On Sunday, 28 November 2021, the Extensive Most Secret Hayagriva Puja will be performed at our Geshe Lama Konchok’s alma mater, Sera Jey Monastic University in India. Sera Jey is one of the six great monasteries of the Gelugpa (Yellow Hat) order. The Maha Tare Buddhist Centre will be providing full sponsorship for this event, to commemorate the Centre’s 9th Anniversary.
The Puja is most efficacious in swiftly pacifying obstacles, both mundane and spiritual. Merits will be dedicated towards the good health, success and for all positive causes and conditions to abide with the Centre, its Dharma friends, all in Singapore and indeed all sentient beings in this world. On this occasion, we thought it may be helpful to share a few anecdotes about the Most Secret Hayagriva deity (Tib: Tamdrin Yangsang), the principal Protector Deity of Sera Jey.
As some of you are aware, there are a number of manifestations of the Protector Deity Hayagriva, a wrathful manifestation of Chenresig (Guanyin) and a protector deity of the Lotus Family of Buddhas which is headed by Buddha Amitabha. The Most Secret Hayagriva (Tib: Tamdrin Yangsang) is the manifestation which we practise in our tradition, and it came to be the principal Protector Deity of Sera Jey Monastic University through the lineage of Sera Jey’s very first abbot the Venerable Jetsun Kunkhen Lodroe Rinchen Senge.
Venerable Lodroe Rinchen Senge was a close disciple of Lama Tsongkhapa (the founder of our Gelugpa order). That said, Venerable Lodroe Rinchen Senge was not originally part of the Gelugpa tradition. He had been born into a family of tantric yogis and his father, Tokden Yonten Gonpo, was an accomplished yogic practitioner and lay (non monastic) lama who practised in the Nyingmapa (Red Hat) tradition. The practice of Tamdrin Yangsang had been imparted to Venerable Lodroe Rinchen Senge by his father, who had in turn received a pure and uninterrupted transmission of empowerments of this practice that can be traced all the way back to Guru Rinpoche, who was himself a perfected practitioner of the Tamdrin Yangsang tantras.
The story goes that Venerable Lodroe Rinche Senge’s father was concerned that because his ordained son was going to continue his monastic education in Lhasa, he would eventually meet and learn from Lama Tsongkhapa and remain a monastic. That would mean that the practices of Tamdrin Yangsang that had been imparted to Venerable Lodroe Rinchen Senge would become extinct as he would have no children to transmit this lineage to. As fate would have it, Venerable Lodroe Rinchen Senge became one of Lama Tsongkhapa’s main disciples, but the lineage of transmission was not broken because of a miraculous event.
When Venerable Lodroe Rinchen Senge was about to found Sera Jey and was looking for a site around Lhasa to build the new monastery, he saw a red raven fly into a thorn bush by a large rock where the original Sera Jey close to Lhasa now stands. The Venerable immediately had a vision of Tamdrin Yangsang and His mandala, and without delay, used one of his robes to mark the site for the building of the monastery, and decided that Tamdrin Yangsang would become the principal Protector Deity of the new monastery, which allowed this practice not only to remain in tact but also flourish. If one visits the original Sera Jey in Lhasa today, one will see the Prayer Hall dedicated to Tamdrin Yangsang to the left of the Main Prayer Hall. Protruding from the former is part of that rock structure, and within Tamdrin Yangsang’s Prayer Hall, one will find the original image/ statue of Tamdrin Yangsang built upon the part of that very rock and the bush where Venerable Lodroe Rinche Senge initially had a vision of the Protector Deity.
Whilst not immediately apparent to the uninitiated, the lineage of Tamdrin Yangsang has been so strictly preserved that when other Gelugpa lamas unfamiliar with the Tamdrin Yangsang practice hear the chants and the pujas of Tamdrin Yangsang or see the torma offerings and shrine set up for such propitiation, they will immediately identify these as being of the Nyingmapa rather than Gelugpa tradition!
Within the Tamdrin Yangsang shrine at Sera Jey is housed an ancient Phurba (a Tantric ritual implement bearing the head of Tamdrin Yangsang at its handle and a triple-edged blade below). The Phurba was gifted to Venerable Lodroe Rinchen Senge by his father in the 15th century AD, and which was latterly blessed by His Holiness the Great 5th Dalai Lama. The Phurba (along with the teachings and tantras of Tamdrin Yangsang) came into the hands of Venerable Lodroe Rinchen Senge’s father through the lineage of Lama Deprawa, who was a highly acclaimed yogi or mahasiddha of the time, who was also a Terma treasurer revealer and who had himself located and retrieved the Phurba along with a set of teachings and tantras of Tamdrin Yangsang, from Yepa Sewa Lungpa, a high mountain range adjacent to Mount Everest. It is believed that these were left there by Guru Rinpoche himself, who knew that the time would come for the chosen one to discover them.
The terma revelation was endorsed by the then head of the Shakya order, and there is an account relating to the powers of that Phurba which may be worthy of mention.
During a debate with believers of some other spiritual systems which took place at the border of Nepal, there was a show of not only intellectual but also spiritual attainments. The then head of the Shakya order and his opponent actually levitated and flew into the sky, and there was no clear victor in the debate. The former instructed Lama Deprawa to plunge the blade of the Phurba into the ground, and upon doing so, the opponent immediately fell from the sky.
The Phurba had, until the reign of His Holiness the Great 5th Dalai Lama, been strictly kept away from the public and away from the uninitiated. This was until His Holiness introduced the tradition of an annual blessing involving this very special Phurba which takes place on the 27th day of the 12th Tibetan lunar month just before the Tibetan New Year. On this occasion, the Phurba makes a rare public appearance for the purpose of blessing the devoted who will travel from far and wide to Sera Jey to obtain blessings by being touched on the head by the Phurba. The abbot of Sera Jey will, on this occasion, administer the blessings.
Another interesting anecdote is that this is the only occasion in the year when the abbot of Sera Jey is entitled to wear the yellow pandita hat (which we see on images of our lineage founder Lama Tsongkhapa), a right ordinarily held only by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, His Holiness the Panchen Lama, the Ganden Tripa (the present and 104th Ganden Tripa happens to be one of Geshe la’s lineage gurus) and the two senior monks who would have been the former abbots of Gyudmed and Gyuto Tantric Colleges respectively, and who are next in line to the Ganden throne.
The Centre is blessed to be part of this rich tradition through our kind resident teacher Geshe Lama Konchok, who also received this lineage of teachings and empowerments at Sera Jey. The practice of Tamdrin Yangsang has been instrumental in assisting members of Sera Jey in achieving success and acclaim in their scholastic learning and spiritual practices over the years, and Geshe la and the Centre shall endeavour to continue preserving this important tradition, and bringing its benefits to all friends in Singapore.
The Maha Tare Team