BuddhistRoad Paper 2.8 “Tibetan Texts from Kharakhoto on the Cult of Vajravārāhī”

This paper introduces all the identified Tibetan texts from Kharakhoto preserved in the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Science (IOM RAS) and the British Library that relate to the cult of the Buddhist goddess Vajravārāhī. It is a relatively wide circle of sources consisting of sādhanas, ritual texts, hymns, and yogic instructions that treat Vajravārāhī in several forms such as the Two-Faced Dancing One, Cinnamuṇḍā (the Severed-Head One), the Black One, and some others. Most of the texts are available only in fragments, making their study more complicated and limited. The paper consists of two parts and two appendices. The first part of the paper presents a brief survey of the manuscripts and their contents, the second one summarises main information extracted from them. Appendix I presents the full edition of texts and their tentative English translation, while Appendix II focuses on two sādhanas found in both the Kharakhoto manuscript and the Sa skya bka’ ’bum [Collected Works of the Sakya], highlighting the textual discrepancies between them.