Introduction

i.1The Rite of the Musk Shrew is a short ritual text from the tantric cycle of Vajrabhairava that focuses on rites that employ ingredients derived from a musk shrew to accomplish a range of ritual goals. After first presenting the main vidyāmantra used in all the rites, the text lays out a series of ritual frameworks that involve extensive offerings and numerous recitations of the vidyāmantra. There are three variations of this framework in the text, each of which is followed by a set of ritual applications employing different musk shrew ingredients (mostly in powdered form) and actions to achieve a variety of goals. These ritual goals include invisibility, enthralling people, expelling and killing enemies, and inflicting illnesses on one’s targets. An image of Mahādeva, a common epithet of Śiva, is employed in one of the ritual frameworks. This indicates that the text demonstrates some association with the Śaiva tradition. The presence of Mahādeva in this text further underscores the observation made elsewhere that the Buddhist Vajrabhairava cycle is closely associated with Śaiva cults.

i.2The Rite of the Musk Shrew seems to have enjoyed some popularity in connection with the Vajrabhairava cycle as it was transmitted in the lineage of Ra Lotsāwa Dorjé Drak. According to some Tibetan scholars, the text does not “constitute an independent and fully qualified tantra” and may have been extracted from a larger work. The Rite of the Musk Shrew is only found in those Kangyurs from the Tshalpa (tshal pa) branch recensions and is not recorded in any of the Thempangma (thems spang ma) branches. The Musk Shrew Ritual is preserved in two versions in the Degé canon, once in the Unexcelled Yoga tantra section (bla med rgyud) of the Kangyur (Toh 472) and once among the tantric commentaries section of the Tengyur (Toh 1996). The Lhasa and Narthang Kangyurs uniquely preserve a brief sādhana with the title te’u lo pa chu bya’i rtog pa bcas rgyud kyi phyogs, but this constitutes a different work. The colophons recorded in Toh 472 indicate that this text was translated by a master named Dīpaṅkara together with Ra Lotsāwa. Dīpaṅkara, or Dīpaṅkaraśrī, is another name for one of Ra Lotsāwa’s principal teachers, the Newar master Bharo Chakdum (“Bharo Maimed-Hand”). This is indicated clearly in the colophons of the version of The Rite of the Musk Shrew preserved in the Degé and Kangxi Tengyurs, which identify Bharo Chakdum by name.

i.3This English translation was prepared based on both Degé versions (Toh 472 and 1996), in consultation with the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) of the Degé Kangyur, the version contained in the Kangxi Tengyur (K 2849), and the version preserved in the Book of Ra (rwa pod). Our preliminary comparison of the different versions suggests that Toh 472 and the version in the Book of Ra appear to constitute one recension, while Toh 1996 and K 2849 form another, slightly different recension. The substantive differences between these recensions have been reported in the notes. We have also consulted Bulcsu Siklós’s English translation, the first translation of this work into a Western language.