Toh 472The Rite of the Musk Shrew

Summary

This short ritual work belonging to the tantric cycle of the deity
Vajrabhairava presents a vidyāmantra and series of rites that use ingredients
derived from a musk shrew.

Acknowledgements

This publication was completed under the patronage and supervision of
84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.

The text was translated, edited, and introduced by the 84000 translation
team. Bruno Galasek-Hul produced the translation and wrote the introduction.
Ryan Damron edited the translation and the introduction, and Dawn Collins
copyedited the text. Martina Cotter was in charge of the digital publication
process.

Introduction

The Rite of the Musk Shrew is a short ritual
text from the tantric cycle of Vajrabhairava that focuses on rites that employ
ingredients derived from a musk shrew to accomplish a range of ritual goals.
After first presenting the main vidyāmantra used in all the rites, the text lays
out a series of ritual frameworks that involve extensive offerings and numerous
recitations of the vidyāmantra. There are three variations of this framework in
the text, each of which is followed by a set of ritual applications employing
different musk shrew ingredients (mostly in powdered form) and actions to
achieve a variety of goals. These ritual goals include invisibility, enthralling
people, expelling and killing enemies, and inflicting illnesses on one’s
targets. An image of Mahādeva, a common epithet of Śiva, is employed in one of
the ritual frameworks. This indicates that the text demonstrates some
association with the Śaiva tradition. The presence of Mahādeva in this text
further underscores the observation made elsewhere that the Buddhist
Vajrabhairava cycle is closely associated with Śaiva cults.

The Rite of the Musk Shrew seems to have
enjoyed some popularity in connection with the Vajrabhairava cycle as it was
transmitted in the lineage of Ra Lotsāwa Dorjé Drak.
According to some Tibetan scholars, the text does not “constitute an independent
and fully qualified tantra” and may have been extracted from a larger work.
The Rite of the Musk Shrew is only found in those
Kangyurs from the Tshalpa (tshal
pa) branch recensions and is not recorded in any of the Thempangma
(thems spang ma) branches.
The Musk Shrew Ritual is preserved in two
versions in the Degé canon, once in the Unexcelled Yoga tantra section (bla med
rgyud) of the Kangyur (Toh 472) and once among the tantric
commentaries section of the Tengyur (Toh 1996). The Lhasa and Narthang Kangyurs
uniquely preserve a brief sādhana with the title te’u
lo pa chu bya’i rtog pa bcas rgyud kyi phyogs, but this constitutes
a different work. The colophons recorded in Toh 472 indicate that this text was
translated by a master named Dīpaṅkara together with Ra Lotsāwa. Dīpaṅkara, or
Dīpaṅkaraśrī, is another name for one of Ra Lotsāwa’s principal teachers, the
Newar master Bharo Chakdum (“Bharo Maimed-Hand”). This is indicated clearly in
the colophons of the version of The Rite of the Musk
Shrew preserved in the Degé and Kangxi Tengyurs, which identify
Bharo Chakdum by name.

This English translation was prepared based on both Degé versions (Toh
472 and 1996), in consultation with the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) of the Degé Kangyur, the version
contained in the Kangxi Tengyur (K 2849), and the version preserved in the Book
of Ra (rwa pod). Our preliminary comparison of
the different versions suggests that Toh 472 and the version in the Book of Ra
appear to constitute one recension, while Toh 1996 and K 2849 form another,
slightly different recension. The substantive differences between these
recensions have been reported in the notes. We have also consulted Bulcsu
Siklós’s English translation, the first translation of this work into a Western
language.

The Translation

The Rite of the Musk Shrew

Homage to Yamāri!

“Now I will explain in detail the rite of the musk shrew.

“The ritual activity for this vidyāmantra is as follows. After not
sleeping for one day and one night, one should make offerings of fragrance,
flowers, and incense, perform a bali offering, and then recite the
vidyāmantra eight thousand times. One will then be successful.

“Next are the ritual permutations:

“One should take a dead musk shrew, grind its skin, bones, meat, and
fur into powder, and recite the vidyāmantra two thousand times.
If one then rubs the powder onto one’s forehead, one will become invisible
to one’s enemies.

oṁ ma ma hū pa ti

“If one smears the powder on one’s hands, one can enthrall anyone
one touches. If one smears the powder on one’s feet, one can walk a hundred
yojanas and back. If one smears the same powder on the entryway of an
enemy’s house and recites the vidyāmantra one hundred thousand times at the
door of the house, the enemy will be expelled. If one takes the powder and
soil from a charnel ground, makes a small portion, and conceals it at an
enemy’s door, the enemy’s family will be
destroyed. Or, if one wishes to expel one’s enemy’s family, one should take
the skin of a musk shrew, recite the vidyāmantra eight thousand times, fill the skin
with soil from a place where someone has urinated, and tie it with a blue thread. When one
ties it up in the air, the enemy’s urine will be blocked. When it is untied,
the urine will be released.

“One should grind musk shrew skin into powder, recite the
vidyāmantra eight thousand times in front of Mahādeva, and make offerings of
fragrances, flowers, and incense, as well as a bali offering, and then again
recite the vidyāmantra eight thousand times. One will then be
successful.

“If one rubs that powder on the tip of one’s nose, one will be
beloved to all beings. If one
applies it to one’s head, , one will be able to respond to all
enemies and disputes. If
one anoints one’s heart with that same powder and displays it to an enemy,
the enemy will feel burning in their heart. If one makes an effigy
from rice flour and smears it with the powder, the target will be afflicted
with leprosy. If one scatters the powder
together with ashes from a cremation ground on a group of enemies, anyone
who steps on it or sees it will be afflicted with disease. If one incants
the powder with the vidyāmantra one thousand times, one will enthrall anyone
on whose head it is sprinkled. If one places the powder together with a
skull at an enemy’s entryway, one will be separated from that enemy. If one rubs the powder on a
woman’s hand, she will die. If one conceals the powder at someone’s door,
the person will be expelled. If one mixes the powder with human flesh and
gives it to someone to drink, that person will die within seven days. If one
gives the powder
to an enemy, that enemy will be afflicted by hunger, hemorrhoids,
and diarrhea. Afterward, one will feel joyful. If one takes a musk shrew’s
bones and hides them in someone’s house, that person will die.

“One should offer musk shrew flesh and fish oil to the deity, sit on
a skull in a charnel ground, and recite the vidyāmantra while holding a
skull. One should then pour the mixture onto
charcoal from a charnel ground one thousand times and perform a fire offering. One will then be
successful.

“If one performs the rite by mixing the powder with the three hot
substances and then places it in someone’s house, a fiery heat will be produced there. Mixing the powder
with black mustard seeds will have the same effect. If one makes an effigy
with the powder and soil from a charnel ground and buries it at the foot of
someone’s door, that person will quickly be killed by illness. If one mixes
the powder with salt, one will enthrall anyone one strikes with it. If one
mixes the powder with white mustard seeds and scatter it on a king’s gate,
the king will be enthralled.”

The detailed rite of the musk shrew is complete.

Colophon

This was translated by the Indian preceptor Dīpaṅkara and the
Tibetan translator Ra Dorjé Drak.

Notes

Abbreviations

Rwa Pod

te’u lo pa’i cho ga zhes bya ba bzhugs so in rwa pod, vol.1

K 2849

tstshu tstshunda ra’i rtog pa, Kangxi Tengyur

Bibliography

Tibetan Sources

Modern Sources

Ra Dorjé Drak