རྡོ་རྗེ་བསྲིངས་འགྲོ་མ། འཕགས་མ་བསྲིངས་འགྲོ་མ།

Mantric configurations called maṇḍalas are comparable to philharmonic orchestras. Each maṇḍalic member is assigned with a specific attribute, implement, attire, color, place, mantra, mudrā, significance, and so on. The size and type of the maṇḍala associated with a specific Tantric scripture or Tantric scriptural cycle can be variable. I am increasingly becoming aware that knowing the history of each maṇḍalic member would shed some light on the Kompositionsgeschichte of a particular Tantric scripture or Tantric cycle. A maṇḍalic member of one Tantric scripture/cycle may be found in other earlier or later Buddhist or non-Buddhist scripture/source. Even when a specific maṇḍalic deity turns out to be non-Buddhist in origin, as Professor Sanderson has long proposed, the deity always seems to be Buddhistic in significance and function. With this awareness, I have been trying to reexamine the fifty-eight wrathful deities of the *Guhyagarbhatantra. Tracing the history of each maṇḍalic member of the *Guhyagarbhatantra is, however, wrought with unresolvable difficulties. The first difficulty is securing the Sanskrit (or Indic) name of the deity. Here is one example. There is a deity called in Tibetan  rDo-rje-bsrings/srings/sring-’gro-ma. She is also called ’Phags-ma-bsrings-’gro-ma. For example, the orthography/form  rDo-rje-bsrings-’gro-ma is found in *Sūryasiṃhaprabha’s *Guhyagarbhatantravyākhyāna (Bᵀ2595, vol. 43, p. 399.19): rdo rje bsrings ’gro ma ni rta gdong ma ste ’khor ba mi gtong ba’o ||. Rong-zom-pa, for instance, has the form ’Phags-ma-bsrings-’gro-ma, for which, see his dKon mchog ’grel (p. 212.15–16): de la dang po ni | ’phags ma bsrings ’gro ma zhes bya ba ste | dha da bu’i don no ||.  Note the varia lectio: ’Phags-ma-srings-’gro-ma. One notices a tendency in Tibetan sources of using the name of the first deity in a group as a generic name for all the deities in that group. This could be misleading and hence should be remembered. Now what about her Sanskrit name? Her Sanskrit name seems to be contained in her mantra. See, example, see  IOL Tib J 332 (Tanaka 2020: 83), where it is transcribed as: ba dzra a rya ting ce rya yang. There, she is described as rTa-gdong-lcags-kyu-ma. As mentioned above, *Sūryasiṃhaprabha’s commentary on the *Guhyagarbhatantra also describes her as rTa-gdong-ma (= Aśvamukhī/Aśvamukhā). Of course, Aśvamukhī is found in other Tantric traditions and obviously also in non/pre-Tantric sources, for which, see, for example, Policardi 2018. The bilingual sNang ba dam pa rgyan (p. 410.10) reads: oṃ ba dzra arya te dza te ngaḥ. The Tibetan translation given here is: ’phags ma sring ’gro ma. See also Blezer 1997: 51, where the transcribed text reads: Badra arya te tsa te ṅa/? followed by the Tibetan rDo rje sriṅ ’gro ma. Some witnesses read te and some other teng; some read dza and some others dzaḥ. Possibly teng dzaḥ is a corruption of something like tiṅ jaḥ? Despite all these clues, I have no idea about the Sanskrit behind the Tibetan rDo-rje-bsrings-’gro-ma, or, ’Phags-ma-bsrings-’gro-ma. The first syllable oṃ and the last syllable dzaḥ (according to some witnesses), should be excluded. We can also be quite sure of Vajra for rDo-rje and Āryā for ’Phags-ma. So, we are left with either te dza/tsa te or ting ce rya. Could the former reflect something like Tyajatī? And hence something like Vajratyajatī? Āryātyajatī? What about the latter? Rong-zom-pa provides one more clue: dha da bu’i don no ||. But I still remain clueless. In short, the Sanskrit name for rDo-rje-bsrings-’gro-ma/’Phags-ma-bsrings-’gro-ma remains in the darkness. I would be grateful to anyone who may shed some light on it.