Canonical Sources for the

Vajrasattva Mantra

I've mentioned that Maitiu O'Ceileachair and I have identified the earliest textual occurrence of
the Hundred Syllable Vajrasattva Mantra in the Chinese Tripit ika. Circumstances have meant that
Maitiu and I have not been able to write up our notes formally. I know there is considerable interest
in this mantra, and the Vajrasattva Mantra continues to be the most popular page on my mantra
website. So I thought I would write up some of the basic stuff that we've found, along with
transcriptions of the mantra from various Canonical sources. This blog post represents our
collaborative effort, but credit for all the observations on the Chinese goes to Maitiu.
The earliest occurrence in the Chinese Canon, which is really the only candidate for the earliest
literary use of the mantra, since only the Chinese dated their texts, is in T.866, a collection of mantras
related to the Sarvatathgata-tattvasagraha (STTS). T.866 was translated into Chinese by
Vajrabodhi (ca 671-741) in 723 CE. Stephen Hodge (2003) says that Vajrabodhi acquired his STTS
manuscript circa 700 CE, so it had to have been composed before that date.
Two Sanskrit manuscripts of STTS are extant, though both are relatively recent copies. One has been
published in facsimile edition (Candra & Snellgrove), and another forms the basis of a critical edition
by Yamada (which means that he compares his Sanskrit manuscript with other versions).
*see coents. We also looked at two versions in printed editions of the Tibetan Canon (the Peking
and Derge editions) and several other Chinese versions from the Taisho Edition of the Tripitaka
(e.g.
T.873, 875, 884, 1224, 1320, 1956), including Amoghavajra's translation into Chinese (T. 873).

The mantra occurs in the context of a brief introductory paragraph and is followed by another brief
paragraph.

Sanskrit text

atha sarvamudrn smnyah svakyavkcittavajres u vajrkaran avidhivistaro bhavati| yad

mudrdhis t hna ithilbhavati, svaya v muktukmo bhavati, tato'nena hr d ayena dr d hkartavy|
o vajra-satva-saaya anuplaya
vajrasatvatvenopatis t ha
dr d ho e bhava su-tos y o e bhavnurakto e bhava
su-pos y o e bhava sarva-siddhi ca e prayaccha
sarva-karasu ca e citta-reyah kuru h
ha ha ha ha hoh
Bhagavan sarva-tathgata-vajra e uca
vajr bhava ah-saaya-sattva h ||
anennantaryakrin o'pi sarvatathgatamoks api saddharmapratiks epak api sarvadus k r takrin o'pi
sarvatathgatamudrsdhak varjasattvadr d hbhvdihaiva janmanysu yathbhirucit
sarvasiddhimuttamasiddhi vajrasiddhi vajrasattvasiddhi v yvat tathgatasiddhi v
prpsyant-tyha bhagav sarvatathgatavajrasattvah ||
TODARO'S TRANSLATION OF THE S ANSKRIT .
(EXCEPT FOR THE MANTRA WHICH IS MY TRANSLATION )

"Now an explanation of the rite of the strengthened of all mudrs alike in one's own body, speech and
mind thunderbolt is given. When the mudr empowerment becomes weak or when there is a desire
for liberation by oneself, then one should be made firm with this mantra:
o
O Vajrasattva honour the agreement!
Reveal yourself as the vajra-being!
Be steadfast for me!
Be fully nourishing for me!
Be very pleased for me!

Be passionate for me!

Grant me all success and attainment!
And in all actions make my mind more lucid!
h
ha ha ha ha hoh
O Blessed One, vajra of all those in that state, don't abandon me!
O great agreement-being become real!
h
"The Bhagavat Vajrasattva of all the Tathgatas said: "Notwithstanding continuous killing, the
slander of all the Tathgatas, the repudiation of the true teaching and even all evil and injury, (by this)
the perfection of all the Tathgata's mudrs from the strengthening of Vajrasattva, in the present life
as you desire, and all accomplishments, the supreme accomplishment, the thunderbolt
accomplishment or the accomplishment of Vajrasattva, up to the accomplishment of the Tathgata,
will be attained quickly."
Coents
The reconstructed version of the mantra created on the basis of Sthiramati's work in Jayarava (2010)
reflects the extant Sanskrit and Chinese texts of STTS quite well, with only minor differences. It may
be that the Tibetans were working from a different source text.
The mantra explicitly allows that someone who has done evil, more or less any kind of evil, will not
be prevented from making progress. The Chinese version includes the five atekiccaor unforgivable
actions. (Giebel p.99). This represents that last phase of turning a tenet of Early Buddhism on its
head, i.e. that the consequences of actions are inescapable. This role of the mantra--usually referred
to as 'purifying karma'--remains central in the narratives surrounding its use in Tibetan Buddhism.
The mantra seems much less prominent in Sino-Japanese Tantric Buddhism, and Vajrasattva
(Japanese: Kongosatta) plays quite a different role than in Tibet.
The text refers to the mantra as hrdaya,
i.e, 'heart mantra' or 'heart essence'.

Both extant Sanskrit versions spell sattva with one t, i.e. satva; which may indicate some MiddleIndic influence, although the language of this passage appears to conform to Classical Sanskrit
norms.
The main difference between this mantra text and the one reconstructed from the Tibetan in Jayarava
(2010) is that Yamada has su-tosyo
e bhavnurakto e bhavasu-posyo
e bhava; where as the
Tibetan (and the Chinese texts) transpose the last two phrases: sutosyo
e bhava, suposyo
e bhava,
anurakto e bhava. Note that bhavnurakto is a coalescence ofbhava anurakto forced by
Sanskrit sandhi rules (-a a- > --).

Tibetan Versions of the Mantra

The Tibetan texts below are transcribed as they appears in the printed text, including punctuation
marks, see also note at the end of this section. The lines of woodblock prints are long, and the mantra
goes over a couple of long lines in both cases--difficult to reproduce in this medium so I haven't tried.
Derge Ed.

om badzra satva sa ma ya| ma nu p la ya| badzra satva tve no pa| ti s t ha dr d ho me bha ba| su to
s ya bha ba| a nu ra kto me bha ba| su po s yo me bha ba| sa rbba siddhi mme pra ya tsatsha| sa rbba
ka rmma su tsa me tsi ttam re yah kuru hm| ha ha ha ha hoh | bha ga vn| sa rbba ta th ga ta|
badzra m me nu ca ba dr bha ba ma h sa ma ya satva ah
Peking Ed.

| om badzra satva sa ma ya | | ma nu p la ya | badzra sa tva tve no ba | ti s t ha d i d ho me bha ba su

to s yo me bha ba | su po s yo me bha ba | a nu rag to me bha ba | sa rbba sid dhi mme pra ya tsatsha

.. sarva karma su tsa me | tsi ttam re yam ku ru hm | ha ha ha ha hh bha ga vn | sa rbba ta

th ga to | | badzra m me mumtsabadzri bha ba ma h sa ma ya satva h
Peking ed. shows signs of being slavishly copied from a woodblock of a different size. The
repeated shad | | (not to be confused with a nyis shad || ), for example in the first line 'ya | | a'
indicates that the original line ends with ya | and the new line starts with | a. The groups of
multiple tsheg indicate space filling. We've included the exact number of tsheg as in the printed text
(C.f. Beginning and End Markers in Buddhist Texts).
Tibetan regularly makes several substitutions: va > ba; ja > dza; ca > tsa. In
addition rva >rbba; ra > ra (Derge). Medial nasals are sometimes replaced by anusvra,
e.g. uca >utsa. Both have satva for sattva, but so do extant Sanskrit texts.
General anomalies in the Tibetan versions of the mantra are discussed in Jayarava (2010).
Particularly the break between saaya anuplaya becoming saaya anuplaya from an Indic
original that would have written individual syllables with no word breaks: e.g. sa
a ya a nu p la ya (See also the Chinese Siddham script preserved in T. 875 below.) This is quite
simply an error, and was probably a mistake of reading rather than listening.
Both texts incorrectly add a shad in the middle of vajrasattvatvenopatist ha.
The words
arevajrasattvatvena upatis tha
with a sandhi -a u- > -o- (See Jayarava 2010 for more on this).

Chinese Versions of the Mantra

Reconstructing Sanskrit from Chinese is an imprecise art and often relies on

knowing what the Sanskrit 'should' say. Chinese transcriptions are not very good at
representing visargaand anusvra can go missing as well (though this might be the
Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit source material rather than the translators). Some
translators indicate vowel length and some don't. Generally Amoghavajra is pretty
good and many translators followed his conventions.

The earliest occurrance is T. 866.

T. 866

A Summary of Recitations Taken from the Sarvatathgatatattvasagraha(stra)

Translation by Vajrabodhi: 11th year of Kaiyuan ( ), Tang dynasty (CE 723) in

Zisheng Monastery (). (fasc. 2)

[each section of the mantra is transliterated and then followed, in parentheses, by a
gloss in Chinese]

[0239a12] ()
()()()()()
()( )() ()
( )()() ()
()()()(
)( )
o vajra sattvasaaya anuplaya (vajrasattvasamaya please protect
me)vajrasattvatvenopatist ha
(become vajrasattva) drd ho
e bhava (be strong [for] me) sutosyo
e
bhava (be pleased with me) anurakto e bhava supos yo e bhava sarvasiddhi [there is an extra
syllable here gam/kam] e prayaccha(bestow on me all siddhis) sarvakarasu ca e (and all
karmas) citta reyah (make me at peace) kuru h ha ha ha ha hoh bhagavan sarvatathgata vajra
e uca (please Vajra do not abandon me) vajrbhava (make me the vajra
samayasattva) ahsaayasattva h
Vajrabodhi gives glosses for some parts of the mantra that make it clear that he
understandssarvasiddhi to mean 'all the siddhis'. I suspect that the punctuation of this line is incorrect
and has been moved from directly behind and that these characters should be read together
as siddhi or siddha. It is possible that siddhi is a Middle-Indic form of siddhn.According to
Edgerton (BHSD) when the nasal of -n is retained the vowel is shortened.
Note that the Chinese appears to read vajra sattvasaaya anuplaya rather thanvajrasattva
saaya anuplaya in line with the Sanskrit mss. If this is correct then the error could have occurred
on Indian soil and been transmitted to Tibet and China as it was.

T.865

(translated by Amoghavajra 753 CE. 1st chapter only )

()

 ()

()
n r lu s d sn m y me n b (yn) y
r lu s d d wi n b de s ch
ni li zhu mi p s du sh y mi p
n luo ji du mi p
s b sh y mi p
s x zhn mi b luo y ch
s ji m s zh mi zh du sh li yo ju l hng
a a a a h (yn)
p g fn s d t ni du r lu m m mn zh
r li p m h sn m y s d (yn)

Amongst the Chinese versions are two which preserve a (corrupt) Siddham version of the mantra. We
include one of these for comparison. (The Siddham is written using the CBETA Font which is not
aesthetically pleasing but gives us an idea of what Chinese Siddham looks like.)
T.875
[]
A Ritual Manual of the Mental Recitation of the Lotus Section.
Written during the Heian Period (794-1185 CE). From the Sanmitsu Collection of the
T-ji.
[0326a26]
[0326a27]

Transliteration

om va jra sa tva sa ma ya ma nu p la ya va jra sa tva nve no pa ti s t a dr ho me bha va mi su tu s uo

me bha va a nu ra kto me bh ba sup u s o me bha va sa rva si ddhim me pra ya ccha sa rva ka rma su
ca me cit ta re ya ku ru hm ha ha ha ha hoh bha ga vam sa rva ta th ga ta va jra m ma mum ca va
jr bha va ma h sa ma ya sa tv h

Be aware that this mantra is corrupted and contains many introduced errors. It is
provided for comparison purposes only.

Conclusion

These then are principle canonical sources of the Hundred Syllable Vajrasattva
Mantra in the Sanskrit, Tibetan and Chinese versions of the Sarvatathgatatattvasagraha. Since the Chinese accurately recorded the date of their
translations we can be confident that T. 866 is the earliest translated text in the
Chinese Tripiika to contain this mantra. The differences between the various
versions are relatively minor, though they suggest that even at the earliest times
this text existed in several versions containing these minor differences, i.e. not all
the differences are due to translations or scribal error.

All of these canonical versions tend confirm the notion that the mantra was originally written in good
Sanskrit rather than the somewhat garbled version in the received Tibetan tradition. The garbling of
the mantra forms part of the discussion in Jayarava (2010), as does the tension created by received
tradition vs. other forms of authority. However T. 866 suggests that at least some of the errors were
present in the Indian tradition already. The fact of the difference between the canonical and received
versions of the mantra highlights the conflict of sources of authority in the Buddhist tradition.
Though Tantric Buddhism places great emphasis on guru to disciple transmission, which tends to
outweigh textual authority; the fact that we now have much greater access to the Tripitika
and the
knowledge that the mantra has been partially garbled are difficult to ignore for Western converts
unconsciously inculcated with the valorisation of textual authority.
The Vajrasattva mantra was set free from this context in the Tibetan Tantric tradition where it
performs an important role in purifying kara that might otherwise impede progress on the Buddhist
path. In its self this is a fascinating aspect of the history of ideas in Buddhism.
~~oOo~~

Sources

 [Taish Revised Tripiaka]

Chandra, Lokesh and Snellgrove, David L. Sarva-tathgata-tattva-sagraha :
facsimile reproduction of a tenth century Sanskrit manuscript from Nepal. New
Delhi : Sharada Rani, 1981. Online transcription Digital Sanskrit Buddhist
Canon.http://dsbc.uwest.edu/node/7269
Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association (CBETA) http://www.cbeta.org/
'De-bshin-gegs-pa thams-cad-kyi de-kho-na-id bsdusp-pa shes-bya-ba theg-pa
chen-poi mdo (Sarvatathgata-tattvasagraha-nma-mahyna Stra).' The
Tibetan Tripitaka Peking Edition. (Ed. D. T. Suzuki) Tokyo: Tibetan Tripitaka Research
Institute, 1956. Vol.4, p.233. (a 37a-b)
De-bshin-gegs-pa thams-cad-kyi de-kho-na-id bsdusp-pa shes-bya-ba theg-pa
chen-poi mdo (Sarvatathgata-tattvasagraha-nma-mahyna Stra). Derge:
The Sde-dge Mtshal-par Bka-gyur: A Facsimile Edition of the 18th Century
Redaction of Si-tu Chos-kyi-byu-gnas Prepared under the Direction of H.H the 16th
Rgyal-dba Karma-pa. Delhi: Delhi Karmapae Chodhey Gyalwae Sungrab Partun
Khang, 1976-1979.
Giebel, R. W. (2001) Two Esoteric Sutras. Numata.
Hodge, Stephen. The Mhvairocana-Ambhisabodhi Tantra: With Buddhaguhya's
Commentary. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.
Jayarava. 'The Hundred Syllable Vajrasattva Mantra.' Western Buddhist Review, 5,
Oct 2010. Online: http://westernbuddhistreview.com/vol5/vajrasattva-mantra.pdf
Tadaro, Dale Allen. An Annotated Translation of the Tattvasamgraha (Part 1) with an
Explanation of the Role of the Tattvasamgraha Lineage in the Teachings of Kukai.
Doctoral dissertation Columbia University, 1985.
Weinberger, Steven Neal. The significance of yoga tantra and the "Compendium of
Principles" ("Tattvasamgraha Tantra") within tantric Buddhism in India and Tibet.
Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Virginia, 2003.
Yamada, Isshi. Sarva-tathgata-tattva-sagraha nma mahyna-stra : a critical
edition based on a Sanskrit manuscript and Chinese and Tibetan translations. New
Delhi : Sharada Rani, 1981 p 95.