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https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110753301
-
050
Charles Ramble
The Volvelle and the Lingga: The Use of
Two Manuscript Ritual Devices in a Tibetan
Exorcism
Abstract: This article considers the construction and application of two manu-
script objects that feature in Tibetan rituals. One is a type of device known vari-
ously as a ‘volvelle’ or a ‘wheel chart’, among other names, that is used in
various cultures to perform certain simple computations. The example consid-
ered here comprises a pair of paper discs that are manipulated for the purpose
of elemental and astrological divination. The other object is a block print of an
effigy representing the receptacle for the soul of a demon that is ‘imprisoned’
inside it and subsequently destroyed. The article describes a particular exorcis-
tic ritual in which both devices play a role, before focusing on the composition
of the objects themselves. Translations of Tibetan texts related to their use are
also provided.
Introduction
Tibetan religion in general, and the minority Bön religion in particular, feature a
large and often bewildering variety of rituals, the majority of which have never
been documented. The number of known rituals is steadily growing as more and
more caches of manuscripts come to light, most of them in private collections in
culturally Tibetan parts of China and the Himalayan region. Since most of these
rituals are either obsolete or are performed only in a few isolated communities,
such research as has been done in this domain has tended to concentrate on the
available textual component. However, rituals also make use of a wide variety
of objects of which some, such as the mandala – a central constituent of most
tantric performances – are very well known, while others have attracted little or
no scholarly attention at all. Objects may range from unmodified pieces of
plant, animal or mineral material to constructions of great complexity requiring
multiple and often rare substances in their composition. This contribution will
present two manuscript objects that feature in the performance of certain apo-
tropaic rituals. There is no necessary connection between these two devices,
and I have seen them used separately at a number of ceremonies, but I shall
discuss them in the context of a ritual in which they were both used, in order to
| Charles Ramble
illustrate how objects like these may be employed in concert to ensure the suc-
cessful outcome of rituals. As indicated in the title, the objects in question are,
first, a volvelle, consisting of concentric, superimposed paper discs that rotate
separately; and second, an object known as a lingga (Tib. ling ga),
1
comprising a
sheet of paper bearing a blockprint or a freehand drawing representing a de-
mon, and then inscribed with magic formulae. Before describing these objects
and the way in which they are used, a brief introduction should be given about
the particular setting in which I was able to document their usage.
The ritual and its setting
The ritual in question took place in 2008 in the village of Kag in the southern
part of Nepal’s Mustang District. The inhabitants of Kag are followers of Tibetan
Buddhism, but in order to propitiate their household gods and to perform a
number of other rituals, notably relating to protection and prosperity, certain
families require the services of Bönpo householder priests from a nearby village,
called Lubrak, with whom the Kag families have hereditary ties of patronage. In
2008 a woman in Kag, named Chönyi Angmo, lost her husband. This happened
to be the third in a series of deaths in the husband’s family within a relatively
short period of time. Diseases and untimely deaths are often attributed to the
action of a disgruntled god of a predatory demon, and sequential deaths among
people of a similar age, such as young children or men in their prime of life, as
was the case here, are the hallmark of a particular type of creature called hri
(Tib. sri), commonly translated into English as ‘vampire’. Hri are usually invisi-
ble, though they may take the form of one or another animal depending on
which of nine categories they belong to (for example, those that prey on babies
normally manifest as weasels). The main lama of Lubrak, Tshultrim, was ac-
cordingly invited to Kag to perform a ritual for the destruction of the vampire
that was haunting Chönyi Angmo’s in-laws. The ritual is described at some
length, with accompanying video footage, on a website dedicated to Bön ritual,
2
but the procedure may be described briefly here with particular reference to the
||
1 At their first appearance in the main text, Tibetan terms and the names of divinities will be
presented in roughly phonetic form, followed by the orthographic rendering; in footnotes, only
the orthographic form will be given. For personal names and toponyms, only the phonetic form
will be used.
2 Kalpa Bön, ‘Vampire subjugation – Kag 2010’ <http://www.kalpa-bon.com/performances/
vampire-subjugation-kag-2010> (accessed on 10 March 2021).
The Volvelle and the Lingga |
episodes involving the two devices that are the main subject of this contribu-
tion.
The ritual took more than two full days, beginning in the afternoon of the
first and ending late at night on the second. The main location was the shrine
room in Chönyi Angmo’s house.
Fig. 1: Lama Tshultrim inscribing magical syllables on the block-printed lingga.
Lama Tshultrim and his assistants began by preparing the different effigies,
offerings, and other objects that were to be used in the performance. These in-
cluded a homa pit or homkhung (Tib. hom khung), which is a triangular clay
vessel topped with a palisade of barberry sticks that would later serve as the
‘prison’ into which the soul of the vampire would be lured to its death. Inside
the pit the lama placed three small effigies, made by pressing dough into a
| Charles Ramble
wooden mould. On top of these small effigies he placed a larger one of a supine
dough figure with its belly hollowed out to form a cup, and into the cup he in-
serted a cloth wick and pour red-dyed butter, representing the life-blood of the
effigy. Finally, he lit the wick to produce a flame, representing its life force. The
last item to be placed in the homkhung was a sheet of paper bearing a print; the
print was made from a wooden block coated with ink of soot and water. The
images represented a non-specific demon bound hand and foot. Before placing
this image in the pit, Lama Tshultrim chanted a litany, and as he did so in-
scribed letters on the paper using a wooden stylus dipped into a bowl contain-
ing a reddish ink (Fig. 1). He then folded the paper, wrapped it loosely with yarn
of five different colours, and inserted it into the pit (Fig. 2).
Fig. 2: The lingga, folded into a triangle and wrapped in coloured yarn, ‘trapped’ inside the
homkhung amid other ritual objects.
The Volvelle and the Lingga |
The three small dough imprints, the larger dough effigy with the butter-lamp
belly, and the paper print were all versions of an effigy known as lingga, and I
shall return to them presently.
Vampire-subjugation rituals require that the effigy in which the vampire
has been trapped be buried in a pit at an appropriate location, depending on the
particular type of vampire one is dealing with. The type that had killed Chönyi
Angmo’s husband had been identified as one that had to be buried at a cross-
roads, of which there was one conveniently located in the main street just out-
side the courtyard of the house. A neighbour was asked to dig the hole – a three-
sided pit – before the main ceremony was begun. However, the direction in
which one should face before digging a hole for any purpose – whether to lay
the foundations of a house or to bury a vampire – must first be determined by
geomantic calculations if one is to avoid misfortune or death. It was to make
this calculation that Lama Tshultrim employed a paper volvelle intended for
this purpose. Once these and the preparations had been made, he and his assis-
tants proceeded to read the litany.
The general structure that frames rituals of this sort is broadly similar in
most cases. After various purificatory preliminaries, the major and minor gods,
whose presence is required to empower the proceedings, were invited to enter a
row of decorated dough effigies that had been arranged on a shrine as their
temporary residences. They were given offerings to please their senses and then
entreated to carry out the tasks that were assigned to them. After this propitia-
tion – which took much of the first evening and a good part of the following
day – the part of the ritual that was specifically concerned with the destruction
of the vampire was performed. A crucial component of this performance was the
recitation of the narrative that recounts the first, mythic occasion on which the
ritual was performed in illo tempore, an evocation that justifies and ensures the
efficacy of the performance being enacted. The lama assumed the identity of the
culture-hero – in this case Shenrab Miwo, considered by Bönpos to be the
founder of their religion – and the vampire was identified with the demoness
who featured in that account, a revenant girl. When the soul of the vampire had
been enticed into the paper and dough lingga contained in the pit, the lama
proceeded with a rite that is euphemistically referred to as ‘liberation’ (dral,
Tib. bsgral), that is, killing. With his ritual dagger he stabbed out the flame rep-
resenting the life of the supine effigy. The folded paper print was then placed on
a board, and as the lama read the appropriate text, the man of the house – in
this case a male relative of the widow – proceeded to assault the paper with a
series of weapons. First, he shot several arrows into it and then struck it with a
mattock and finally with a hammer (Fig. 3). The paper was then stuffed into the
| Charles Ramble
left horn of a yak along with the dough lingga and other ritual items, and the
mouth of the horn covered with black cloth and firmly bound. After a series of
further manipulations, the lama dropped the horn into the pit that had been
dug at the crossroads. The hole was covered over and a fire built on top of it.
Fig. 3: Striking the lingga with the back of a mattock after it has been shot with arrows.
From this cursory summary of what was in fact a long and quite complex cere-
mony, I would like to single out just two elements for closer consideration. The
first is the device that the lama used to determine the direction in which his
assistant had to face when digging the triangular pit at the crossroads; and the
second is the paper lingga.
The Volvelle and the Lingga |
The volvelle
The first of these is a device contained in a handwritten almanac that Lama
Tshultrim uses for making astrological calculations. It consists of two concentric
paper discs, a smaller one superimposed upon a larger, and secured to the page
with a twist of paper that functions as an axle. The outer rim of the lower disc is
divided into twelve segments, each containing one or two syllables, and the
upper, smaller one bears a drawing of a creature with a human torso and the
head of a horned animal. The lower part of the body tapers away in a scaly tail.
The creature in question is Toche Nakpo (Tib. lto ’phye nag po), ‘Black Belly-
Crawler’, the divinity of the earth. The position in which Toche Nakpo lies
changes through the year as she slowly rotates with the months, and when the
earth is dug extreme care must be taken not to strike her in the wrong place
(Figs 4 and 5).
3
The text that accompanies the diagram is perfectly explicit about
this:
If she is struck in the head, the man and his parents and children will die; it will be partic-
ularly bad for the lama. It is the same whether she is struck on her mane or on her face.
[…] If she is struck on the tail there will be conflicts, and it will be bad for the cattle. But if
the digging takes place on her belly, all the benefits and blessings will be had. If you dig at
her back, that will not be good for you – the hearts of your younger sisters and daughters
will burst, and your children will die.
Fig. 4: Volvelle featuring Toche Nakpo, the divinity of the earth.
||
3 For the importance of lto ’phye in the context of Tibetan ‘earth rituals’ (sa’i cho ga), see
Cantwell 2005, 6; for further references see ibid., 6 n. 9.
| Charles Ramble
Fig. 5: Key to the volvelle of Toche Nakpo (drawing: Monica Strinu).
Devices of this sort, consisting of two or more superimposed discs of paper or
other materials, known variously as ‘wheel charts’, ‘information wheels’, and
‘volvelles’, and used for the purpose of computation, are found under a variety
of names in numerous cultures. In Europe they are sometimes known as
‘Llullian circles’, on the grounds that they were created by the Catalan mystic
Ramon Llull (1232–1316). In fact, it seems that Llull’s calculator was itself based
on the device known as zā’irjah, which was widely used in the Muslim lands
where he had travelled.
4
While Llull employed it as a means of establishing
universal truths for the purpose of converting the Muslims from whom he had
acquired it, its use in Tibet seems to be mainly, if not exclusively, for making
computations in the domains of astrology and elemental divination. Tibetan
volvelles, known as tsikhor (Tib. rtsis ’khor), ‘calculation wheels’, can be com-
plex and aesthetically very elaborate, comprising several superimposed discs
and able to perform a range of computations. The Newark Museum of Art in
||
4 Link 2010, 216; see also Urvoy 1990.
The Volvelle and the Lingga |
New Jersey, for instance, holds a particularly fine example of a printed almanac
from 1763, with three sophisticated volvelles.
5
Lama Tshultrim’s volvelle is con-
siderably simpler in conception and more rustic in execution than these, but it
serves its purpose perfectly adequately.
The opening lines of the accompanying text, preceding the passage quoted
above, state: ‘Whatever month it happens to be, that is where her tail should be
positioned. Her head touches the “Marginal Seventh”’. The Tibetan term that I
have translated here as ‘Marginal Seventh’ does not appear in dictionaries, but
occurs in certain ritual texts as one of a number of hostile powers that are to be
averted. The following excerpt is from the text of a ritual known as Tonak
Gosum (Tib. gTo nag mgo gsum) ‘The Three-Headed Man of the Black Rituals’, in
which the eponymous man of the ritual is a monster with three animal heads
that is subjugated and compelled to apply its power to the destruction of a long
list of adversaries. The list includes the following passage:
First, may this ritual repel the obstructions of one’s own birth year; secondly, may it repel
serious illness; third, may it repel misfortune and loss; fourth, may it repel the ‘Fourth-
Year Harmer’; fifth, may it repel the ‘Particular Ones’; sixth, may it repel dreadful curses;
seventh, may it repel the ‘Marginal Seventh’; eighth, may it repel the ‘Evil Eighth’; ninth,
may it repel the ‘Raptor’; tenth, may it repel the ‘Cemetery Cell’; eleventh, may it repel the
‘Clutch of Death’; twelfth, may it repel ‘Violent Tussles’; and thirteenth, may it repel ‘Vic-
tory’; repel all that might harm our beneficent patron!
6
The terms given here in inverted commas are in fact all the names of adverse
astrological configurations, one of which is the Marginal Seventh. The Marginal
Seventh is the term that designates the month that stands diametrically oppo-
site to any given month featuring on the perimeter of the inner disc. By counting
seven spaces in either direction from the space corresponding to any month,
one will reach its ‘Marginal Seventh’. The animals in question stand for mutual-
ly hostile attributes. Thus a man and a woman born, respectively, in 1986 and
1993 (a hare year and a bird year, seven years apart) might be prohibited from
marrying; or, if they are determined to do so and their families are soft-hearted,
they would need to commission the performance of rituals to offset the dangers
posed by their incompatibility. The animal that is located at right-angles to the
diameter drawn between the Marginal Sevenths, and facing Toche Nakpo, rep-
resents the most auspicious month.
||
5 For images of this almanac and its volvelles, see Kapstein (forthcoming).
6 For the Tibetan text, see Kalpa Bön, ‘mGo gsum’ <http:// http://www.kalpa-bon.com/
texts/mgo-gsum >, fols 8
v
–9
r
(accessed on 10 March 2021).
| Charles Ramble
In Figures 4 and 5, at right angles to the diametric line formed by Toche’s
head and tail – respectively, in the snake and the horse sections – lies the mon-
key. The direction to which the monkey corresponds is not given in the diagram,
or indeed anywhere in this geomantic text. It is one of the things that lamas
learn during their early training: the formation of the universe from the body of
the cosmic tortoise. According to an early Bön work on cosmogony, the universe
was created by a divinity called Künbum Goje (Kun ’bum go ’byed), a name that
may be translated approximately as ‘He who Apportions Spaces for All the
Hundreds of Thousands’. According to this work,
[Künbum Goje] brought together the sheen of one of his hairs, the spittle of his mouth and
the metallic gleam of his fingernails, the warmth of his body and the breath of his mouth,
the impurities upon the surface of his body and the radiance of his mind. With them he
wrote the Nine Heroic Syllables of the elements on a precious golden tablet. Then he cast
the tablet to the ground. In the centre of the golden earth, there came into being the foun-
dation for the lives of the world: a yellow tortoise of gold.
7
Different parts of the tortoise’s body became the five elements, and these in turn
were associated with the directions, animals, trigrams, stars, and planets. From
the tortoise’s lungs came the element iron, lying in the west and associated with
the monkey and the bird, the planet Venus, and the trigram ☱ which is known
in Tibetan as da (Tib. dwa; Ch. dui).
The monkey, then, signifies the west, and this is the direction in which
Chönyi Angmo’s neighbour had to face when he proceeded to dig up the street.
The lingga
Let us now turn to the second manuscript, the lingga. The term lingga (Tib. ling
ga) represents the Sanskrit liṅga, the term for phallus, a metonym for the Hindu
god Śiva. The use of the term in the context of Tibetan exorcism is a reference to
a Buddhist myth about the subjugation of Rudra, a wrathful form of Śiva, by a
Buddhist god, usually Vajrapāṇi.
8
In the Bönpo version of the ritual described
here, the principal divinity responsible for the act of subjugation, and with
whom the officiating lama must identify, is a major tantric god Takla Membar
(sTag la me ’bar). The lingga effigy may in fact represent any one of a number of
||
7 Ramble 2013, 214.
8 Discussions of this myth are to found in several works, including Davidson 1991, Stein 1995,
and Dalton 2011.
The Volvelle and the Lingga |
demons or enemies that are to be destroyed in the course off a rite of ‘liberation’
(see above). In the case of paper lingga, the effigy is usually block-printed, but
certain priestly communities have a preference for hand-drawn images. The text
actually gives instructions for drawing, rather than printing, the image. The
identity of the demon may be bestowed by the form of the drawing or the block-
print, and the text cited below does in fact give specific directions for different
forms of lingga according to the purpose for which they are intended. More
commonly, however, especially when a block-print is used, the image is that of
a generic demon, and its specificity is established by means of appropriate syl-
lables that the lama inscribes on and around the printed form.
The procedure for making lingga, and directions for much of the subsequent
treatment that it should receive in the course of the ritual, are set out in a text
entitled ‘Ritual for drawing the lingga and the lustration of the lingga’ (Ling ga’i
bri (’bri) chog ling khrus rnams bzhugs pa legs so), a translation of which is pre-
sented below. Lama Tshultrim’s copy is a manuscript Tibetan longbook of six
folios written in the headless ume (Tib. dbu med) script. Text in smaller lettering
represents instructions, while larger writing is used for the passages to be
chanted. In the translation given below, the instructions will be rendered in
italics (even though it seems that the scribe has sometimes erroneously used the
larger script for this). For reasons of space, the transliterated text will not be
given here, but may be found in the corresponding part of the website of the
Kalpa Bön Rituals project.
9
There remain uncertainties concerning the transla-
tion of certain passages, but these have been glossed over since they are unlike-
ly to be of interest to non-specialist readers.
The rite of ‘liberation’ belongs to a class of tantric rituals that are classified
as ‘violent’ (drakpo, Tib. drag po), and the theme of violence is extended to the
materials with which the lingga is produced. The text specifies that the paper on
which the lingga is to be drawn should be poisonous, and the stylus made from
an arrow that has killed a yeti (or possibly a bear). The ink is a mixture of blood
from different animals that have suffered violent or unpleasant deaths. Ingre-
dients of the sort that are required in such manuals can be exotic, to say the
least, and by no means always easily available. Tantric priests such as Lama
Tshultrim usually have reserves of the kinds of substances that are specified in
their grimoires, but add only a minuscule quantity to a base that is made of
readily-accessible substitutes. In the present case, most of the blood that Lama
Tshultrim used to inscribe the syllables on the print consisted of a wash of red
||
9 Kalpa Bön, ‘Ling ga'i 'bri chog’ <http://kalpa-bon.com/texts/sri/ling-gai-bri-chog> (accessed
on 10 March 2021).
| Charles Ramble
clay mixed with reconstituted dried yak blood. I did not ask him whether the
stylus he used was actually made from an arrow with the prescribed history.
The destruction of the lingga
The text presented here is concerned primarily with the creation and purifica-
tion of the lingga; but as we have seen, the process whereby the lingga is de-
stroyed is also an important part of the ceremony and therefore of the life cycle,
so to speak, of this particular manuscript. The instructions for the immolation of
the lingga are in fact spread across several texts, but we may conclude here with
one that accompanies a particularly important part of the ritual: the sequence in
which the stand-in for the man of the house attacked it with arrows, a mattock,
and a hammer. The text that Lama Tshultrim chanted during this procedure
covers a single piece of paper entitled ‘A little folio about the “liberation” ritual’
(bsGral ba’i shog chung bzhugs pa legs s+hō). The procedure itself consisted of
shooting arrows into the lingga, then hitting it with a mattock and with a ham-
mer (for which the back of the mattock’s head was used, because there was no
hammer in the house). Lama Tshultrim read the text three times, and on each
occasion his assistant used a different one of the three implements. In fact, the
text does not mention a mattock, only a bow and arrows and a hammer; we may
therefore attribute the integration of an agricultural implement into the arsenal
used against the vampire to the inventiveness that lamas often display with
regard to the interpretation of their texts. In this short text, the main tutelary
divinity is again Takla Membar. There is also the mention of another major god
named Tsomchok Khagying (Tib. gTso mchog mkha’ ’gying), whose relevance
here is that one of the attributes he holds in his numerous hands is a hammer.
Translations
. Translation of the lingga text
[fol. 1
r
] The ritual for drawing the lingga and the lustration of the lingga. [fol. 1
v
]
Draw the lingga according to the main text and say as follows. Hey, I am Takla
Membar – hear me, you vow-breaking malefactors! First of all, anger develops
from the father, and anger, which is the cause of the hells, is present in you.
Then desire develops in the womb of the mother, and desire, the cause of the
realm of the hungry ghosts, is present in you. Then stupidity takes form as the
The Volvelle and the Lingga |
body, and stupidity, that is the cause of the animal realm, is present in you.
Thus all three poisons, the three lower realms, are within you.
10
[fol. 2
r
] To re-
nounce forever the three lower realms, make an effigy, a lingga. Swo! I am Takla
Membar. There is nothing on which to draw the lingga, and a surface on which
to draw the lingga must therefore be sought. Make the surface on which the
lingga is to be drawn from poison paper measuring one span and four finger-
widths.
11
Since there is no stylus with which to draw the lingga, make that stylus
with which to draw the lingga out of a piece, measuring one span and four fin-
ger-widths, of an arrow that has killed a yeti.
12
[fol. 2
v
] Nor is there any blood
with which to draw the lingga. Take the blood of a yeti that has died on the edge
of a sword; the blood of a mule that has suffered a bad death by poisoning, and
the blood of a dog that has died a bad death by rabies, and from a mixture of
these three make the blood to be used for drawing the lingga. For a general-
purpose lingga, begin to draw from the crown of the head; for a male lingga,
begin to draw from the right shoulder, and for a female lingga begin to draw
from the left shoulder. For an enemy lingga, proceed to draw from the right foot;
for a demon lingga, begin from the left foot, and for a child lingga begin from the
middle of the privy parts. Therefore listen – hear me! On the crown of the head
write the syllable NAN, which signifies being driven by the winds of karma; on
either shoulder write the syllable ’CHING, which betokens [fol. 3
r
] the binding of
the malefactors by the protectors of Bön. On each of the four limbs write the
syllable YAN, which refers to binding by the great kings of the four directions.
Therefore hear me, you evil-doers! You who do not belong to the noxious ene-
mies, you, the eight classes of demigods and all those in the six realms, you who
are disembodied – do not enter this effigy! Force the harmful enemies and the
’dre and gdon demons down into this effigy, and quickly summon them into this
lingga. Wherever in the ten directions of the world these ill-fortuned, noxious
hostile enemies may abide, summon them swiftly into this lingga, cast them
down forcibly into this effigy! Say these words and visualize the action intensely,
repeating and writing the mantra for summoning a great many times.
||
10 The three mental poisons are associated with different parts of the body: flesh (sha) corre-
sponds to stupidity (gti mug), blood (khrag) to desire (’dod chags), and bone (rus pa) to anger
(zhe sdang).
11 ‘Poison paper’ (dug shog) may refer to paper that has been treated with toxic substances
such as aconite or arsenic. According to Lama Sherab Tenzin of Samling, in Dolpo, it may also
refer to untreated paper that has been made from the root fibres of Stellera chamaejasme
(Tib. re lcag pa), which has toxic properties.
12 The Tibetan term for yeti, mi rgod, lit. ‘wild man’, may also denote a brown bear.
| Charles Ramble
The chant for the writing is over. And now the chant for binding the daro.
13
Ideally, it should be recited for five different parts: once for the head, a second
time for the two hands and a third time for the feet. Imagine this being diffused
from the five poisons, [fol. 3
v
] and recite as follows. Hey! I am Takla Membar. You,
ill-fortuned sinners in your misery, I summon you into the effigy of this daro
and take you at the same time as the five poisons: the head, which contains the
five poisons in full, and the four limbs that are the four door-guards – this daro
that has the five points representing the five poisons, I lift you with my five
fingers and bind the daro, the five poisons and the demons together. Tie down
the lingga, bind it crosswise: bind its body, bind its speech, bind its mind! (Man-
tras) Thus is the binding done. Do not let any of your own impurities be transferred
to the lingga. Fumigate the ritual items and the environs with frankincense and
say as follows. Swo! I am Takla Membar. With this dread substance, frankin-
cense, fumigate the hostile obstructors and the lingga; drive the dre demons, the
obstructor demons, and the jungpo demons to distraction! [fol. 4
r
] Do not fumi-
gate the awesome gods on high, but drive the vampires of males and the de-
mons of females to distraction; do not fumigate the serpent spirits below, but
drive the byad ma demons, the hostile enemies, mad! Here ends the fumigation
with frankincense. If you have a lingga for burning, cast it into the homa pit. Ac-
cording to the Rin chen ’phreng ba (text) this ritual should be performed six
times. If you are performing a vampire-subjugation rite, some sort of skull is ideal,
otherwise insert it into a yak horn and place it at the foot of the dö.
14
I, Phungbön
[Gömar],
15
have taken this excerpt from other sources. (Mantra) Here follows the
general lustration of the lingga. To perform the threefold ritual of distancing
[yourself from the enemy], offering it [to the meditational divinity] and crushing it
down, it is most important to perform the lustration of the lingga; then place it
between two lengths of barberry wood and brandish it. Holding it in your hand you
should rotate it around your head three times in alternating directions, and recite
the following mantra for releasing [yourself]. (Mantras) [fol. 4
v
] Recite this once.
Then rotate the lingga once around your waist and recite it once; and then rotate
||
13 The term daro (Tib. lda ro) is obscure, but seems to be a synonym for the lingga in an un-
known language. Khenpo Tenpa Yungdrung Rinpoche, the abbot of the Bön monastery of
Triten Norbutse in Kathmandu, has suggested to me that it may belong to the Tanggut lan-
guage (personal communication).
14 The dö (Tib. mdos) is a ritual construction, in this case comprising a shallow basket filled
with black sand and topped with a tripod of arrows, in which the homa pit and other items are
placed.
15 The name Phungbön Gömar (Tib. Phung bon rGod dmar), often appears in texts associated
with the tantric divinities Takla and Phurba, but his identity remains unknown.
The Volvelle and the Lingga |
it in front of you and behind you as above and recite it once. Perform this in your
imagination (?) three times and recite it three times, but if you have already per-
formed it [in the course of this ritual] you need not do so [again].
16
This is how the
lustration of the lingga is performed. Visualize yourself as the meditational di-
vinity [Takla Membar], and collect pure water with milk in front of you in a ves-
sel. In your non-conceptual meditation, in that water, from the syllable PAM
there arises a lotus; from the syllable RAM arises the sun; and from the syllable
A there arises the disc of the moon. From the surface of this comes the white
goddess of water, with one head and two arms. With her right hand, she per-
forms the ritual gesture of offering and bestowing, and in her left hand [fol. 5
r
]
she holds a red lotus. She is seated in the full lotus posture, and her body is
bedecked with precious ornaments. Then from the heart of the meditational
divinity a beam of light shines forth, and imagine that the jñānasattva, which is
like that goddess, is one with [you], the samāyasattva.
17
(Mantras) From the
palm of the hand with which she performs the gesture of offering and bestowal,
imagine that there issues forth the nectar of wisdom to lustrate whatever lingga
or sacred circle you may have. Imagine also that all that emanates from your
mouth, be it vapour or spittle, is thoroughly purified. Cause the sacred circle or
lingga or effigy to be reflected in a mirror and lustrate that mirror, reciting as
follows. (Mantras) [fol. 5
v
] May all impurities that emanate from me be cleansed!
With these words, perform the actions on the support, and thoroughly purify all
the impurities that you breathe out. Infuse the enemy into the lingga, and visualize
it as the actual enemy itself. Then imagine that the good fortune, influence, pros-
perity and vital radiance of the enemy are all purified by that water, and recite the
mantras repeatedly. [fol. 6
r
] Perform a lustration of that lingga as above. Imagine
that that water becomes a mass of wind, and that that enemy’s life is purified.
Then imagine that that goddess dissolves into light and is mingled with the
water. Drink it, and your own life and enjoyment will be endowed with radi-
ance. Sprinkle whatever is left of that water around the house, and imagine that
the place in which you are performing this ritual is blessed – then will you gen-
erate splendour and radiance for yourself. After this, fumigate the lingga with
barberry bark, frankincense, sulphur, the excrement of dogs and jackals, the fat of
||
16 In the course of the ritual, Lama Tshultrim did in fact perform these gestures with the lingga
exactly as prescribed.
17 The Sanskrit term jñānasattva refers to the wisdom deity that is being visualized (Tib. lha ye
shes sems dpa’). The samāyasattva denotes the meditator who identifies with the divinity
(Tib. bdag dam tshigs sems dpa’) but is impure, because the result is a mental production. Re-
peated and prolonged performance of this visualisation results in complete union known as the
‘non-dual being of activity’ (Tib. gnyis med las gyi sems dpa’).
| Charles Ramble
a Chinese person, the boot of a leper, wolfsbane, and [the plants?] dranak, langru,
and ognyi,
18
and recite these mantras. (Mantras) [fol. 6
v
] Separate [the enemy]
from his or her protective divinities. It is most important that you should be so
cautious and disciplined that other people do not know about this. The lustration
of the lingga is over. Virtue and blessings.
. Translation of the ‘Little folio about the “liberation” ritual’
When striking with arrows and other missiles, recite as follows. Swo! I am Takla
Membar. Now that the time has come to ‘liberate’ the hostile obstructive ene-
mies, the messengers and agents should accomplish their tasks. To the great
bow that is the empty essential nature of being should be set the arrow of wis-
dom, and a wrathful thunderbolt affixed to it as an arrowhead. Strike the body
of the hostile obstructor with this magical missile of an arrow! Since it is the
heart that is the seat of black anger, plant the arrow in the middle of its heart!
Since it is the spleen that is the seat of stupidity, plant the arrow in the centre of
the spleen! Since it is the lungs that are the seat of pride, plant the arrow in the
middle of the lungs! Since the liver is the locus of lust, [fol. 1
v
] plant the arrow in
the heart of the body’s heat! As the kidneys are the seat of envy, plant an arrow
in the middle of its blood! Shoot these arrows, these magical missiles, into the
five elements of its body, and into its eight consciousnesses! The ‘Arrows as
Magical Missiles’ is over. Then strike it with a hammer. Swo! Among the attributes
held in the right hands of [Tsomchok] Khagying is a fearsome blazing hammer.
The material from which it is made is meteorite, and it has a socket of gold.
Agents and messengers, take it in your hands, and come and smash it into the
brain-blood of the oath-breakers, and reduce their bodies to dust! (Mantras)
Here ends the ‘Pounding with the Hammer’. May there be virtue.
||
18 Respectively, brag nag, glang ru, ’og nyid.
The Volvelle and the Lingga |
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