Phurba

Rituals, spells, prayer, meditation and magical acts.
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Toni-emilia
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Phurba

Post by Toni-emilia »

I think this is really fasinatin😌. The phurba (Tibetan: ཕུར་པ or ཕུར་བ, Wylie: phur ba; alternate transliterations: phurpa, phurbu, purbha, or phurpu)[needs IPA] or kīla (Sanskrit Devanagari: कील; IAST: kīla) is a three-sided peg, stake, knife, or nail-like ritual implement traditionally associated with Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Bön, and Indian Vedic traditions.

The phurba is associated with the practice of the meditational deity (Sanskrit ishtadevata, Tibetan yidam) Vajrakīlaya (Tibetan Dorje Phurba) or Vajrakīla (वज्रकील).

Ritual usage Edit
Cantwell and Mayer (2008) have studied a number of texts recovered from the cache of the Dunhuang manuscripts that discuss the phurba and its ritual usage.[4]

The phurba is one of many iconographic representations of divine symbolic attributes (Tibetan: phyag mtshan)[5] of Vajrayana and Hindu deities. When consecrated and bound for usage,[note 1] Phurba are a nirmanakaya manifestation of Vajrakīlaya.[citation needed]

Chandra, et al. in their dictionary entry 'korkor' (Tibetan: ཀོར་ཀོར, Wylie: kor kor) "coiled" (English) relates that the text titled the 'Vaidūry Ngonpo' (Tibetan: བཻ་ཌཱུརྻ་སྔོན་པོ, Wylie: bai dUry sngon po) has the passage: ཐག་བ་ཕུར་བ་ལ་ཀོར་ཀོར་བྱམ "a string was wound round the (exorcist's) dagger [phurba]."[6]

One of the principal methods of working with the and to actualize its essence-quality is to pierce the earth with it; sheath it; or as is common with Himalayan shamanic traditions, to penetrate it vertically, point down into a basket, bowl or cache of rice (or other soft grain if the phurba is wooden). The terms employed for the deity and the tool are interchangeable in Western scholarship. In the Himalayan shamanic tradition, the phurba may be considered as axis mundi. Müller-Ebelling, et al. affirm that for the majority of Nepalese shaman, the phurba is cognate with the world tree, either in their visualisations or in initiatory rites or other rituals.[7]

The phurba is used as a ritual implement to signify stability on a prayer ground during ceremonies, and only those initiated in its use, or otherwise empowered, may wield it. The energy of the phurba is fierce, wrathful, piercing, affixing, transfixing. The phurba affixes the elemental process of 'space' (Sanskrit: ākāśa) to the Earth, thereby establishing an energetic continuum. Phurba, particularly those that are wooden are for shamanic healing, harmonizing and energy work and often have two nāgas (Sanskrit for snake, serpent and/or dragon, also refers to a class of supernatural entities or deities) entwined on the blade. Phurba often also bear the ashtamangala, swastika, sauwastika and/or other Himalayan, Tantric or Hindu iconography or motifs.[citation needed]

The phurba as an iconographical implement is also directly related to Vajrakilaya, a wrathful deity of Tibetan Buddhism who is often seen with his consort Diptacakra (Tib. 'khor lo rgyas 'debs ma). He is embodied in the phurba as a means of destroying (in the sense of finalising and then freeing) violence, hatred, and aggression by tying them to the blade of the phurba and then transmuting them with its tip.[citation needed] The pommel may be employed in blessings. It is therefore that the phurba is not a physical weapon, but a spiritual implement, and should be regarded as such.

As Müller-Ebeling, et al. state:

The magic of the Magical Dagger comes from the effect that the material object has on the realm of the spirit. The art of tantric magicians or lamas lies in their visionary ability to comprehend the spiritual energy of the material object and to willfully focus it in a determined direction. . . The tantric use of the phurba encompasses the curing of disease, exorcism, killing demons, meditation, consecrations (puja), and weather-making. The blade of the phurba is used for the destruction of demonic powers. The top end of the phurba is used by the tantrikas for blessings.[8]

As Beer states:

The sting of the scorpion's whip-like tail transfixes and poisons its prey, and in this respect it is identified with the wrathful activity of the ritual dagger or kīla. Padmasambhava's biography relates how he received the siddhi of the kīla transmissionat the great charnel ground of Rajgriha from a gigantic scorpion with nine heads, eighteen pincers and twenty-seven eyes. This scorpion reveals the kīla texts from a triangular stone box hidden beneath a rock in the cemetery. As Padmasambhava reads this terma text spontaneous understanding arises, and the heads, pincers, and eyes of the scorpion are 'revealed' as different vehicles or yanas of spiritual attainment. Here, at Rajgriha, Padmasambhava is given the title of 'the scorpion guru', and in one of his eight forms as Guru Dragpo or Pema Drago ('wrathful lotus'), he is depicted with a scorpion in his left hand. As an emblem of the wrathful kīla transmission the image of the scorpion took on a strong symbolic meaning in the early development of the Nyingma or 'ancient school' of Tibetan Buddhism.[9]

Cultural context Edit
To work with the spirits and deities of the earth, land and place, people of India, the Himalayas and the Mongolian Steppe pegged, nailed and/or pinned down the land. The nailing of the phurba is comparable to the idea of breaking the earth (turning the sod)[citation needed] in other traditions and the rite of laying the foundation stone[citation needed]. It is an ancient shamanic idea that has common currency throughout the region; it is prevalent in the Bön tradition and is also evident in the Vajrayana tradition. According to shamanic folklore current throughout the region, "...the mountains were giant pegs that kept the Earth in place and prevented it from moving."[10] Mountains such as Amnye Machen, according to folklore were held to have been brought from other lands just for this purpose.[citation needed]

Kerrigan, et al., state that:

Prayer flags and stone pillars throughout the country also pierce the land. Even the pegs of the nomads’ yak wool tents are thought of as sanctifying the ground that lies beneath.[10]

Traditions such as that of the phurba may be considered[who?] a human cultural universal in light of foundation stone rites and other comparable rites documented in the disciplines of anthropology and ethnography; e.g., turning of the soil as a placation and votive offering to spirits of place and to preparation of the land as a rite to ensure fertility and bountiful yield.[citation needed]

Text from: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phurba (you can read more there and ofcourse you can read more all around internet)
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Kenazis
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Re: Phurba

Post by Kenazis »

Welcome to the forum. What do you think is fascinating about the phurba?
"We live for the woods and the moon and the night"
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