Dear Indologists,

Bee: Thank you. This sounds interesting. I will definitely follow up on this. 

Asko: Thank you. Indeed, I had consulted the Szanto entry in the Brill's Encyclopedia, but the Dwivedi/Samdhong Rinpoche source is new to me. Thanks for that! However, I have a strong doubt that the ḌākinījālasaṃvarĀRṆAVA (DJSA) text cited in my Vajravārāhī/-yoginī sources is identical to the (Sarvabuddhasamāyoga-)Ḍākinījālaśaṃvaratantra (DJS) as surveyed by Szanto, et al. 

As I understand it, the DJS, proper, is an early "proto-yoginītantra," so it strikes me as unlikely that the Six Vārāhi Scriptures/dPyal Threefold Vārāhī traditions would reference it as a source text. It seems more likely that the DJSA they reference is a later (real or imagined) yoginī tantra or uttaratantra akin to the Ḍākārṇava. 

As I mentioned in my first post, I also suspect (but cannot say for certain) that the Ḍākinījālasaṃvarārṇava referenced in my Vārāhī/yoginī texts might be the same as the Saṃvarārṇava mentioned in Sugiki and English. Sugiki hypothesizes that the Saṃvarārṇava is an imaginary text, but the fact that the (Ḍākinījāla)Saṃvarārṇava is cited relatively frequently as a source text for Vārāhī/yoginī material makes me wonder if it might be (or have been) a real text. 

With all these concealed mysteries, it's no wonder they named the cycle "saṃvara" hahaha. 

Sincerely,

Westin Harris
Ph.D. Candidate
Study of Religion 
University of California, Davis

https://religionsgrad.ucdavis.edu/people/westin-harris

2021 Dissertation Fellow,

The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studies

Sarva Mangalam.

On Sun, Sep 29, 2024 at 5:03 AM Asko Parpola <aparpola@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Westin,

Could these references be of any help?

Rinpoche, Samdhong, & Vrajvallabh Dwivedi (eds.) 1990. Ḍākinījālasaṃvararahasyam by Anaṅgayogī.  (Rare Buddhist Text Series, 8.) Sarnath, Varanasi: Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies. xii, 20 pp. 

Szántó, Péter-Dániel, & Arlo Griffiths 2015. Sarvabuddhasamāyogaḍākinījālaśaṃvara. Pp. 367-372 in Jonathan A. Silk, Oskar von Hinüber, and Vincent Eltschinger (eds.), Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism, volume 1: Literature and languages. (Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section two: India, vol. 29: 1.) . Leiden: Brill. 

Best wishes, Asko

On 29. Sep 2024, at 4.24, Westin Harris via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:

Greetings Indologists,

I am currently working on some Sanskrit and Tibetan material associated with the Six [Vajra]vārāhī Scriptures (phag mo gzhung drug) and the Threefold Vārāhī Cycle of the Chel Tradition (dPyal lugs phag mo skor gsum). Many of the texts associate themselves with one *Ḍākiṇī-jāla-saṃvar-ārṇava-tantra (mkha' 'gro drwa ba sdom pa rgya mtsho'i rgyud). 

Can anyone tell me more about this (attested or imagined) source text? Perhaps it is one and the same as the (equally enigmatic) Saṃvarārṇava? 

In her opus on Vajrayoginī, English (pp. 17, 52) mentions two brief references to the Saṃvarārṇavatantra among her Vajrayoginī/Vajravārāhī sources, but without any further elaboration. Moreover, in his CE of Chp. 15 of the Ḍākārṇavatantra, Sugiki (p. 3n1) notes the mention of six Arṇava texts (including Saṃvarārṇava) in a colophon to the Ḍākārṇava. However, he says, "Most likely, the Six Oceans are imaginary root scriptures." 

Besides these two references (English and Sugiki), can anyone point me towards more leads regarding the *Ḍākiṇījālasaṃvarārṇava / Saṃvarārṇava?

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Westin Harris
Ph.D. Candidate
Study of Religion 
University of California, Davis

https://religionsgrad.ucdavis.edu/people/westin-harris

2021 Dissertation Fellow,

The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studies

Sarva Mangalam.

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