| Vajrasattva | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Sanskrit | वज्रसत्त्व Vajrasatva |
| Chinese | 金剛薩埵菩薩 (Pinyin:Jīngāng Sàduǒ Púsà) |
| Japanese | 金剛薩埵菩薩 (romaji:Kongōsatta Bosatsu) |
| Khmer | វជ្រសត្វ (vach-cha-sat) |
| Korean | 금강살타보살 (RR:Geumgang Salta Bosal) |
| Mongolian | Доржсэмбэ |
| Tagalog | Baklasattba |
| Thai | พระวัชรสัตว์โพธิสัตว์ |
| Tibetan | རྡོ་རྗེ་སེམས་དཔའ་ Wylie: rdo rje sems dpa' THL: Dorje Sempa རྡོར་སེམས་ THL: Dorsem |
| Vietnamese | Kim Cang Tát Đỏa Bồ Tát |
| Information | |
| Venerated by | Mahāyāna,Vajrayāna |
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Vajrasattva (Sanskrit:वज्रसत्त्व, Tibetan: རྡོ་རྗེ་སེམས་དཔའ།Dorje Sempa, short form: རྡོར་སེམས།Dorsem)[1] is abodhisattva in theMahayana andMantrayana/Vajrayana Buddhist traditions.
InChinese Buddhism and the JapaneseShingon tradition, Vajrasattva is the esoteric aspect of thebodhisattvaSamantabhadra and is commonly associated with the student practitioner who, through the master's teachings, attains an ever-enriching, subtle and rarefied grounding in their esoteric practice. In theEast Asian esoteric BuddhistDiamond RealmMandala, Vajrasattva sits to the East nearAkshobhya Buddha.
In some esoteric lineages,Nagarjuna was said to have met Vajrasattva in an iron tower in South India, and was taughttantra, thus transmitting the esoteric teachings to more historical figures.[2] InTibetan Buddhism, Vajrasattva is associated with thesambhogakāya and with purification practice.
Vajrasattva appears in various Buddhist texts, including in the esotericVairocanābhisaṃbodhi Sūtra and in theVajraśekhara Sūtra. Vajrasattva also appears as a major character in theGhanavyūha sūtra. In theNyingma canon, Vajrasattva also appears in variousDzogchen texts, such as theKulayarāja Tantra andThe Mirror of the Heart of Vajrasattva.
Vajrasattva'smantra isoṃ Vajrasattva hūṃ (Sanskrit:ॐ वज्रसत्त्व हूँ;Chinese:唵 斡資囉 薩答 啊 吽 /嗡 班扎 薩埵 吽;Pinyin:ǎn wòzīluō sàdá a hōng /wēng bānzhā sàduǒ hōng).
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Vajrasattva's name translates toDiamond Being orThunderbolt Being. Thevajra, a symbol of insight, is associated withEsoteric Buddhism.
Vajrasattva is an important figure in the tantric Buddhism of theNewar People of the Kathmandu Valley. He represents the ideal guru, and he is frequently invoked in theguru maṇḍala, the foundational ritual for all other Newar Buddhist rituals and the dailypūjā for Newar priests (vajrācāryas). Theśatākṣara (100 syllable prayer to Vajrasattva) is memorized by many practicing Newar Buddhist priests.
InChinese Buddhism andShingon, Vajrasattva is traditionally viewed as the second patriarch of Esoteric Buddhism, the first beingVairocana Buddha.Kukai, inRecord of the Dharma Transmission, relates a story based onAmoghavajra's account, ofNagarjuna having met Vajrasattva in an iron tower in southernIndia. Vajrasattva initiated Nagarjuna into theabhiseka ritual and entrusted him with the esoteric teachings he had learned fromVairocana Buddha, as depicted in theMahavairocana Sutra. Kukai does not elaborate further on Vajrasattva or his origins.[3]
Elsewhere, Vajrasattva is an important figure in two esoteric Buddhist sutras, the Mahavairocana Sutra and theVajrasekhara Sutra. In the first chapter of the Mahavairocana Sutra, Vajrasattva leads a host of beings who visitVairocana Buddha to learn theDharma. Vajrasattva inquires about the cause, goal and foundation of all-embracing wisdom, which leads to a philosophical discourse delivered by the Buddha. The audience cannot comprehend the teaching, so the Buddha demonstrates through the use ofmandala. Vajrasattva then questions why rituals and objects are needed, if the truth is beyond form. Vairocana Buddha replies to Vajrasattva that these are expedient means, whose function is to bring practitioners to awakening more readily, and so on. InShingon Buddhist rituals for initiation, thekechien kanjō, the initiate re-enacts the role of Vajrasattva and recitesmantra and dialogue from the sutras above. TheMahācārya enacts the role of Mahavairocana Buddha, bestowing wisdom upon the student.[citation needed]
In certain esoteric Chinese Buddhist rituals, such as theYujia Yankou rite (Chinese: 瑜伽燄口;pinyin:Yújiā Yànkǒu), Vajrasattva's Hundred Syllable Mantra is commonly recited as part of the liturgy, while the performing monastic uses ritualvajras andghantas to expel demons from the ritual platform. Besides these rituals, in different other rituals such as repentance rites, some monastics have also been known to utilize the mantraoṃ Vajrasattva hūṃ (Chinese: 嗡 班扎薩埵 吽;pinyin:Wēng bānzhāsàduǒ hōng).
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InTibetan Buddhism the Vajrasattva root tantra isDorje Gyan, or "Vajra Ornament".[4] Vajrasattva practices are common to all of the five schools of Tibetan Buddhism and are used both to purify obscurations so that theVajrayana student can progress beyondNgondro practices to the variousyoga practices oftantra and also to purify any brokensamaya vows afterinitiation. As such, Vajrasattva practice is an essential element of Tibetan Buddhist practice.
In addition to personal practice, the Vajrasattva mantra is regarded as having the ability to purifykarma, bring peace, and cause enlightened activity in general. Following theSeptember 11, 2001 attacks on theUnited States, TheDzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche announced a project, Prayer 4 Peace, to accumulate one billion six syllable Vajrasattva recitations from practitioners around the world. The six syllable mantra (oṁ Vajrasattva Hūṁ), is a less formal version of the one hundred syllable mantra on which it is based but contains the essential spiritual points of the longer mantra, according tolama andtulkuJamgon Kongtrul.[5]
"The Mirror of the Heart of Vajrasattva" (Tibetan:རྡོ་རྗེ་སེམས་དཔའ་སྙིང་གི་མེ་ལོང,Wylie:rdo rje sems dpa' snying gi me long) is one of theSeventeen Tantras ofDzogchenUpadesha.[6]
Samantabhadra discourses to Vajrasattva and in turn Vajrasattva asks questions of Samantabhadra in clarification in theKulayaraja Tantra (Wylie:kun byed rgyal po,THL:künjé gyalpo) or "The All-Creating King Tantra", the main tantra of the Mind Series of Dzogchen.[7]
Vajrasattva is often depicted with various consorts: the peaceful one being Vajragarvi, aka Vajrasatvātmikā (Tib.Dorje Nyema), Dharmadhatvishvari, Ghantapani ("Bell Bearer"), thewrathful one Diptacakra, Vajratopa, Vajrabhrikuti, and others.[clarification needed]
An important mantra associated with Vajrasattva is the Hundred Syllable Mantra. This mantra appears in theSarvatathāgata-tattvasaṃgraha.[8] The earliest appearance of the mantra is in a collection of mantras (T.866) translated into Chinese byVajrabodhi (c. 671–741) in 723 CE calledA Summary of Recitations Taken from the Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṃgrahasūtra (金剛頂瑜伽中略出念誦經).[9]
The mantra is the following:
ཨོཾ་ | Oṃ | 唵 | Ǎn | Oṃ
|
In Chinese Buddhism, the "Vajrasattva Hundred Syllable Mantra" (Chinese: 金剛薩埵百字明咒;pinyin:Jīngāngsàduǒ bǎizì zhòu) is recited and practiced by monastics during esoteric rituals that havetantric elements. One example is theYujia Yankou rite (Chinese:瑜伽焰口;pinyin:Yújiā Yànkou; lit “Yoga Flaming Mouth”), which is commonly conducted as a part of regular temple services in order to facilitate the spiritual nourishment and liberation ofhungry ghosts as well as to prolong the lifespans of the living and avert disasters.[10][11][12]
In Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhist practice, Vajrasattva is used in theNgondro, or preliminary practices, in order topurify the mind's defilements, prior to undertaking more advancedtantric techniques. Theyik gya, the "Hundred Syllable Mantra" (Tibetan:ཡིག་བརྒྱ་,Wylie:yig brgya) supplication of Vajrasattva, approaches universality in the various elementary Ngondrosadhana forsadhakas of all Mantrayana andSarma schools bar the Bonpo. The pronunciation and orthography differ between lineages.
The evocation of the Hundred Syllable Vajrasattva Mantra in theVajrayana lineage ofJigme Lingpa's (1729–1798)ngondro from theLongchen Nyingtig displays Sanskrit-Tibetan hybridization. Such textual and dialecticaldiglossia (Sanskrit:dvaibhāṣika) is evident from the earliest transmission of tantra into the region, where the original Sanskrit phonemes and lexical items are often orthographically rendered in the Tibetan, rather than the comparable indigenous terms (Davidson, 2002).[13] Though Jigme Lingpa did notcompose the Hundred Syllable Mantra, his scribal style bears a marked similarity to it as evidenced by his biographies (Gyatso, 1998).[14] Jigme Lingpa aspandit, which in the Himalayan context denotes an indigenous Tibetan versed in Sanskrit, often wrote in a hybridized Sanskrit-Tibetan diglossia.
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