21 Homages to Tara: Verse 14 Commentary Khenpo Tenzin Norgay

Thupten Shedrub Gyatso, who was a Tulku in one of the Palyul Monasteries, wrote this commentary. His present incarnation, Rago Chogtrul currently lives in Tibet.

Translation by Khenpo Tenzin Norgey ~ Spring, 2004,
Palyul Retreat Center, Mc Donough, NY USA ~Wood Monkey Year 2131

Homage to you, who strikes the earth with your palms,
And stamps upon it with your feet.
With wrathful grimaces and HUNG syllable,
You scatter the seven underworlds.

The fourteenth homage is to Thronyer Chenzed,^Tib the “Wrathful Wrinkled (Frowning) Tara” who subdues the eight classes of harmful spirits and nine malignant spirit brothers.  She is black like a dark night, and holds a wooden pestle upon a blue lotus.  She makes the world tremble and quake by striking the mountains and islands with the palms of her hands and stamping upon them with her feet.  By the power of her regal frowning, the resounding vibration of HUNG, and the glare from her radiant vajra light, which is like a fire-shower, she shatters the hearts and heads of all malignant spirits:  samaya[i] breakers, demons and others from the seven underworlds and above, and makes them faint into the state of dharmata[ii].  The seven underworlds, which are like layers of seven roofs, are: the abodes of demons, the general base, the higher base, the baseless, the specific base, the base of essence, the perfect base, and the pure base.  In reality, the two soles striking symbolize striking the crucial point of the path of the non-duality of pristine wisdom and the basic sphere, which uproots the seven latencies or seven cognitions with their objects.