One notices a tendency to “vajricize” everything in Vajrayāna, that is, to qualify an entity or phenomenon “x” with vajra. This then lends “x” a brand or mark of Vajrayāna and hence makes it typically Buddhistic. It seems to be the case also with naraka (“hell”). In the Tibetan sources, one encounters the word rdo rje dmyal ba. There may be other Indic and early Tibetic sources but I would like to first mention the bSam gtan mig sgron by gNubs chen Sangs rgyas ye shes (b. ca. 844).1 A ro Ye shes ’byung gnas (fl. 10th century) in his Theg chen rnal ’byor la ’jug pa also states the following (Thiesen 2009: 208):2 gsang sngags skye sa gnyis ni rdo rje dmyal dang sangs rgyas sa yin gzhan ni med ||. Here the idea is that for the practioners of Vajrayāna, there are only two destinations: Vajradharahood and *vajranaraka. What kind of hell is *vajranaraka? Is it simply another name for one of the eighteen hell realms, let us say, for avīci (mnar med)? Or, is it something different, an exclusive hell reserved only for those who have transgressed cardinal Tantric pledges (samaya: dam tshig)? It appears that two positions existed in Tibet. For example, ’Bri gung skyob pa Rin chen dpal or ’Bri gung ’Jig rten gsum mgon (1143–1217) in his dGongs gcig states (p. 105.2–4):3 rdo rje dmyal ba ni dmyal ba gzhan las lhag par ’dod pa yin mod kyi | ’dir ni rdo rje dmyal ba ni mnar med la sogs nyid yin par bzhed do ||. Unfortunately, I was not able to trace any Sanskrit source that mentions the term *vajranaraka (or something similar). Nonetheless, in the Tibetan translation of Mahāmati’s commentary on the Suhṛllekha called the Vyaktapadāṭīkā, we do come across the expression dmyal ba’i rdo rje.4 Could it be a rendering of *vajranaraka or *narakavajra? Until we come across the corresponding Sanskrit term, we have no way to verify it.
1 gNubs chen Sangs rgyas ye shes, sGom gyi gnad gsal bar phye ba bsam gtan mig sgron (also called rNal ’byor mig gi bsam gtan). Leh, Ladakh: S. W. Tashigangpa, 1974, p. 503. There may be more than once occurence of the term there.
2 Katja Thiesen, A-ro Ye-shes-’byung-gnas: Leben, Werk und Tradition eines tibetischen Gelehrten – Mit einer Übersetzung seines Theg pa chen po’i rnal ’byor la ’jug pa’i thabs bye brag tu byed pa („Eine detaillierte Analyse [der] Methode für den Eintritt in den Yoga [entsprechend] der Mahāyāna-Tradition“). Magister Thesis. Hamburg: Universität Hamburg, 2009, p. 208. This study also includes a German translation of A ro’s work.
3 ’Bri gung ’Jig rten gsum mgon, Dam chos dgongs pa gcig pa. In Byang chub sems dpa’i spyod pa la ’jug pa [not the Bodhicaryāvatāra but Phag gru’s own composition inspired by it]). Lhasa: Bod ljongs dmangs dpe skrun khang, 2010, pp. 90–110.
4 Pema Tenzin (ed.), Suhṛllekha of Ācārya Nāgārjuna and Vyaktapadāṭīkā of Ācārya Mahāmati. Bibliotheca Indo Tibetica 52. Sarnath: Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, 2002, pp. 155–197.
Pratisaṃvid 