Kālachakra Tantra Rite of Initiation

1 Notes to the Introduction

1 This chapter is adapted from a paper delivered at the second Buddhist-Christian Theological Encounter in Vancouver, British Columbia, in March, 1985 in response to a paper written by Professor David Tracy of the University of Chicago.

2 My sources are primarily, but not exclusively, texts and oral teachings of the Ge-luk-a order of Tibetan Buddhism. This order was founded by the savant and yogi zong-ka-a (1357-1419) from the easternmost region of Tibet. It came to have great influence throughout a region stretching from Kalmuck Mongolian areas near the Volga River (in Europe) where it empties into the Caspian Sea, through what are now Outer and Inner Mongolia and the Buriat Republic of Siberia as well as many parts of Tibet and Ladakh. zong-ka-a established a system of education with large universities eventually in three areas of Tibet but primarily in Hla-a, the capital, which was like Rome for the Catholic Church; young men came from all of the above-mentioned regions to Hla-a to study, usually (until the Communist takeovers) returning to their native lands after completing their studies.

For further reading on the topics of the chapter, see my The Tantric Distinction, (London: Wisdom Publications, 1984) and Meditation on Emptiness, (London: Wisdom Publications, 1983).

3 theg dman, hīnayāna.

4 The Tibetan and Sanskrit for the four schools of tenets are:

Great Exposition School (bye brag smra ba, vaibhāṣhika)

Sūtra School (mdo sde pa, sautrāntika)

Mind Only School (sems tsam pa, chittamātra)

Middle Way School (dbu ma pa, mādhyamika).

5 I.18ab. The Sanskrit is:

chittotpādaḥ parārthāya samyaksaṃbodhikāmatā.

See Th. Stcherbatsky and E. Obermiller, ed., Abhisamayālaṃkāra-Prajñāpāramitā-Updeśa-Śāstra, Bibliotheca Buddhica XXIII, (Osnabrück: Biblio Verlag, 1970), p. 4.

6 Defined more technically within the context of Chandrakīrti’s Supplement to (Nāgārjuna’s) “Treatise on the Middle Way” (dbu ma la ’jug pa, madhyamakāvatāra), an altruistic intention to become enlightened is:

a main mental consciousness, taking cognizance of others’ welfare and [one’s own] great enlightenment, that, having the aspect of wanting to attain those, is induced by non-dualistic understanding and great compassion.

In Tibetan:

dmigs pa gzhan don dang byang chub chen po la dmigs nas ched du bya ba sems can thams cad kyi don du rnam pa de thob par ’dod pa ngo bo gnyis med kyi blo dang snying rje chen pos drangs pa’i yid kyi rnam shes.

See Jam-ȳang-shay-a, Great Exposition of the Middle Way/Analysis of (Chandrakīrti’s) “Supplement to (Nāgārjuna’s) ‘Treatise on the Middle Way’”, Treasury of Scripture and Reasoning, Thoroughly Illuminating the Profound Meaning [of Emptiness], Entrance for the Fortunate (dbu ma chen mo/dbu ma ’jug pa’i mtha’ dpyod lung rigs gter mdzod zab don kun gsal skal bzang ’jug ngogs), (Buxaduor: Gomang, 1967), 32b.6.

7 chos sku, dharmakāya and gzugs sku, rūpakāya.

8 Chapter II:

sems kyi rang bzhin ’od gsal te//

dri ma rnams ni blo bur ba//.

Varanasi: Pleasure of Elegant Sayings, 1974), Vol. 17, 63.11. The Sanskrit is:

prabhāsvaramidaṃ chittaṃ prakṛtyāgantatro malāḥ.

See Swami Dwarikadas Shastri, Pramāṇavārttika of Acharya Dharmakirtti (Varanasi: Bauddha Bharati, 1968), Vol. 3, 73.1.

9 See the Dalai Lama’s exposition of this, pp.271-4.

10 rang bzhin gyis grub pa, svabhāvasiddhi.

11 gsal zhing rig pa.

12 The source for this list is Kensur Yeshi Thupten, former abbot of the o-el-ing College of Dre-ung Monastic University, presently resettled in Mundgod, Karnataka State, South India. The contents of the list are common knowledge among Ge-luk-a scholars.

13 See the Dalai Lama’s explanation of this in his The Buddhism of Tibet and The Key to the Middle Way (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1975), pp.80-82.

14 The first part of this chapter, up to the section on the difference between the four tantra sets, is adapted from the first part of my article “Reason as the Prime Principle in Tsong kha pa’s Delineating Deity Yoga As the Demarcation Between Sūtra and Tantra”, Journal of the International Association of Budahist Studies, vol. 7 no. 2, 1984, pp.95-115. For a detailed discussion of the distinction between sūtra and tantra, see Tsong-ka-pa, Tantra in Tibet, (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1977) and Jeffrey Hopkins, The Tantric Distinction, (London: Wisdom Publications, 1984). Since the presentation closely follows zong-ka-a’s argument in and the Dalai Lama’s introduction to Tantra in Tibet, detailed page references are given in the notes. (The variations in the spelling of zong-ka-a’s name are due to different systems used by different publishers.)

15 bya ba, kryā; spyod pa, charyā; rnal ’byor, yoga; rnal ’byor bla med, anuttarayoga.

16 nyan thos, shrāvaka.

17 rang rgyal, pratyekabuddha.

18 The Dalai Lama’s introduction in Tantra in Tibet, pp.20-1.

19 The translation of arhan as “Foe Destroyer” accords with the Tibetan translation as dgra bcom pa; for discussion of the etymology and justification of the translation, see my Meditation on Emptiness, n.553.

20 The Dalai Lama’s introduction in Tantra in Tibet, p. 43.

zong-ka-a also speaks of these two meanings of “vehicle”, but the line was unintentionally deleted from Tantra in Tibet. The beginning of the last paragraph on p. 106 should read: “About ‘vehicle’, there is an effect vehicle which is that to which one is proceeding and a cause vehicle which is that by which one proceeds. Due to proceeding [it is called] a vehicle. With respect to . . .”

21 dbu ma thal ’gyur pa, prāsaṅgika-mādhyamika.

22 The Dalai Lama’s introduction in Tantra in Tibet, p. 57.

23 The Dalai Lama’s introduction in Tantra in Tibet, pp.38-41, and zong-ka-a’s own exposition, pp.98-99.

24 zong-ka-a discusses this point in some detail in his commentary (dgongs pa rab gsal) on Chandrakīrti’s Supplement to (Nāgārjuna’s) “Treatise on the Middle Way” (madhyamakāvatāra), the first five chapters of which are translated in Compassion in Tibetan Buddhism (London: Rider and Co., 1980), pp.174-5. (For justification of my translation of madhyamakāvatāra as Supplement to the “Treatise on the Middle Way”, see my Meditation on Emptiness, pp.462-9 and 866-9.) zong-ka-a says (p. 175):

To establish that even a single phenomenon does not truly exist, Mahāyānists use limitless different reasonings as set forth in the Treatise on the Middle Way. Hence their minds become greatly broadened with respect to suchness. Hīnayānists use only brief reasoning to establish suchness by valid cognition, and since they do not establish emptiness the way Mahāyānists do, do not have a mind broadened with respect to suchness . . . This difference arises because Hearers and Solitary Realizers strive to abandon only the afflictions [the obstructions to liberation], and cognizing a mere abbreviation of the meaning of suchness is sufficient for that. Mahāyānists are intent on abandoning the obstructions to omniscience, and for that it is necessary to have a very broadened mind of wisdom opened to suchness.

25 The Dalai Lama’s introduction in Tantra in Tibet, p. 55.

26 ’khor ba, saṃsāra.

27 byang chub kyi sems, bodhichitta.

28 Tantra in Tibet, pp.98-99.

29 phar phyin kyi theg pa, pāramitāyāna and sngags kyi thegs pa, mantrayāna. The term “Tantrayāna” has great favor in the West but does not appear to have been popular in Tibet. There the favored term is Guhyamantrayāna (gsang sngags kyi theg pa).

30 rlung, prāṇa. This is one among many points that Jam-ȳang-shay-a (’jam dbyangs bzhad pa, 1648-1721) makes in defending the position that the Buddhahoods of sūtra and tantra are the same. See his Great Exposition of “Tenets” (grub mtha’ chen mo), (Mussoorie: Da Lama, 1962), ca 44b.6-47a.8.

31 sngags bla med, anuttarayogamantra.

32 See Lati Rinbochay and Jeffrey Hopkins, Death, Intermediate State and Rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism (London: Rider and Co., 1979), pp.69-73.

33 The Dalai Lama’s introduction in Tantra in Tibet, pp.55, and zong-ka-a’s own exposition, pp.139-42.

34 The Dalai Lama’s introduction in Tantra in Tibet, pp.55-7, and zong-ka-a’s own exposition, p. 110.

35 The Dalai Lama’s introduction in Tantra in Tibet, pp.57-58.

36 The Dalai Lama’s introduction in Tantra in Tibet, p. 58, and zong-ka-a’s own exposition, pp.100-101.

37 lha’i rnal ’byor, ^*devatāyoga.

38 The Dalai Lama’s introduction in Tantra in Tibet, pp.61-65, and zong-ka-a’s own exposition, pp.115-116.

39 The source here is Jam-el-shen-pen Rin-o-chay, abbot of the Tantric College of Lower Hla-a during the time of its re-location in South India; he is currently head of the Ge-luk-ba order and residing at Jang-zay College at Gan-den in Mundgod, Karnataka.

40 The Dalai Lama’s introduction in Tantra in Tibet, pp.60 and 62, and zong-ka-a’s own exposition, p. 115.

41 See the Mongolian scholar Nga-ang-el-den’s (ngag dbang dpal ldan) statement of this in Tsong-ka-pa’s Yoga of Tibet (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1981), pp.211-12.

42 The Dalai Lama’s introduction in Tantra in Tibet, pp.62-63.

43 The Dalai Lama’s introduction in Tantra in Tibet, pp.22-23 and zong-ka-a’s own exposition, pp.107-108.

44 This section is based on zong-ka-a’s own exposition in Tantra in Tibet, pp.156-164, the Dalai Lama’s introduction, pp.74-76, and my supplement, pp.201-209.

45 (New Delhi: Tanzin Kunga, 1972), 17.2-18.2.

46 See Tantra in Tibet, pp.156-157.

47 (Sarnath: Pleasure of Elegant Sayings Press, 1970), 529.18-530.8.

48 For a detailed discussion of this position, see Tantra in Tibet, pp.203-206.

49 (rgyud smad par khang edition, no other data), 7b.4ff. This passage is cited in my brief explanation of this point in Tsong-ka-pa, The Yoga of Tibet, p. 211.

50 See the section on Action Tantra in Tsong-ka-pa, The Yoga of Tibet.

51 Tantra in Tibet, p. 163.

52 Ithaca: Snow Lion, 1984.

53 These citations are found in the practice text, with brief commentary in notes; see pp. 407-8. The citations respectively are from V.253cd, V.258cd, and V.260.

53a Dharamsala: Tibetan Cultural Printing Press, no date.

54 This chapter is adapted from an article that first appeared in The Middle Way, Vol. 59, No. 1, May 1984, as “A Session of Meditating on Emptiness.” The full name of the author of the source text is Nga-ang-o-sang-gya-tso (ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho, 1617-1682), Dalai Lama V, and its full title is Instruction on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, Sacred Word of Mañjushrī (byang chub lam gyi rim pa’i khrid yig ’jam pa’i dbyangs kyi zhal lung), (Thimphu: kun-bzang-stobs-rgyal, 1976), 182.5-210.6. For an English translation of the chapter on the perfection of wisdom, see J. Hopkins, “Practice of Emptiness”, (Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1974). For a more extensive discussion of the selflessness of persons, see my Meditation on Emptiness, pp.43-51 and 175-196.

55 ngo bo gcig la ldog pa tha dad.

56 Clear Exposition of the Presentations of Tenets, Beautiful Ornament for the Meru of the Subduer’s Teaching (grub pa’i mtha’i rnam par bzhag pa gsal bar bshad pa thub bstan lhun po’i mdzes rgyan), (Varanasi: Pleasure of Elegant Sayings Printing Press, 1970), 435.20-436.5.

57 For an account of his life and a sample of his teachings, see The Life and Teachings of Geshe Rabten, trans, and ed. by Alan Wallace, (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1982).

58 The source here is Geshe Thupten Gyatso of the Go-mang College of Dre-ung Monastic University, currently staying at the Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center in Washington, New Jersey. According to another version, the Kālachakra Tantra was set forth a year before his death, but the first version seems to be favored.

59 George N. Roerich, The Blue Annals (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, rpt.1979), p. 754 n.1. Dhānyakaṭaka is also identified as being three days travel across the sea from Bengal in eastern India; see The World Of Tibetan Buddhism (Japan: Gyosei Ltd., [1984]), p. 96.

60 Tibetan: zla ba bzaṅg po. That the Sanskrit is Suchandra and not Chandrabhadra is clear in the tantra itself; see the Kālacakra-Tantra And Other Texts, volume 1, edited by Prof. Dr. Raghu Vira and Prof. Dr. Lokesh Chandra, (New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture, 1966), I.lc, Sanskrit p. 332; Tibetan p. 53.4.

61 G. Tucci, Tibetan Painted Scrolls, (Roma: La Libreria Dello Stato, 1949), p. 212. For a very interesting and valuable account of the legends of Shambhala, see Edwin Bernbaum, The Way to Shambhala (New York: Anchor Books, 1980).

62 Helmut Hoffmann, The Religions of Tibet (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1961), p. 125.

63 ibid, p. 126.

64 For an enumeration of the stanzas of each of the five chapters, see Professor Lokesh Chandra’s introduction to the Kālacakra-Tantra And Other Texts, volume 1, edited by Prof. Dr. Raghu Vira and Prof. Dr. Lokesh Chandra, p. 18.

65 The Blue Annals, p. 753.

66 Lokesh Chandra’s introduction to the Kālacakra-Tantra And Other Texts, volume 1, p. 7. According to Roerich, the name is Cheluka, The Blue Annals, p. 755.

67 See The Blue Annals, p. 754-5.

68 Helmut Hoffmann, The Religions of Tibet, pp.126-127; see his citation of Padma-ar-o (padma dkar po). Lokesh Chandra repeats this in his introduction to the Kālacakra-Tantra And Other Texts, volume 1, pp.7-8; Lokesh Chandra holds the view that Chilupā himself reintroduced the tantra to India.

69 Helmut Hoffmann, The Religions of Tibet, pp.127-128.

70 ibid.

71 ibid.

72 Helmut Hoffmann, The Religions of Tibet, pp.120 and 126-128. Hoffmann dismisses the Tibetan historian um-a-ken-o’s (sum pa mkhan po) statement that Pindo Āchārya perhaps was the person who re-introduced the Kālachakra Tantra to India because his being a student of Atīsha who already was initiated into the tantra makes such a sequence impossible.

73 Helmut Hoffmann, The Religions of Tibet, p. 126; Lokesh Chandra’s introduction to the Kālachakra-Tantra And Other Texts, volume 1, p. 7.

74 Lokesh Chandra’s introduction to the Kālacakra-Tantra And Other Texts, volume 1, p. 6.

75 The Blue Annals, pp.755-765, presents the development of the Kālachakra tradition in India and its spread to Tibet according to the histories of four different lineages.

76 Lokesh Chandra’s introduction to the Kālacakra-Tantra And Other Texts, volume 1, pp.8-10.

77 Helmut Hoffmann, The Religions of Tibet, p. 126; Lokesh Chandra’s introduction to the Kālacakra-Tantra And Other Texts, volume 1, p. 7; Roerich gives 1027 in The Blue Annals, p. 754.

78 Helmut Hoffmann, The Religions of Tibet, p. 128.

79 This and the next paragraph are drawn from Helmut Hoffmann, The Religions of Tibet, pp.129-130.

80 The Blue Annals, p. 755.

81 For a list see Lokesh Chandra’s introduction to the Kālacakra-Tantra And Other Texts, volume 1, pp.11-12.

82 For a list see Lokesh Chandra’s introduction to the Kālacakra-Tantra And Other Texts, volume 1, pp.13-14.

83 For a list see Lokesh Chandra’s introduction to the Kālacakra-Tantra And Other Texts, volume 1, p. 14.

84 In volume ka of his Collected Works.

85 Available in a recent edition, (New Delhi: Guru Deva, 1973).

86 See Lokesh Chandra’s introduction to the Kālacakra-Tantra And Other Texts, volume 1, p. 16, which refers us to his Materials for a History of Tibetan Literature, pp.556-559.

87 Helmut Hoffmann, The Religions of Tibet, pp.125-126.

88 The source for the remainder of this paragraph as well as the next paragraph is Geshe Thupten Gyatso; he is following Puk-a-hlun-drup-gya-tso’s (phug pa lhun grub rgya mtsho) interpretation of Kālachakra astrological calculation, in which Shākyamuni Buddha’s death is put at approximately 880 B.C. instead of 483 B.C. or thereabouts as is done in the Southern Buddhist tradition. G. Tucci in Tibetan Painted Scrolls, p. 599, and Lokesh Chandra’s introduction to the Kālacakra-Tantra And Other Texts, volume 1, p. 6, mistakenly speak of the war as having already taken place.

89 The above etymological discussion is drawn from the Seventh Dalai Lama Gel-sang-gya-tso (bskal bzaṅg rgya mtsho, 1708-57), Explanation of the Mandala Rite of the Glorious Guhyasamāja, Akshobyavajra, Illumination Brilliantly Clarifying the Principles of the Meaning of Initiation, Sacred Word of Vajrasattva, (dpal gsang ba ’dus pa mi bskyod rdo rje’i dkyil ’khor gyi cho ga’i rnam par bshad pa dbang don de nyid yang gsal snang ba rdo rje sems dpa’i zhal lung), (New Delhi: Tanzin Kunga, 1972), 70.1-73.2. The Seventh Dalai Lama gives as his source Bu-dön’s Method of Initiation of the Glorious Kālachakra (dpal dus kyi ’khor lo’i dbang gi lhan thabs).

My source for the following enumeration of the initiations is Gyel-tsap-dar-ma-rin-chen (rgyal tshab dar ma rin chen, 1364-1432), How To Practice the Two Stages of the Path of the Glorious Kālachakra: Quick Entry to the Path of Great Bliss (dpal dus kyi ’khor lo’i lam rim pa gnyis ji ltar nyams su len pa’i tshul bde ba chen po’i lam du myur du ’jug pa), Collected Works, vol. 1, (no publication data), 4a.3-4a.6.

90 p. 64.

90a The classification of action faculties and their activities is not traditional to Buddhism but to Sāṃkhya. In the Kālachakra system there is a good deal of self-conscious borrowing of terminology from non-Buddhist systems. This borrowing from Sāṃkhya does not require re-interpretation to fit within Buddhism, but the usage of the terminology of the six-branched yoga, found in classical Yoga, for the levels of the stage of completion is completely revamped in the Kālachakra system with exclusively Buddhist meanings. Note also that the goddesses surrounding Kālachakra and Vishvamātā in the mandala of great bliss are called Shaktis (nus ma), a term otherwise not used, to my knowledge, in Buddhist tantra. The borrowing of terminology from other systems was perhaps an effort to acclimate non-Buddhists to a Buddhist tradition.

91 This paragraph is drawn from Bu-ön’s Extensive Explanation of (Ānandagarbha’s) “Rite of the Vajradhātu Mandala, Giving Rise To All Vajras”: Wish-Granting Jewel (rdo rje dbyings kyi dkyil ’khor gyi cho ga rdo rje thams cad ’byung ba zhes bya ba’i rgya cher bshad pa yid bzhin gyi nor bu), Collected Works, (New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture, 1966), volume 11, 190-,5-191.2.

92 The Apte Sanskrit-English dictionary identifies the feminine form of this word, shālabhañjikā, as a courtesan, and thus, perhaps, these are attendants of the goddesses.

93 These are demi-gods; they are called “semi-humans” probably because they look enough like humans that one might wonder whether they are humans. The literal etymology of their name (mi ’am ci) is “human or what?”

94 For the count, I am following the description given by the Dalai Lama on p. 254. A description made under the supervision of the Council of Religious Affairs of H.H. the Dalai Lama in Hiroki Fujita, The World Of Tibetan Buddhism (Japan: Gyosei Ltd., [1984]), p. 96, gives seven hundred two deities. In bSod nams rgya mtsho, Tibetan Maṇḍalas, The Ngor Collection (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1983), p. 236, the mandala is said to have 634 deities. A great deal depends on how the count is done – that is, how many consorts are counted, etc.

95 Tibetan, rnam pa thams cad pa.

96 The following description is taken from the Seventh Dalai Lama’s Means of Achievement of the Complete Mandala of Exalted Body, Speech, and Mind of the Supramundane Victor, the Glorious Kālachakra: the Sacred Word of Scholars and Adepts (bcom ldan ’das dus kyi ’khor lo’i sku gsung thugs yongs su rdzogs pa’i dkyil ’khor gyi sgrub thabs mkhas grub zhal lung), [n.d., in the same volume as Kay-drup’s Mandala Rite], 86.1-87.7.

97 The painting of Kālachakra on the 1984 calendar of the Tibetan Medical Center in Dharamsala shows three arrows, but the picture in the Madison booklet shows a single arrow. The word in Tibetan is me’i mda’ which literally means “fiery arrow”; the Tibetan Dictionary by Geshe Chosdag identifies this as phyag mda’ which I presume to be just the honorific of “arrow” and not “hand arrow” since, as will be seen, Kālachakra is also holding a bow. The term may mean that the arrow has the capacity of fire.

98 ibid. 87.7-88.2.

99 The description is taken from the Seventh Dalai Lama’s Means of Achievement, 88.2-89.4.

100 See n.56 of the translation.

101 Rather than the sixteen deities enumerated here, in The World Of Tibetan Buddhism (Japan: Gyosei Ltd., [1984]), a total count of fourteen deities in this mandala is given. Only eight Shaktis are counted, the remaining two being replaced by the consorts of the deities in the crowns of Kālachakra and Vishvamātā. However, there is no mention of consorts for them at this point in the Seventh Dalai Lama’s Means of Achievement, and the Dalai Lama’s ritual master reported that Vajrasattva is here imagined in meditation as a deer.

102 The description is taken from the Seventh Dalai Lama’s Means of Achievement, 90.2-91.7.

103 ibid. 91.7-93.6.

104 The Seventh Dalai Lama’s Means of Achievement (93.4) gives only four items: curved knife and vajra in the right hands and skull and bell in the left hands. This conflicts with o-sang-tsul-trim-en-ay-gyel-tsen’s Initiation Rite of Kālachakra, Stated in an Easy Way which I am following here; see p. 320 of the translation.

105 The description is taken from the Seventh Dalai Lama’s Means of Achievement, 93.6-95.2.

106 In the Kālachakra astrological system, a year has only 360 days; every fourth year has a leap month to make up for the missing days. Brief identifications of the deities of the speech and body mandalas can be found in Benoytosh Bhattacharyya, ed., Nispannayogāvalī Of Mahāpandita Abhayākaragupta, (Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1972), pp.78-86.

107 The description is drawn from Lati Rinbochay and Jeffrey Hopkins, Death, Intermediate State and Rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism, pp.59-61. For very interesting discussions of initiation in relation to rebirth, see Mircea Eliade, Rites And Symbols Of Initiation, The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth, (New York: Harper and Row, 1965). In his introduction (xiii-xiv), Eliade says:

Initiatory death provides the clean slate on which will be written the successive revelations whose end is the formation of a new man . . . This new life is conceived as the true human existence, for it is open to the values of spirit . . .

All the rites of rebirth or resurrection, and the symbols that they imply, indicate that the novice has attained to another mode of existence, inaccessible to those who have not undergone the initiatory ordeals, who have not tasted death . . .

Initiatory death is indispensible for the beginning of spiritual life. Its function must be understood in relation to what it prepares: birth to a higher mode of being.

Here also, the dissolution of all ordinary appearance in a manner that mimics dying is necessary for rebirth on new principles. About the new birth, Eliade (xiv) says:

The initiatory new birth is not natural, though it is sometimes expressed in obstetric symbols. This birth requires rites instituted by the Supernatural Beings; hence it is a divine work, created by the power and will of those Beings; it belongs, not to nature (in the modern, secularized sense of the term), but to sacred history. The second, initiatory birth does not repeat the first, biological birth. To attain the initiate’s mode of being demands knowing realities that are not a part of nature but of biography of the Supernatural Beings, hence of the sacred history preserved in the myths.

Here in Great Vehicle Buddhism, however, the knowledge requires is of the natural state of things without the distortions of ignorance and the other afflictive emotions. Thus, it seems to me that the initiatory birth does indeed repeat the biological birth but within knowledge of the mode of being of phenomena, such that subsequent life is formed, not out of distorted knowledge of nature, but out of distortionless knowledge of the nature of things. It is not, therefore, a mere repetition but one within new knowledge of the ultimate and conventional natures of mental and physical phenomena. Knowledge of such reality is not part of ordinary life, and the new mode of being as known in deity yoga does indeed require passage to a new, sacred mode of manifestation, but the realities known through initiation are fundamental to ordinary life, albeit unknown.

The Kālachakra initiation accomplishes “passage from the profane to a transcendent state”, as Eliade (p. 104) says in his chapter entitled “Patterns of Initiation in Higher Religions”. In its highest form, it also accomplishes passage from profane distortion to the most ordinary state, the fundamental innate mind of clear light, naturally latent in all experience but needing to be made manifest. In this sense, the sacred or divine life is at the very essence of the profane, made profane only by distortion.

108 Similarly, the term “compassion” (snying rje, karuṇā) is sometimes used in Highest Yoga Tantra additionally to refer to “bliss”, but this does not cancel out its other meaning as the wish that all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.

Karuṇā is etymologized as “stopping bliss” (bde ’gog) by adding an anusvara (ṃ) to the first letter k, making kaṃ, which means “bliss” (bde ba) and taking ruṇa (not found in the Apte dictionary) as meaning “stopping” (’gog pa). With respect to the compassion that is common to both the Perfection Vehicle and the Mantra Vehicle, that one cannot bear that other sentient beings are tormented by suffering stops one’s own comfort and happiness (bliss). With respect to the uncommon meaning of karuṇā in Highest Yoga Tantra and in the Kālachakra system, the great immutable bliss involves a stoppage of the bliss of emission. Thus, both compassion and bliss are, so to speak, cases of the “stopping bliss”. For a brief discussion of this, see o-sang-chö-yi-gyel-tsen’s Wish-Granting Jewel, Essence of (Kay-drup’s) “Illumination of the Principles; Extensive Explanation of (Kulika Puṇḍarīka’s) ’Extensive Commentary On The Condensed Kālachakra Tantra, Derived From The Root Tantra Of The Supramundane Victor, The Glorious Kālachakra, The King Of All Tantras, The Stainless Light” (rgyud thams cad kyi rgyal po bcom ldan ’das dpal dus kyi ’khor lo’i rtsa ba’i rgyud las phyung ba bsdus pa’i rgyud kyi rgyas ’grel dri ma med pa’i ’od kyi rgya cher bshad pa de kho na nyid snang bar byed pa’i snying po bsdus pa yid bzhin gyi nor bu), Collected Works of Blo-bzaṅ-chos-kyi-rgyal-mtshan, the First Paṇ-chen Blama of Bkra-śis-lhun-po, (New Delhi: Gurudeva, 1973), vol. 3, 35.5-36.1. See also the Dalai Lama’s remarks on this etymology in his introduction to Tantra in Tibet (p.48):

In another way, the syllable man in ‘mantra’ is said to be ‘knowledge of suchness’, and tra is etymologised as trāya, meaning ‘compassion protecting migrators’. This explanation is shared by all four sets of tantras, but from the specific viewpoint of Highest Yoga Tantra, compassion protecting migrators can be considered the wisdom of great bliss. This interpretation is devised in terms of a contextual etymology of the Sanskrit word for ‘compassion’, karuṇā, as ‘stopping pleasure’. When anyone generates compassion – the inability to bear sentient beings’ suffering without acting to relieve it, pleasure, peacefulness, and relaxation are temporarily stopped. Thus, in Highest Yoga the word ‘compassion’ (karuṇā) is designated to stopping the pleasure of the emission of the vital essence and refers to the wisdom of great bliss (mahāsukha). It is the mantra of definitive meaning and the deity of definitive meaning.

(I have revised the translation of the third sentence above.)

In addition to that connection between compassion and bliss, as Guy M. Newland of the University of Virginia pointed out in a colloquium, according to Ge-luk-a explanations, those Bodhisattvas who have the most compassion are most capable of experiencing the great bliss of Highest Yoga Tantra.

Consider also the term “the path that has an essence of emptiness and compassion” (stong nyid snying rje snying po can gyi lam) [see Nāgārjuna’s Precious Garland, stanza 396, for something similar], which is interpreted in four ways. It is interpreted in a manner common to the Perfection Vehicle as the path of the realization of the emptiness of inherent existence and of the compassion that is the wish that sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering – these two aspects affecting each other but not present in the same consciousness. It is interpreted in a manner common to the three lower tantras as the deity yoga in which the ascertainment factor of the consciousness ascertains the absence of inherent existence and the appearance factor altruistically appears as a divine body – the two factors of wisdom and method thereby being present in one consciousness. It is interpreted in a manner common with all Highest Yoga Tantras as the exalted wisdom of undifferentiable bliss and emptiness – a fusion of a bliss consciousness and a wisdom realizing the absence of inherent existence. In an interpretation exclusive to the Kālachakra system, it is interpreted as the undifferentiable entity of empty form (form empty of, that is, without, material particles) and supreme immutable bliss. From the viewpoint of the Kālachakra system, all four interpretations are acceptable; it is not that just because the term has a meaning exclusive to the Kālachakra Tantra, it is limited to that meaning in the Kālachakra system.

109 See Tsong-ka-pa, Yoga of Tibet, pp.47, 58-59.

110 For mention of the nature, aspect, and function of the offerings, see Practice In The Manner Of The Very Condensed Clear Realization Of The Supreme Superior, The Ocean Of Conquerors (Jinasamudra) (’phags mchog ba rgya mtsho’i mngon rtogs shin tu bsdus pa’i tshul du nyams su len pa), by Gung-tang Gön-chok-den-bay-drön-may (gung thang dkon mchog bstan pa’i sgron me, 1762-1823), Collected Works of Guṅ-thaṅ dkon-mchog bstan-pa’i sgron-me, Vol. 7, (Ngawang Gelek Demo, 1975), 226.3-228.4; my translation of this was distributed at the Jinasamudra initiation by the Dalai Lama in Los Angeles in 1984.

111 These identifications are from Nga-ang-el-den (ngag dbang dpal ldan, 1791-?), Illumination of the Texts of Tantra, Presentation of the Ground and Paths of the Four Great Secret Tantra Sets (gsang chen rgyud sde bzhi’i sa lam gyi rnam bzhag rgyud gzhung gsal byed), (rgyud smad par khang edition, no other data), 79.2-79.3.

111a In the conduct initiation, the sense powers are paired not in accordance with their respective objects but in accordance with the lineage of the deities that represent them such that deities of the same lineage are coupled. Similarly, in the name initiation, the action faculties are paired not in accordance with their respective activities but in accordance with the lineage of the deities that represent them. See o-sang-tsul-trim-en-ay-gyel-tsen (blo bzang tshul khrims bstan pa’i rgyal mtshan, late 19th and early 20th centuries), Explanation Of The Initiations Of The Supramundane Victor, The Glorious Kālachakra: Garland Of Rubies (bcom ldan ’das dus kyi ’khor lo’i dbang gi bshad pa padma ra ga’i phreng ba), The Collected Works of Tre-bo Khaṅ-gsar bLo-bzan-tshul-khrims-bstan-pa’i-rgyal-mtshan, (New Delhi: T.G. Dhongthog Rinpoche, 1975), vol. 3, 447.5-447.6. o-sang-tsul-trim-en-ay-gyel-tsen, known also as Dre-wo Kang-ar Gyap-gön (tre bo khang gsar skyabs mgon), is the author of the Initiation Rite used to supplement Kay-drup’s Mandala Rite.

111b The descriptions of the correspondences and fụnctions of the internal initiations are taken from o-sang-tsul-trim-en-ay-gyel-tsen’s Explanation, Collected Works, vol. 3, 422.5-422.6, 436.5, 445.3, 446.4, 460.4, and 479.4.

112 See, for instance, Louis Renou, The Nature of Hinduism (New York: Walker and Company, 1962), pp. 97-98.

Renou says that name-giving occurs on the tenth day; hair-cutting, at three years; “tonsure”, at four; piercing the ears, some time later. If these are the same here, the seven would not be chronological; however, the over-all list of seven seems chronological, with washing the newborn baby first and being given reading and other activities of the family lineage last.

113 For a fascinating discussion of the transitional, or liminal, nature of initiation, see Victor Turner The Forest Of Symbols (New York: Cornell University Press, 1967), pp.93-111. Turner, among many other points, speaks of the potential of these inter-transitional states (p.97):

Liminality may perhaps be regarded as the Nay to all positive structural assertions, but as in some sense the source of them all, and, more than that, as a realm of pure possibility whence novel configurations of ideas and relations may arise.

As we have seen, in the Kālachakra initiation, the students offer everything of value to the lama/Kālachakra, then dissolve everything, including themselves, in emptiness, out of which they re-appear in new altruistically directed, validly founded, dynamic being. The liminal period of disappearance in emptiness is indeed a period of “pure possibility” ready for “novel configurations of ideas and relations”. The dissolution into emptiness evinces a principle emphasized by Turner (pp.98-99):

A further structurally negative characteristic of transitional beings is that they have nothing. They have no status, property, insignia, secular clothing, rank, kinship position, nothing to demarcate them structurally from their fellows.

The situation is, therefore, a mixture of extreme poverty and richness of potential; Turner finds such ambiguity and paradox (p.97) to be integral to the transitional state of the initiant. I would add that theoretically the situation is paradoxical only from an ordinary viewpoint that does not understand the process of appearance from within emptiness and the need for a new style of purification; still, from the viewpoint of someone undergoing the process (with no matter how much theoretical training) there must be phases of confronting the harrowing “paradox” that gain can come only from loss. Though it is easy to explain that everything must be given up in a disappearance into emptiness in order to reappear in pure form, the process of actually doing so must, for a beginner, entail a difficult sense of loss. See the Fifth Dalai Lama’s description of such a sense of loss for a beginner in chapter four of the Introduction, pp.57-8.

Also, for discussion of many aspects of initiation, see Dr C.J. Bleeker, Initiation (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1965).

114 This section on the four drops is drawn from Nga-ang-el-den, Illumination of the Texts of Tantra, Presentation of the Grounds and Paths of the Four Great Secret Tantra Sets, 80.1-81.4.

114a The identifications of the entities of the seven initiations are taken from o-sang-tsul-trim-en-ay-gyel-tsen’s Explanation, 428.6, 431.4, 440.4, 443.6, 452.1, 457.1, and 465.1.

114b o-sang-tsul-trim-en-ay-gyel-tsen’s Explanation, 479.4.

115 The text is found in The Collected Works of the Lord Mkhas-grub rje dge-legs-dpal-bzaṅ-po, (New Delhi: Mongolian Lama Gurudeva, 1980), vol. 5, 795-937. For the translation I primarily used another edition which is found on pp.259-383 in a volume that has on its cover the title of one of the works contained within it: dpal bcom ldan ’das dus kyi ’khor lo’i sku gsung thugs yongs su rdzogs pa’i dkyil ’khor gyi sgrub thabs mkhas grub zhal lung, this being Kay-drup’s Means of Achievement of the Complete Mandala of Exalted Body, Speech, and Mind of the Supramundane Victor, the Glorious Kālachakra: Sacred Words of Scholars and Adepts, found on pp.13-156 of the volume; it has no publication data. Page numbers throughout refer to this latter edition. I also used a handwritten edition (with no publication data) that was run off in India in a mimeograph type printing; I refer to it as the “handwritten edition”.

116 This text is found in the same volume as the second text described in the preceding note, pp.477-532. It is also found in The Collected Works of Tre-bo Khaṅ-gsar bLo-bzaṅ-tshul-khrims-bstan pa’i-rgyal-mtshan (New Delhi: T.G. Dhongthog Rinpoche, 1975), 313-368. The introduction to his Collected Works reports that he was among the candidates for selection as the Thirteenth Dalai Lama and speaks of the lama’s next two reincarnations; the latest is said to have remained in Tibet and was estimated to be in his twenties in 1974.

117 It is clear that Kay-drup follows the great a-ya master Bu-ön Rin-chen-drup’s (bu ston rin chen grub) Mandala Rite of the Glorious Kālachakra: Source of Good Qualities (dpal dus kyi ’khor lo’i dkyil chog yon tan kun ’byung) found in his Collected Works, (New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture, 1966), volume 5, 169-260. Therefore, page numbers for the parts translated here are given both to Kay-drup (“Kay”) and Bu-ön (“Bu”).

118 Collected Works of Blo-bzaṅ-chos-kyi-rgyal-mtshan, the First Paṇ-chen Bla-ma of Bkra-śis-lhun-po, (New Delhi: Gurudeva, 1973), vol. 1, 707.2-803.1.

119 15.4-16.6

120 The biographical material in these two paragraphs is drawn from the introduction to Ferdinand D. Lessing and Alex Wayman, Mkhas Grub Rje’s Fundamentals of the Buddhist Tantras, (The Hague: Mouton, 1968), pp.11-12, and from G. Tucci, Tibetan Painted Scrolls, (Roma: La Libreria Della Stato, 1949), pp.120-122 and 410-417. Kay-drup (“Scholar-Adept”) is also called Kay-drup-tam-ay-kyen-a (“the omniscient Kay-drup” mkhas grub thams cad mkhyen pa) and Kay-drup-a-way-nyi-ma (“Kay-drup Sun Of Propounders” mkhas grub smra ba’i nyi ma).

121 Ba-o-chö-yi-gyel-tsen wrote a set of annotations to zong-ka-a’s Great Exposition of the Stages of the Path (lam rim chen mo) and an important work of practical instructions on the view of emptiness. For the former, see The Lam rim chen mo of the incomparable Tsong-ka-pa, with the interlineal notes of Ba-so Chos-kyi-rgyal-mtshan, Sde-drug Mkhan-chen Ngag-dbang-rab-brtaṇ, ‘Jam-dbyangs-bshad-pa’i-rdo-rje, and Bra-sti Dge-bshes Rin-chen-don-grub, (New Delhi: Chos-’phel-legs-ldan, 1972); for the latter, see his Great Instructions on the View of the Middle Way (dbu ma’i lta khrid chen mo) in Mādhyamika Text Series, vol. 3. Some say that his fifth incarnation wrote the former text.

122 Ge-hay Thupten Gyatso of the Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center in Washington, New Jersey, at my request, wrote out a short biography of Kay-drup and then amplified on it in two sessions. The following account is a mixture of his written and oral presentations. For the Secret Biography itself, see the Biography of the Omniscient Kay-drup Composed By Jay-zun Chö-yi-gyel-tsen (mkhas grub thams cad mkhyen pa’i gsang ba’i rnam thar rje btsun chos kyi rgyal mtshan gyis mdzad pa), The Collected Works of the Lord Mkhas-grub rje dge-legs-dpal-bzaṅ-po, Vol. a, 421-493. The author says that he bases his work on the Secret Biography of Kay-drup written by Chö-den-rapjor, whom he says (423.6) heard most of the material from Kay-drup himself and supplied additional material from his clairvoyance. In the Collected Works is another biography of Kay-drup by Day-lek (bde legs), Biography of the Omniscient Kay-Drup: Captivating the Wise (mkhas grub thams cad mkhyen pa’i rnam thar mkhas pa’i yid ’phrog), Vol.ka, 5-31.

123 This prior rebirth is mentioned later in the Secret Biography by Jay-zun Chö-yi-gyel-tsen (430.4) as being given in a list of Kay-drup’s former lives in Day-lek’s Biography of the Omniscient Kay-Drup: Captivating the Wise. In the latter text (7.4-8.1), a longer list is given: Subhūti, Mañjushrīkīrti, Bhāvaviveka, Abhayākaragupta, the Translator Gö Kuk-a-hlay-zay (’gos khug pa lhas btsas) [not the author of the Blue Annals], a-ya Paṇḍiṭa un-ga-gyal-tsen (kun dga’ rgyal mtshan), and Ȳung-ön-dor-jay-el-wa (g.yung ston rdo rje dpal ba) who was an adept of the ying-ma Order and Kay-drup’s immediate predecessor. According to this list, Kay-drup is at the end of a list that includes a disciple of Shākyamuni Buddha, a compiler of the Kālachakra Tantra who was renowned as an incarnation of Vajrapāṇi, the founder of an important school of Buddhist philosophy, an important scholar, an important translator, a great scholar of another order of Tibetan Buddhism, and a great adept of another order of Tibetan Buddhism. These same persons are also given as prior incarnations of Kay-drup in a list of fourteen incarnations ending with the Fourth Paṇ-chen Lama; in that list, the Paṇ-chen lamas are traced back to Kay-drup who is traced back to those just given. See G. Tucci, Tibetan Painted Scrolls, pp.412-413.

Missing in the latter lists but in the much shorter list of the Secret Biography by Jay-zun Chö-yi-gyel-tsen is Rik-ay-ku-chuk The Greater (rig pa’i khu phyung che ba), who provides the link to Chandrakīrti and Nāgārjuna.

124 P5294, vol. 101.

125 The Secret Biography by Jay-zun Chö-yi-gyel-tsen (425.3) also says that at a certain point Nāgārjuna visited Rik-ay-ku-chuk the Greater, telling him that he should rely on Mañjushrī and that he himself would take rebirth in an outlying land (Tibet), at which time Rik-ay-ku-chuk (as Kay-drup) would be foremost in his circle. Āryadeva, Shāntideva, and Buddhapālita also told him of Mañjushrī’s intention to be reborn in such an area. As the Secret Biography concludes, these accounts implicitly show Mañjushrī, Nāgārjuna, and zong-ka-a to be of the same mental continuum.

126 According to Day-lek’s Biography of the Omniscient Kay-Drup: Captivating the Wise (7.6) Kay-drup is a later incarnation of a-ya Paṇḍiṭa un-ga-gyel-tsen. Thus, his defense amounts to a justification of his own earlier writings.

127 zong-ka-a’s three main disciples were Gyel-tsap, Kay-drup, and Dul-wa-dzin-a (’dul ba ’dzin pa); see the Secret Biography by Jay-zun Chö-yi-gyel-tsen, 430.1.

128 430.5 and 469.6. On 496.6 he reports that others had different visions of Kay-drup’s departure.

129 My Land and My People, first published by McGraw-Hill in 1962 and reprinted by the Potala Corporation in 1977.

130 John F. Avedon’s In Exile From the Land of Snows (New York: Knopf, 1984) gives a particularly vivid and moving account of the period after the Chinese takeover.

131 rje btsun ’jam dpal ngag dbang blo bzang ye shes bstan ’dzin rgya mtsho srid gsum dbang gyur mtshung pa med pa’i sde dpal bzang po.

132 Translated by Bhikku Thupten Kalsang Rinpoche, Ngodup Poljor, and John Blofeld (Bangkok: Klett Thai publications, 1975).