Derge Kangyur/Tengyur e-text, Esukhia/Barom edition — public domain (mechanical reproduction)
The Circle of Elixir Sādhana (Amṛtakuṇḍalisādhana) is a ritual manual designed to pacify and suppress obstructing spirits through a combination of visualization, mantra recitation, and symbolic action. The text instructs the practitioner to engage in a specific yogic process, beginning with the meditation on a sun maṇḍala and the syllable HŪṂ to invite the King of Wrathful Deities. The practitioner is committed to a rigorous discipline of self-generation as the deity and the recitation of a mantra one hundred thousand times to achieve protection from internal and external harms. The ritual culminates in the use of written mantras and the summoning of a spirit's consciousness for suppression, including the possibility of burying the ritual object in a charnel ground to ensure the spirit's demise. By integrating these elements, the text provides a technical framework for neutralizing spiritual interference through the deployment of wrathful power and precise meditative focus.
Provenance
About this text
A ritual manual for the pacification of obstructing spirits, the Amṛtakuṇḍalīsādhana belongs to the genre of sādhana. The work is attributed to the Indian author Candrakīrti. It entered the Tibetan tradition through the work of the translators Śraddhākaravarman and lo tsa ba rin chen bzang po, and is preserved in the Tengyur (vol. ངི) within the collection of the Guhyasamāja and Related Tantras. Spanning three pages in this edition, the text enacts a technical process of protection and expulsion. It directs the practitioner to begin with meditations on great compassion and emptiness before visualizing a sun maṇḍala and the syllable HŪṂ to invite the King of Wrathful Deities. Through the generation of the deity's body and the recitation of a mantra one hundred thousand times, the practitioner seeks to shield the three doors of body, speech, and mind from inner and outer harms, ultimately allowing for the expulsion of malevolent spirits. A scholar or serious reader consults this classical Tibetan work to examine the specific yogic and ritual frameworks used to neutralize spiritual obstructions through visualization and mantra.
Cite thisAnuvāda, “The Circle of Elixir Sādhana” (Toh 1816), machine draft, 2026.https://naxiai.com/tibetan/works/toh1816
Summary & commentary
Significance
This text is significant as a representative of the ritual technology used in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism to manage malevolent entities. Its attribution to the translator Rinchen Zangpo suggests it belongs to an early period of Tibetan translation and reflects the integration of Indian tantric practices into the Tibetan cultural landscape.
Structure
Passages
Section
Description
1-2
Preliminary and Invocation
Introduction of the practice and the visualization of the sun maṇḍala and the King of Wrathful Deities.
3
Self-Generation and Protection
Instructions on deity yoga, mantra repetition, and the resulting protection of the three doors.
4
Suppression Ritual
Technical details on writing mantras to summon and suppress specific spirits, including burial rites.
5
Colophon
Conclusion of the yoga and attribution to translators Śraddhākaravarman and Rinchen Zangpo.
Themes
Wrathful Deity Yoga (1-3)
Ritual Suppression of Spirits (4)
Mantra and Visualization (2-4)
Summary, significance and provenance note generated by gemma4:31b from the translation and the catalogue record.
In the language of India: Amṛtakuṇḍalisādhana. In the language of Tibet: bDud rtsi ’khyil pa’i sgrub thabs (The Sadhana of Amṛtakuṇḍali). Homage to the Enemy of Obstacles!
One who desires to pacify obstructing spirits through the yoga and recitation of Amṛtakuṇḍali should first meditate on great compassion. Then, one should meditate on all that is stable and moving as emptiness. Then, one should meditate on one’s own mind as a sun maṇḍala. Upon that, one should meditate on a blue syllable HŪṂ. From that, one should meditate on a wrathful vajra marked with HŪṂ. Light rays radiate from it, performing the enlightened activity of pacifying all malevolent beings, and are then reabsorbed back into that very place.
Then, from the transformation of those [elements], the practitioner of mantra should meditate on the Enemy of Obstacles. Blue like the petal of a blue utpala lotus, with three faces and six arms; the faces are blue, white, and red, with a gaping mouth and a distorted expression. With a large belly and three eyes, he is adorned with blazing light. In his right hands, he holds a crossed vajra, a wheel, and a pestle. In his left hands, he holds a threatening gesture with a noose, a bell, and a battle-axe. Standing in the posture with the left leg extended, he rests upon a lotus and sun disk.
Then, at the heart, one should meditate on an eight-petaled lotus arising from the syllable A. Upon that, one should meditate on a sun maṇḍala arising from HŪṂ. Upon that, one should meditate on the wisdom being (jñānasattva) identical to oneself, consisting of five aspects, arising from HŪṂ.
Above that, upon a sun maṇḍala, one should meditate on the samādhi-sattva, the syllable HŪṂ. From that, light rays radiate, inviting the King of Wrathful Deities from his natural abode, to whom one should present offerings and praise:
"With eyes wide open and fangs bared, brows knit together,
Abiding in a non-conceptual mind,
The throat resonant with the sound of HŪṂ—
I praise the Wrathful King Amṛtakuṇḍalī."
Then, with the four syllables JAḤ HŪṂ BAṂ HOḤ, one should perform the summoning, entering, binding, and pleasing. Next, the three places should be blessed with the three syllables. Then, one should meditate on the coarse and subtle yogas. Regarding that, first, one should perform protection with the twenty-six syllable mantra. That mantra is:
OṂ HULU HULU TIṢṬHA TIṢṬHA BANDHA BANDHA HANA HANA DAHA DAHA AMṚTE HŪṂ PHAṬ [Name of the spirit] MĀRAYA.
As for its wheel, one should draw a double vajra in detail upon birch bark or similar material, with the syllable HAṂ in the center. Inside that, the syllables to be protected should be written. Then, on the first spoke of the wheel, write OṂ; on the second, HULU HULU; on the third, TIṢṬHA TIṢṬHA; on the fourth, BANDHA BANDHA; on the fifth, HANA HANA; on the sixth, DAHA DAHA; on the seventh, AMṚTE; and on the eighth spoke, HŪṂ PHAṬ. This is the arrangement of the mantra syllables.
Then, having properly placed a casket or similar vessel in front of oneself, one should make offerings.
Then, as before, one should generate oneself as the deity’s body and recite the same mantra one hundred thousand times. Then, if that very wheel is fastened to the body, one will be protected from all outer and inner harms of the three doors of body, speech, and mind. Having thus first performed the protection of oneself, one should then expel the malevolent spirits (bhūta) who cause harm. This is the mantra for that:
Namaḥ samanta kāya vāka citta vajrāṇām | oṃ amṛta kuṇḍali | kha kha khāhi khāhi | tiṣṭha tiṣṭha | bandha bandha | hana hana | daha daha | garja garja | visphoṭaya visphoṭaya | sarva vighnān | vināyakam | mahā vajra krodha | mahā daṃṣṭrotkaṭa bhairavāya | asi musala vara śūpa śa hasta | mahā gaṇapati jṛmbhita ananta | kārāya hūṃ phaṭ svāhā.
Preceded by this, one should recite: "Expel [the name of] such-and-such malevolent spirit who harms me!" (ucchātaya). Visualizing the king of white mustard seeds as the syllable hūṃ, one should imagine a ritual dagger (kīla) arising from it, with the upper part having the shape of Amṛtakuṇḍalī and the lower part, from the navel down, as a single-pointed dagger, and strike with it. During the stage of approach (sevā), one should recite three hundred thousand times. During the stage of expulsion, one should mix black mustard, salt, poison, the juice of dadūra, and the blood of one's own index finger, and draw a semi-circular wind mandala marked with a vajra on a cloth from a charnel ground.
In the center of that, write the mantra interspersed with the name of the bhūta (spirit), and having first summoned the consciousness, suppress it. If one recites as before and buries it in a charnel ground, the spirit will certainly die. If it does not depart even after being expelled in that manner, one should perform the rite of sorcery (abhicāra). For that, first, during the stage of approach (sevā), one should recite the mantra one hundred thousand times:
Namaḥ samanta-kāya-vāka-citta-vajrāṇām | oṃ hulu hulu | tiṣṭha tiṣṭha | bhandha bhandha | hana hana | daha daha | garja garja | visphoṭaya visphoṭaya | sarva-vighnān vināyakān mahā-gaṇapati-ṭhīvida-antakāraya hūṃ phaṭ | [Name of the spirit] who harms me, māraya hūṃ phaṭ!
Then, at the time of the ritual application, one should fashion an image of the spirit from the ashes of a cremated corpse mixed with white mustard seeds. Having inserted the consciousness into it, if one recites the wrathful mantra one thousand and eight times, it will be bound. The pith instruction for summoning the consciousness into the image is as follows: visualize that at the heart of the spirit’s consciousness, upon a sun maṇḍala, there resides the form of the syllable hūṃ, which is lifted up by a wind maṇḍala at the navel. Then, visualize that light radiates from one’s own samādhi-sattva and enters the heart of the image.
Thus, having protected oneself from the harmful spirit, the rites of expulsion and sorcery are to be performed. These pith instructions from the Guhyasamāja Tantra, obtained from the master Nāgārjuna, were explained by the one named Candrakīrti.
This concludes the yoga of Amṛtakuṇḍalī and the ritual for clearing away obstructing spirits. Translated by the master Śraddhākaravarman and the translator Rinchen Zangpo.
Translation status: Not among 84000's published translations, and not in progress there. Translations published elsewhere have not been searched for, so one may exist. (source: 84000 catalogue + registry; checked 2026-11-10).
Set in Newsreader and EB Garamond; Tibetan in Noto Serif Tibetan; Chinese in Noto Serif SC.