Vajrasekhara Sutra
Buddhist tantra
The Vajraśekhara Sūtra is an important Buddhist tantra used in the Vajrayāna schools of Buddhism, but can refer to a number of different works. In particular a cycle of 18 texts studied by Amoghavajra (a Patriarch of Chinese Esoteric Buddhism), which included both Tattvasaṃgraha Tantra, and the Guhyasamaja Tantra, a Tibetan text which appears to be composed of two works grouped together and to further confuse matters in the Japanese Shingon school the Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṃgraha Tantra is known by this name. In Tibetan it is considered to be the main representative of the Yogatantra class of texts.
Outline
The tantra begins with Vairocana Buddha preaching the Dharma to a great host of Bodhisattvas, including Vajrasattva, in the Pure Land of Akanishta. As he preaches the Dharma, Prince Sarvarthasiddhi, the esoteric name of the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, is meditating under the Bodhi Tree. Enlightenment is imminent, but the Prince has still not attained it because he is still attached in some small way to his forsaken ascetic practices. Despairing over his inability to find Enlightenment, he is visited by Buddhist figures who were just now learning the Dharma from Vairocana.
These same deities proceed to teach him a more direct path to Enlightenment through tantric ritual. The tantra then details the rituals used to actualize the Dharma. These rituals help form the basis of tantric ritual in Shingon Buddhism, including such practices as meditating upon the full moon and the use of certain mantras.
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This entry incorporates text from “Vajrasekhara Sutra” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.