Essay name: Svacchandatantra (history and structure)
Author: William James Arraj
The essay represents a study and partial English translation of the Svacchandatantra and its commentary, “Uddyota�, by Kshemaraja. The text, attributed to the deity Svacchanda-bhairava, has various names and demonstrates a complex history of transmission through diverse manuscript traditions in North India, Nepal, and beyond.
Page 471 of: Svacchandatantra (history and structure)
471 (of 511)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
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effected, /14/
[and] having made [that] well heated in a cremation fire,
recited upon a hundred times, [and] joined with the formula
and its own name,/15/
he quickly brings a yakṣa�, a deity, a demon, a pumnaga�,
or [pum-] nāri.
Previously, the blood of a corpse; but here, his own blood; [this
is] the difference [in the rites].
[Having made] the name of the [one] to be effected written
with a pigment of blood on his own left hand, [and having]
joined this with a hundred repetitions, interlaced with the
formula, [and made it] well heated, at night,/16/
in a smokeless fire of khadira�, he brings, as swift as the
wind, the master of demons.
Interlaced (vidarbhitam), i.e., at the end of the name, [and this]
imposition of the name was illustrated previously.
[Having rendered] the [one] to be effected written with the
designation, on the surface of the ground, with blood [and]
gaurikam, [99] with the left hand rubbed with perfume,
[and] joined with the seed of the substance, [and] having
approached [that] written on the ground, [then while] facing
the [one] to be obtained, for the time of half of a night,/18/
[the adept] brings, in the hundredth part of an instant, the
king and his ministers.
Written, i.e., having rendered [it written] i.e., as previously,
[ by means of the designation interlaced with the formula;
gaurikam, i.e., hingulakam (cinnabar); with blood, i.e., from a
corpse, and for that very reason, this surface of the ground is
that of a cremation ground. And here [once again] there is
established the standard [preceding] use of a hundred repetitions.
[Having made] the [one] to be obtained written on the
middle of a human skull, with pigment mixed with
blood,/19/
and having written the name of that one, interlaced with
