Saroruhavajra’s Hevajra-lineage: A Close Study of the Surviving Sanskrit Works

This project, as already implied in its title, aims at a close study of the surviving textual witnesses of the Hevajra tradition attributed to the Indian mahāsiddha Saroruhavajra, alias Padmavajra (Tib. mTsho-skyes rdo-rje).

Saroruhavajra’s tradition is described by the Tibetan lam 'bras master Ṅor-chen Kun-dga' bzang po (1382 - 1456) as one of the "six great chariot systems" (Tib. śiṅ rta'i srol chen po drug) of the Hevajra. When we consider the importance of this tantric system in light of the development of later mantranaya traditions, it is all the more surprising that, to this day, only a single edition of the extant works of Saroruhavajra’s lineage has been published.

At current knowledge, only five of the works belonging to this tradition survive in their original Indian language:

    •    Saroruhavajra's Hevajrasādhanopāyikā
    •    Saroruhavajra's Hevajrabhaṭṭārakacakraviṁśikastotra
    •    Jālandharipāda's Vajrapradīpa
    •    Rāhulagupta's Hevajraprakāśa
    •    Bhadrapāda's Dveṣavajrasādhana

The main focus of the present study lies on the text-critical analysis of these works. Also taking into account the Tibetan witnesses, the first step of this project consists in the critical edition of these texts, followed by the close and careful analysis of the teachings contained therein, and an annotated English translation.

Besides bringing this tradition once again into the focus of attention and thus promoting further research in the fields of tantric studies, the main goal of this project lies in providing further evidence for the better understanding of the development and transmission of the Hevajra-system itself and of tantric Buddhism in general, which – until the present day – remain to be studied more carefully in the light of their surviving primary textual witnesses.

Supervised by: Prof. Dr. Harunaga Isaacson, Prof. Dr. Mattia Salvini (Mahidol University, Thailand)