Text 17.8 (Commentary)

[Guhyagarbha-Tantra, Text section 17.8]

These (deities) are well beautified
By the mudrās of the sensory locations,
By the mudrās of the sense-objects
And by the mudrās of the four (sensory) gates. [8]

[Tibetan]

gnas-dang yul-gyi phyag-rgya-dang /
sgo-bzhi-'i phyag-rgyas rab-mdzes-shing / [8]

Commentary:

[i. First, there is the array of the twenty female wrathful deities (which comments on Ch. 17.8):]

The eight Mātarīs of sensory location are the eight aggregates of consciousness, i.e., the locations which generate saṃsāra. They are called the mudrās of the sensory locations (gnas-kyi phyag-rgya) because these (aggregates) are inherently pure.^[1] Among them, Gaurī is white, holding a corpse as a club and a blood-filled skull. Caurī is yellow, shooting an arrow from a bow. Pramohā is red, raising in her two hands a crocodile banner. Vetālī is black, raising a vajra and holding a blood-filled skull to her heart. Pukkāsī is reddish-yellow, eating the entrails of a child. Ghasmarī is dark-green, stirring and drinking the blood which fills her cranium-bowl. Śmaśānī is dark-blue, eating the heart of a child. Caṇḍālī is pale-yellow, tearing apart the head and body of a bloated corpse (bam).

The eight Piśācīs are the mudrās of the sense-objects (yul-gyi phyag-rgya-dang). They are called the mudrās of the sense-objects because the objects of the consciousnesses of the five senses—form, sound, smell, taste, and contact, as well as the phenomena which are the object of the intellect, the ground-of-all which is the object of the conflicted mind, and all things which are the outer and inner objects of the ground-of-all are inherently pure.^[2] Now, Siṃhamukhī is yellow, seizing a corpse in her hands and pressing it towards her mouth. Vyāghramukhī is red, staring menacingly at a corpse. Śṛgālamukhī is black, licking a human corpse. Śvānamukhī is blue, tearing assunder the belly of a corpse. Gṛdhramukhī is red, eating the intestines of a corpse. Kaṅkamukhī is yellow, carrying a large human corpse over her shoulders. Kākamukhī is black, raising a skull-cup and a knife. Ulūkamukhī is blue, casting an iron hook.

These deities are also well beautified by the mudrās of the four (bzhi'i phyag-rgyas rab-mdzes-shing) female keepers of the (sensory) gates (sgo), who subdue the four erroneous demons and seal them with the four pristine cognitions:^[3] The horse-faced one (Vajratejasī) is white, holding an iron hook. The sow-faced one (Vajrāmoghā) is black. holding a lasso. The bear-faced one (Vajralokā) is red, holding an iron chain. The wolf-faced one (Vajravetālī) is green, holding a large bell.

[ii. Secondly, the array of the twenty-eight Īśvarīs or mighty queens (comments on Ch. 17.9):]

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Footnotes and references:

[1]:

On this Inherent purity of the rnam-shes tshogs-brgyad, see also above, pp. 394-395. Cf. H.V. Guenther, Matrix of Mystery, p. 167.

[2]:

On this inherent purity of rnam-shes yul-brgyad, see also above note.

[3]:

The gatekeepers represent the sensory gates though which the activities of pure sensory location and object emerge. Cf. H.V. Guenther, op. cit.. pp. 170-171. On the "four demons", see above, foreword and title, note 12. The ye-shes bzhi are the four peripheral pristine cognitions.