TANTRIC BUDDHISM (INCLUDING CHINA AND JAPAN)his wrathful form and the eight goddesses, these latter having the same
names as the eight consorts of the "Big Worldlies": Vetii.Ii, Gauri,
Cauri, Ghasmari, Pukkasl, Savari, CaiJ.oiill, and Oombinl. The major
retinue of Mahesvara was overcome by Heruka while Mahesvara
himself and the seven remaining "Big Worldlies" and their consorts
were overcome by the the eight Buddhist goddesses. The subsidary
minions were all finally collected into the eight great charnel grounds at
the periphery of the ma1J4ala. This being done, each of the Buddhist
goddesses had the title "Adamantine" prefixed to her name, so that they
become Vajra-Gaurl, and so forth. The goddesses' names indicate their
representative castes; Vajra-Ghasmari was the actual subjugatrix of
ISana-Mahesvara, while Heruka converted Indra, Brahma, Mara, and
the like: thus their positions as seats of the deities in the ma1J4ala.^31
This arrangement is in accord with the explanations of the teachers of
the tradition, and the chronicle is derived from the Tattvasa!Jlgraha, the
Vajrasekhara, the Trailokyavijaya, and the Candraguhya-tilaka.Missing from Sa-chen's discussion are the many particulars which have made
this myth powerful: there is no discussion of the preaching of scripture or its col-
lection by a coterie of disciples; we lack any sense of a drama unfolding. Fur-
thermore, the bifurcation into levels of reality, seen earlier in Grags-pa
rgyal-mtshan's version of the myth, is entirely absent. Into this hermeneutical
breach stepped Ngor-chen Kun-dga' bzang-po (1382-1456), the founder of
Ngor E-wam chos-Idan Monastery (1429) and the most influential Lam-'bras
figure ofthe 15th century.
While still at Sa-skya in 1405, Ngor-chen wrote a short work which already
displayed his penchant for harmonizing the exegesis of all his available sources,
rejecting outright those which did not fall into the range of acceptable variation.
In his usage, "acceptable" primarily denoted material reproduced by the great
teachers of the early Sa-skya-pa: Sa-chen, bSodnams rtse-mo, and Grags-pa
rgyal-mtshan.^32 The text Ngorchen produced, the Amazing Ocean, delineates that
aspect of the Lam-'bras tradition particularly concerned with the exegesis of its
putative scriptural source, the Hevajra Tantra. Traditionally, Sa-skya-pa scholars
have considered this the "Exegetical System" ('grel-lugs) of the Path/Fruit tradi-
tion; it relied on scriptural exegesis rather than on the meditative instructions
(man-ngag) of the "root" text (Lam-'bras rtsa-ba, To. 2284) which properly
belongs to the other branch of the Lam-'bras, the "Instructional System" (man-
ngag lugs).^33 Both, though, traced their lineage to the siddha Viriipa, the leg-
endary source for the Lam-'bras. As a chronicle of the Exegetical System, the
Amazing Ocean orders itself along the lines of traditional certifications of authen-
ticity: it explores the circumstances of the preaching of the Hevajra-tantra, its
collection, the transmission of its exegesis in India and Tibet, and the manner of
its proper explanation. We will be concerned with the earlier sections of the
work, since they preserve the mythic materials concerning Mahesvara.