Vajrasattva ( sa, वज्रसत्त्व, Tibetan: རྡོ་རྗེ་སེམས་དཔའ། ''Dorje Sempa'', short form is རྡོར་སེམས། ''Dorsem'', Монгол: Доржсэмбэ) is a

bodhisattva In Buddhism, a bodhisattva ( ; sa, 𑀩𑁄𑀥𑀺𑀲𑀢𑁆𑀢𑁆𑀯 (Brahmī), translit=bodhisattva, label=Sanskrit) or bodhisatva is a person who is on the path towards bodhi ('awakening') or Buddhahood. In the Early Buddhist schools ...

in the

Mahayana ''Mahāyāna'' (; "Great Vehicle") is a term for a broad group of Buddhist traditions, texts, philosophies, and practices. Mahāyāna Buddhism developed in India (c. 1st century BCE onwards) and is considered one of the three main existing br ...

Mantrayana Vajrayāna ( sa, वज्रयान, "thunderbolt vehicle", "diamond vehicle", or "indestructible vehicle"), along with Mantrayāna, Guhyamantrayāna, Tantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Tantric Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism, are names referring t ...

Vajrayana Vajrayāna ( sa, वज्रयान, "thunderbolt vehicle", "diamond vehicle", or "indestructible vehicle"), along with Mantrayāna, Guhyamantrayāna, Tantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Tantric Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism, are names referring t ...

Buddhist traditions. In

Chinese Buddhism Chinese Buddhism or Han Buddhism ( zh, s=汉传佛教, t=漢傳佛教, p=Hànchuán Fójiào) is a Chinese form of Mahayana Buddhism which has shaped Chinese culture in a wide variety of areas including art, politics, literature, philosophy, ...

and the Japanese

Shingon Shingon monks at Mount Koya is one of the major schools of Buddhism in Japan and one of the few surviving Vajrayana lineages in East Asia, originally spread from India to China through traveling monks such as Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra. Kn ...

tradition, Vajrasatva is the esoteric aspect of the

Samantabhadra and is commonly associated with the student practitioner who through the master's teachings, attains an ever-enriching subtle and rarefied grounding in their esoteric practice. In

Tibetan Buddhism Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...

Vajrasatva is associated with the sambhogakāya and purification practice. Vajrasatva appears principally in two Buddhists texts: the ''

Mahavairocana Sutra Vairocana (also Mahāvairocana, sa, वैरोचन) is a cosmic buddha from Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism. Vairocana is often interpreted, in texts like the '' Avatamsaka Sutra'', as the dharmakāya of the historical Gautama Buddha. In E ...

'' and the ''

Vajrasekhara Sutra The ''Vajraśekhara Sūtra'' is an important Buddhist tantra used in the Vajrayāna schools of Buddhism, but can refer to a number of different works. In particular a cycle of 18 texts studied by Amoghavajra, which included both ''Tattvasaṃgrah ...

''. In the

Diamond Realm In Vajrayana Buddhism, the Diamond Realm (Skt. वज्रधातु ''vajradhātu'', Traditional Chinese: 金剛界; Pinyin: ''Jīngāngjiè''; Romaji: ''Kongōkai'') is a metaphysical space inhabited by the Five Tathagatas. The Diamond Real ...

Mandala A mandala ( sa, मण्डल, maṇḍala, circle, ) is a geometric configuration of symbols. In various spiritual traditions, mandalas may be employed for focusing attention of practitioners and adepts, as a spiritual guidance tool, for e ...

, Vajrasatva sits to the East near

Akshobhya Akshobhya ( sa, अक्षोभ्य, ''Akṣobhya'', "Immovable One"; ) is one of the Five Wisdom Buddhas, a product of the Adibuddha, who represents consciousness as an aspect of reality. By convention he is located in the east of the ...

Buddha. In some esoteric lineages,

Nagarjuna Nāgārjuna . 150 – c. 250 CE (disputed)was an Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist thinker, scholar-saint and philosopher. He is widely considered one of the most important Buddhist philosophers.Garfield, Jay L. (1995), ''The Fundamental Wisdom of ...

was said to have met Vajrasatva in an iron tower in South India, and was taught

tantra Tantra (; sa, तन्त्र, lit=loom, weave, warp) are the esoteric traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism that developed on the Indian subcontinent from the middle of the 1st millennium CE onwards. The term ''tantra'', in the Indian ...

, thus transmitting the esoteric teachings to more historical figures. His

Mantra A mantra ( Pali: ''manta'') or mantram (मन्त्रम्) is a sacred utterance, a numinous sound, a syllable, word or phonemes, or group of words in Sanskrit, Pali and other languages believed by practitioners to have religious, ...

is ( sa, ॐ वज्रसत्त्व हूँ; zh, 唵斡資囉薩答啊吽 / ;

Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally writte ...

: / ).

Meaning of name

Vajrasatva's name translates to ''Diamond Being'' or ''Thunderbolt Being.'' The

vajra The Vajra () is a legendary and ritual weapon, symbolising the properties of a diamond (indestructibility) and a thunderbolt (irresistible force). The vajra is a type of club with a ribbed spherical head. The ribs may meet in a ball-shap ...

is an iconic marker for

Esoteric Buddhism Vajrayāna ( sa, वज्रयान, "thunderbolt vehicle", "diamond vehicle", or "indestructible vehicle"), along with Mantrayāna, Guhyamantrayāna, Tantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Tantric Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism, are names referring t ...

Newar Buddhism

Vajrasattva is an important figure in the tantric Buddhism of the Newar People of the Kathmandu Valley. He represents the ideal guru, and he is frequently invoked in the , the foundational ritual for all other Newar Buddhist rituals and the daily for Newar priests (s). The (100 syllable prayer to Vajrasattva) is memorized by many practicing Newar Buddhist priests.

East Asian Buddhism

and

, Vajrasatva is traditionally viewed as the second patriarch of Esoteric Buddhism, the first being

Vairocana Vairocana (also Mahāvairocana, sa, वैरोचन) is a cosmic buddha from Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism. Vairocana is often interpreted, in texts like the ''Avatamsaka Sutra'', as the dharmakāya of the historical Gautama Buddha. In East ...

Buddha. According to Kukai's writings in ''Record of the Dharma Transmission'' he relates a story based on

Amoghavajra Amoghavajra ( sa, अमोघवज्र ; , 705–774) was a prolific translator who became one of the most politically powerful Buddhist monks in Chinese history and is acknowledged as one of the Eight Patriarchs of the Doctrine in Shingon ...

's account that

met Vajrasatva in an iron tower in southern

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. Vajrasatva initiated Nagarjuna into the abhiseka ritual and entrusted him with the esoteric teachings he had learned from

Buddha, as depicted in the

. Kukai does not elaborate further on Vajrasatva or his origins. Elsewhere, Vajrasatva is an important figure in two esoteric Buddhist sutras, the

and the

. In the first chapter of the

, Vajrasatva leads a host of beings who visit

Buddha to learn the Dharma. Vajrasatva inquires about the cause, goal and foundation of all-embracing wisdom, which leads to a philosophical discourse delivered by the Buddha. The audience cannot comprehend the teaching, so the Buddha demonstrates through the use of

mandala A mandala ( sa, मण्डल, maṇḍala, circle, ) is a geometric configuration of symbols. In various spiritual traditions, mandalas may be employed for focusing attention of practitioners and adepts, as a spiritual guidance tool, for e ...

. Vajrasatva then questions why rituals and objects are needed if the truth is beyond form. Vairocana Buddha replies to Vajrasatva that these are expedient means whose function is to bring practitioners to awakening more readily, and so on. In

Buddhist rituals for initiation; the ''kechien kanjō''; the initiate re-enacts the role of Vajrasatva and recites

mantra A mantra ( Pali: ''manta'') or mantram (मन्त्रम्) is a sacred utterance, a numinous sound, a syllable, word or phonemes, or group of words in Sanskrit, Pali and other languages believed by practitioners to have religious, ...

and dialogue from the sutras above. The Mahācārya enacts the role of Mahavairocana Buddha, bestowing wisdom upon the student. In certain esoteric Chinese Buddhist rituals such as the

Grand Mengshan Food Bestowal ceremony Grand may refer to: People with the name * Grand (surname) * Grand L. Bush (born 1955), American actor * Grand Mixer DXT, American turntablist * Grand Puba (born 1966), American rapper Places * Grand, Oklahoma * Grand, Vosges, village and commun ...

() and the Samadhi Water Repentance Ceremony (), Vajrasatta's mantra is commonly recited as part of the liturgy while the performing monastic uses ritual vajras and ghantas to expel demons from the ritual platform.

Tibetan Buddhism

the Vajrasattva root tantra is ''Dorje Gyan'', or "Vajra Ornament". Vajrasattva practices are common to all of the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism and are used both to purify obscurations so that the

student can progress beyond Ngondro practices to the various

yoga Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consci ...

practices of

and also to purify any broken

samaya The samaya (, Japanese and , J: ''sanmaya-kai'', C: ''Sān mè yē jiè''), is a set of vows or precepts given to initiates of an esoteric Vajrayana Buddhist order as part of the abhiṣeka (empowerment or initiation) ceremony that creates a bon ...

vows after initiation. As such, Vajrasattva practice is an essential element of Tibetan Buddhist practice. In addition to personal practice, the Vajrasattva mantra is regarded as having the ability to purify

karma Karma (; sa, कर्म}, ; pi, kamma, italic=yes) in Sanskrit means an action, work, or deed, and its effect or consequences. In Indian religions, the term more specifically refers to a principle of cause and effect, often descriptivel ...

, bring peace, and cause enlightened activity in general. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, The

Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche The 7th Dzogchen Ponlop (Karma Sungrap Ngedön Tenpa Gyaltsen, born 1965) is an abbot of Dzogchen Monastery, founder and spiritual director of Nalandabodhi, founder of Nītārtha Institute for Higher Buddhist Studies, a leading Tibetan Buddhis ...

announced a project, Prayer 4 Peace, to accumulate one billion six syllable Vajrasattva recitations from practitioners around the world. The six syllable mantra ('' oṁ Vajrasattva Hūṁ''), is a less formal version of the one hundred syllable mantra on which it is based but contains the essential spiritual points of the longer mantra, according to lama and

tulku A ''tulku'' (, also ''tülku'', ''trulku'') is a reincarnate custodian of a specific lineage of teachings in Tibetan Buddhism who is given empowerments and trained from a young age by students of his or her predecessor. High-profile examples ...

Jamgon Kongtrul Jamgön Kongtrül Lodrö Thayé (, 1813–1899), also known as Jamgön Kongtrül the Great, was a Tibetan Buddhist scholar, poet, artist, physician, tertön and polymath.Jackson, Roger R. The Tibetan Leonardo, 2012, https://www.lionsroar.com/the ...

Dzogchen

" The Mirror of the Heart of Vajrasatva" () is one of the

Seventeen Tantras The ''Seventeen Tantras of the Esoteric Instruction Series'' () or the ''Seventeen tantras of the Ancients'' (''rnying-ma'i rgyud bcu-bdun'') are an important collection of tantras in the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. They comprise the c ...

of Dzogchen Upadesha. Samantabhadra discourses to Vajrasattva and in turn Vajrasattva asks questions of Samantabhadra in clarification in the Kulayaraja Tantra () or "The All-Creating King Tantra", the main tantra of the Mind Series of Dzogchen.

Consorts

Vajrasattva is often depicted with various consorts: the peaceful one Vajragarvi aka Vajrasatvātmikā (Tib. ), Dharmadhatvishvari, Ghantapani ("Bell Bearer"), the

wrathful Anger, also known as wrath or rage, is an intense emotional state involving a strong uncomfortable and non-cooperative response to a perceived provocation, hurt or threat. A person experiencing anger will often experience physical effects, su ...

one Diptacakra, Vajratopa, Vajrabhrikuti, and others.

Hundred Syllable Mantra

In Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhist practice, Vajrasattva is used in the Ngondro, or preliminary practices, in order to ''purify'' the mind's defilements, prior to undertaking more advanced tantric techniques. The , the "Hundred Syllable Mantra" () supplication of Vajrasattva, approaches universality in the various elementary Ngondro sadhana for sadhakas of all Mantrayana and Sarma schools bar the Bonpo. The pronunciation and orthography differ between lineages. The evocation of the Hundred Syllable Vajrasattva Mantra in the

lineage of Jigme Lingpa's (1729–1798) ngondro from the'' Longchen Nyingtig'' displays Sanskrit-Tibetan hybridization. Such textual and dialectical ''

diglossia In linguistics, diglossia () is a situation in which two dialects or languages are used (in fairly strict compartmentalization) by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety (labeled ...

'' ( sa, dvaibhāṣika) is evident from the earliest transmission of tantra into the region, where the original Sanskrit phonemes and lexical items are often orthographically rendered in the Tibetan, rather than the comparable indigenous terms (Davidson, 2002). Though Jigme Lingpa did not ''compose'' the Hundred Syllable Mantra, his scribal style bears a marked similarity to it as evidenced by his biographies (Gyatso, 1998). Jigme Lingpa as '' pandit'', which in the Himalayan context denotes an indigenous Tibetan versed in Sanskrit, often wrote in a hybridized Sanskrit-Tibetan diglossia. In Chinese Buddhism, the "Hundred Syllable Mantra" is also recited and practiced by monastics during the Yogacara Flaming Mouth Ritual (

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

: 瑜伽焰口;

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally writte ...

: ''Yújiā Yànkou''), which is often conducted during various important festivals, including the Chinese Ghost Festival, in order to feed

pretas Preta ( sa, प्रेत, bo, ཡི་དྭགས་ ''yi dags''), also known as hungry ghost, is the Sanskrit name for a type of supernatural being described in Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Chinese folk religion as undergoing suffer ...

and reduce their suffering. The earliest known reference to this mantra in the Chinese Buddhist canon dates to a compilation of spells purportedly made during by monks from the Xixia kingdom during the

Song dynasty The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...

(960 - 1279), which may indicate that the mantra was first transcribed from Tibetan Buddhist sources, as Tibetan Buddhist teachings were influential in the Xixia region at the time.

唵: 斡指囉薩埵薩摩耶摩奴巴拉耶! 斡指囉薩埵堆耨缽諦使他! 得哩投美帕瓦! 蘇抖使猶美帕瓦! 蘇波使猶美帕瓦! 阿奴囉克兜美帕瓦! 薩哩斡西梃美頗囉耶察! 薩哩斡葛爾摩蘇者! 美支蕩釋哩樣古嚕吽! 訶訶訶訶斛! 頗葛灣薩爾瓦答塔葛達斡指囉, 媽美捫札! 斡指哩帕瓦 ! 摩哈薩摩耶薩埵啊！

Ǎn Wòzīluōsàduǒ Sūsàmáyé Mánàbālàyé , Wòzīluōsàduǒ Dìnúbōdìsèzhā , Délīchú Mí Fāwǎ , Sūdùshù Mí Fāwǎ , Anúluōyìdōu Mí Fāwǎ , Sūbùshù Mí Fāwǎ , Sàlīwò Xiētí Mí Bùluōyécā , Sàlīwò Gélīmásū Zā Mí Jìdá Shìlīyáng Guōlǔ Hōng , Hē Hē Hē Hē Hú Fāgéwān Sàlīwǎ Dátǎgédá Wòzīluō Má Mí Ménzā , Wòzīlī Fāwǎ Máhē Sàmóyé Sàduǒ A , , oṃ O Vajrasattva honour the agreement! Reveal yourself as the vajra-being! Be steadfast for me! Be very pleased for me! Be fully nourishing for me! Be passionate for me! Grant me all success and attainment! And in all actions make my mind more lucid! hūṃ ha ha ha ha hoḥ O Blessed One, vajra of all those in that state, don't abandon me! O being of the great contract be a vajra-bearer! āḥ

References

External links

Rangjung Yeshe Dictionary entrySamye Institute Library entryVideo
of a segment of a Chinese Yogacara Flaming Mouth ceremony (瑜伽焰口法會) where Vajrasattva's mantra "''Oṃ Vajrasattva Hūṃ''" is recited (at around the 10 second mark)
Video
of a segment of a Samadhi Water Repentance ceremony in Taiwan where Vajrasattva's mantra "''Oṃ Vajrasattva Hūṃ''" is recited (at around the 20:17 minute mark)
Video
of a segment of a Chinese Yogacara Flaming Mouth ceremony (瑜伽焰口法會) showing recitation of Vajrasattva's Hundred Syllable Mantra {{Chinese Buddhist Pantheon Bodhisattvas