The Short Commentary on the Tantra of Twenty-one Homages to Tārā called “The Treasure Vase of

Benefit and Happiness”

by Thupten Shedrub Gyatso.

The Wrathful Wrinkled (Frowning) Tārā

14

Introduction

Benefits

namaḥ kara-talā-ghāta-caraṇā-hata-bhūtale |

bhṛkuṭī-kṛta-hūṃ-kāra-sapta-pātāla-bhedini ||

namaḥ (n/V) – adoration, homage; kara – a doer, maker, causer, doing, making, causing, producing; talā (f) – the palm of the hand; ghāta – a blow, killing, injuring, hurting; caraṇā (f) – “the feet of”, the venerable (N. N.), a pillar, the root (of a tree); hata – smitten, beaten, struck, raised; bhūtale (f/V) – the surface of the earth; bhṛkuṭī (f) – contraction of the eyebrows, a frown; kṛta – made, done; hūṃ – [a holy sound]; kāra (m) – [term used to signify a letter, sound or indeclinable word]; sapta seven; pātāla – one of the seven regions under the earth and the abode of the Nāgas or serpents and demons; bhedini (f/V) – breaking , splitting , piercing.

Homage to you, who strikes the earth with your palms,

And stamps upon it with your feet.

With wrathful grimaces and HŪṂ syllable,

You scatter the seven underworlds.

The fourteenth homage is to Thronyer Chenzed,^Tib the “Wrathful Wrinkled (Frowning) Tārā” who subdues the eight classes of harmful spirits and nine malignant spirit brothers. She is black like a dark night, and holds a wooden pestle upon a blue lotus. She makes the world tremble and quake by striking the mountains and islands with the palms of her hands and stamping upon them with her feet. By the power of her regal frowning, the resounding vibration of HŪṂ, and the glare from her radiant vajra light, which is like a fire-shower, she shatters the hearts and heads of all malignant spirits: samaya ¹ breakers, demons and others from the seven underworlds and above, and makes them faint into the state of dharmatā ². The seven underworlds, which are like layers of seven roofs, are: the abodes of demons, the general base, the higher base, the baseless, the specific base, the base of essence, the perfect base, and the pure base. In reality, the two soles striking symbolize striking the crucial point of the path of the non-duality of pristine wisdom and the basic sphere, which uproots the seven latencies or seven cognitions with their objects.