Derge Kangyur/Tengyur e-text, Esukhia/Barom edition — public domain (mechanical reproduction)
This ritual text, titled Gaṇacakra-vidhi in Sanskrit and Tshogs kyi ’khor lo’i cho ga in Tibetan, provides a procedural guide for conducting a feast offering. The text outlines a sequence of liturgical actions beginning with an invocation of Vajraḍākinī and proceeding through specific stages of offering. It instructs the practitioner to utilize five offerings and five nectars during the sevenfold purity phase, directing these toward the wisdom wheel and the holder of the wheel of the five yogins. The ritual culminates in a visualization process where sentient beings are perceived as a diverse assembly of deities, wrathful figures, and garuḍas. By employing specific seed syllables and mantras, the practitioner invites these guests and dissolves them into the visualization. The text commits the reader to a precise combination of material offerings, mental visualization, and mantra recitation to facilitate the ritual's efficacy.
Provenance
About this text
A ritual guide for the gaṇacakra, the Gaṇacakravidhi is a work attributed to the Indian author Vajraghaṇṭa. Preserved within the classical Tibetan tradition, the text appears in the Tengyur, volume ཝ, where it comprises three pages and is situated within the collection of the Śaṃvara and Related Tantras. Under the Tibetan title tshogs kyi 'khor lo'i cho ga, the work enacts a sequence of liturgical offerings designed to accumulate merit and wisdom. It begins with an invocation of Vajraḍākinī and prescribes the use of five offerings and five nectars during the sevenfold purity, directing these toward the wisdom wheel and the holder of the wheel of the five yogins. The ritual further requires the practitioner to visualize sentient beings as a diverse assembly of male and female deities, wrathful figures, and garuḍas, who are invited and dissolved through the use of specific seed syllables and mantras. A scholar or serious reader consults this text today to examine the precise intersection of material offerings, mental visualization, and mantra recitation required to complete the ritual of authenticity.
The work is significant as it exemplifies the integration of visualization and material offering characteristic of Vajrayāna ritual practice. It demonstrates the technical application of the Gaṇacakra (feast circle) to transform ordinary perception of sentient beings into a divine assembly.
Structure
Passages
Section
Description
1
Invocation
Homage to Vajraḍākinī and descriptions of her attributes.
2
Offering Procedures
Instructions on the use of five offerings and five nectars during the sevenfold purity and post-empowerment phases.
3
Visualization and Invitation
Guidelines for visualizing sentient beings as deities and the use of mantras to invite and dissolve guests.
Themes
Ritual Offerings (2-3)
Visualization (3)
Mantra and Seed Syllables (3)
Summary, significance and provenance note generated by gemma4:31b from the translation and the catalogue record.
In the language of India: Gaṇacakra-vidhi. In the language of Tibet: Tshogs kyi ’khor lo’i cho ga (The Ritual of the Gaṇacakra). Homage to the glorious Vajraḍākinī!
Homage to her who sports with the stainless Yoginī whose color is like the sky, who, having emanated a multitude of garuḍas, overpowers the four Māras. The gaṇacakra is the accumulation of merit and wisdom; through the gaṇacakra, the supreme accomplishment is attained. Therefore, its ritual should be performed on the eighth, the fourteenth, the fifteenth, and especially on the tenth day of the lunar month. It should be performed in a charnel ground, or at a supreme solitary tree, in a grove, a pleasure garden, in one’s own home, or likewise in another secluded house.
First, gather the requisites for the gaṇacakra. Then, having drawn a dharmodaya with amṛta, place upon it a skull-cup containing the five amṛtas. Then the patron prostrates and offers flowers and a ritual fee to the gaṇacakra ācārya and the yogis, and makes a request. Then the gaṇacakra ācārya recites the mantra "Oṃ mahāraśudhe sarvadharmā mahāraśudho ’haṃ" many times. Following that, the ācārya, holding a vajra and bell, should visualize himself in union with the consort. Then, the amṛta is purified. The wisdom amṛta is brought down, and one recites "Oṃ amṛta hūṃ" as much as possible. Recite the root mantra. Then, by scattering [the amṛta] in the ten directions with the threatening gesture, the glorious Bodhisattvas expel the vighnas. Perform the protection wheel. Then, with "Oṃ āḥ hūṃ," bless the substances so they are faultless and blissful. Then, meditate on the generation stage.
During the section on the sevenfold purity, one should make offerings with the five offerings and the five nectars (amṛta). Offer one to the wisdom wheel (jñānacakra). Then, after the empowerment (abhiṣeka) is complete, offer one to the holder of the wheel of the five yogins. Offer these following the nectar and the rinsing water. Then, having gathered the deities and purified them through the feast (gaṇacakra), offer flower garlands and fragrant scents to the yogins. Then, the goddesses who fill the sky should also proclaim auspicious verses. Then, fill a single-piece skull cup with beer and offer it while reciting these words:
"Behold this so-called holy Dharma! It is free from conceptual construction. The brahmin, the dog, and the outcaste—these three are of one nature; therefore, eat together. The Dharma of the Sugatas is without sin, completely free from subject and object, and devoid of faults such as desire. To suchness, I pay homage. Having partaken of the food there, the leftovers should be placed in a vessel."
Accordingly, after enjoying the feast, one person should collect the leftovers from the bottom up and the flowers from earlier. Visualizing these as an offering cake (bali), the sequence is as follows:
"On a surface measuring one cubit, smear it with fragrant scents. Therefore, it is a white triangle. Place fish, meat, and so forth as the offering cake; place flowers and so forth upon the offering cake. Having rendered it non-referential, visualize through devotion a triangular source of phenomena (dharmodaya). At the downward-pointing tip, from OṂ comes Vairocana; from ĀḤ on the left comes Amitābha; from HŪṂ on the right comes Akṣobhya. Inside, from a green PAṂ comes a variegated lotus."
Upon that, visualize the sentient beings as the male and female deities, the wrathful ones, and the garuḍas, and offer the torma. With jaḥ hūṃ baṃ hoḥ, invite the guests as they are in their own nature and dissolve them [into the visualization]. Offer with kāya vāk. After offering praise, recite verses of auspiciousness. Then, in order to complete any omissions or excesses in the ritual of authentic offerings, recite the hundred-syllable mantra. Make supplications for the desired supreme and common accomplishments. Then, with palms joined, make this aspiration:
"May all sentient beings be free from sin;
May all sentient beings be happy.
Having entered the very path
That leads to meeting with Buddhahood itself,
May those not yet liberated be liberated,
And may those not yet freed be freed.
May I abide this very moment
In the samaya of the yoga scriptures."
Snap the fingers three times and request the external deities to depart:
"By my performing this feast circle (gaṇacakra),
Whatever stainless virtue is obtained,
Through having gathered the two accumulations,
May all beings become Vajradhara Kings."
The ritual of the feast circle composed by the master Vajraghaṇṭapa is complete.