Manjushri: Principal Tantric Forms & Emanations

Manjushri - forms, manifestations and function - an outline page on the HAR website.

Magzor Gyalmo, a form of Shri Devi

Magzor Gyalmo, meaning the Queen who Repels Armies, or the Queen who has the power to turn back armies, belongs to the larger class of enlightened protector deities known as Shri Devi, or Palden Lhamo in Tibetan. Magzor Gyalmo is a wrathful emanation of the peaceful goddess Sarasvati, popular in both Hinduism and Buddhism.

See Magzorma Outline Page.

Magzorma is one of the Sakya protectors whose rituals are done on a daily basis in all Sakya and Ngor Monasteries. She is the special protector for the Puntsok Podrang of the Khon Family and also for the Luding Labrang of Ngor Ewam Monastery. A similar two armed form of Shri Devi known as Dorje Rabtenma is the special protector of Shalu Monastery.

In Sakya the most important Shri Devi is Dudsolma with one face and four hands riding a mule. She is the companion of Panjarnata Mahakala and both of these figures are considered offspring of Ekajati (no not the Nyingma one-eyed, one-toothed Ekajati). Coming out of a different narrative tradition, Magzorma is either the younger sister or a servant of Dudsolma.

See the Himalayan Art Resources website for a longer essay on Shri Devi Magzor Gyalmo and a new Magzorma Outline Page.

TBRC: Outline Pages for Sakya Materials

The Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center of Gene Smith has been engaged in making outline pages for the major collections of Tibetan writings. Created on the SRG site is an outline page of only the Sakya materials called TBRC: Sakya Bibliographic Outlines. Also included is a link to Sakya Lineages, a joint project between the University of Munich and the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center. These pages and links are very academic and you will need to be able to read Tibetan or at the least know the Wylie (Extended) Transliteration System. To learn more about Tibetan scripts see the Resource Tools for Scholars on the HAR website.

Outline Pages from HAR

I have many Outline Pages for the Sakya Tradition on the HAR (Himalayan Art Resources) website. I have always tried to keep these two resources separate because one (SRG) is faith based and the other (HAR) is a general art education site. The problem for me now is that HAR has become quite rich with Sakya material and I don't always have the time to copy or re-create the same pages for the SRG site even though that is my initial feeling of what should happen. There is no intention or plan to blend the sites but I feel I must be more blatant in making Sakya practitioners aware of what is on HAR.

We all have to remember that the HAR site is dealing with all of the religious imagery, art styles, and aesthetics coming out of Himalayan Style Art and it is funded by the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation. I alone (no bosses) support the SRG website. It would be completely unfair to be partial to one tradition over another on the HAR site, as everybody has to be treated equally.

Now, I believe, if you were to do a survey of the art objects that I have written about in depth, over the past 11 years, on the HAR site you will find that I have actually devoted far more time and energy into the non-Sakya traditions, iconography, and painting sets. It has taken me years to finally begin to document all of the Lamdre Lineage paintings. The sculpture has still not been done. Early on I worked on the subjects people seemed to be most interested in and subjects supported by large numbers of artworks such as the Dalai Lama, Panchen Lama, Karmapa, Shamar, Situ, Padmasambhava, etc. And I can tell you, just dealing with all of the different representations of Padmasambhava and all the Terma 'Revealed Treasure' Traditions and their different forms is a daunting task. Jamgon Kongtrul had to write the Rinchen Terdzo in one hundred and twenty volumes to try and keep it all straight.

So, to try and deal with all of that, from now on what I will be doing is keeping the SRG site more up to date on all the Sakya additions to the HAR website:
1. Sakya Outline Page
2. Lamdre Painting Sets Page
3. Thirteen Golden Dharmas
4. Panjarnata Mahakala
5. Sakya Monasteries
6. Lamdre Lineage
7. Sakya Lineages
8. Sakya Protectors
9. Sakya Hats

Additions & Updates

I did a quick re-working of the main Sakya Outline Page on the HAR website. To this I added at the bottom, as you already saw, the Sakya Protectors Outline. Linked to that is a new outline page for Panjarnata Mahakala. Panjarnata is a very complex deity because he is both a protector with many forms and, in Sakya, a Meditational Deity (ishtadevata) of the Anuttarayoga classification. I still have more work to do on this and I am not sure if I remembered the Five Lineages of Panjaranata accurately. I have a feeling that the Mal Lotsawa and the Rinchen Zangpo lineages are the same which means that I have forgotten one. I can look it up when I return back to New York next week.

Also new to the Sakya Outline Page is the Monasteries & Branch Schools outline. This new page will become more meaningful and develop as I upload all of the images from my various trips to Tibet and hopefully the images that my students also took at the various locations relating to Sakya.

Sakya Protectors

A new outline page for Sakya Protectors has been added to the Himalayan Art Resources website. There is a lot more explanation that needs to accompany each of these protectors, and or, their larger classifications, such as Mahakala, Shri Devi, the Three Kings, etc. I have this information written up in the form of a university paper done back in 1988 at UBC. I will review that paper and add more information to the SRG and HAR websites. The image on the left is of the goddess Ekajati, the mother of Mahakala and Shri Devi, according to the system of Panjarnata Mahakala. She is included as one of the retinue figures in the Eight Deity Panjarnata practice. She is also included in the Three Deity Panjarnata practice of the Sakya Tradition.