Essay name: Hevajra Tantra (analytical study)
Author:
Seung Ho Nam
Affiliation: University of Kerala / Faculty of Oriental Studies
This is an English study of the Hevajra Tantra: an ancient Sanskrit text that teaches the process of attaining Buddha-hood for removing the sufferings of all sentient beings. The Hevajratantra amplifies the views and methods found in the Guhyasamaja Tantra (one of the earliest extant Buddhist Tantras) dealing with Yoga and Mandalas.
Chapter 1 - Tantric Buddhism
38 (of 63)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
Download the PDF file of the original publication
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
The definition of a conventional truth is: an object that is realized in a
dualistic manner by a direct prime cognition that directly realizes it.
"Duality here refers to an appearance of subject and object, which in this
system are conventionally one entity."59
A pot's emptiness of true existence is an illustration of an ultimate
truth. A pot is an illustration of a conventional truth.
If an extensive division of ultimate truths is made, there are sixteen
emptinesses. Or, in brief, there are four emptinesses. The four
emptinesses are of compounded phenomena, uncompounded phenomena,
self, and other. In "Hevajra Tantra sixteen emptinesses are mentioned.
The sixteen arms of the deity Hevajra symbolises the purification of the
sixteen emptinesses or voidnesses.
[HT] The arms symbolise the purification of Voidness; the feet the purification of
the M膩ras; the faces the purification of the Eight Releases (a峁ａ弓avimok峁Ｄ佱弗) and the
eyes the purification of the three Vajr墨s. (1.9.16)60
[commentary] the arms: The essential principle of the sixteen arms are the
sixteen Voids. These sixteen Voids are: Inner Voidness, External Voidness, Internal
and External Voidness, Great Voidness, Voidness of Voidness, Supreme Voidness,
Refined Voidness, Unrefined Voidness, Extreme Voidness, Supreme Voidness without
precedent, Undispersed Voidness, Self-characterised Voidness, Primordial Voidness,
Voidness of all natures, Voidness of non-existence, Voidness of essential
non-existence). The arms signify these Voids is the intent. (YM)61
The two truths are not different entities but one entity within nominal
difference. Similarly, a Buddha would not have forsaken the apprehension
of inherent existence because he would have only a powerless
apprehension of an emptiness which was entirely separate from objects.
If the two truths were utterly the same, everything true of the one
would be true of the other. In that case, for every
58 Geshe Lhundup Sopa & Jeffrey Hopkins, Ibid, p.286.
59 Geshe Lhundup Sopa & Jeffrey Hopkins, Ibid, p.286.
60 bhuj膩n膩m s奴nyatai suddhi艣 cara峁嚹� m膩ravi艣uddhita岣�/ mukh膩ny astavimok峁峁嘺
netra艣uddhis trivajri峁嚹乵//16// (HT[F&M]., p.116)
61 (HT[S].,part2, pp.130-131)
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