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 Tārā Who Averts

the Enemies and Mantra’s Spell

16

Introduction

Benefits

namaḥ pramuditâbaddha-ripu-gātra-prabhedini |

daśâkṣara-pada-nyāsa-vidyā-hūṃ-kāra-dīpite ||

namaḥ (n/V) – adoration, homage; pramudita – [adv] glad, merry, gay, [n] joy, delight; ābaddha – tied on, bound [but here = rakṣā-cakra protective circle; tib. kun nas bskor completely circumbulating]; ripu – an enemy, adversary, foe; gātra – “instrument of moving”, a limb or member of the body, the body, the forequarter of an elephant, the earth; prabhedini – breaking, splitting, piercing; daśa – ten; akṣara – [n] sound, word, syllable; pada – [m] step, mark, stand-point, place, office, (high) rank, dignity; object, cause, quarter of a stanza, line; nyāsa – [m] putting in, placing, settling; putting down, writing, painting; padanyāsa – position of the feet [in a partic. attitude], conduct, procedure; vidyā (f) – knowledge, learning, a discipline or science, esp. sacred knowledge or magic, spell; hūṃ – [a holy sound]; kāra (m) – [term used to signify a letter, sound or indeclinable word]; dīpite (f/V) – set on fire, inflamed, excited, illuminated, manifested

Homage to you, who is surrounded by joyous ones

Who completely scatter the bodies of enemies.

You liberate all with your speech, adorned with ten syllables

And HŪṂ: your pristine awareness.

The sixteenth homage is to Drolma Barvai Odcan,^Tib the “Tārā Who Averts the Enemies and Mantra’s Spell,” who is red like the fire at the end of eon, sits on blue lotus, and holds a crossed vajra. She is surrounded by a host of vidyādhāras and mendicants who have accomplished the practice of mantra and power of truthful speech and are endowed with perfect joy of samādhi. Their radiance scatters the bodies of the foes and overcomes the power of magical spells and the power of sorcery, destroying them without a trace. By reciting her mantra arrangement of the ten syllables, OṂ TĀRE TUTTĀRE TURE SVĀHĀ, she at the heart of the wrathful lady, awareness rests in the form of a HŪṂ radiating light that clears the outer, inner, and secret obscurations of the beings to be tamed. The ultimate meaning is that by subduing the foe of the impure appearance of our body, the awareness body of the Mother of the Victorious Ones is accomplished: the unchanging great blissful body endowed with the ten powers.