Abodes of the vajra‑yoginīs: Mount Maṇicūḍa and Paśupatikṣetra as envisaged in the Tridalakamala and Maṇiśailamahāvadāna

Abstract

This study examines how the logic of localisation functions in Buddhist tantric literature and ritual as a powerful tool to convey knowledge and authoritative lineage via the immediacy of the manifest world. Literature composed in Newar ( Nepāl Bhāṣā ) and Sanskrit continues to link the pantheon of Buddhist tantric deities to religious figures and multivalent sites in the Kathmandu valley. Narratives of exploits ( avadānas ) and songs describe how heroes ( vīras ), heroines ( vīreśvarīs ) and magical female beings ( yoginīs ) reside and are encountered as site-specific mandalas of Buddhist tantric systems. This article examines two such sites in light of their related corpus of local literature: a unique solitary form of Vajrayoginī – Śrī Ugratārā Vajrayoginī – who is worshipped at Mount Maṇicūḍa near Sankhu, and Nairātmyā – the semi-wrathful consort of Hevajra – who is worshipped in Paśupatikṣetra, Deopatan. In this article, I look at local accounts, excerpts from the Maṇiśailamahāvadāna composed in Nepāl Bhāṣā , and offer an edition of the Sanskrit Tridalakamala practice song ( caryāgīti ). I utilise these sources to investigate how the sacred landscapes of the Buddhist vajra-yoginīs in Nepal remain integral to the hermeneutics of reception of tantric Buddhism.