Christopher Wilkinson
Description
Vajrasattva embodies the enlightenment of all the Buddhas. Everyone who enters the Vajrayana, the path of esoteric Buddhism, encounters Vajrasattva. S
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tudents who practice the preliminaries to the Vajrayana recite the mantra of Vajrasattva a hundred thousand times while visualizing a cleansing of their spirits. Vajrasattva is at the core of the Great Perfection teachings, not as a meditation or visualization, but as an embodiment of the true nature of our own minds, which are equal to the sky itself. In the Great Perfection, Vajrasattva is the sky in all its majesty.
The Great Tantra of Vajrasattva presents us with the teachings of Vajrasattva himself on the Nine Spaces of the Great Perfection. This Tantra is at the very core of the Great Perfection teachings, where it is counted as a Root Tantra of the Space Section. There are two versions of this Tantra preserved in The Hundred Thousand Tantras of the Ancient Ones, the Nyingma Gyubum. The first is a 137-page document while the second is 278 pages. Both of them were translated into Tibetan and published by Śrī Singha and Vairochana during the Eighth century of our era. The 137-page version contains the teachings of Vajrasattva, while the 278-page version begins with the teachings of Vajrasattva and then adds further clarification by Sattvavajra. I published my translation of the 137-page version in the year 2015 under the name The Great Tantra of Vajrasattva: Equal to the End of the Sky. I now present you with my translation of the 278-page version with the title The Vajrasattva Mahatantra. I believe that the 137-page version was translated by Śrī Singha and Vairochana early on in their collaboration, while the 278-page version was done years later.
This Tantra is a secret document. There are curses within it on those who distribute it to mean people. There are also praises within it for those who read and copy it. I am personally responsible for the translation and publication of this Tantra, so the weight of these curses falls on me personally, and not on the reader. The world of today is a tumultuous place where new technologies, warfare, disease, disaster, and many other factors make life difficult for us all. These words of wisdom from thirteen hundred years ago may offer the people of today a fresh vision of our purpose as we face a changing world. I believe that the benefits of publication outweigh the risks. I am encouraged in my decision by remembering that long ago Śrī Singha and Vairochana made the decision to translate and publish these works in Tibetan, so that that they might be distributed widely throughout the Tibetan Empire, in the hope that these teachings might pacify the bellicose Tibetans. It is entirely due to their efforts that these works have survived through the centuries up until today. I hope that the present translation will offer the world access to this ancient wisdom for a long time yet to come.
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