as revealed in the Guhyagarbha Tantra and explained by the Omniscient Longchenpa
A hundred deities arise from a single revelation, and together they are the natural state seen without a veil. The Guhyagarbha Tantra belongs to the cycle called the Magical Net, in which every being and every world is a mesh of light cast from one source. The Omniscient Longchenpa reads the peaceful and wrathful maṇḍalas not as two creations but as two ways in which the one ground shows itself. Forty-two peaceful deities dwell in the heart and fifty-eight wrathful deities in the head. Karma Lingpa’s Natural Liberation through Contemplating the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities describes how they appear in the intermediate state. Its single instruction is to recognise whatever arises as the radiance of one’s own awareness.
Each deity stands where something that binds a being, or something that frees it, has been gathered into a form. A poison is the same energy as its wisdom, mistaken for a solid thing. Whoever has met all hundred has met every knot that ignorance can tie, and the way each one comes undone.
The Forty-Two Peaceful Deities
The Ground (2): Samantabhadra and Samantabhadrī, awareness and its expanse, never two.
The Five Buddhas and Their Mothers (10):
Vairocana and Ākāśadhātvīśvarī, at the centre: the wisdom of the dharmadhātu, in which ignorance dissolves.
Akṣobhya (Vajrasattva) and Buddhalocanā, in the east: mirror-like wisdom, in which anger dissolves.
Ratnasambhava and Māmakī, in the south: the wisdom of equality, in which pride dissolves.
Amitābha and Pāṇḍaravāsinī, in the west: discriminating wisdom, in which desire dissolves.
Amoghasiddhi and Samayatārā, in the north: all-accomplishing wisdom, in which envy dissolves.
The Eight Bodhisattvas and Eight Goddesses (16): These are the eight consciousnesses and their objects, standing together as lovers rather than as subject and object at odds.
Kṣitigarbha with Lāsyā, and Maitreya with Mālā, in the east.
Ākāśagarbha with Gītā, and the bodhisattva Samantabhadra with Nṛtyā, in the south.
Avalokiteśvara with Puṣpā, and Mañjuśrī with Dhūpā, in the west.
Vajrapāṇi with Ālokā, and Sarvanīvaraṇaviṣkambhin with Gandhā, in the north.
The Six Munis (6): These are the awakened presences who meet each realm of rebirth.
Indra Kauśika, for the gods.
Vemacitra, for the asuras.
Śākyamuni, for humans.
Śravasiṃha, for animals.
Jvālamukha, for the hungry ghosts.
Dharmarāja, for the hells.
The Four Gatekeepers and Their Partners (8): They summon, bind, fasten and gladden, and they close the four kinds of birth.
Vijaya (or Acala) with Aṅkuśā.
Yamāntaka with Pāśā.
Hayagrīva with Śṛṅkhalā.
Amṛtakuṇḍalin with Ghaṇṭā.
The Fifty-Eight Wrathful Deities
Above the wrathful assembly stands Mahottara, the Great Supreme Heruka, the wrathful Samantabhadra, with his consort. He is the source of the assembly rather than one of its members. The Sūtra Which Gathers All Intentions says that the peaceful forms cannot benefit those who are most fierce, and so the Tathāgatas act in wrath. That wrath is the same peace, seen in the act of freeing.
The Five Herukas and Their Krodheśvarīs (10): These are the five wisdoms as the energy that cuts.
Buddhaheruka and Buddhakrodheśvarī, at the centre.
Vajraheruka and Vajrakrodheśvarī, in the east.
Ratnaheruka and Ratnakrodheśvarī, in the south.
Padmaheruka and Padmakrodheśvarī, in the west.
Karmaheruka and Karmakrodheśvarī, in the north.
The Eight Gaurīs (8): These are the eight consciousnesses in wrathful display: Gaurī, Caurī, Pramohā, Vetālī, Pukkasī, Ghasmarī, Caṇḍālī and Śmaśānī.
The Eight Tramen (8): These are the objects of the senses in their raw vividness: Siṃhamukhā, the Lion-Faced; Vyāghramukhā, the Tiger-Faced; Śṛgālamukhā, the Jackal-Faced; Śvānamukhā, the Wolf-Faced; Gṛdhramukhā, the Vulture-Faced; Kaṅkamukhā, the Heron-Faced; Kākamukhā, the Crow-Faced; and Ulūkamukhā, the Owl-Faced.
The Four Female Gatekeepers (4): Aṅkuśā, the Horse-Faced, holds the hook. Pāśā, the Sow-Faced, holds the noose. Śṛṅkhalā, the Lion-Faced, holds the chain. Ghaṇṭā, the Wolf-Faced, holds the bell.
The Twenty-Eight Īśvarīs (28): These goddesses carry the four activities into every region.
Pacifying: Rākṣasī, Brāhmī, Mahādevī, Lobhā, Kumārī and Indrāṇī.
Increasing: Vajrā, Śāntā, Amṛtā, Candrā, Daṇḍā and Rākṣasī.
Magnetising: Bhakṣiṇī, Ratī, Mahābalā, Rākṣasī, Kāmā and Vasurakṣā.
Subjugating: Vāyudevī, Nārī, Vārāhī, Nandā, Mahāhastinī and Varuṇadevī.
The outer gates: Vajra Mahākālī, Vajra Mahācāgalā, Vajra Mahākumbhakarṇī and Vajra Lambodarā.
The Omniscient Longchenpa teaches that the deities abide spontaneously in the ground, are envisioned on the path, and appear as the self-manifesting maṇḍala in the result. If they were not present in the ground, they could never be attained on the path. In this net, every knot is a deity. The poison felt as poison is a wisdom not yet recognised. The fear before the wrathful forms is the clinging about to be cut. The hundred are the names the tantra has found for what is already here.
Names and attributes vary between lineages; the ground, the five wisdoms and the structure of the two assemblies do not.
