Eight Herukas of the Nyingma Mahayoga - No.1 Yamantaka

* 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.1)  Yamantaka (Tibetan : Jampal Shinje, ’jam dpal sku) the wrathful Manjushri, the deity of body.  Yamantaka should be of dark color, resembling the rain-cloud, with two arms and a buffalo head, fire-colored eyes and sharp side-tusks. He stands on his buffalo mount, under which a body is seen lying. In his right hand he holds a danda, a skull-headed club. In his left, He holds a noose of rope (pasa).

In Vajrayana Buddhism, Vajrabhairava, also known as Yamantaka, is a wrathful, buffalo-headed meditational deity (Tibetan: yi-dam) of the Highest Yoga Tantra class and/or a Dharma protector. Vajrabhairava is one of the principal three meditational deities of the Gelug school (Tibetan: gsang bed ‘jigs gsum; the others are Chakrasamvara and Guhyasamaja).

The figure of Vajrabhairava is very complex among Tibetan Buddhist deities. According to Buddhist doctrine, he has nine heads, thirty four arms and sixteen feet. He is shown with nine heads--the principal one being the head of a buffalo standing for the Yama, the midst one of a Jina, symbolizing he is an incarnation of Amitabha, and the top one of Manjusriand The principal two hands embrace his consort, and the other hands respectively hold a bell, a vajra, a chopper, a sword, a water-jar, an arrow, a noose, an iron hook, a trident, an umbrella and a canopy.

His sixteen legs specially stand on various beats, birds, eight Vaisravana and eight female Vidya-raja. He tramples in lunging to the left on a large number of various beings placed on a lotus pedestal with beaded borders.

The following story describes the relationship between Yama and Yamantaka:

A holy man was told that if he meditated for the next 50 years, he would achieve enlightenment. The holy man meditated in a cave for 49 years, 11 months and 29 days, until he was interrupted by two thieves who broke in with a stolen bull. After beheading the bull in front of the hermit, they ignored his requests to be spared for but a few minutes, and beheaded him as well.

In his near-enlightened fury, this holy man became Yama, the god of Death, took the bull's head of his own, and killed the two thieves, drinking their blood from cups made of their skulls. Still enraged, Yama decided to kill everyone in Tibet.

The people of Tibet, fearing for their lives, prayed to the Bodhisattva Manjusri, who took up their cause. He transformed himself into Yamantaka, similar to Yama but ten times more powerful and horrific. 

To tame Yama, Manjushri adopted the same form, adding to it eight other faces and a multiple array of arms, each holding fearful and deadly weapons. He further sprouted a number of legs, and surrounded himself with a vast host of terrifying beings. To confront death, he thus manifested the form of death itself, magnified to infinity. Death (Yama) saw himself endlessly mirrored back to himself, infinitely outnumbered by himself. Death was literally scared to death."

In their battle, everywhere Yama turned, he found infinite versions of himself. Manjusri as Yamantaka defeated Yama, and turned him into a protector of Buddhism.

Yamantaka is also one of the main yidams in the Sakya school where he comes in a variety of appearances (with different mandalas). In both schools, Vajrabhairava is seen as the wrathful manifestation of Manjushri, the Buddha of wisdom. In the other schools of Tibetan Buddhism, Yamantaka seems to be mostly revered as a protector.

The (mostly secret and arcane) practices involve different activities for various purposes. There are also some Yamantaka terma revelations in the Nyingma and Kagyu schools. From amongst the many lineages of practice to enter Tibet, the main transmissions of Vajrabhairava were those of the two translators Ra Lotsawa and Mal Lotsawa. 

Although practiced early on in Tibet by the Sakya and Kagyu Traditions, it was Tsongkapa, founder of the Gelug Tradition, who instituted Vajrabhairava as the principal Gelugpa meditation practice.

* Footnote 

For those who had received the empowerment of this Tantric practice, you are reminded not intentionally or unintentionally to disclose the mantra to the public or anyone who may not have the empowerment or permission to practice, and by disclosing the mantra intentionally or unintentionally is a form of breaking your Tantric Samaya vows to the lineage masters and Dharma protectors. 

Please consult your Guru or a qualified lineage master for Vajrayana practice! Should a devotee even want to start studying and contemplating the Vajrayana practice, then it is truly necessary to first have completed the preliminaries and to be certain and sure that Bodhicitta has arisen and developed in one’s mind.

Vajrayana features countless skillful and powerful methods which, if they are practiced in the proper way, can make the process of accumulation and purification incredibly swift and direct. It is absolutely necessary to have the pure motivation and to know that Vajrayana practice is not carried out to increase one’s own ego, power and self-interests.

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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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