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Kilaya - Vajrakīla (Vajrakīlaya) - History of Vajrakilaya Practice in India and Tibet

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History of Vajrakilaya Practice in India and Tibet

Although at one point the Indic origin of kīla practice was widely questioned, Boord claims that "the existence of a [[Kīla cult}} among the Buddhists in eighth century India...must now surely be accepted as established" and further claims that it has been "conclusively demonstrated that all the basic doctrines and rituals of Vajrakīla had their origin in India."

Robert Mayer, one of the leading scholars of the kīla literature, shares the same view, writing that prior research had been plagued by "elementary misunderstandings" based on a lack of familiarity with crucial Indic primary sources.

Mayer says of Boord's work, "our understandings of the deity are quite similar" insofar as both do not doubt that "the phur-pa and the deity are Indic."

Tibetan tradition, which Boord credits as generally credible, holds that the entire corpus of Indian kīla lore was systematized by Padmasambhava, Vimalamitra, and the Nepali Śīlamañju, while on retreat together at Yang-le-shod (present-day Pharping, Nepal).

According to Boord, "it was precisely during this retreat that the many strands of kila lore were finally woven together into a coherent masterpiece of tantric Buddhism and thus it helps to illuminate the process by which tantric methods were being related to soteriology at this time.

Beautifully codified in terms of both theory and practice, this divine scheme of meditation and magic was subsequently transmitted to Tibet and became established there as one of the major modes of religious engagement.

So much so, in fact, that many previous writers on Tibet have actually assumed the kila cult to be of Tibetan origin."

Renowned Tibetologist and Buddhologist Herbert Guenther concurred in a review of Boord's work, concluding that his "careful research of all available texts relevant to the study of this figure" was "much needed and long overdue" in correcting longstanding "misrepresentation of historical facts."


Beer (1999: p. 246) conveys the entwined relationship of Vajrakilaya with Samye, the propagation of Secret Mantra in Tibet, and the importance of the sadhana to both Padmasambhava's enlightenment, and his twenty-five 'heart disciples', who are of the mindstreams of the principal terton (according to Nyingma tradition):


In the biography of Padmasambhava it is recorded that he travelled to the northern land of Kashakamala, where the cult of the kīla prevailed.

Later, whilst meditating on the deity Yangdak Heruka (Skt. Vishuddha Heruka) in the 'Asura Cave' at Parping in the Kathmandu valley, he experienced many obstructions from the maras, and in order to subjugate them he request the Kīla Vitotama Tantras to be brought from India.

Having established the first Tibetan monastery at Samye, the first transmission that Padmasambhava gave to his twenty-five 'heart disciples', in order to eliminate the hindrances to the propagation of the buddhadharma in Tibet, were the teachings of the Vajrakilaya Tantra.

From its early Nyingma origins the practice of Vajrakilaya as a yidam deity with the power to cut through any obstructions was absorbed into all schools of Tibetan Buddhism.


There are a number of terma teachings founded on Vajrakilaya. For instance, there are treasure teachings from Jigme Lingpa, Ratna Lingpa and Nyang-rel Nyima Ozer.

Source

http://www.liquisearch.com/kilaya/vajrak%C4%ABla_vajrak%C4%ABlaya/history_of_vajrakilaya_practice_in_india_and_tibet