Introduction 1.2: The Ritual associated with the Coloured Lines

[Full title: Introduction (1): Drawing the Maṇḍala and its Beneficial Attributes—(B). The ritual associated with the coloured lines]

[The second subdivision (see p. 756) concerns the consecration of the coloured lines: Yarn of five or twenty-five colours is spun by a sixteen year old girl.]

As is said in the Sequence of Indestructible Activity (P. 4720, 72.2.1):

Coloured yarn prepared from lotus fibres
Should be excellently spun by a mudrā of sixteen years.
Each single yarn with its five strands
Should establish the nature of the pristine cognitions.
Nine yarns of three colours
Manufactured from cotton wool
Represent the Buddha-body, speech and mind.
These are excellently arrayed on a pure receptacle or site.

These strands of yarn and their coloured dyes are consecrated as the nature of the five pristine cognitions. At the outset, the spatial line of indestructible reality (rdo-rje gnam-thig) is grasped by a female assistant who is significantly able to duplicate the maṇḍala.^[1]

She pitches it in accordance with the following words from the Flash of Splendour (T. 830):

The female assistant who draws the lines
Is consecrated as one endowed with the signs
Of a spiritual warrior of activity.
With her hand-seal and gesticulation
She pitches the spatial line of the natural maṇḍala.
Then the terrestrial line is also pitched:
Distinguished by the acumen of those to be trained.
The dimensions of the maṇḍala are indefinite.
Beginning with a dimension of four inches.
It may reach as far as yojanas.

Tn this way, the dimensions (of the maṇḍala) are said to be between four inches and infinity.^[2]

A consecration should also be performed: The coloured lines are visualised as the deities, after which offerings and eulogies are made to them. in this way (the lines) are transformed into pristine cognition.

The Sequence Indestructible Activity (P. 4720, 72.3.4) says:

When the receptacle or site has been purified
In a distinct sequence,
Meditate that each single seed-syllable such as HŪṂ
Is represented by five (lines) with corresponding colours.
And that on transfiguration,
These become the deities with their twenty-five (colours).
Endowed with skillful means and discriminative awareness.
The five pristine cognitions indicative of
Buddha-body, speech, mind, attributes and activities
Of the ten directions and four times
Are absorbed therein.
Consequently these five transfigured material (lines)
Should be considered as a maṇḍala
Materialised from the causal basis of pristine cognition—
The buddha-body, speech, attributes, activities, and mind.

Moreover, when the seed-syllables are traced on coloured soil, they should be heaped up and then vanish into it (72.4.3):

The mantras and seals.
Which purify the coloured powders.
Are heaped up and act as if impregnating them.

Concerning the significance of the different colours discerned among the coloured powders, there is a passage from the Tantra of the Extensive Magical Net (T. 834) which says:

All sentient beings without exception
Are totally pervaded by the five pristine cognitions.
But they have been obscured by their own thoughts.
In order to reveal the character of pristine cognition
To all such deluded beings,
Who do not see the meaning of the five pristine cognitions,
The colours white, red, yellow and green
Are revealed, including black.^[3]

As for the material substance of these coloured dyes, the best are prepared from gemstones, as is said in the following passage from the Sequence of Indestructible Activity (P. 4720, 72.3-3):

There are coloured dyes made from five kinds of gems:
These are prepared from sapphire, moonstone.
Topaz (puṣparāga), fine coral, and emerald (marakata).
Other (shades) are synthesised by combining them:
To represent the Bodhisattvas and wrathful deities
In each intermediate direction and so forth.
There are said to be twenty-five colours.

The mediocre and inferior kinds of material substance are those compounded from all sorts of coloured pigments.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

"strand of yarn” (Tibetan snol-ma). Before the actual or terrestrial lines of the maṇḍala can be pitched, they are drawn in the space above the maṇḍala, and as such are known as the "spatial line of indestructible reality" (rdo-rje gnam-thig) or the "spatial line of pristine cognition" (ye-shes-kyi gnam-thig). See below, p. 764; also cf. F. Lessing and A. Wayman, Mkhas Grub Rje's Fundamentals of the Buddhist Tantras. pp. 285-286, where the "line of pristine cognition" (ye-shes-kyi thig. Sanskrit jñānasūtra) is said to be pitched after the "line of action" (las-kyi thig, Sanskrit karmasūtra).

[2]:

As described below, pp. 812-834, the "four-inch maṇḍala" (sor-bzhi'i dkyil-'khor) refers essentially to the vaginamaṇḍala of the female consort, but it may also refer to a materially constructed maṇḍala on a base of ivory. On the dimensions of the largest maṇḍalas in terms of yojanas or infinity, see also below, pp. 838-839.

[3]:

As Indicated below, p. 766, black is painted on the inside. This is applicable in all traditions. Cf. F. Lessing & A Wayman, Mkhas Grub Rje's Fundamentals of the Buddhist Tantras, p. 286, note.