Derge Kangyur/Tengyur e-text, Esukhia/Barom edition — public domain (mechanical reproduction)
The provided fragment of The Wrathful Action Wheel describes the preliminary stages of a ritual procedure centered on wrathful meditative concentration. The text instructs the practitioner to initiate the rite by generating the deity Vajrabhairava, followed by the performance of standard offerings and the dedication of a torma. The passage then moves toward the specific visualization of the ritual target, who is situated upon a black wind amidst a blazing dark-red fire. By detailing these precise visual and ceremonial requirements, the text commits the reader to a rigorous system of deity yoga and ritualized visualization intended to facilitate wrathful action. The fragment functions as a technical manual, prioritizing the correct sequence of mental construction and material offering to establish the necessary energetic environment for the subsequent ritual activity.
Provenance
About this text
A treatise detailing the activity of wrathful meditative concentration, the drag po'i 'khor lo'i las belongs to the classical Tibetan tradition. It was translated into Tibetan by zhang lo tsA ba shes rab bla ma and is preserved in the Tengyur, volume མི, where it is situated within the Other Skillful Means Tantras collection. Spanning three pages in this edition, the work enacts a ritual procedure centered on the generation of the deity Vajrabhairava. It guides the practitioner through the offering of torma and the precise visualization of a ritual target bound by iron chains amidst a blazing dark-red fire. A scholar or serious reader consults this text today to examine the technical requirements of deity yoga and the specific ceremonial sequences used to establish the energetic environment necessary for wrathful action.
This text is significant as it illustrates the application of Vajrayana deity yoga for the purpose of wrathful action, reflecting the tradition's use of visualization to influence external circumstances. For the modern reader, it provides a primary example of the intersection between meditative concentration and ritual technology in Tibetan Buddhist praxis.
Structure
Passages
Section
Description
1
Wrathful Meditative Concentration
Instructions on the generation of Vajrabhairava and the visualization of the ritual target.
Themes
Deity Yoga (1)
Ritual Visualization (1)
Wrathful Action (1)
Summary, significance and provenance note generated by gemma4:31b from the translation and the catalogue record.
Now, the activity of wrathful meditative concentration is explained. First, generate the glorious Great Vajrabhairava as before. Having offered the offerings and dedicated the torma, visualize the target of the rite previously situated upon a black wind, in the midst of a blazing dark-red fire, naked, separated from the gods, and bound by iron chains on the limbs. With hair like that scorched by fire, meditate that from one’s own heart, extremely fierce rākṣasas, hawks, owls, foxes, jackals, and so forth, devour [the target] and carry their intestines and internal organs everywhere into the sky. By so doing, [the target] will die. This concludes the activity of meditative concentration.
Then, to supplement the activity, perform the offerings, the fire ritual, recite the Sūtra of Individual Confession, and make aspiration prayers. This is the seventh activity of the wrathful rites of the glorious Vajrabhairava, the ritual procedure to be performed in successive stages. It was composed in the land of glorious Oḍḍiyāna as a specific method for subduing the arrogant. It should be accomplished by one endowed with bodhicitta. This is complete.
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.