Derge Kangyur/Tengyur e-text, Esukhia/Barom edition — public domain (mechanical reproduction)
This collection of fragments outlines specific ritual procedures and meditative visualizations within a Vajrayana Buddhist framework. The text functions as a technical manual, directing the practitioner through a sequence of purification, offering, and deity generation. It begins by contextualizing the practice within a degenerate age characterized by a proliferation of practitioners with varying levels of capacity. The text then prescribes the use of specific mantras, such as the Amṛtakuṇḍalī, and the burning of consecrated substances to achieve purification. The procedural focus shifts toward the cultivation of the guru-disciple relationship and the visualization of the deity Akṣobhya. By integrating external offerings, mantra recitation, and internal visualizations of syllables at the heart center, the text commits the reader to a rigorous system of ritual technology designed to collapse the duality between the practitioner and the enlightened state, culminating in the attainment of empowerment through the Akṣobhya vase.
Provenance
About this text
A treatise on ritual practice and visualization, the man+dA la gyi sbyor ka/ belongs to the classical Tibetan tradition. It is attributed to the Indian author Bhavapa. The work was translated into Tibetan by lo tsa ba gzhon nu tshul khrims and is preserved in the Tengyur, volume ཛི, where it is situated within the Other Skillful Means Tantras collection. Spanning three pages in this edition, the work enacts a series of technical procedures designed for a degenerate age. It directs the practitioner through the use of the Amṛtakuṇḍalī mantra, the burning of consecrated substances for purification, and the performance of prostrations and offerings to the guru and Akṣobhya. The text further prescribes internal visualizations, such as the radiation of the letter A from the heart and the expulsion of misdeeds visualized as a black scorpion. A scholar or serious reader consults this work today to examine the specific ritual technologies of the Vajrayana framework, particularly the integration of mantra, elemental offerings, and syllable-based meditative visualizations used to purify the practitioner and manage the relationship between the guru and the disciple.
The work is significant for its illustration of the intersection between ritual material culture, such as the use of mustard seeds and consecrated substances, and complex internal visualization. It provides insight into the specific tantric methodologies used to navigate the perceived spiritual decline of a degenerate age. The emphasis on the Akṣobhya vase suggests a focus on the transmission of empowerment within a specific lineage of the Vajrayana tradition.
Structure
Passages
Section
Description
1-2
Context and Purification
Discusses the spiritual climate of the current age and provides instructions for purification using mantras and consecrated substances.
3-4
Offerings and Visualization
Details the process of making offerings to the guru and Akṣobhya, followed by the generation of goddesses and the Vajra-holder to achieve non-duality and empowerment.
Themes
Ritual Purification (2)
Deity Generation and Non-duality (3-4)
Degenerate Age (1)
Summary, significance and provenance note generated by gemma4:31b from the translation and the catalogue record.
In the age when the four eras of strife flourish,
Practitioners will appear in great numbers,
And those with inclinations toward the inferior will also be many.
Those with immeasurable devotion to the guru,
Though such sentient beings are beyond measure,
When condensed, they are subsumed into three types:
The emanated, the colored, and the followers.
The followers should be understood as being of two kinds.
For the emanated, there is no need for concordant engagement or purification.
As for the individuals who are followers of the emanated,
Although many instances of impaired samaya will occur,
These impairments are subsumed into three types:
They should be understood as pertaining to body, speech, and mind.
Regarding the impairment of the samaya of the body,
Purify it with tsa-tsas and look to the practices of accumulation and application.
The impairment of speech is cleansed through recitation;
For the impairment of mind, look to the application of the deity.
As for the common fire offerings, feast offerings, and tormas,
One should view them as the application for bringing benefit.
For a yogi of little power who has not confessed,
Purification should be performed through the maṇḍala.
If the maṇḍala is condensed, there are two types:
That which is mentally visualized and that which is physically constructed.
For the physical construction, having abandoned faults,
Perform one hundred, fifty, twenty-five,
Five, or even a condensed single one,
Arranged in a beautiful and excellent shape.
As for the colors, it is suitable to be entirely blue,
Or make them white, azure, yellow, and red;
Alternatively, it is also suitable to use whatever is pleasing to the mind.
As for the size, it should be at least one cubit.
For the pigments, use white chalk and turmeric,
And blue pigment, saffron, and vermilion.
Having placed the five products of the cow and the five nectars
Within a single piece,
Anoint it with fragrant medicinal substances.
Having added the five nectars and the common substances
Into the five ornaments of gold and so forth,
Perform the consecration according to the proper method.
Generate yourself through the three rituals. Strike [the substances] with this mantra of Amṛtakuṇḍalī: OṂ AMṚTA KUṆḌALI HŪṂ PHAṬ. Consecrate the auspicious substances and burn them; by that, everything is purified. OṂ AMṚTA KUṆḌALI HANA HANA HŪṂ PHAṬ. Sprinkle white mustard seeds to ward off elemental spirits. From the syllable at one's own heart, light radiates and becomes the letter A. From the radiating letter TAṂ, the ground becomes the four precious jewels. By reciting this mantra, the recitation is accomplished: OṂ ACANDRA MAṆḌALA HŪṂ. Recite this twenty-one times. OṂ RATNA TRAṂ MAṆḌALA HŪṂ. Place sandalwood, camphor, musk, and so forth in a beautiful vessel. Light radiates and dissolves into the letter DHŪ; contemplate that it becomes the supreme incense. Even if the yogi’s resources are small, sandalwood is indispensable. Arrange the five or three types of ornamental flowers, or one, or in numbers up to five. Above that, from PAṂ, create a lotus. With this mantra, act as the governing condition: OṂ PADMA MAṆḌALA HŪṂ. Contemplate that it becomes a thousand-petaled or hundred-thousand-petaled lotus. Above that, from the letter BHRŪṂ, contemplate a beautiful celestial mansion. Apply the Vajrarekhā mantra to all. Consecrate it with light from the heart. Generate the offering substances in front as lotuses. From the aforementioned syllables, the stream [of offerings] is complete. For those who require the restoration of impairments or have other inclinations, thereafter all those with impaired samaya should bathe their bodies and put on fine clothes and ornaments. Visualizing oneself as the deity, consecrate the vajra and bell with mantras. Through the light rays of the seed syllables, generate the four goddesses and invite the deities.
Offer supplications and append the root mantra. To the Guru, Akṣobhya, and the others, perform all the prostrations and offerings. Recite the praises originating from the tantras. Through their being pleased, light rays gather back into oneself; at the lotus of one’s own heart, the syllables KAṂ and NA collect the misdeeds. Visualizing them as the form of a black scorpion, expel them outward with the exhalation of the breath. The form of the misdeeds is expelled and burned by the mantra. To purify the misdeeds of body and speech individually, visualize them at their respective locations; the misdeeds of each are gathered and emerge. Killing, anger, or as in the previous application, or else the forms of creatures of the body, the syllables of speech, and the light of the mind—expel them in form as it appears in the tantras. Alternatively, the light rays of the deity pervade all the pores of the skin; imagine the misdeeds of the continuum are burned. Following that, a stream of white light rays, like nectar, pervades the body; imagine that having restored it, it becomes supreme. Alternatively, by reciting the hundred-fold root mantra as before, the misdeeds are purified. Transform it into the sovereign hundred-syllable mantra. By reciting the hundred-fold mantra one hundred thousand times, the most severe impairments are purified. By reducing it to two-thirds, a half, or a third, the three intermediate impairments are purified. By reducing it by half of those, the three lesser impairments are purified. By reciting three hundred, two hundred, one hundred and fifty, or twenty-one times, the major and minor impairments of the branches are purified. Following that, perform a peaceful fire offering. If one has the capacity, perform a gaṇacakra. Following that, visualize the vases.
First, generate the goddesses; then, generate Akṣobhya, the Vajra-holder. Having generated them, perform the consecration according to the ritual. First, the goddesses perform the ablution; then, the Vajra-holder should contemplate non-duality. By conferring empowerment with the Akṣobhya vase, or alternatively, both should confer the empowerment. Following that, having made offerings, perform the light ablution. After that, recite verses of auspiciousness. All the aforementioned preparatory stages constitute the maṇḍala for the restoration of impaired samaya. Even if only one of these is performed, it is acceptable. However, if one sets aside the maṇḍala before attaining stability in the completion stage, the ḍākinīs will kill them. Until one has entered the conduct of yoga, all those aforementioned maṇḍalas should be mentally visualized in front and mentally offered; this is the mental offering. The fragrant substances of the five nectars are considered the internal anointing. The external flowers are the external offering. This maṇḍala preparation transmitted from the guru has been slightly condensed by me for the sake of those with weak intellects. If there are errors, may the learned be patient. By the virtue of this work, may the state of the Blue-Robed One be attained. Faults may appear due to the power of the yogi; the explanations of the foolish are inferior. If one's vision is narrow, even the vast appears cramped. Based on the tantras and pith instructions, those who desire gain cannot enjoy it as they wish. If one suspects what is unseen, it follows that those with fortune would be without it. This concludes the maṇḍala preparation composed by the master Bhava. It is finished.
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.