Eight Herukas of the Nyingma Mahayoga - No. 4 Chemchok Heruka

Heruka ( Sanskrit ) Tibetan: ( Khrag Thung), is the name of a category of wrathful deities, enlightened beings in Vajrayana Buddhism that adopt a fierce countenance to benefit sentient beings. In East Asia, these are called Wisdom Kings.

Herukas represent the embodiment of indivisible bliss and emptiness. They appear as Istha-devata (Tibetan: Yidam) or meditational deities for Tantric Sadhana, usually placed in a mandala and often appearing in Yab-Yum.

Heruka represents wrathful imagery with indivisible emptiness (Sunyata), bliss, peace, wisdom, compassion (Bodhicitta), and love. Herukas represent unified consciousness, with emptiness being a reflection of "non-phenomena" or emptiness which is "all love," or removal of imagery to reach universal love, mercy, and compassion-mind. Interpretation of Heruka is similar to the female Dakiṇi or Buddha Vajrayogini.

* The eight Herukas of the Nyingma mahayoga

The Nyingma mahayoga tradition (and their corresponding sadhanas) are said to have been received by Padmakara from the Eight Vidyadharas  or Eight Great Acharyas: Manjushrimitra, Nagarjuna, Vajrahumkara, Vimalamitra, Prabhahasti, Dhanasamskrita, Shintamgarbha and Guhyachandra. They were proficient in the practices of, respectively:

(No.4) Mahottara (Tibetan: Chemchok) the wrathful Samantabhadra, the deity of enlightened qualities.  Mahottara: the many headed, many armed deity arising out of the simple form with three faces and six hands; surrounded by deities and Buddhas. 

Mahottara Heruka emanates from the Primordial Buddha. He has 21 faces, 42 arms and eight legs. Mahottara is holding 42 bright mirrors in his 42 hands showing all 42 peaceful deities. 

Mahottara has the twenty left hands hold the five Buddha consorts, the eight female bodhisattvas, the four female gatekeepers and the three guardian who emanate in the three lower realms. The deities in the right hands are all male and the deities in the left hands, with the exception of the three guardians, are all female. These forty-two deities are the peaceful deities of the mandala of the hundred peaceful and wrathful deities.

The One Hundred Peaceful and Wrathful Deities of the Bardo the period between death and rebirth are an extremely popular theme in Tibetan art. This Thangka depicts the Fifty-Eight Wrathful Deities of the Bardo.

And the twentyhe consort of Chemchok is Namshyalma (Tibetan Gnam Zhal Ma). She has nine heads and eighteen hands. Her main central hands hold a vajra and skull-cup (0 Kapala). The eight hands on her right hold the wrathful manifestations of the eight Bodhisattvas, known as the eight gaurima and then the eight on the left hold the wrathful emanations of the eight female bodhisattvas known as the eight singhama. 

Against a rudimentary landscape appear numerous deities that are related to the transmigratory visions in the Bardo "Between-State" - the period between death and rebirth. These visions appear from the consciousness, according to the teaching of the Bardo Thodrol, the Book That Liberates when Heard in the Bardo, popularly known in the West as "The Tibetan Book of the Dead".

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Aspiration For Bodhichitta

For those in whom the precious Bodhichitta has not arisen

May it arise and not decrease

But increase further and further.

Dedication of Merit

By this merit may we obtain omniscience then.

Having defeated the enemies wrong-doings.

May we liberate migratory from the ocean of existence.

With its stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness and death.

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