Derge Kangyur/Tengyur e-text, Esukhia/Barom edition — public domain (mechanical reproduction)
This fragment provides technical instructions for a practitioner of the Nāmasaṃgīti to cultivate bodhicitta through a specific visualization process. The text directs the yogin to visualize their personal deity (yidam) and subsequently focus on a lunar maṇḍala located at the deity's heart. The central point of this meditation is the visualization of a white letter A, which serves as the focal point for mental concentration. By linking the cultivation of the altruistic intention (bodhicitta) to a precise deity-yoga practice, the text commits the reader to a method where cognitive focus on a symbolic seed syllable is the primary mechanism for generating the desired spiritual state. The fragment is an instructional guide that bridges the gap between abstract intention and concrete meditative technique within a tantric framework.
Provenance
About this text
An instructional guide for the cultivation of bodhicitta, the byang chub kyi sems bsgom pa'i man ngag belongs to the tradition of the Yoga Tantra Treatises. The work is attributed to the Indian author Mañjuśrīmitra. Preserved in the classical Tibetan period, this one-page text is found in volume ངུ of the Tengyur. The work enacts a specific meditative process for a yogin of the Nāmasaṃgīti, directing the practitioner to visualize their own yidam and a vast lunar maṇḍala at the deity's heart. By focusing the mind on a white letter A at the center of this maṇḍala, the practitioner is led into a state free from conceptual elaboration. A scholar or serious reader consults this fragment today to examine the technical intersection of deity yoga and the generation of bodhicitta, specifically how the use of a symbolic seed syllable serves as the primary mechanism for achieving a particular spiritual state within a tantric framework.
The text is significant for illustrating the intersection of deity yoga and the cultivation of bodhicitta within the Nāmasaṃgīti tradition. It demonstrates how specific symbolic elements, such as the letter A and the lunar maṇḍala, are employed as psychological tools for spiritual transformation.
Structure
Passages
Section
Description
1
Visualization Instructions
Instructions on visualizing the yidam, the lunar maṇḍala, and the white letter A to cultivate bodhicitta.
Themes
Bodhicitta (1)
Deity Yoga (1)
Visualization (1)
Summary, significance and provenance note generated by gemma4:31b from the translation and the catalogue record.
AnuvādaPersonal Instructions on Cultivating Bodhicitta·
Homage to Mañjuśrī Kumārabhūta. Regarding the cultivation of bodhicitta by a yogin of the Nāmasaṃgīti: one should visualize whichever yidam is one’s own, and at its heart, meditate on a vast maṇḍala of the moon. At its center, one should imagine a white letter A and, focusing the mind upon it, meditate in the state free from conceptual elaboration. This concludes the oral instructions for meditating on bodhicitta composed by the master Mañjuśrīmitra.
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.