Derge Kangyur/Tengyur e-text, Esukhia/Barom edition — public domain (mechanical reproduction)
This sādhana provides a ritualized meditative procedure for the practitioner to realize the non-dual nature of reality through the deity Vajraḍākinī. The text guides the yogi through a sequence of visualizations, beginning with the construction of a protected sacred space—a vajra wall and fence surrounding a lotus in the charnel grounds—and proceeding to the identification of the self with the deity in union with a wisdom consort. The central objective is the realization of the 'Great Illusion,' where the practitioner contemplates both internal and external phenomena as inseparable from the mind, comparing them to dreams or the illusory cities of gandharvas. The process concludes with the manipulation of seed syllables (OṂ ĀḤ HŪṂ) representing the nature of body, speech, and mind. By committing to this visualization and the subsequent absorption of the maṇḍala, the reader is led from a dualistic perception of the world toward the experience of natural luminosity (ābhāsvara).
Provenance
About this text
A sādhana detailing a ritualized meditative procedure, the Mahāmāyānāmasādhana belongs to the tradition of the Other Wisdom Tantras. The work is attributed to the Indian author Vajraḍākinī. It was translated into the Tibetan language by Sūryagupta and the monk Śākya brtson ’grus, and is preserved in the Tengyur (vol. ཡ), where it extends over four pages. The text enacts a complex sequence of visualizations for the practitioner, beginning with the invocation of gurus and the construction of a protected sacred space consisting of a vajra wall and fence within the eight charnel grounds. The yogi is guided to visualize a moon maṇḍala and to identify themselves as the deity Vajraḍākinī in union with a wisdom consort, surrounded by a retinue including a blue, four-faced Vajraḍākinī on the eastern petal. A scholar or serious reader consults this work today to examine the specific ritual instructions for realizing the non-dual nature of reality through the 'Great Illusion,' wherein internal and external phenomena are contemplated as inseparable from the mind, similar to dreams or the illusory cities of gandharvas, concluding with the manipulation of seed syllables representing body, speech, and mind.
Sanskrit title
Mahāmāyānāmasādhana
Indian author
Vajraḍākinī
Tibetan translators
Sūryagupta, bod kyi lo tsa ba dge slong shakya brtson ’grus
Cite thisAnuvāda, “A Sādhana for the “Mahāmāyā Tantra”” (Toh 1626), machine draft, 2026.https://naxiai.com/tibetan/works/toh1626
Summary & commentary
Significance
The work is significant as a representative example of the tantric method of deity yoga, specifically the practice of self-generation and the application of the 'illusion' view. It illustrates the technical integration of maṇḍala construction, consort visualization, and mantra recitation to achieve a non-conceptual state of mind.
Structure
Passages
Section
Description
1-2
Preliminary Visualization
Establishment of the ritual space, including the vajra wall, fence, and the central lotus within the charnel grounds.
3
Deity Generation
Visualization of the practitioner as Vajraḍākinī in union with a wisdom consort.
4
Realization of Illusion
Contemplation of the illusory nature of all forms and the absorption of the wisdom maṇḍala.
5
Mantra and Syllable Practice
The emanation and reabsorption of the seed syllables OṂ ĀḤ HŪṂ.
Themes
Non-duality and Illusion (4)
Deity Yoga and Self-Generation (3)
Sacred Space and Maṇḍala (2)
Vajra-body and Seed Syllables (5)
Summary, significance and provenance note generated by gemma4:31b from the translation and the catalogue record.
In the language of India: Mahāmāyāsādhana-nāma. In the language of Tibet: The Sādhana of the Great Illusion. Homage to the glorious Vajraḍākinī and the entire assembly of ḍākinīs.
First, having risen early in the morning, the yogi endowed with compassion should visualize a drop (bindu) in the form of a hero upon a lotus at his own heart. With its light rays, he should perfectly invoke the gurus, heroes, and yoginīs, and focusing on them in the space before him, he should make offerings with the three types of offerings. In their presence, he should recite these verses for taking refuge in the Three Jewels:
Oṃ, homage to the dust of the feet of the glorious guru.
Oṃ, homage also to the glorious Vajrasattva.
Oṃ, homage to the glorious Vajraḍākinīs.
Having recited these, according to the ritual, he should perform the confession of misdeeds, the rejoicing in merit, the complete dedication of merit, taking refuge in the Three Jewels, generating the mind of awakening (bodhicitta), relying on the path, and offering his own person. Then, having first meditated on the four brahmā abodes, he should meditate on emptiness with: Oṃ śūnyatājñānavajrasvabhāvātmako ’haṃ. Immediately following this, he should visualize the syllable Hūṃ resting upon a sun disk arising from the syllable Raṃ. With its light rays, [he should visualize] the distinction and the complete melting of all those, whereby the ground becomes the nature of vajra.
One should visualize a vajra wall, a vajra fence, and in the center of the eight charnel grounds, a red four-petaled lotus completely encircled by a garland of black vajras. Alternatively, it may be arranged according to the sequence of the nāga Śeṣa. In the center of the lotus hub, one should meditate on a moon maṇḍala formed by doubling the vowels, beginning with A. Above that, one should meditate on a sun maṇḍala formed by doubling the consonants, beginning with Ka, with the six syllables added.
The moon is correctly explained as the mirror-like wisdom; the sun is renowned as the wisdom of equality. In the center of these is the King of Bindus; through its radiation and reabsorption, it acts for the benefit of beings. Through the wisdom of discernment and the wisdom of all-accomplishing activity, one meditates on the wheel that is the nature of the five wisdoms, the utterly pure dharmadhātu.
Then, the Blessed One, the embodiment of compassion, Vajraḍāka, is blue. He possesses four faces—blue, yellow, reddish-white, and green—and four arms. In his right hands he holds a skull-cup and an arrow; in his left, he holds a khaṭvāṅga and a bow. His orange-red hair blazes upward and is bound with a skull. He wears a tiger-skin lower garment and is adorned with the six mudrās: the wheel, earrings, necklace, bracelets, the sacred thread, and ashes. He is further adorned with a garland of fifty human heads, and with anklets, a belt, bracelets, and armlets made of human bone. He stands in the dancing posture of the half-lotus.
One should meditate on oneself in the form of Vajraḍākinī, terrifying with fangs, adorned with a garland of five-colored light rays, and embracing a wisdom consort who resembles oneself. The wisdom consort should also be visualized as being similar to oneself, though she is naked and devoid of a garland of heads.
On the eastern petal is Vajraḍākinī, blue in color, with four faces—blue, yellow, reddish-white, and green—and four arms, holding a vajra, a skull-cup, a bell, and a khaṭvāṅga.
On the southern petal is Ratnaḍākinī, yellow in color, with four faces—yellow, blue, reddish-white, and green—and four arms, holding a jewel, a trident, a silk scarf, and a jackal.
On the western petal is Padmaḍākinī, reddish-white in color, with four faces—reddish-white, yellow, blue, and green—and four arms, holding a variegated lotus, an arrow, a bow, and a skull-cup.
On the northern petal is Viśvaḍākinī, green in color, with four faces—green, yellow, reddish-white, and blue—and four arms, holding a sword, a ḍamaru, a noose, and a kapāla.
Having meditated in this manner, one should meditate on the King of Bindus at the heart according to the oral instructions. Then, the nature of the aggregates, elements, and sense bases—the three realms—is like an illusion and a mirage.
The yogi should contemplate the internal and external forms as being inseparable from one's own mind, like a dream or a city of gandharvas, and naturally luminous (ābhāsvara). Immediately thereafter, the wisdom maṇḍala is summoned and absorbed into the samaya circle, and one should cultivate the divine pride (ahaṃkāra) with the mantra: oṃ dharmadhātu-svabhāva-ātmako ’ham.
Then, from the complete transformation of a red āḥ, a lotus is perfected. Upon the petals in the east and so forth, the syllables oṃ maṃ hūṃ bhrūṃ trāṃ hrīḥ are to be placed, corresponding to the colors of Vairocana and the other [Tathāgatas]. With the syllable hūṃ, a vajra is perfected, and one should exhort it with these songs:
"O supreme companion, we are yours!
Through the opening of the lotus,
May the vajra of luminosity
Bring about bliss itself! A-la-la-la-ho!"
Immediately following these songs, one offers worship through passion and performs the consecration. Thereafter, for the tasting of the nectar (amṛta), one places a skull-cup in the hand. It is consecrated by the vowels and consonants—vi, ra, su, ma, chu, da, go, ha, na, and ku—and further consecrated by the three inverted syllables. From those syllables, the Tathāgatas such as Akṣobhya emerge, take the nectars residing in the ten directions into their hands, and enter back into the syllables themselves. One should contemplate that they become of one taste with the nectar.
The three syllables are to be emanated and reabsorbed in both sequential and non-sequential order, in the colors of the nature of body, speech, and mind: OṂ ĀḤ HŪṂ. These should be recited according to the oral instructions. Having performed the recitation as much as possible, one should request the wisdom wheel to depart by means of the three realities and the syllable MUḤ. The four goddesses and so forth are to be dissolved into the bindu; then, having made the aspiration, one should enter into whatever state is comfortable. During other sessions, by reciting the three realities, one should invite the wisdom wheel as before, unify it, and perform the acts of passion and so forth. This concludes the Sādhana of the Great Illusion, spoken by the Bhagavatī, the Mother Vajraḍākinī herself, after she had traveled to the land of Oḍḍiyāna. It was requested and translated by the Indian abbot Avadhūtipa and the Tibetan translator, the monk Śākya Brtson-’grus.