ཨོཾ་བཛྲ་སཏྭ་ས་མ་ཡ།
What Is the Hundred-Syllable Mantra?
Samaya, the sacred commitments of Vajrayana, can be broken. We are not perfect, and there are times when we cannot keep what we have vowed. The tradition took this into account and prepared a way to restore what has been broken: the Hundred-Syllable Mantra of Vajrasattva.
Vajrasattva is primordial purity itself, expressed in the form of a single Buddha. It is taught that the work of washing away defilements is entrusted to this Buddha in order to remind us that the defilements were never really there. In the Nyingma school, the second of the Ngöndro (preliminary practices) is the recitation of this mantra one hundred thousand times. It was also transmitted to Japan's Shingon school, where it is known as the “Hyakujimyō” (Hundred-Syllable Mantra).
In the first part we pray that the commitments be kept and preserved; in the middle we pray that our minds be made good; and at the end we repeat, “Do not abandon me.” It is less a spell of purification than words for renewing a relationship.
Its Relation to the Japanese Hyakujimyō
The Hyakujimyō recited in the Shingon school is originally the same Sanskrit mantra. However, in Japan it has been recited with a reading tradition based on the pronunciation of Siddham script, and in Tibet with the Tibetan reading tradition, so the sound that reaches the ear is different. The pronunciations on this page follow the Tibetan reading tradition.
When You Recite
The Tibetan script on this page is Sanskrit transcribed into Tibetan letters. The pronunciations are given in Latin letters, following the way the mantra is read in Tibet. At ceremonies and the like, please follow the way the presiding teacher recites.
Merely counting recitations does not work
It is said that four powers are needed for purification to take effect: faith (the power of support), regret for one's wrongdoing (the power of destroying the fault), the resolve not to repeat it (the power of restoring), and a practice that actually serves as the antidote (the power of the antidote). Where there is no regret, purification cannot take place. Please note that the formal practice of visualizing Vajrasattva above one's head presupposes transmission from a teacher.
Reciting It Straight Through
ཨོཾ་བཛྲ་སཏྭ་ས་མ་ཡ། མ་ནུ་པཱ་ལ་ཡ། བཛྲ་སཏྭ་ཏྭེ་ནོ་པ་ཏིཥྛ། དྲྀ་ཌྷོ་མེ་བྷ་ཝ། སུ་ཏོ་ཥྱོ་མེ་བྷ་ཝ། སུ་པོ་ཥྱོ་མེ་བྷ་ཝ། ཨ་ནུ་རཀྟོ་མེ་བྷ་ཝ། སརྦ་སིདྡྷི་མྨེ་པྲ་ཡཙྪ། སརྦ་ཀརྨ་སུ་ཙ་མེ། ཙིཏྟཾ་ཤྲེ་ཡཾ་ཀུ་རུ་ཧཱུྃ། ཧ་ཧ་ཧ་ཧ་ཧོཿ བྷ་ག་ཝཱན། སརྦ་ཏ་ཐཱ་ག་ཏ། བཛྲ་མ་མེ་མུཉྩ། བཛྲཱི་བྷ་ཝ་མ་ཧཱ་ས་མ་ཡ་སཏྭ་ཨཱཿ
Om Benza Sato Samaya / Manu Palaya / Benza Sato Tenopa Tita / Dido Me Bawa / Suto Kayo Me Bawa / Supo Kayo Me Bawa / Anurakto Me Bawa / Serwa Siddhi Me Prayatsa / Serwa Karma Sutsa Me / Tsittam Shriyam Kuru Hung / Ha Ha Ha Ha Ho / Bagawan Serwa Tatagata / Benza Ma Me Muntsa / Benzi Bawa Maha Samaya Sato Ah
The Meaning, Phrase by Phrase
Vajrasattva (Dorje Sempa, rdo rje sems dpa' / Sanskrit: Vajrasattva)
“The Vajra Hero.” A Buddha of the enjoyment body who embodies primordial purity itself.
The text, pronunciations, and meanings follow Chapter 18, “The Hundred-Syllable Mantra of Vajrasattva: Restoring Samaya,” of the Center's text A Panoramic View of Buddhism: The Teachings Traced in Fifteen Divisions, Based on the Nyingma Nine-Vehicle Classification (Bukkyō no Fukanzu).