Text 4.10 (Commentary)

[Guhyagarbha-Tantra, Text section 4.10]

Without substantiality, the nature of the syllables, the mind.
Is selflessness, free from extremes and without objective referent.
Yet through a diversity of shapes, colours and names
It emanates and reveals its display in all ways. [10] ...

[Tibetan]

dngos-med yi-ge'i rang-bzhin sems /
bdag-med mtha'-bral mi-dmigs-kyang /
dbyibs-dang kha-dog ming-tshogs-kyis /
rol-pa cir-yang sprul-cing ston / [10]

Commentary:

Without (med) existing as a coarse substantiality (dngos), the nature of the syllables (yi-ge'i rang-bzhin) is the intrinsic, inwardly radiant mind (sems) Itself. It is the selflessness (bdag-med) of individuals and phenomena, the reality free from (bral) all extremes (mtha') of conceptual elaboration, and it is primordially without objective referent (mi-dmigs) in terms of substantial or designated phenomena. Yet (kyang) its apparitional nature is without duality, in the manner of the moon's reflection in water.

The shapes of the syllables appear and abide, without independent existence, in the centres within the energy channels of the buddha-body and of sentient beings. The syllable A is shaped like a yawning lion, the KA is shaped like a flag-waving battlement, and so forth.^[1] With respect to their colours also, the vowels are naturally red and the consonants are naturally white. The action of these Internal syllables is such that, by meditation on them, the path of the yogin and the resultant goal are indeed perfected.^[2]

Then, in the circumstance of the buddhas, the cloud-mass of syllables through a diversity ([sna]-tshogs-kyis)^[3] of shapes (dbyibs-dang), colours (kha-dog), names (ming), and words, emanates (sprul) its display (rol-pa) of emanations in all ways (cir-yang) and (cing) reveals (ston) Immeasurable enumerations of the doctrine, corresponding to the fortune of living beings.

This action of the wheel of syllables is also one which correspondingly acts on benefit of living beings through the mass of its shapes, colours, names and words which are contained within books and their representational syllables. Furthermore, the secret mantras which are formed from these syllables during meditation on the seed-syllables of the deities are also emanations of this wheel of syllables. So it is that the cloudmass of syllables indeed abides in an emanational nature.

[v. The fifth (comments on Ch. 4.11):]

[Read next page]

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

I.e. the shape of the Sanskrit syllables A and KA.

[2]:

On the meditations which connect the syllables with the right and left energy channels (rasanā and lalanā) and their respective colours, see below, pp. 1006-1019-

[3]:

kLong-chen Rab-'byams-pa, p. 186.3, Interprets tshogs (Ch. a, section 10) as sna-tshogs.