House, New Delhi.635

All of the known versions of the Seventh Karmapa Chödrak Gyatso's Indian Mahāmudrā

Works that are currently extant derive from a nineteenth century xylograph edition of the

collection published at the printing house of Pelpung monastery. The edition contains an

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uvt
extensive explanation of its contents (dkar chag) at the beginning of its third volume (hūṃ)

composed by the project's editor Karma Tashi that contains a basic framework for

understanding the Kagyü approach to mahāmudrā, an explanation of the Seventh Karmapa's

original compilation, the texts contained in each volume and their lineages, the work that

went into re-publishing the collection at Pelpung, and a lengthy concluding section that

discusses the specific value of taking on such a publication project.

Although extensive in scope, Tashi Chöpel's explanation of this collection's contents

contains a surprising dearth of information on the Seventh Karmapa's original publication of

his Indian Mahāmudrā Works. The first sub-topic of the second section of Tashi Chöpel's

text on "The One who Compiled [these volumes]" (gang gis sdud pa'i byed po) contains only

a brief hagiography of the Seventh Karmapa detailing some of the major events in his life.

The second section on his "Detailed Explanation" (bye brag tu smos pa) of the original

compilation of the collection, the texts it contains, their various lineages, and the extensive

efforts that went into publishing the Pelpung edition is clearly to provide the reader with a

sense of the historical context and continuity of the Indian Mahāmudrā Works. Tashi

Chöpel's efforts in this section seem to be philological in their method, though of course his

is a philology committed to a specific soteriological perspective on its subject matter. This

perspective also dictates Tashi Chöpel's discussion of the Seventh Karmapa as "The One who

Compiled [these Volumes]." He begins with an account of the previous lives of the

Karmapas that grounds the incarnation lineage in a primordial past by identifying it with the

deity Lokeśvara who "perfected the conduct of a bodhisattva many eons ago." The passage

then generates continuity between this primordial past and the Karmapa's emanations as a

number of bodhisattvas, as Padmasambhava (8th century) and his close disciple Gyelwa

uvu
Chöwang (Rgyal ba mchog dbyangs, 8th century), as a number of important Indian figures

such as Saraha, Nāgārjunagarbha, and Kāmalaśīla, and then finishes by listing a handful of

early Kadampa masters who are also considered previous emanations of the Karmapas.636

This narrative of the Karmapa's previous emanations then moves on the first Karmapa

Düsum Khyenpa through the sixth Karmapa Thongwa Dönden (Mthong ba don ldan, 1416–

1453) before proceeding to describe the exceptional qualities of the Seventh Karmapa.

Passages such as these are a necessary component to the Tibetan hagiographical

(rnam mthar) genre, and their inclusion here along with a number of other passages directed

at the Seventh Karmapa's miraculous qualities supports the overall philological motivation

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behind this section of Tashi Chöpel's summary of the contents of the Seventh Karmapa's

Indian Mahāmudrā Works by providing a sense of both legitimacy and awe to support his

account of the Karmapa's publishing and teaching career. Yet the section never actually

provides a clear statement on the events in Chödrak Gyatso's life that led him to compile and

publish his Indian Mahāmudrā Works. Tashi Chöpel's discussion of the Seventh Karmapa's

'superior qualities' does contain a description of the events that led to the composition of

Chödrak Gyatso's famous epistemological work The Ocean of The Textual Tradition of

Logic: A Treatise on Valid Cognition (Tshad ma'i bstan bcos rigs pa'i gzhung lugs kyi rgya

mtsho) as well as a brief section listing a number of his other works and commentaries

composed by his disciples. But the closest we get to an actual statement on the compilation

of the Indian Mahāmudrā Works appears in reference to the Seventh Karmapa's teachings on

the Drupnying and Saraha's dohā in the following passage:

He also appears to have fully preserved the explanations and practices on the
topic of the ancient oral instruction lineage (sngon dus bka' brgyud pa) such
as the [The Seven] Siddhi [Texts and Sixfold] Corpus on the Essence (grub
snying skor) and the exceptionally glorious great Brahmin Saraha's Threefold
Dohā Corpus. The commentary by Sherab Tharchin Pel Phuwa Lodrö Sengé
(Shes rab mthar phyin dpal phu ba blo gros seng ge, b. 12th century), who was
among the four sons that were accomplished disciples of Glorious
Phagmodrupa (Phag mo gru pa, 1110–1170), became the central focus of a
flawless stream of lectures that the victorious lord, the Great Seventh Chödrak
Gyatso gave numerous times later in his life. As a result, the entire unique
textual curriculum and continual stream of instructions in this practice lineage
such as the extensive commentary on the three dohā called The Mirror in
which One Sees the Mind's Natural Face composed by the all victorious one
Karma Trinlé (1456–1539), the third paṇḍita of Shar Dakpo and a great
scholar who was [his] disciple, was guaranteed to remain.637

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The passage provides some indication that Seventh Karmapa gave instructions on the

Drubnying in the latter part of his life, and even notes that the Seventh Karmapa's focus on

these materials during this period guaranteed that they would be preserved for future

generations. If ever there was a point in his narrative of the Seventh Karmapa's life where it

would be appropriate for Tashi Chöpel to say something about the compilation and

publication of the Indian Mahāmudrā Works, this would be it. Yet he remains silent on the

issue and provides no explicit details on when the original three-volume collection was

published. Instead, the account here appears to follow a familiar pattern in which a broad

scope of works, notably those contained here in the Drubnying Kor, are overlooked in favor

of emphasizing the Kagyü's preservation of a continual instruction lineage of Saraha's dohā.

Tashi Chöpel's uncertainty regarding the specifics surrounding the publication of the Indian

Mahāmudrā Works should not be interpreted in any way as evidence that the Seventh

Karmapa was not responsible for this project. It can, however, be taken as an indication that

the historical data on the publication of the Indian Mahāmudrā Works was, even for a scholar

such as Tashi Chöpel, relatively thin. In the absence of such data, Tashi Chöpel simply

concludes his discussion of the Seventh Karmapa's as 'the one who compiled' the Indian

Mahāmudrā Works with a general statement that the project was motivated by a desire to

preserve and provide easy access to the most important Indian mahāmudrā works for the

Kagyü.638

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 Situ Chökyi Jungné's (Si tu paṇ chen Chos kyi 'byung gnas's 1699/1700–1774)

biography of the Seventh Karmapa in his voluminous Moonstone Rosary: A Golden Rosary

of Kagyu Biographies (Bka' brgyud gser phreng rnam thar zla ba chu shel gyi phreng ba)

contains a single passage that records an account of Chödrak Gyatso giving the reading

transmission for his Indian Mahāmudrā Works. The passage follows an account of the events

that transpired during the mönlam festival in Lhasa in the year 1502. The account of the

mönlam in Situ Chökyi Jungné's Golden Rosary is likely sourced from the biography of the

Seventh Karmapa in Pawo Tsuklak Trengwa (Dpa' bo gtsug lag phreng ba's 1504–1564/66)

Feast for Scholars: A History of Buddhism (Chos 'byung mkhas pa'i dga' ston), which it

matches nearly verbatim. This was the period at which the Rinpungpa (rin spung pa) rulers

of Tsang were at the height of their power after finally taking over Lhasa and subduing their

rivals among the Phagmodru (phag mo gru) clan. Avid supporters of the Kagyü and Sakya

orders, the Rinpungpa conquest of Lhasa was accompanied by the suppression of the Geluk

school, which experienced its first period of rapid institutional expansion throughout Ü and

Tsang, and particularly around Lhasa, throughout the fifteenth century. During the period of

Rinpungpa control in Lhasa, the Geluk were banned from participating in the yearly mönlam

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uvy
festival and the Seventh Karmapa and the fourth Shamar Chödrak Yéshé (Zwa dmar chos

grags ye shes 1453–1524) were given the responsibility of carrying out the festivities. Situ

Chökyi Jungné's biography of the Seventh Karmapa departs from Pawo Tsuklak Trengwa's

Feast for Scholars in several instances, one of which includes the account of the Seventh

Karmapa's reading transmission of the Indian Mahāmudrā Works during his visit to the First

Karmapa Düsum Khyenpa's meditation cave near Zhüdru Zhigön (gzhu'i gru bzhi dgon) in

1502. The passage reads:

He went to Zhüdru Zhigön and paid his respects at venerable Dü[sum]

Khyen[pa's] meditation cave. He bestowed the consecration that provides a
detailed explanation on The Unique and Unsurpassed Vajra-garland of the
lineage from venerable Rangjung [Dorje], the One-hundred Sādhanas, The
Authorization of the Ocean [of Sādhanas], The Authorization of Bari
Lotsa[wa], and The Consecration the One Hundred Mitras, upon Situ Tashi
Drakpa Peljor (Si tu bkra shis grags pa dpal 'byor, 1498–1541), the tulkü
Tashi Döndrub Namgyel (Bkra shis don grub rnam rgyal, dates unknown),
Göshri Tradön (Go'i shri bkra shis rnam rgyal, 1490–1518 ?) and others. He
gave the reading transmission of the supreme path, the volumes of The Indian
Mahāmudrā Works that the victor [Chödrak Gyatso] himself had compiled
into a single collection, the reading transmission of the venerable Thongwa
Dönden's Collected Works, and numerous instructions such as the six dharmas
[of Nāropa] that are the profound completion stage to the many groups of
local and non-local saṅghas [who had gathered there].639

Situ Chökyi Jungné's mention of the Indian Mahāmudrā Works agrees with the nineteenth

century account from Tashi Chöpel that the Seventh Karmapa propagated this collection in

the latter part of his life, and, most importantly, that he was indeed responsible for compiling

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uvz
the collection of Indian Mahāmudrā Works. It is worth noting that the twentieth century

Tibetan historian Dungkar Lozang Trinlé (Dung dkar blo bzang 'phrin las, 1927–1997) also

lists the Indian Mahāmudrā Works among the list of works composed by the Seventh

Karmapa. Dungkar Lozang Trinlé lists five works other that are attributed to the Seventh

Karmapa, and counts his total textual output at around eight volumes.640

Situ Chökyi Jungné confirms that the Seventh Karmapa was responsible for

compiling the Indian Mahāmudrā Works, but like the other sources surveyed for this study,

his account of Chödrak Gyatso's remains relatively vague regarding the process that went

into the collection's compilation, the year that it was originally compiled, and the Seventh

Karmapa's motivation for taking on this project. The issue of the specific process that went

into compiling the Indian Mahāmudrā Works and the precise dates for its publication must,

unfortunately, remain unanswered for the time being. None of the sources surveyed for this

study have offered any answers to these questions, and given the fact that Tashi Chöpel

appears to have been unable to locate any answer to these questions for his account of the

contents of the Pelpung edition, it is likely the case that this information was not available

even to Tibetan scholars working in the pre-1959 era. It is possible, however, to propose a

probable motivation behind the Seventh Karmapa's compilation of his Indian Mahāmudrā

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Works by considering the broader historical context of the status of the Kagyü school in the

late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.

As Situ Chökyi Jungné's account notes, the Seventh Karmapa gave a reading

transmission of his Indian Mahāmudrā Works in 1502 after presiding over the annual

mönlam festival in Lhasa. The mönlam festival, celebrated to mark the lunar new year with a

number of religious festivities and the recitation of aspiration prayers (smon lam,

praṇidhāna), was inaugurated in 1409 by Tsongkhapa (Tsong kha pa blo bzang grags pa

1357–1419), the founder of the Geluk sect.641 Tsongkhapa founded the first Geluk

monastery, Ganden, that very same year about thirty-five miles up-river from Lhasa. A flurry

of monastery construction quickly followed, with a total of five major Geluk monastic

institutions being founded as the seats of Tsongkhapa's closest disciples. Four of the five

were located in Ü, with just one, Tashi Lhünpo (Bkra shis lhun po), located in the vicinity of

the fortress at Shigatse in Tsang. As Wylie notes, the four major Geluk monastic seats that

were established in Ü, three of which were built close to the capital Lhasa, were built with

the patronage of officials that had been appointed by the fifth Phagmodru ruler Gongma

Drakpa Gyeltsen (Gong ma grags pa rgyal mtshan, 1374–1432), who was an avid patron of

Tsongkapa and his disciples.642 These early Geluk institutions became the proving grounds

for Tsongkhapa's monastic and scholastic reform movement, which was in many ways an

open critique of the various institutions and lineages associated with the Kagyü and Nyingma

schools. As the early leaders of the Geluk's reform movement gained momentum, they not

only launched a number of critiques of their rivals among the Nyingma, Sakya, and Kagyü,

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the institutions that they founded with the support of their Phagmodru patrons began to

occupy some prime real estate throughout Ü and Tsang. In addition to the initial five

institutions founded on behalf of Tsongkhapa's closest disciples, DiValerio adds the tantric

colleges of Gyümé (Rgyud smad) and Gyütö (Rgyu stod), founded in 1433 and 1474, along

with thirteen new Geluk monasteries, three new Geluk nunneries, and at least ten institutions

that were converted to from other schools in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. In

total, DiValerio notes at least thirty-six Geluk institutions had been founded within a fifty-

mile radius of Lhasa by the early sixteenth century.643

By the end of the fifteenth century the leaders of the Karma Kagyü school and their

patrons among the Rinpungpa rulers of Tsang began to found a number of monasteries in and

around Lhasa in reaction to this institutional expansion. And, in the case of the monastery of

Yangpachen (yangs pa can) built by the Rinpungpa ruler Dönyö Dorjé (Don yod rdo rje,

1463/63–1512) and the Fourth Shamar Chödrak Yéshé (Zhwa dmar chos grags ye shes,

1453–1524) in 1490, in strategic locations from which they could control the major routes in

an out of Lhasa. Less than a decade after building Yangpachen, having secured both the

northern and southern routes between Lhasa and Shigatse by also capturing the major

fortification in Gyantse, the Rinpungpa ruler Dönyö Dorjé successfully took Lhasa in 1498

with the help of the fourth Shamar Rinpoche. Together, the Rinpungpa and Karma Kagyü

forces would control Lhasa for nearly two decades until 1517. During this period the Geluk

institutions of Séra (Se ra) and Drépung ('Bras spungs) were banned from participating in the

mönlam festival that their own school's founder had initiated.644

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 The Geluk school's rapid rise to power in the fifteenth century stands as a testament

both to the popularity of Tsongkhapa's reform movement and to the power that the new sect's

patrons among the Phagmodru wielded throughout central Tibet. It also presented a new

model for institutional hegemony that emerged through the formulation of a highly organized

curricula that, owing to its relatively recent and systematic formulation around Tsongkhapa's

unique take on Buddhist doctrine, was relatively homogenous in comparison to the Geluk's

major rivals among the Nyingma, Kagyü, and Sakya. DiValerio 's following observations on

this point are extremely useful:

The religious system formulated by Tsongkhapa was easily institutionalizable

and inherently institutionalizing. The Geluk was doctrinally more systematic
and streamlined than other sects operating in fifteenth-century Tibet. Whereas
the other sects had accreted disparate texts and interpretations over long
periods of time, the Geluk curriculum was formulated relatively quickly,
based on writings by Tsongkhapa and his direct disciples, and their
interpretations of classical Indian and Tibetan treatises. Because the Geluk
system prioritized formal study over meditation or spiritual charisma passed
on through familial or guru-initiate relationships, it was less dependent on the
charisma of a certain place or individual (living or dead) for its spiritual
vitality.645

DiValerio rightfully identifies the presence of an organized curriculum as a critical factor in

the rapid institutional expansion of the Geluk during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

And like the Geluk's institutional expansion, the power that such an organized curriculum

exercised in creating a homogenous sectarian identity most likely also did not go unnoticed

by the Geluk's rivals. Projects like the Seventh Karmapa's collection of Indian Mahāmudrā

Works might be considered the yogic reflex to the Geluk call to 'reform.' This collection

constitutes a direct appeal to the authoritative Indian treatises on mahāmudrā and an

inscription of these treatises in a specifically Kagyü sectarian identity. Such a compilation

also provided a curricular component to the institutional expansion that the Kagyü initiated

























































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around the turn of the sixteenth century during the brief period in which they had managed to

slow the rapid expansion of the Geluk sect.

DiValerio concludes his presentation of Kagyü-Geluk sectarian competition in the

fifteenth and sixteenth centuries by arguing that Tsangnyön Heruka's (Gtsang smyon he ru

ka, 1452–1507) promotion of the 'crazy' asceticism of the nyönpa (smyon pa) movement and

his efforts to publish and widely disseminate hagiographic works on the patriarchs of the

Kagyü was part of a broader process of generating a coherent Kagyü identity. This

reinvigorated, unified front among the Kagyü juxtaposed its vision of the 'mad yogin' against

the groundswell of Geluk institutional monasticism and, in turn, gained enough inter-

institutional cohesion among the independent orders of the Kagyü to push back against the

momentum that the Geluk had so quickly gained in the fifteenth century.646 Like Tsangnyön

Heruka, the Seventh Karmapa was at the center of the political and sectarian turbulence of

the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and his decision to publish a comprehensive

set of Indian Mahāmudrā Works must be viewed in this historical context. The Seventh

Karmapa's Indian Mahāmudrā Works thus represents an attempt at formulating a unified

sectarian identity among the various lineages of the Kagyü through promoting a 'reform' of

its own that entailed a return to the treatises of the Indian mahāsiddhas that played such an

integral role in the formulation of the Kagyü approach to its highest and most prestigious

meditation tradition of the 'Great Seal' or mahāmudrā.

Evidence of the Seventh Karmapa's efforts to revitalize and strengthen the Kagyü

lineages appears in the Situ Chökyi Jungné's biographical account of Chödrak Gyatso's visit

to Drikung Thil, the primary seat of Drikung Kagyü, some time in the last quarter of the

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fifteenth century.647 In general, the Seventh Karmapa's biography contains numerous

examples of his founding new meditation schools (sgrub sde). One of these examples, which

records his founding a meditation school at Déchen Khyungdar (bde chen khyung dar),

precedes the account of his invitation to Drikung Thil and tells us precisely why the Seventh

Karmapa was invited. Here Künga Rinchen's uncle Wang Rinchen Chögyel (Dbang rin chen

chos rgyal 1448–1504) is credited with inviting the Seventh Karmapa, and the latter's

acceptance of the invitation prompted Wang Rinpoche to make repairs to the main temple at

Drikung Thil. The account of the visit follows:

At this time there wasn't any doctrine of the explanation along with the
dharma of profound intention, nor were there any manuscripts [related to these
instructions] housed at Drikung. Because at that time [they] had been
wounded and weakened, [the Karmapa] saw the need to reinvigorate the
[Drikung] teachings. [He gave] an explanation of the essence of the teachings
that was tailored to a general audience and [he taught] the appropriate systems
of the profound dharma and instructions on the six-dharma mahāmudrā to the
uncle and his nephew. For Wang Rinpoche specifically, he brought about the
sequenced-drops of the Kagyü mahāmudrā tutelary deity. He founded a
meditation school. He also taught the monastic laws on food and drink
[pertaining to] those who were appointed as monastic preceptors, etc., and
thus repaired the foundations of the Drikung teachings. Thereafter [Wang
Rinpoche and his nephews] always saw him [as equivalent to] the venerable
Jikten Gönpo ('Jig rten gsum mgon, 1143–1217) and the other [early
patriarchs of the Drikung].648

This account is notable for several reasons. First, it is a clear example of the Seventh

Karmapa's efforts to revitalize what was at the time the largest lineage of the Kagyü outside

of his own Karma Kagyü school. The Drikung Kagyü, like the Karma Kagyü, had lost a

























































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number of its monasteries to the Geluk during the fifteenth century. As the order's own

historians note, the fifteenth century saw many Drikung institutions adopting the Geluk

approach and neglecting their own tradition to the point that its own meditation traditions

were in danger of dying out, even at Drikung Thil.649

Situ Chökyi Jungné's account verifies this narrative. It also tells us that the library at

Drikung Thil no longer held any texts that could support the kind of reinvigoration of the

Kagyü tradition that the Seventh Karmapa had been invited to facilitate. These two

elements—the recognition that the Kagyü teachings had gone into decline at one of the

school's most famous institutions and the revelation that this decline had been accompanied

by a near eradication of the textual resources necessary to restore and sustain Drikung Thil as

a Kagyü institution—must have had a profound effect on the visiting Karmapa. It is easy to

imagine how a visit like this might have prompted a figure like Chödrak Gyatso, who was

heavily invested in recovering the many losses that the Kagyü had suffered since the early

fifteenth century due to the Geluk expansion, to seek a more tangible and lasting option for

reinvigorating the most important teachings in his lineage. One of these options appears to

have taken the form of an organized practical canon of mahāmudrā works that could be

claimed as part of the common lineage of all sub sects of the Kagyü.

Situ Chökyi Jungné's account of Chödrak Gyatso's visit to Drikung Thil mentions one

more important piece of information. Here we learn that Chödrak Gyatso visited Drikung

Thil at the request of Wang Rinpoche and his nephews.650 The identities of all of the three

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brothers who were [Wand Rinpoche's] nephews (dbon sku mched gsum) is unclear, but it is

relatively certain that one of these nephews was Drikung Künga Rinchen, who would

become a close disciple of the Seventh Karmapa and eventually succeed his father as the

head of Drikung Thil. Fortunately, although Situ Chökyi Jungné's biography of the Seventh

Karmapa is unclear on the dates for this visit, Sönam Gyatso's (Bsod rnam rgya mtsho, c. 16th

century) biography of Künga Rinchen, completed in 1528 one year after Künga Rinchen

passed away, tells us that he met the Seventh Karmapa in 1487 when he was twelve years old

and again in 1489 when he was fourteen.651 The events recorded in Sönam Gyatso's

biography of Künga Rinchen can be corroborated to some extent in Künga Rinchen's

Glorious Blaze Illuminating the Ocean of Blessings and Received Teachings (Gsan yig byin

rlabs rgya mtsho'i dpal 'bar), which contains an account of a short list of texts on the

Drikung patriarch Jikten Gönpo that he received from the Seventh Karmapa.652

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 The relationship between these two figures is significant given the fact that the

current Chetsang Rinpoche (b. 1947) has identified Künga Rinchen as the figure most likely

responsible for initiating the compilation of the practical canon of The Great Treasury of the

Drikung Kagyu Teachings ('Bri gung bka' brgyud chos mdzod chen mo).653 The early

volumes of this collection are notable for their close resemblance to the Seventh Karmapa's

Indian Mahāmudrā Works, with both collections basing their initial organizational schema on

the sequence of three early Indian mahāmudrā corpora—The Seven Siddhi Texts, The Sixfold

Corpus on the Essence, and The Corpus of Teachings on Mental Non-Engagement. If Künga

Rinchen is indeed responsible for initiating this project,654 it would imply that the Drikung

mahāmudrā practical canon began to take shape at the same time that the Seventh Karmapa's

Indian Mahāmudrā Works took shape, at around the turn of the sixteenth century. Given the

fact that Künga Rinchen's account of received teachings (gsan yig) mentions having received

the Indian Mahāmudrā Works from his uncle Wang Rinpoche, who in turn received it

himself from Chödrak Gyatso, it is entirely possible that his early compilation of works for

The Great Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü Teachings could have taken its inspiration from

the Seventh Karmapa's newly collected and published Indian Mahāmudrā Works.655

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 Although the two editions are separated by centuries of history and a vast geographic

distance, my suggested motivation for the Seventh Karmapa's original compilation of his

Indian Mahāmudrā Works aligns well with the stated purpose of the Pelpung edition that was

published in the nineteenth century. It is possible to hear echoes of the same issues that were

facing the Kagyü in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Tashi Chöpel's apprehensions

about the potential loss of a distinctively Kagyü identity in the nineteenth century. At the

closing of his section on the Seventh Karmapa, Tashi Chöpel embeds the following

statements on the important work being carried out by Jamgön Kongtrül between two

sections discussing the Seventh Karmapa's efforts to preserve the Kagyü teachings:

In general, in this degenerate age, due to the billowing ocean of evil actions
such as undervaluing the dharma, since both the holy dharma and spring water
are considered important only when they are consumed, there are very few
who care about concerns that the stream [of teachings] might disappear, etc. In
our own specific case, in the future the Dak[po Ka]gyü might run to the right
imitating others. As long as we are engrossed in lectures that are like a
drawing of a rainbow that are full of cliché dharma language and many
systems of classification, the profound instructions of the essential meaning of
our own tradition along with most of the commentaries and teachings on
maturing and liberation shall return to the shrine of the ḍākinīs from which
they came. It will not take very long for the fragments that remain to depart if
[things continue] like this.
Due to the immeasurable kindness of the omniscient venerable one
Lodrö Thayé, the unbroken exegetical textual transmission of the three dohā
and the reading transmission of these Indian works along with the practice
instructions of the profound special instructions on maturing and liberating
that belong to collection of tantras of Mar[pa] and Ngok [Chöku Dorje]
(Ngok chos sku dor rje, 1036–1097), the life breath [of this tradition], remains
without the slightest loss.656

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The concerns around the preservation of the Kagyü at the turn of the sixteenth century thus

appear to be very similar to the concerns of the nineteenth century. The response to these

concerns in both periods was to compile, publish, and distribute collections of those

teachings that had come under threat of being lost forever so that they might once again be

integrated into an organized and comprehensive Kagyü curriculum.

Just as the work of nineteenth century ecumenical movement (ris med) scholars such

as Jamgön Kongtrül generated a series of practical canons that have shaped the course of

Tibetan Buddhism in the twentieth century, the Seventh Karmapa's efforts to organize and

publish his practical canon of Indian mahāmudrā works had a profound impact on Kagyü

scholarship in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. During this period, interest in The

Seven Siddhi Texts and the old Indian mahāmudrā canon was reinvigorated in a number of

polemical works that provided systematic and comprehensive presentations of the Kagyü

approach to mahāmudrā alongside polemical responses designed to defend the tradition from

its critics. These works demonstrate the Seventh Karmapa's Indian Mahāmudrā Works'

progression from practical canon to curriculum, and at least two of the best known works that

it helped produce remain an integral part of Kagyü mahāmudrā curricula to this day. But

before preceding to a detailed analysis of how The Seven Siddhi Texts were deployed in this

literature, some attention must be given to the other practical canon that derived its

organizational structure from the three primary early Indian mahāmudrā corpora, The Great

Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü Teachings.

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III. The Great Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü Teachings as a Mahāmudrā Practical

Canon and Curriculum

The Great Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü Teachings is a comprehensive practical canon that

preserves of multiple layers of Drikung curricula across its 151 volumes. The very first

volumes of The Great Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü Teachings, which is likely part of the

oldest strata of the collection, contain the three early corpora of the Indian mahāmudrā

canon. Unlike the Seventh Karmapa's Indian Mahāmudrā Works, The Great Treasury of the

Drikung Kagyü Teachings is curricular by design and supplements these corpora with a

substantial amount of additional texts, historical works, and summaries of the content of each

work. In line with its more curricular function, the opening of the collection's first volume

contains a brief introduction on how the Buddha came to teach the Vajrayāna, followed by a

brief chronicle of how the three corpora that constitute the practical canon of Indian

mahāmudrā works among the Drikung, Drukpa, and Karma Kagyü lineages were first

compiled in India.

The author of the introductory material to The Great Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü

Teachings is well aware of the curricular function of providing hagiographic data on the

Drupnying corpus and the authors of The Seven Siddhi Texts. This much is clear in the

following section, which appears immediately after a lengthy homage at the opening of the

text:

Now, I shall compose this [introduction] so that the meaning and the words
that are contained [in these texts] may flourish. [The teachings in this
collection] have been revealed by many superior siddhas and have been
eloquently explained by many superior scholars. Since each of them were
difficult to obtain until many eons [had passed], the fortunate ones who
possess this volume and who have taken it up with devotion should study it
with enthusiasm.

uxr
 In this way, those who do not understand will come to understand.
They will cut the net of doubts and misunderstandings.
Those with the bias of a particular position will conquer all biases.
And those with a correct understanding shall increase.657

The text moves into a short summary of how the Buddha came to teach the Vajrayāna,

relying upon the common pedagogical trope of the Buddha's skillful methods (thabs la mkhas

pa) as the means by which he is able to teach them "according to their individual faculties,

elemental constituents (khams, dhātu), and predispositions."658 It then presents two

seemingly contradictory myths for the dissemination of the Vajrayāna. The first narrative

proposes that the Buddha only taught these practices to tenth level bodhisattvas who were

subsequently prohibited from writing them down. The second narrative, which the author

argues predates the first, states that these teachings were written down by an emanation of the

deity Vajrapāṇi, kept as offerings to the ḍākinīs in Oḍiyāna and the other three primary

yogapīṭhas associated with the preservation and dissemination of the Vajrayāna.659

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 This brief history is immediately followed by an account of The Seven Siddhi Texts

that reads as follows:

Among the three [corpora], the first was disseminated from the
western land of Oḍiyāna as the first of the mantra teachings, thus it constitutes
the mahāmudrā textual tradition of the ācāryas of that country. There are
seven works that are commonly known [by the title] 'siddhi.' The seven are:

1) Guhyasiddhi
2) Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi
3) Jñānasiddhi
4) Advayasiddhi
5) Sahajasiddhi
6) Tattvasiddhi
7) Guhyatattvasiddhi

Through their efforts, [these authors'] disciples formulated the collection that
became known as The Seven Siddhi Texts.660

The account of The Sixfold Corpus on the Essence is more detailed, placing the origin of this

corpus in the South at Śrī Parvata (lho bal [sic.] gyi ri la) and noting that it was the disciples

of Śavari who, while in residence at Śrī Parvata, first began to refer to this corpus as The

Sixfold Corpus on the Essence. The last of the three corpora, The Corpus of Teachings on

Mental Non-Engagement, is said to have been compiled based on a number of dialogues

between the guru Maitrīpa/Advayavajra and his disciples.661 The author then concludes by

indicating that these are simply a known set of three corpora among the innumerable other














































































































































































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works composed by the mahāsiddhas, stating that "the works composed by other

mahāsiddhas that teach the ultimate meaning of mahāmudrā are too numerous to count."662

Among all of the available authentic works on mahāmudrā, the works in these three corpora

carried a particularly important status for the compilers of The Great Treasury of the Drikung

Kagyü Teachings. The hyperbole in this statement should thus be read as a declaration of the

authoritative status of these three corpora as a practical canon of Indian mahāmudrā works

from among a broad range of texts identified as mahāmudrā teachings from the Indian

mahāsiddhas.

The Great Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü Teachings' supplementary materials to The

Seven Siddhi Texts appear to be a collection of independent works on the corpus rather than a

systematic presentation composed by a single author. This material includes brief

hagiographies for each of the authors of The Seven Siddhi Texts (except for Dārikapāda) that

recall how each gained realization and why they decided to compose the treatise at hand.

This material is followed in most cases by chapter-by-chapter summaries and outlines of the

texts. Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi, for instance, is preceded by a chronicle (lo rgyus)

describing the author and his decision to compose the text in response to a request from one

of Indrabhūti's court priests (mchod gnas). The next sixty folios contain the text of the

Guhyasiddhi itself, followed by an untitled work that provides a summary of the main points

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discussed in each chapter. This untitled work is in turn followed by a text titled The Essence

of the Glorious Secret Siddhi: A Summary of the Siddhi Texts (Dpal gsang ba grub pa thig le

grub pa rnams kyi bsdus don) that provides brief prose introductions for Guhyasiddhi,

Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi, and Jñānasiddhi and chapter-by-chapter outlines of each text in

an outline (sa bcad) format. The recently edited edition of The Great Treasury of the Drikung

Kagyü Teachings indicates that this work was composed by Padmavajra, Anaṅgavajra,663 and

Indrabhūti, but there is no indication in the text itself that this is the case. The claim is also

questionable given that the text is composed in an outline (sa bcad) format following a

characteristically Tibetan scholastic literary convention.664

The auxiliary works that are appended to Guhyasiddhi then concludes with

Padmavajra's Epistle on Insight (Shes rab kyi phrin yig, Prajñālekhana). The Great Treasury

of the Drikung Kagyü Teachings makes a point to argue that Padmavajra and Indrabhūti were

contemporaries, and that both authors were connected through their relationship with

Anaṅgavajra, who was a disciple to the former and court priest to the latter. It is possible that

the decision to include Padmavajra's Epistle on Insight as an auxiliary text to the

Guhyasiddhi because it was allegedly composed for Anaṅgavajra, who was acting as court

priest to Indrabhūti. This interpretation finds support in the chronicle material for the

Guhyasiddhi, which notes that the Guhyasiddhi was itself composed in response to a

correspondence that Padmavajra received from "a virtuous paṇḍita who was Indrabhūti's

























































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court priest."665 Later in The Great Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü Teachings, the chronicle

material for Indrabhūti's Jñānasiddhi confirms that the paṇḍita for whom Padmavajra

composed his Guhyasiddhi was in fact Anaṅgavajra, and that he composed the text so that his

disciple would not forget the guru's special instructions on the Guhyasamājatantra.666 Apart

from assuming the alleged correspondence between Anaṅgavajra and Padmavajra as the

reason for including Padmavajra's Epistle on Insight, one strains to otherwise justify why the

redactor(s) of The Great Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü Teachings included this particular

text as a final supplementary work to an already lengthy and comprehensive set of materials

on Guhyasiddhi. The general format for supplementary material to The Seven Siddhi Texts

that is established with the materials appended to Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi continues as the

volume progresses through the remainder of the corpus, and in this way, The Great Treasury

of the Drikung Kagyü Teachings constructs a curricular structure around The Seven Siddhi

Texts that signals a concerted effort to render it as practical and accessible as possible for its

readers.

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 The author(s) of the introductory material to The Great Treasury of the Drikung

Kagyü Teachings rejects reductionist approaches to curricula that are intended to render null

any contradictions in the materials it presents. This means that the attempt to make The Seven

Siddhi Texts 'accessible' in this collection should not be understood as an attempt to generate

a homogenous narrative or interpretation of the corpus. In this sense the materials that

accompany the corpus should be understood as 'supplementary,' not 'explanatory.' Even in

those cases in which these supplementary works do address the content of The Seven Siddhi

Texts in detail, they tend to provide the reader with topical outlines or guides to the texts

instead of extensive commentaries that might make sense of each work for the reader. The

redactor rejects a more homogenizing approach to curricula in his statements on the

motivation behind compiling the Drupnying and its related works in a single collection:

Since they are all teachings on the practical integration of the textual tradition
due to being special instructions that summarize [its] meaning, they have
accomplished something inconceivable. From among all of the [teachings],
this collection of a few works was obtained due to the kindness of my glorious
holy teachers and [contains] the common and uncommon teaching on the
general and specific profound points of scripture. I shall write [them down
here] in one place so that the works composed by the lords of scholars of India
and Tibet as a support of faith [in the dharma] shall not wane, [so that] they
may increase and spread, so that it is easy to find for those who have an eager
intellect, so those who do not have an eager intellect might develop one, [so
that] they see the hidden flaws of teachings that are like a tidy-looking rosary
of contrivances and fabrications, and so that [they may] dispel the
exaggerations and denigrations of those who exaggerate and denigrate [the
content of these works], due to [their] incorrect understanding regarding the
difficulties of fathoming [their] uniquely difficult and profound
[instructions].667

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This passage, styled after the practice of providing a brief statement on the value of the topic

and the author's promise to teach the material that is common to both Indic and Tibetan

treatises, provides a short statement on the curricular intent behind the author's decision to

provide supplementary materials for The Seven Siddhi Texts and its related corpora. The

practical intention of the collection is clear in this passage, and we are explicitly told that it

was compiled so that it would be put to practical use. The phrase '[so that] they see the

hidden flaws of teachings that are like a tidy looking rosary of contrivances and fabrications,"

(bcos ma dang rtog bzo'i phreng ba zab zab ltar bstan pa rnams kyi mtshang mthong ba

dang) is of particular interest and indicates what might be a distinctive view of the function

of curriculum among the Drikung school that rejects the formulation of curricula that attempt

to resolve or hide the 'messiness' one often encounters in the source texts themselves.668

The notion that a practical canon such as The Great Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü

Teachings might be directed at preserving the difficulties in these works and the traditions

they represent instead of rendering them into a uniform, homogenous system contradicts least

one understanding of the function of practical canonicity as the formulation of an orthodoxy

in reaction to the heterogeneous and often contradictory material preserved in the related

formal canon.669 The statement is reminiscent of the so-called 'string of pearls' fallacy that

often obstructs the messy historical realities underlying transmission of Buddhist traditions.

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Carl Yammamoto has commented on this at length in his work on the twelfth-century

Tshalpa Kagyü patriarch Lama Zhang (Zhang tshal pa brtson 'grus grags pa 1123–1193).

Borrowing the phrase from John McCrea's observation of the same phenomenon in Ch'an and

Zen Buddhist lineages that reduce the complexity of their lineage transmissions to a single,

one-to-one succession of teachers and disciples,670 Yammamoto notes that Lama Zhang

received instructions from so many different teachers (each of whom also boasted an eclectic

range of sources for their own lineages) that it is impossible to limit his particular style of

teaching to any one of them.671 The redactor of The Great Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü

Teachings disparages the practice of simplifying and streamlining the unsystematic

presentation of materials written by and about the Indian mahāsiddhas so that they conform

to a uniform and easily transmitted narrative. This comment cautions against trusting works

that repackage this literature in a way that can be readily understood and easily digested. In

turn, it acknowledges that the works of the mahāsiddhas do not represent a homogenous,

'tidy' tradition but are often contradictory and intractable in their varied presentations of

Vajrayāna theory, ritual, and practice.672

The inclusion of hagiographic material on The Seven Siddhi Texts supports the

argument for their recognition as a unified corpus prior to their transmission to Tibet. This

concern places the redactor of The Great Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü Teachings in the

position of advocating for the positive function of etiology as a method for developing

























































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comprehensive curricula and, ultimately, for eliciting the reader's faith in the importance of

the work at hand. In this sense, The Great Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü Teachings engages

in a kind of privileging of origins in its treatment of The Seven Siddhi Texts as a foundational

mahāmudrā corpus. The author alludes to the importance of such a concern with origins in

the following passage at the end of his lengthy commitment to teach the treatise (bshad par

dam bca'):

As they say,

A historical work that has an authentic origin generates great faith,

Preserving the root texts brings about a great blessing,
Explaining some of the related meaning produces great insight, [and]
[A work] with these three kinds of greatness is additionally a great miracle!673

By opening its presentation of The Seven Siddhi Texts with an appeal to a 'privileging of

origins,' the introductory material to The Great Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü Teachings

gives some expression to the primary reason that the corpus came to carry such significance

in the mahāmudrā polemical literature of a number of Sakya and Kagyü authors from the

thirteenth to seventeenth centuries. The Seven Siddhi Texts' authoritative status as one of the

earliest collections of Indian works on mahāmudrā is accepted without question in the

polemical literature, even if the correct interpretation of the relationship between mahāmudrā

and the tantric consecration rituals in these texts remains contentious. This also means that

with rare exception, parties on both sides of the debate tend to fall into the very fallacy of

projecting a uniform tradition onto the corpus that the introduction to The Great Treasury of

the Drikung Kagyü Teachings cautions against.

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IV. The Seven Siddhi Texts in Tibetan Mahāmudrā Polemical Literature

The Seven Siddhi Texts play an integral role in a volley of polemical works composed by a

handful of Sakya and Kagyü authors from the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries. The

first two polemical works from the Sakya side of this debate are roughly contemporary to the

publications of the Indian Mahāmudrā Works and The Great Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü

Teachings, and the rebuttals from the Kagyü side post-date the publication of both of these

mahāmudrā practical canons. The Kagyü response to these works from the Sakya thus

supplies evidence for the effect that these two publication projects had on Kagyü mahāmudrā

polemical literature as reference works that provided an easily accessible practical canon of

authoritative Indian sources to both justify and defend the Kagyü mahāmudrā traditions from

their detractors among the Sakya and elsewhere. On the whole, the degree of detail with

which our Kagyü authors discuss The Seven Siddhi Texts indicates a greater level of

engagement with these works than the Sakya authors to whom they are responding. Judging

from these sources it is possible to say with some degree of caution that The Seven Siddhi

Texts held greater influence within Kagyü mahāmudrā curricula than they did among the

Sakya during this period, and the publication of the Indian Mahāmudrā Works and The Great

Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü Teachings Mahāmudrā practical canons likely played a part

in making this so.

The majority of passages that draw upon The Seven Siddhi Texts in the set of

mahāmudrā polemical works analyzed here revolve around the following statements from

Sakya Paṇḍita's Distinguishing the Three Vows (Sdom pa gsum gyu rab tu dbye ba) section

3.176–79:

The Great Seal that Nāro and Maitrīpa espoused

Is held to consist precisely

uyr
 Of the seals of Action, Dharma, and Pledge,
And of the Great Seal expounded
In tantras of the Mantra system.

In his Caturmudrā[nvaya], Exalted Nāgārjuna himself also asserts this:

“If, through not having known the Action seal,

One is also ignorant of the seal of Dharma,
It is impossible that one might understand
Even the name of the Great Seal.

The King of tantra texts and major commentarial treatises also prohibit
The Great Seal to one who is unconnected with initiation.674

The primary function of The Seven Siddhi Texts in the polemical thread stemming from

Sakya Paṇḍita's Distinguishing the Three Vows revolves around the issue of whether or not a

necessary and exclusive relationship obtains between the realization of mahāmudrā and a

disciple's progression through the two-stage yoga and system of four tantric consecrations

associated with the textual genre of 'highest' yogatantra.675 Following the context in which

the corpus is most often referenced, this section analyzes passages from a handful of authors

























































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on both sides of this polemical literature who invoke The Seven Siddhi Texts to support their

respective positions on the relationship between the standardized system of four tantric

consecrations, realizing mahāmudrā, and the conferral of the guru's blessing.

The progression of works addressed here begins in the fifteenth century with the

Sakya authors Dönyö Drup pa and Gorampa. It then moves to Pema Karpo, who is in turn

challenged by the Sakya author Mangtö Ludrup Gyatso (Mang thos klu sgrub rgya mtsho,

1523–1596). The progression through these works culminates in a response to Mangtö

Ludrup Gyatso from Pema Karpo's disciple Sangyé Dorjé (Sangs rgyas rdo rje, 1569–1645).

Two of these works, Gorampa's Clarifying the Meaning of the Victor's Teaching: A

Commentary on Distinguishing the Three Vows (Sdom pa gsum gyi rab tu dbye ba'i rnam

bshad rgyal ba'i gsung rab kyi dgongs gsal ba) and Pema Karpo's The Victor's Treasury: An

Explanation of the Mahāmudrā Instructions (Phyag rgya chen po'i mang ngag gi bshad

sbyar rgyal ba'i gan mdzod) remain integral to Sakya and Kagyü curricula, respectively, to

this day.

Dönyö Drup pa's three-volume set of commentaries to Sakya Paṇḍita's Distinguishing

the Three Vows references The Seven Siddhi Texts on two separate occasions. The first

appears in his commentary to verses 1.244–245 in which Sakya Paṇḍita criticizes those who

say it is not necessary to study scriptures and treatises.676 Both Dönyö Drup pa and Gorampa

identify Lama Zhang as the intended target of this verse, and both authors' comments echo

Sakya Paṇḍita's Clarifying the Sage's Intent, which mentions The Seven Siddhi Texts among a

short list of treatises that are integral to studying the system of mantra.677 Dönyö Drup pa and

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Gorampa also both employ their own brand of ad hominem in these passages, with Dönyö

Drup pa accusing Lama Zhang's statements against the efficacy of textual study as "nothing

but nonsense" (cang la ha la la)678 and Gorampa informing his reader that the passage refers

to "Zhang Tshalpa and some rag-wearing Ka[gyüs]" (zhang tshal pa dang / bka' phyag pa la

la/).679

The Seven Siddhi Texts are invoked again in volume three of Dönyö Drup pa's

commentary to the mantra vow section of Distinguishing the Three Vows. His additions to

























































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the root text of verse 3.179 are highlighted in bold in the following translation of this

passage:

Other king of tantra texts such as the Hevajra[tantra] and

Other great treatises such as The Seven Siddhi Texts and more
Refute realization of mahāmudrā
For one who does not have the consecrations.680

Dönyö Drup pa follows this passage with the following quotes from the Hevajratantra and

Indrabhūti's Jñānasiddhi 1.32:

Then the yoginīs asked,

“What is mahāmudrā like?” [HT 2.8.1ab]

And in response [he stated],

The innate is not expressed in some other way.

It is not attained somewhere [else].
It shall be understood based on one’s merit
And on the teaching of method during the guru [offering]. [HT 1.8.36]681

As it says in Jñānasiddhi,

By attaining true supreme gnosis

That is devoid of all conceptual thought,
One who receives the vajra gnosis consecration
Shall attain the supreme siddhi. [JS 1.32]682

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Both passages are referenced here to support the Sakya view that the disciple's own

cultivation of non-dual gnosis through practicing the two-stage yoga must then be joined

with the guru's consecration and blessing in order to attain the mahāmudrā-siddhi. The point

is made in contrast to one Kagyü approach to mahāmudrā that identifies the guru's blessing

as the primary determinant of any disciple's realization of mahāmudrā. This implies, as the

Kagyü would like to argue, that the sequence of four consecrations and their attendant

moments and levels of joy as systematized in the Hevajratantra might be abridged or done

away with entirely as long as the disciple receives the proper blessing from the guru. Thus

the Kagyü argument leaves room for the potential conferral of mahāmudrā upon someone

'who does not have the consecrations' while the Sakya approach draws a more systematized

and necessary relationship between the disciple progressing through the 'proper' consecration

sequence, their generation of gnosis through the stages of the tantric yogas, and their eventual

realization of the mahāmudrā-siddhi through combining this meditative insight with the

guru's blessing. The Sakya position that Dönyö Drup pa presents here, following Sakya

Paṇḍita, thus limits its understanding of a truly effective method for the realization of

mahāmudrā to those systems that are contained within the class of highest yogatantra, and

draws specifically upon the systematic presentation of the sequence of consecrations in the

Hevajratantra.683

Since the work is so significant to the Sakya position, Dönyö Drup pa's Hevajra quote

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beginning with the yoginīs' question, "What is mahāmudrā like?" deserves a closer look. As

my notation indicates in the passage above, the yoginīs' question comes from Hevajratantra

2.8.1 while the 'reply' is taken from Hevajratantra 1.8.36. The actual response to the yoginīs'

question in 2.8.1, were Dönyö Drup pa to present these verses as they appear in the text, is

vastly different:

Then the yoginīs asked,

“What is mahāmudrā like?”
Please make us happy and explain [this]
In terms of [her] conventional body and appearance. [HT 2.8.1.]

The Bhagavān replied,

She is not too tall and not too short,

Not too dark and not too light. |
Her complexion is like a lotus petal,
She has sweet smelling breath, || [HT 2.8.2]

And when she perspires there should be a sweet smell

That is just like a fragrant musk. |
And her lotus should emit the faint smell
Of a blue lotus blossom, like a lotus. || [HT 2.8.3]

A wise one should notice that she has

The fragrant smell of incense and camphor. |
She should have the smell of a lotus
[And] should be light like a bird. || [HT 2.8.4]

She is intelligent and not flighty,

She has a pleasant way of speaking and is attractive, |
She has beautiful hair, three folds below the navel, [and]
Ordinary people consider her an exceptional woman. |
And having acquired her, one shall attain siddhi
That is the nature of innate joy. || [HT 2.8.5]684

Of course there is the possibility that Dönyö Drup pa had a copy of the Hevajratantra on

hand that substituted HT 1.8.36 for the description that we find in the current canonical

edition of the text. But barring this possibility, it seems strange that an author would leave

























































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himself vulnerable to criticism by manipulating such a well-known source to suit his own

purposes. After all, all one would have to do to challenge his argument is to point to this

obvious misquote from the Hevajratantra, a potentially embarrassing observation for a

scholar from a tradition in which the Hevajratantra plays such an important role. It is equally

intriguing that none of the Kagyü authors who respond to this passage as it is preserved here

and in Gorampa's commentary to Distinguishing the Three Vows seem to notice that the

passage is blatantly misrepresented.685

Without Dönyö Drup pa's manipulation of the text, the Hevajratantra's description of

mahāmudrā in these passages seemingly has nothing at all to do with a soteriological

absolute that is realized through the combination of the two-stage yoga and fourfold

sequence of tantric initiations. Instead, the actual sequence of verses in the Hevajratantra

presents a list of characteristics becoming of an 'ideal' or 'superior' (i.e. mahā) 'consort'

(mudrā). For a tradition that has come to see mahāmudrā as bearing a single meaning as a

term signifying the highest realization, the often-messy reality of the way in which the term

is used across Buddhist textual traditions would represent a notable inconvenience. Dönyö

Drup pa effectively sidesteps this inconvenience by manipulating his source text and

substituting a verse that supports the Sakya view of mahāmudrā.

This might bear some implications regarding the anticipated behavior of the textual

community toward whom he directs his three-volume exegesis on Distinguishing the Three

Vows by providing some indication of the frequency with which his readers were expected to

actually double-check such citations from canonical works against their original sources. The

























































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fact that Dönyö Drup pa and others are able to so easily repackage and manipulate their

source texts also tells us something about the priority that Sakya textual communities granted

to material in their own practical canon over the sources for that material in the broader

formal canon of the Kanjyur. The perpetuation of this particular reading of the

Hevajratantra's presentation of mahāmudrā among the Sakya thus functions as a case in

point for the formulation of sect- and institution-specific textual communities in Tibet. It also

provides a glimpse of how the polemical applications of practical canon formation can

produce curricula in which misrepresentations of a work as important and well known as the

Hevajratantra might be handed down from one author to another, or from one generation to

the next.

This appears to be the case with Gorampa's commentary on verse 3.179 of

Distinguishing the Three Vows. Drawing either from the same exegetical tradition or directly

from Dönyö Drup pa's work, Gorampa's rendering of HT 2.8.1 also treats HT 1.8.36 as a

response to the yoginī's question. His comments in this section open with a short reference to

The Seven Siddhi Texts in reference to Distinguishing the Three Vows 3.164–66 where Sakya

Paṇḍita outlines his own tradition's viewpoint on mahāmudrā. The commentary reads:

As for the second [topic],686 the ten verses that begin with "Our," etc.,
the first three verses illustrate the cause [of mahāmudrā], verse four illustrates
the intrinsic essence [of mahāmudrā], then two verses illustrate the time that it
is attained, then two verses refute the concept [of mahāmudrā as it is
understood] among others. After that, two verses illustrate the type of
scripture in which one who is intent upon attainment of mahāmudrā engages.
If one wishes to understand the meaning of these verses in detail, one can
understand [it] through The Seven Siddhi Texts that were composed by the
ācāryas who attained the siddhi that is the ultimate realization of the entire
class of mahāyoga-tantras.687

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In line with this reference to The Seven Siddhi Texts, Gorampa's expansion of Dönyö Drup

pa's commentary to verse 3.179 of Distinguishing the Three Vows follows thirteen folios later

in his section on how the Sakya mahāmudrā "is in accord with other tantras and śāstras"

(rgyud dang bstan bcos gzhan dang mthun pa). Jñānasiddhi 1.32 makes another appearance

in Gorampa's work, and he provides a more expansive commentary incorporating quoted

material from the Saṃpuṭatantra (Saṃ bu ṭi [sic.]), the Guhyakośasūtra (Gsang ba mdzod gyi

mdo), and an unnamed work by Āryadeva. He then references an additional work from The

Seven Siddhi Texts, citing chapter three of Anaṅgavajra's Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi on the

Bodhicittābhiṣeka (byang chub sems kyi dbang bskur).688 The verse reads:

And as it says in Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi,

According to the path of tantra,

When the wise one was consecrated
In the maṇḍala of the abode of the sugatas,
He was in the presence of all of the buddhas.

[He perceived] the lord of infinite world systems, [and]

Attained the self-blessing consecration, [PUVS 3.2–3.3b]689

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Anaṅgavajra's verse, a reference to the narrative of the Buddha's enlightenment in the

Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṁgraha, is employed here by Gorampa as evidence that the Buddha

himself only realized mahāmudrā through first reaching a certain level of realization prior to

being consecrated. Gorampa's final word on the matter introduces a bit of ad hominem, a

feature that becomes increasingly pronounced among the texts that follow:

With respect to this some [say,]

"Since attaining the supreme siddhi of mahāmudrā accords with the vehicle of
the perfections, since abandoning the obscurations abandoned [on the path of]
seeing accords with the secret mantra [vehicle], it unties the knot of the central
channel." Such talk is senseless babbling. The critical point of the texts
referenced above [is expressed in Sakya Paṇḍita's verse that reads] "Here it is
refuted that someone not endowed with the consecrations has mahāmudrā."
This verse explains that there is no mahāmudrā in the vehicle of the
perfections because such a siddhi contradicts the exegetical tradition.690

Gorampa's final statement on The Seven Siddhi Texts as an authoritative corpus argues that

they provide irrefutable evidence that mahāmudrā cannot be properly taught or fully realized













































































































































































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without the disciple's proper progression through the tantric yogas and the series of

consecrations. The Kagyü side of this argument, however, employs the very same references

from The Seven Siddhi Texts to argue precisely the opposite position.

The references to The Seven Siddhi Texts from Sakya Paṇḍita, Dönyö Drup pa, and

Gorampa exhibit a trend toward greater exegetical engagement with the actual texts in this

corpus, but their engagement with the corpus still remains relatively vague. For these authors,

it would seem that the fact that The Seven Siddhi Texts support the Sakya position on

mahāmudrā is largely self-evident. A few verses are cited, but the reader is for the most part

instructed to read these works on their own, and as the example of Dönyö Drup pa and

Gorampa's treatment of HT 2.8.1 indicates, it is quite possible that their readers did not in

fact take Sakya Paṇḍita's advice by exploring The Seven Siddhi Texts on their own. Nor,

apparently, were they expected to.

In contrast to the relatively vague indication of Sakya engagement with the corpus,

Pema Karpo's Victor's Treasury begins with detailed descriptions of each work contained in

The Seven Siddhi Texts. Writing nearly a generation after the publication of the Seventh

Karmapa and Künga Rinchen's respective mahāmudrā practical canons, Pema Karpo's

Victor's Treasury devotes thirty folios in the first section of the text to "A Detailed Analysis

of the Mahāmudrā Texts" (gzhung phyag rgya chen po'i rab dbye) that focuses on the three

core Indian mahāmudrā corpora. He organizes his analysis according to the Drukpa Kagyü

patriarch Chökyi Tsangpa Gyarépa's three categories of supplemental works (zur 'debs) for

the Kagyü mahāmudrā tradition. Chökyi Tsangpa's first category, "The corpus of textual

exegeses," (bshad pa tshig gi skor) includes The Seven Siddhi Texts, The Sixfold Corpus on

the Essence, and The Corpus of Teachings on Mental Non-Engagement. After drawing

uzs
attention to the continuity of textual exegesis on The Seven Siddhi Texts in his own lineage,

Pema Karpo goes on to discuss all seven works in the corpus and provides short chapter-by-

chapter explanations of Guhyasiddhi, Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi, and Jñānasiddhi that

highlight specific passages from these texts that refute the Sakya position on mahāmudrā.

While it clearly shows a greater degree of engagement with the corpus, Pema Karpo's

discussion of The Seven Siddhi Texts also manipulates its source material in certain cases by

reading a number of topics into the corpus that are not present in the original works. His

discussion of Guhyasiddhi, for example, argues that the text contains instructions on 'the

subitist path' (cig car ba'i lam bstan) as well as 'the path of passing over' (thod brgal ba'i

lam) in chapters one and three, respectively. In his discussion of 'the path of passing over,'

Padma dkar po provides what appears to be a doctored quote from Guhyasiddhi chapter

three:

Being expressed to all beginner sentient beings,

It is what generates faith. [GS 3.4cd]

It is the great miracle due to the contact of

Union of the vajra with the space element.
The special instruction is what brings it about,
And that is what generates supreme joy. [GS 3.5]691

Here Pema Karpo argues that Padmavajra's statement on the supreme state that sentient

beings fail to recognize is present in their own bodies is the equivalent of a thögal (thod

brgal) instruction. In order to make this point, it is possible that Pema Karpo himself inserted

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the term 'special instruction' (gdams pa) into the text. The verse as it is preserved in the

canonical editions of the text, the Pelpung xylograph of the Indian Mahāmudrā Works, and in

The Great Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü Teachings all agree with the extant Sanskrit

versions of the text that it is the bliss (bde ba, sukha) produced from this union that brings

about supreme joy (mchog tu dga' ba, paramānanda). None of these witnesses mention any

instructions (gdams pa). Without the variant in Pema Karpo's quote of Guhyasiddhi 3.5, this

group of verses actually agrees with the common description of the generation of moments of

joy during the performance of sexual yoga, which Padmavajra argues introduces beginners to

the supreme state for the first time. In other words, without the substitution of 'instructions'

(gdams pa) for 'bliss' (bde ba) in the verse, it is in direct agreement with the Sakya argument

that mahāmudrā is properly indicated to an initiated disciple in the context of tantric

consecration through the experience of the sequence of joys.692 As with Dönyö Drup pa and

Gorampa's misquoting of the Hevajratantra, it is entirely possible that Pema Karpo is

providing a faithful reproduction of the text of the Guhyasiddhi that he had at his disposal.

But, as with the Sakya example, this is not entirely likely to be the case given how

conveniently the variant from Pema Karpo's hypothetical version of the Guhyasiddhi plays

directly in favor of the Kagyü emphasis on the guru's instructions as the critical factor in a

disciple's realization of mahāmudrā.

In his discussion of Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi, Pema Karpo argues that the third

consecration is omitted from the consecration rite outlined in chapter three. This analysis is a

direct response to Sakya authors like Gorampa who insisted that this same chapter details a

























































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complete rite for the three higher tantric consecrations. Pema Karpo interprets the chapter as

follows:

The third chapter [discusses] the consecration ritual. The consecration [up
through the end of the eulogy to the verse that reads] "After that, the glorious
ācārya," completes the maṇḍala gathering, and that is the secret consecration.
At the end of that [secret consecration] it mentions giving the command:

Having received the bodhicitta consecration,

To the disciple, completely free from sin,693
Who is the supreme heir of the Buddha [PUVS 3.26bcd]

One should thus give the command: [PUVS 3.27a]

And then the word consecration is given to the faithful one:

One should give the consecration of the verbal jewel

To one with supreme faith in the profound and vast [instruction]. [PUVS 3.38cd]

There is no third consecration in this text. So what are these ācāryas who are
convinced that this kind of consecration ritual is unacceptable talking
about?694

Contrary to Pema Karpo's conclusion here, Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi 3.22 may in fact

describe something like a third consecration But these verses and a number of others that

provide greater context for the rite are omitted from Pema Karpo's explanation of the chapter.

In his defense, however, the terminology employed in the chapter, as well as in the

consecration chapters in Guhyasiddhi and Jñānasiddhi, does not match the more common

terminology used for the sequence of consecrations. To make matters more complicated,

Anaṅgavajra's instructions seem to combine forms of the consecration rite that are typically

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associated with both the guhya and prajñājñāna-abhiṣekas. After a sequence in which the

disciple approaches the vajrācārya and presents him with a consort, worships them both, and

enters the maṇḍala (PUVS 3.5–3.19), the following verses contain a sequence of instructions

in which the Vajrācārya confers the samaya upon the disciple, who has been united with the

consort:

Then the Ācārya, the fortunate one,

Unites with the consort
And deposits the bodhicitta [PUVS 3.20bcd]

In the lotus, the abode of the victors.

With verses of auspicious blessing and
Chowries, parasols, and victory banners,
The disciple who is united with the consort [PUVS 3.21]

Should be consecrated as the lord of the world.695

After the master, the supreme lord,
Gives the jewel of consecration
He then bestows the blissful samaya [PUVS 3.22]

That clarifies inherent nature and is truly pure.

The great jewel is mixed with camphor,
Red sandalwood,
And the vajra-water, [PUVS 3.23]

That arise from the pure five.696

"This, my son, is your samaya
Which is taught in accord with all of the buddhas
You, fortunate one, must always maintain it. Listen, [PUVS 3.24]

Now you shall hear the vow. [PUVS 3.25a]697

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It is clear in these passages that the disciple is united with the consort, and that he is

consecrated while they are in union. The disciple is also, seemingly for the first time during

the rite, given a mixture of substances to ingest that signifies his taking of the samaya. Both

elements typically associated with the guhya and prajñājñāna-abhiṣeka are thus present here,

and it is unclear if the rite describes the former, the latter, or a combination of both. What is

clear is that Pema Karpo's statement that the consecration chapter in

Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi does not contain a third consecration glosses over the complexity

of the passage, and it does so to his rhetorical advantage.

The second issue in the treatment of The Seven Siddhi Texts in The Victor's Treasury

revolves around Pema Karpo's statement that Anaṅgavajra's chapter on consecration contains

a word consecration (tshig dbang bskur). In this context, the fourth consecration represents

the guru's simultaneous conferral of a final mahāmudrā instruction and the disciple's

realization of mahāmudrā. The term 'word' (tshig), however, does not appear as a modifier

for the consecration itself, but as an adverbial form describing the verbal expression of the













































































































































































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consecration according to the rituals described previously in the chapter. The Sanskrit verse

reads:

deyo ’bhiṣeko vidhibhir yathoktaiḥ

śiṣyādhimuktaṃ manasāvagamya |
udāragambhīranayādhimukto
vācaiva dadyād abhiṣekaratnam || 3.38 ||

The consecration should be given in the various ways mentioned above.

Having become convinced mentally of the disciple's devotion, |
One who is confident in the vast and profound system
Should grant the jewel of consecration verbally. || 3.38 ||

The Tibetan reads:

/cho ga 'di dag nyid kyis dbang bskur byin nas ni/
/slob ma lhag par mos pa'i yid kyis brtag byas la/
/zab cing rgya che ba la lhag par mos nas ni/
/tshig gis698 rin chen dbang bskur sbyin par bya/_38_/

Having given the consecration according to these instructions,

Having determined mentally that the disciple is very devout,
One generates great devotion in the vast and profound [teaching],
And then grants the jewel of consecration verbally.699

One can imagine Pema Karpo's temptation to read this as a clear example of the guru

imparting a word consecration, and by association a final mahāmudrā instruction that is

bestowed upon the disciple in the absence of a third consecration. The problem is, just as it is

somewhat unclear whether or not there is a third consecration in the chapter, it is also not

entirely clear that the verse in question constitutes a set of instructions for bestowing a true

word consecration.

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 The two issues are in fact related. Both revolve around the absence of a clear and

standardized vocabulary for the sequence of consecrations in the text. This ambiguity

highlights another point at which an important aspect of the commentator's own tradition has

been read into his sources with a degree of certainty that is not borne out in the source

material itself. It should also be noted that in his subsequent comments to

Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi, Pema Karpo admits to reading his own tradition into the text

when he presents Anaṅgavajra's chapter on "Meditation on Ultimate Reality" (de kho na nyis

bsgom pa, tattvabhāvanā) as a teaching on the Kagyü mahāmudrā system of four yogas (rnal

'byor bzhi). In this case he openly states that "chapter four does not mention the names of the

four yogas, but it teaches [them] according to [their] meaning."700 Importantly, this

interpretation also rules out the possibility that the material in chapter four of

Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi is might contain the 'word consecration' that Pema Karpo

identifies at the end of chapter three. This leaves two possibilities for the potential inclusion

of a 'word consecration' in chapter three of Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi—either this it appears

in liturgy itself in the form of the command (rjes gnang, anujñā) that is imparted following

the consecration rite, or it is not included in the liturgy for chapter three but merely implied

in verse 3.38d.701 The former position does not make sense because the guru's 'command' in

this text is not a final instruction on the nature of reality or mahāmudrā. If the liturgy for this

'word consecration' is merely implied in verse 3.38d, then Pema Karpo's entire argument

rests on a single phrase (tshigs gis, vācaiva) employed in a single verse for which there is no

























































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clear referent in the chapter itself. The latter option would seem to be relatively insubstantial

grounds for such an important claim.

Pema Karpo, likely prompted by Dönyö Drup pa and Gorampa, also cites

Jñānasiddhi 1.32 in his discussion of the role of consecration, treating Jñānasiddhi 1.32–33

and 1.37 as a brief set of summary verses corresponding to the lengthy consecration liturgy

that Indrabhūti provides later in chapter seventeen. Here Pema Karpo refers to the

consecration chapter in Jñānasiddhi as a blessing ritual (byin rlabs kyi cho ga) and elaborates

upon these verses with material from Jñānasiddhi's consecration chapter to argue that The

Seven Siddhi Texts support the view that the guru's blessing can perform the same function as

a complete set of consecrations. The ritual elements of the chapter include the performance

of a feast offering, the disciple's offering a consort gift (dakṣinā) to the guru, the return of the

consort along with the guru's blessing, and finally the guru's command. Indrabhūti goes to

some lengths to reinforce his argument toward the end of Jñānasiddhi chapter seventeen that

the disciple has now received the highest consecration, but the chapter only describes a rite

approximating what is more commonly referred to as the guhyābhiṣeka.702 For Pema Karpo,

Indrabhūti's statement that this rite confers the highest possible consecration is taken as

further proof that the guru's blessing can render an incomplete set of consecrations

soteriologically effective. Pointing this out to his reader, Pema Karpo throws in a bit of his

own polemic, stating "[b]ecause this text is indeed accepted as authoritative, only senile or

immature people (rgan 'chal kho nar zad) say that the blessing is unable to perform the

function of consecration."703

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 Pema Karpo thus employs two works from The Seven Siddhi Texts, Anaṅgavajra's

Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi and Indrabhūti's Jñānasiddhi, as examples of what the Sakya

might consider 'incomplete' consecration rituals that are preserved in what are widely

recognized as authoritative Indian sources on mahāmudrā. For Pema Karpo, the fact that the

guru's blessing is still able to confer a realization of mahāmudrā upon the disciple in these

works stands as evidence that the form and sequence of the consecration rite is secondary to

guru's blessing. This effectively opens up an opportunity for rejecting the Sakya view that

mahāmudrā can only be properly conferred upon and realized by a disciple who has received

the complete sequence of four consecrations.

The Sakya author Mangtö Ludrup Gyatso's Sunbeams of Mahāmudrā: An Eloquent

Exposition of the Chapter Refuting the Objections [of Others] (Phyag chen rtsod spong skabs

kyi legs bshad nyi ma'i 'od zer)704 responds directly to Pema Karpo's work in The Victor's

Treasury. Ludrup Gyatso begins his work with a short description of the type of criticism that

the Sakya view of mahāmudrā had suffered by the late sixteenth century and then states the

explicit purpose of his treatise as a response to Pema Karpo in the following passage:

The sweet sounding name of "The Glorious Drukpa Tülku" has become the
ear ornament of wise ones in all directions, and they are nourished by the
nectar of supreme joy in their hearts. Based on whether or not his bodily
image appears or does not appear somewhere, the wise one has the power and
ability to cause the precious teachings to wax or wane. The great saint who
has attained siddhi, who possesses the fortunate name Pema Karpo, has
composed a treatise called The Victor's Treasury: A Cohesive Exegesis of
Mahāmudrā Instructions in which, in order to test the deluded scholars among
the followers of the glorious Sakya of this time, he criticizes [them] with
degrading words and levels numerous responses and refutations. This is
appropriate for a scholar, and is the foundation of analytical logic. I have













































































































































































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 obtained permission to respond in this work, so it is appropriate that it should
be given to discerning scholars.705

He then comments on the role of consecration in The Seven Siddhi Texts and challenges

Pema Karpo's reading of both Jñānasiddhi 1.32 and chapter seventeen. He quotes Pema

Karpo's ad hominem against the 'childish or senile' who argue that the guru's blessing alone

cannot perform the function of a full sequence of consecrations, and refers to this statement

as "just the senseless babbling of someone poorly trained who was overwhelmed upon seeing

the true profundity of the tantra with the discriminating eyes of a mentally challenged fool

(byis pa blo gros ma smin pa)."706 Ludrup Gyatso argues that the blessing ritual in chapter

seventeen is explicitly designated for a disciple who has already been brought to maturity

through consecration and has already generated gnosis on their own in contrast to Pema

Karpo, who argued that the chapter is itself a rite for the performance of a ripening

consecration (smin pa'i dbang).707 For Ludrup Gyatso, the presence of this ripening

consecration at the beginning of Jñānasiddhi chapter seventeen, which he locates in JS 17.4–

5, indicates that the chapter cannot be interpreted as condoning the conferral of a blessing

upon a beginner who has not received any kind of prior consecration.

























































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 Pema Karpo's student Sangyé Dorjé takes Ludrup Gyatso's argument to task in his

work An Affirmation of the Supreme Conqueror of the Threefold World: A Discourse that

Refutes Objections to the Treatise 'The Victor's Treasury: An Explanation of the Mahāmudrā

Instructions' (Phyag rgya chen po'i man ngag gi bshad sbyar rgyal ba'i gan mdzod ces bya

ba'i bstan bcos la rtsod pa spong ba'i gtam srid gsum rnam par rgyal ba'i dge mtshan),

where he attempts to prove that the chapter is a liturgy for a 'blessing consecration' (byin

rlabs dbang bskur), not, as Ludrup Gyatso argues, a liturgy for a ripening consecration (min

byed dbang). The confusion around this issue may derive from a problem in the Tibetan

translation of Jñānasiddhi 17.4–5. The Sanskrit for Jñānasiddhi verse 17.4cd,

"svasaṃvedyasvabhāvam ca ādattam api niścayam," has been translated into the Tibetan as

"rang rig pa yi ngo bo la/ /bdag ni shin tu nges pa skyes/." Here the Tibetan translation adds

a first person subject to the verse (bdag ni) that has no equivalent in the Sanskrit while the

past participle ādattam falls out of the Tibetan entirely.708 In order to resolve the issue,

Sangyé Dorjé draws upon the following set of instructions (man ngag) from an unidentified

work of Phadampa Sangyé (Pha dam pa sangs rgyas, 11th–12th century) that parses these

verses from Jñānasiddhi and indicates that the disciple remains the recipient of this 'nature of

self-reflexive awareness:'

The Indian [master] Phadampa's instructions [on these verses] say, "The verse
that reads 'Oh compassionate one, due to [your] blessing,' [JS 17.4a] means
that the one who requests the consecration only needs to engage the
vajrācārya. Thus the disciple says, 'Compassionate one, due to [your]
blessing' [referring to] the ācārya. Among Tibetans it is said that you 'attain
the authentic supreme gnosis,' [JS 17.4b] and then 'One gains certainty in the
true nature' with respect to that realization of 'the essence of self-reflexive
awareness gnosis,' and [thus the verse in Jñānasiddhi] says,

























































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 One attains the perfect supreme gnosis and
Produces supreme certainty regarding ultimate reality
With respect to the essence of self-reflexive awareness. [JS 17.4.bcd]

Since you [i.e. the vajrācārya] possess 'This non-dual gnosis,' [the text says
that it] 'does not exist anywhere else in the world' [JS 17.5ab] [meaning
among] us [i.e. the supplicant(s)]. At that point, one 'supplicates the supreme
guru in order to drink the dharma-nectar.' [JS 17.5cd] After [the guru] makes
the portion of dharma-nectar, [the disciple says] 'Please grant me the blessing
consecration.'"

Thus the verse [from Jñānasiddhi that reads],

This non-dual gnosis is found

Nowhere else in the world.
In order to drink the dharma nectar,
[The disciple] supplicates the supreme guru." [JS 17.5]

is in agreement with [Phadampa Sangyé's] close reading.709 If one ignores this

point and applies [the verse] to the disciple, then [the disciple] must be
supplicating [the vajra ācārya] for the dharma nectar after having already
realized perfect, supreme gnosis. In that case, what is it that he seeks?

He then responds to Ludrup Gyatso's reading of the verse with the following critique:

In this verse [i.e JS 17.4cd], because it says "self-reflexive awareness" and "I,"
(bdag ni) he made a fundamental error and then misunderstood [the verse], yet
the nomad teaches that this mere fragment of a fool's reasoning is the truth. He
must acknowledge the mistake. 710

























































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In other words Sangyé Dorjé believes that Ludrup Gyatso is misled here by the passage's

reference to 'self-reflexive awareness' and the inclusion of a first person pronoun in the

Tibetan version of the text. This error allowed Ludrup Gyatso to read this "I" (bdag ni) as a

subject who "has generated confidence with respect to the nature of self-reflexive

awareness," and to read the verse as a confirmation of Sakya Paṇḍita's view of mahāmudrā in

his Distinguishing the Three Vows as "gnosis arisen from initiation and the self-arisen gnosis

that ensues from the meditations of the two processes."711 This, in turn, allows Ludrup

Gyatso to argue that the supplicant in Jñānasiddhi verses 17.4–5 has already received a

'blessing consecration,' and that the opening supplication constitutes a request for a 'ripening

consecration.' Without this variant in the Tibetan translation of the text, however, it is clear

that the disciple is requesting 'perfect supreme gnosis' and 'certainty as to the nature of self-

reflexive awareness' that are both attained 'from the blessing' (prasādāt, drin can gis). This

reading supports Pema Karpo and Sangyé Dorjé's argument that Jñānasiddhi chapter

seventeen preserves evidence from an authentic Indian source on mahāmudrā that the

vajrācārya's blessing, in the form of a 'blessing consecration,' can in fact confer a complete

realization of mahāmudrā.

V. Conclusion: Imagining a Homogenous "Indian Tradition"

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This presentation of the role that The Seven Siddhi Texts played in the works of several

prominent Sakya and Kagyü mahāmudrā polemicists has brought to light a number of points

that are of broader significance for Tibetologists. As chapter ten of this dissertation has

shown, The Seven Siddhi Texts exhibited some degree of fluidity in the hands of various

Tibetan authors, with some authors swapping out members of the standardized list in the

Tenjyur for other 'siddhi' texts to bring the corpus closer in line with a particular sectarian

identity and others expanding the list of seven to include a number of additional 'siddhi'

works. The employment of The Seven Siddhi Texts in Sakya-Kagyü mahāmudrā polemical

literature from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries has revealed a similarly flexible

approach to interpreting this mahāmudrā practical canon. Authors on both sides primarily

drew upon the corpus to clarify whether or not a necessary relationship obtains between

imparting and realizing the nature of mahāmudrā and the combination of receiving the higher

tantric consecrations while progressing through the two-stage yoga of the 'unsurpassed

yogatantra.' In the process, these authors twisted or manipulated their sources to better

support their arguments. It is also clear that, due to their employment in this polemical

literature, these authors' engagement with The Seven Siddhi Texts became increasingly more

sophisticated over time. This pattern, I argue, is also a result of the kind of increased

awareness and accessibility that The Seven Siddhi Texts enjoyed due to their prominent

placement in the first volumes of two Kagyü practical canons published at the end of the

fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries, the Indian Mahāmudrā Works and The

Great Treasury of the Drikung Kagyü Teachings.

For Tibetan authors on both sides of this polemical literature as well as modern

scholars, the task of interpreting the consecration chapters from Guhyasiddhi,

vqw
Prajñopāyaviniścayasiddhi, and Jñānasiddhi is complicated by the fact that the sequence of

the consecration rituals and the terminology that is used to describe them varies across all

three works. This is the case despite assurance from hagiographic sources that these three

works represent a single mahāmudrā lineage transmission from Oḍiyāna. In addition, none of

these works employ a consecration terminology that matches the more standardized lexicon

for the three higher consecrations—the guhya-, prajñajñāna-, and caturtha-abhiṣekas.712 The

lack of a standardized and consistent consecration ritual sequence and lexicon across these

three works undoubtedly made the job of Sakya and Kagyü mahāmudrā polemicists that

much more difficult. The fact that The Seven Siddhi Texts are widely accepted as an

authoritative corpus of Indian mahāmudrā works meant that Sakya and Kagyü authors were

required to find some way to read aspects of later, more standardized consecration system

into the texts. In doing so, both sides grappled with a corpus containing a series of somewhat

loose internal correspondences around the critical issue of consecration rites.

When confronted with the relatively unorganized presentation of consecration rites in

these works, Tibetan authors on both sides of the mahāmudrā polemical literature presented

here show a minimal degree of sensitivity toward the lack of standardization one encounters

in discourses of the mahāsiddhas who authored The Seven Siddhi Texts. The reason for this, I

suggest, is that both sides of this debate may have preferred to leave the rhetoric of an

imaginary hegemonic "Indian Tradition" intact instead of problematizing the very foundation

of their own arguments by pointing out inconsistencies within the corpus and undercutting its

entire authority-granting structure as a collection of Indian mahāmudrā works. The belief in a

monolithic "Indian Tradition" is, after all, precisely the underlying assumption that gives the

























































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Seventh Karmapa's practical canon of Indian Mahāmudrā Works and the works it contains

rhetorical weight. Such rhetoric, however, neglects the fact that the works contained in The

Seven Siddhi Texts are products of a dynamic and evolving discourse around tantric

consecration rites and meditative techniques. For the modern historian of these traditions, the

fact that Indrabhūti's Jñānasiddhi presents a liturgy in which a ritual approximating the

guhyābhiṣeka functions as the highest consecration might be taken as an indication that this

text reflects a stage in the development of esoteric Buddhism that predates the addition of a

third and fourth consecration.713 Instead, the Tibetan authors analyzed here all seem to insist

that The Seven Siddhi Texts is in direct conversation with the genre of 'highest yogatantra'

and fail to recognize that the corpus includes works that are conversant with a number of

genres of tantric literature, primarily those associated with the yogatantra and

mahāyogatantra class.714 This oversight is surprising, particularly since the absence of a clear

delineation of four stages of consecration across The Seven Siddhi Texts, the absence of any

correlation between stages in the consecration rite and the four types of joy (or, in the case of

Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi, the presence of a list of only three types joy), and the fact that

authors such as Indrabhūti refer to the textual sources for their mahāmudrā instructions as

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vqy
yogatantras (not mahāyogatantra or 'highest yogatantra') could only play to the advantage of

the Kagyü position.

vqz
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Primary Sources

Images and Artwork

"Mandala of Chakrasamvara (Buddhist Deity)." Himalayan Art Resources, idem no. 86435.
Physical painting housed in the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
NY. http://www.himalayanart.org/image.cfm?icode=86435.

"Mandala of Jnana Dakini (Buddhist Deity) - (Three Faces, Six Arms)." Himalayan Art
Resources, item no. 101367. Physical painting housed in the Collection of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York, NY. http://www.himalayanart.org/image.cfm?icode=101367.

"Chakrasamvara (Buddhist Deity)." Himalayan Art Resources item no. 57150. Private
Collection. https://www.himalayanart.org/items/57150.

"Hevajra (Buddhist Deity)." Himalayan Art Resources item no. 65207. Rubin Museum of
Art. https://www.himalayanart.org/items/65207.

"Hevajra (Buddhist Deity) -detail 16." Himalayan Art Resources item no. 66761. Private
Collection. https://www.himalayanart.org/items/66761/images/66761p#-1361,-2096,2786,0.

Sanskrit Manuscript Sources

Anaṅgavajra. Prajñopāyaviniścaya. IASWR MBB-1972-103 (MBB 7-3).

Ḍombiheruka et. al. Sahajasiddhitattvasiddhiḥ. NGMCP A 117/5. Kathmandu: Nepal

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