Derge Kangyur/Tengyur e-text, Esukhia/Barom edition — public domain (mechanical reproduction)
This text is a ritual praise composed in the daṇḍaka metre, attributed to the logician Dharmakīrti. It functions as a meditative visualization and devotional hymn centered on the deity Vajraḍāka and the Cakrasaṃvara mandala. The work begins by establishing the deity's physical attributes and his dominance over worldly deities, specifically Īśvara and Gaurī. It then expands the spatial scope to describe the surrounding mandala, detailing the presence of the four great ḍākinīs and wrathful heroes. The text transitions from static iconography to the dynamic activity of the Tathāgata, who employs compassion to dismantle the afflictions of saṃsāra. The final sections employ the aesthetics of the cremation ground, using visceral imagery of decay and fire to symbolize the transmutation of the mundane. By engaging with this text, the reader is committed to a visualization practice that moves from the external architecture of the mandala to the internal realization of emptiness through the lens of wrathful compassion.
Provenance
About this text
A praise of the Vajraḍāka, the Śrīvajraḍākasyastavadaṇḍaka is a work of classical Tibetan Buddhism. It is attributed to the Indian author Dharmakīrti. The text was translated into Tibetan by Maṇikaśrījñāna and chag lo tsa ba shakya’i dge slong dpal gyi mtha’ can, and it is preserved in the Tengyur, volume ཝ, within the collection of Śaṃvara and Related Tantras. Spanning four pages in this edition, the work enacts a devotional visualization of the deity Vajraḍāka and the Cakrasaṃvara mandala. It describes the deity of blue utpala hue resting upon a golden mountain and a lotus seat, treading upon Īśvara and Gaurī while outshining Indra and Upendra. The text further details the mandala's architecture, placing the great ḍākinīs Lāmā, Khaṇḍarohā, Śavarī, and the Enchantress within the four directional lotus petals, surrounded by skull-cups and wrathful heroes and heroines moving through the subterranean, terrestrial, and celestial realms. A scholar or serious reader consults this text to examine the specific iconographic details and the spatial arrangement of the deity and the surrounding assembly as presented in the Tibetan tradition.
Sanskrit title
Śrīvajraḍākasyastavadaṇḍaka
Indian author
Dharmakīrti
Tibetan translators
Maṇikaśrījñāna, chag lo tsa ba shakya’i dge slong dpal gyi mtha’ can
Cite thisAnuvāda, “A Praise of the Glorious Vajaraḍaka in Daṇḍaka Metre” (Toh 1442), machine draft, 2026.https://naxiai.com/tibetan/works/toh1442
Summary & commentary
Significance
The work is significant for its attribution to Dharmakīrti, suggesting a synthesis between the rigorous logic of the Indian tradition and the esoteric practices of the Vajrayāna. For the modern reader, it provides a primary example of the use of the daṇḍaka metre and the specific iconographic arrangements of the Cakrasaṃvara cycle.
Structure
Passages
Section
Description
1-2
Introduction and Central Deity
Invocation and description of the blue-hued deity's posture and dominance over Īśvara and Gaurī.
3
Mandala Architecture
Description of the four great ḍākinīs and the arrangement of wrathful heroes within the wheels of body, speech, and mind.
4
Soteriological Activity
The deity's role in destroying the afflictions of saṃsāra through compassion and light.
5
Cremation Ground Imagery
A visceral depiction of the cremation fire and the decomposition of the physical body.
6
Colophon
Attribution of the work to Dharmakīrti and the Tibetan translator Palgyi Thachen.
Themes
Iconography of the Mandala (2-3)
Compassion and the Destruction of Afflictions (4)
Impermanence and the Cremation Ground (5)
Summary, significance and provenance note generated by gemma4:31b from the translation and the catalogue record.
AnuvādaA Praise of the Glorious Vajaraḍaka in Daṇḍaka Metre·
In the language of India: Śrī-vajraḍāka-stotra-daṇḍaka-nāma. In the language of Tibet: dPal rDo rje mkha' 'gro'i bstod pa rgyun chags zhes bya ba. Homage to the glorious Cakrasaṃvara!
Upon the maṇḍalas of wind, fire, water, and earth, resting atop a golden mountain, sits the one of blue utpala hue, like a stainless blue rain-cloud in the sky. He stands upon a seat of a full-blown lotus, treading upon Īśvara and trampling the two breasts of Gaurī, outshining Indra and Upendra. He is praised by the gods, including the sun and moon, and he terrifies the many asuras while protecting the world. He strips away all doubt, is draped in a tiger-skin garment, and liberates the wicked. He is firm and profound, appearing in the forms of the syllables HŪṂ and PHAṬ, with the roar of HA HA filling the entire sky. He is marked by the supreme uṣṇīṣa and the crossed vajra with a crescent moon. He has conquered the darkness of delusion and brings about perfect liberation. He holds a great conch-shell rosary and a vajra with the sound of a bell, clearly manifesting the supreme mudrā in an embrace. He possesses the limb of passion for non-dual wisdom and is accompanied by the consort, his natural partner. With two hands, he holds the skin of a great intoxicated elephant. He is busily engaged and radiantly displays a battle-axe, a sharp spear, a curved knife, a blazing vajra, a khaṭvāṅga, a lasso, a head of Brahmā, a hand-drum, and a skull-cup. With these hands, he is beautiful, and he consumes flesh and great fat. Endowed with meditative concentration, a crown, wisdom, and the wealth of intelligence, he possesses eight faces and three pure eyes. Adorned with a garland of human heads, he is terrifying, fierce, and unbearable. To Vajrasattva, who perfectly liberates from the wilderness of saṃsāra, who subdues the Māras, I pay homage.
Following that, in the four lotus petals of the directions reside the great ḍākinīs Lāmā, Khaṇḍarohā, Śavarī, and the Enchantress, together with those who dwell in the intermediate directions, surrounded by skull-cups. Then, in the wheels of body, speech, and mind, there are the wrathful heroes and heroines who move through the subterranean, terrestrial, and celestial realms. From these three, the supreme wheel of the lords of heroes and heroines is manifestly worshipped by the eight goddesses, Kākāsyā and the rest, who dwell in the cardinal and intermediate directions. Endowed with the grace of union with their own goddesses, they terrify the hosts of Māra. They are perfectly passionate toward sentient beings, yet they are wrathful toward the hateful and furious toward the angry, destroying the afflictions. Satiated by drinking the warm blood of the Lord of Death and other demons, their hearts are blissful. They dwell as the sole performers of deeds in the three worlds, diligent in the Buddha’s activity. Their bodies are covered with horripilation born from the touch of the bliss of the Vajra Goddess. Their eyelashes flicker, and from the hollow of their throats they laugh with the sound of "Siḥ." With lovely noose-like arms, they embrace the necks of their consorts. From the firm, swelling breasts of their consorts, they are worshipped by the spray of sweat. The radiance of their light, like ten million suns, pervades the various maṇḍalas of the directions. Adorned with earrings, their youthful crescent-moon fangs shine brilliantly. To the Vajra Ḍākinī, who bestows glory, intelligence, satisfaction, and prosperity—who bestows sovereignty, bestows accomplishments, and bestows all perfections—I bow forever. I bow to the Guide, the Vajra Ḍākinī.
Entering with the experience of incomparable compassion, the array of the Tathāgata radiates without exception. Within the unbearable ocean of saṃsāra, he utterly destroys the surging garlands of the waves of afflictions. Blazing with a light exceeding a thousand fires, he perfectly reveals the pervasive rays of the mass of luminous primordial wisdom (jñāna) that flashes like lightning. He arises from the true nature of infinite phenomena, which is the essence of the absence of entities and the non-existent. He is the nature of the three realms, possessing both form and being formless, having conquered all forms. Abiding definitively in the four brahmā abodes, adorned with the major marks and beautifully embellished with the minor signs, he pervades sentient beings through the three bodies—the dharmakāya, saṃbhogakāya, and nirmāṇakāya. His enlightened activity for the sake of beings is threefold: great attachment for those with attachment, great hatred for the wicked, and great delusion for the deluded; great desire for those with desire, yet love that is inseparable from emptiness. Having abandoned the extremes of the past and the future, he pervades the three worlds in a single instant. His consciousness is manifest, the supreme beauty of the assembly of great joy. Having crossed the unbearable outer and inner darkness through generosity, discipline, and the rest, he performs the deeds for wandering beings. He is the one who truly delivers from the terrors of saṃsāra, the plunderer who removes all afflictions. Possessing form and gathering all forms, he strikes terror into all the malevolent. He is the pervasive lord, the great body, the coarse body, the great pervasive one, the permanent, the one who abides in an instant, the stable, the moving, the clear, the hero, the lord of heroes and heroines, the lord of the world—to him, all entities bow.
Adorned with a hundred flavors, possessing many wondrous and terrifying forms, the cremation fire—fierce with human heads, fierce skulls, fragments of bone, hair, and the like—is ablaze. The supreme limbs are being consumed, brains are oozing, marrow and fat are scattered, and the mud is slippery. Tresses of hair and garlands of intestines hang in disarray.
Ḍākinīs, bhūtas, and vetālas let out loud "ha ha" roars. Many practitioners are threatened by the syllable HŪṂ, while jackals raise a clamor of "phaṭ" and perform dances with raised hands. Amidst a dense mass of skeletons, they sing melodious songs and dance with the joy born from the delight of the heroes' drink.
Moving and sporting, the assembly of lords of yogins and yoginīs is pressed and torn by the beaks of vultures, from which streams of blood flow from their bodies. In the darkness, a fierce, blazing fire emerges from the faces of jackals. The black hosts of Māra are absent; in the eight charnel grounds, where divine substances are gathered like a dense mass, the dance is performed.
To the Guru Heruka, I offer these words of praise. By the merit born from this, which pervades the expanse of the realm of space, may all these births abandon the entire web of afflictions without exception. Having accumulated an incomparable mass of merit, may the collection of stainless primordial wisdom be realized. Through the light of the supreme, perfectly clear self-awareness, may the infinite darkness of various forms of delusion be completely dispelled. In an instant, may I become like the body of all the perfect Buddhas, the Vajra Ḍākinī, forever and in every way.
The Continuous Praise to the Glorious Vajraḍāka, composed by the great master, the crown jewel of the assembly of logicians, the venerable and glorious Dharmakīrti, is hereby complete. It was translated, edited, and finalized by the Tibetan translator, the Śākya monk Palgyi Thachen, from the presence of the Indian abbot Maṇikaśrījñāna. Regarding the length of this text, in the master’s own manuscript, each of the four lines consists of thirty-six syllables; thus, the four lines together contain one thousand three hundred and forty-four syllables. In the Tibetan manuscript, each line contains two hundred and ninety-five syllables, totaling one thousand one hundred and eighty syllables.