Derge Kangyur/Tengyur e-text, Esukhia/Barom edition — public domain (mechanical reproduction)
The Two-Stage Praise of Vajravārāhī, attributed to the Indian Paṇḍita Vanaratna, is a liturgical work designed to facilitate the practitioner's transition from conceptual perception to the realization of emptiness. The text employs a dual-stage structure to address both the external manifestation of the deity and the internal transformation of the practitioner. Initially, it utilizes vivid imagery of the goddess's radiance and form to symbolize the destruction of karmic obscurations and the liberation of sentient beings. The work then shifts toward a psychological and philosophical critique of the discursive mind, characterizing it as a thief that devours the sense-fields. By contrasting the guile of the ordinary mind with the effortless bliss of emptiness, the text commits the reader to abandoning worldly conduct in favor of the non-dual state of Mahāmudrā. Ultimately, the work functions as a meditative tool to ignite the unwavering lamp of awareness through the union of method and wisdom.
Provenance
About this text
A eulogy dedicated to the goddess Vajravārāhī, the Kramadvayavajravārāhīstotra belongs to the tradition of the Śaṃvara and Related Tantras. The work is attributed to the Indian author Vanaratnapāda. It entered the Tibetan tradition through the efforts of Vanaratnapāda and chos ’khor lo tsa ba ’jam dpal ye shes, and is preserved in the Tengyur (vol. འ) as the rdo rje phag mo'i bstod pa rim pa gnyis pa, spanning four pages in that edition. The work enacts a devotional praise of the Vajra Queen, the spontaneous glory of Śrī Heruka, whose radiance and form are invoked to destroy the darkness of sins and liberate all wanderers. Through imagery of the goddess's adornments and her union of vajra and lotus, the text seeks to ignite an unwavering lamp within the palace of the spontaneously present abiding state, thereby pacifying the swirling expanse of conceptual thoughts. A scholar or serious reader consults this classical Tibetan translation to examine the specific iconographic and meditative descriptions used to transition the practitioner from the discursive mind toward the realization of a non-dual state.
Sanskrit title
Kramadvayavajravārāhīstotra
Indian author
Vanaratnapāda
Tibetan translators
Vanaratnapāda, chos ’khor lo tsa ba ’jam dpal ye shes
Cite thisAnuvāda, “A Praise of Vajravārāhī, the Two Stages” (Toh 1603), machine draft, 2026.https://naxiai.com/tibetan/works/toh1603
Summary & commentary
Significance
This work is significant as it exemplifies the integration of devotional praise with the high-level philosophical goals of the Mahāmudrā tradition. It demonstrates how the visualization of a female deity serves as a catalyst for achieving the sublime accomplishment of non-conceptual awareness.
Structure
Passages
Section
Description
1-3
First Stage
An invocation and description of Vajravārāhī's form and her capacity to liberate beings through the union of vajra and lotus.
4-5
Second Stage
A critique of the deceptive nature of the mind and an exhortation to enter the state of emptiness to attain Mahāmudrā.
Themes
The nature of the discursive mind (4)
The union of method and wisdom (3)
Realization of Mahāmudrā (5)
Liberation from karmic obscurations (2)
Summary, significance and provenance note generated by gemma4:31b from the translation and the catalogue record.
In the language of India: Kramadvayavajravārāhīstotra. In the language of Tibet: rDo rje phag mo’i bstod pa rim pa gnyis pa (The Two-Stage Praise of Vajravārāhī). Homage to the Vajra Queen!
May the goddess who is the spontaneous glory of the supreme, most joyful Śrī Heruka, who acts as the moonlight upon the lovely milk-ocean, and who is elegantly adorned with unchanging bliss, protect me!
May the beautiful Īśvarī, whose lotus feet are constantly honored by the garlands of light rays from the crest-jewels of gods and asuras, grant me her great kindness!
Since you bestow the sovereignty of the three worlds, I pray that you joyfully place your toes—your dancing feet, which are most radiant and whose toenails are beautiful and soft—upon the crown of my head.
Grant me the direct vision of your face, the Mother, with its clear, stainless, and long eyes, earrings that dangle to the sides, a smiling countenance, and the brilliant luster of a red lotus.
Your left hand, which clings to a lotus, holds a kapāla completely filled with the blood of the four Māras; it is as beautiful as a young moon entering the center of two full sun-maṇḍalas.
To grant relief to the gods by utterly destroying their base intellects, you skillfully hold an upward-pointing curved knife in your right hand; you are the nurse of all beings.
Your body is beautifully adorned with the five mudrās, like a towering mass of deep red coral completely encircled by a string of pearls.
Beautiful with the radiance of your necklace and full, swelling breasts, you utterly destroy the darkness of the sins that pervade all beings. The masses of light rays that emanate and pervade the ten directions are held by you for the sake of liberating every single wanderer without exception.
The skull-cup reaching the tip of the khaṭvāṅga at your elbow signifies that, through freedom from bondage and liberation, the Vajra Seat is attained. Having granted breath to the heads strung upon your garland, you embrace the Goddess as if they were a necklace. Beneath your feet lies a human corpse cast supine, looking up at you; to me, who am without another refuge, your light has become a protector against the view of self, and thus I lie at your feet.
How could flower clusters be fastened to your loose, hanging hair that is so intensely black? If you possess supreme modesty and various hanging silks, why do you take pride in a naked form? Having abandoned radiant golden ornaments variegated with many kinds of jewels, if you prefer the supreme ornament of human bone, how could you be pleased if I were to offer you jewels?
If your face is truly so enchanting, why do you display this fierce sow-face to the right? If your body maintains a posture of total grace, what is this nakedness that seems devoid of shame? Your conduct transcends the world, and because the five senses are overwhelmed by bliss, even if you were praised, you would not hear it. Therefore, what kind of praise could I possibly offer? I have sought the darkness of beginningless ignorance.
In order to brilliantly ignite the unwavering lamp, you who abide in the anthers of the secret source of phenomena (dharmodaya), the inconceivable form, through the action of the union of the vajra and the lotus, the effortless blazing lightning of the three wheels is struck within the palace of the spontaneously present abiding state. The host of the swirling expanse of conceptual thoughts is pacified. O Desired One, you do not look upon the offerings and ornaments arranged before you, nor do you listen to the sounds of music; you do not smell the fragrant scents, nor do you taste the essence of nectar, nor do you touch the objects of touch. O Aye! This is because you have come under the power of passion for your own venerable lord. Therefore, through meditating on you, emptiness becomes the result, and my birth is accompanied by its fruit. Like the tip of a lotus reaching the peak of Mount Meru, the light rays of your subtle body, like the fire at the end of an eon, burn the forest of Samantabhadra’s engagement and remain as if descending upon the king of mountains. From the melting of the lord of constellations by the blazing peak, a rain of nectar falls; through the continuous stream of poured libations, conceptual thoughts along with their habitual tendencies are cast far away, and one dissolves into the profound ocean of great bliss. You, the objectless compassionate one, like a wish-fulfilling jewel or a wish-granting tree, from the king of mountains, constantly and effortlessly bestow joy, glory, and perpetual happiness upon all embodied beings. Free from birth and destruction, small and great, and transcending error, through insight and method, the supreme, blazing joy forever destroys my afflictive and cognitive obscurations.
With a nature of crookedness and guile, like a thief, it seizes many kinds of objects and devours the sense-fields. Therefore, why should I not reproach the mind? Nevertheless, having abandoned all worldly conduct, enter freely into the home of emptiness; there is great bliss! You who revel in the supreme flavor—Ema! Is this not the appropriation of this very mind? When it ascends and burns all three cakras, the great bliss is melted and drawn up; from this, the goddess, free from conceptual elaboration, enters completely into her own abode. At that time, where does the movement of this wind go? Where do the perverted senses go? Where does the entirely crooked mind waver? And where does the manner of enjoying sense-objects go?
Clad in nothing but bone ornaments, dwelling in a corpse and holding a skull-cup, because you have entered emptiness free from substantiality, what other thing could you take from the deathless? Nevertheless, O proud one, you who make the vow to conquer and protect all beings from the fear of aging and death, grant me the accomplishment of Mahāmudrā through the stability of wisdom and method in this great yoga. I strive with faith to praise you; whatever faults or errors I, of inferior intellect, may have committed, or whatever is blameless, since you are the protector of beings, it is right for you, the supreme mother, to forgive even my faults. By whatever stainless virtue I have gained from praising you, may the aggregates of all living beings—
May those whose hearts are always filled with the joy of supreme, unsurpassed delight attain the sublime accomplishment of Mahāmudrā. This concludes "The Second Stage of Praise to Vajravārāhī," composed by the great Paṇḍita of Eastern India, Śrī Vanaratna, a lord of siddhas who was directly blessed by this very Vajra Queen.
This was translated at Drepung Norbulingka by the great Paṇḍita himself and the translator Chos khor Lo tsā ba ’Jam dpal Ye shes. Later, at the command of the holy lord of the two systems, Amoghasiddhi—who possessed an unassailable wisdom and a pure tradition of faith—the monk and Dharma-preacher named Gyatso De, who lived by the kindness of that very great Paṇḍita, corrected those parts that were unfit for revision and finalized the text by relying on the meaning itself. This was completed at the sublime assembly hall of the southern mountain range, the precious island known as the Grove of Joy for the Fortunate. May it be auspicious for all beings! Śubhaṃ astu sarvajagatam!