‘LADY HEAR ME TONIGHT’: NIGUMA’S MANTRA AND MEANING WITH MELODY BY 2ND KALU RINPOCHE

On October 23, a couple of weeks after the New Delhi Niguma Yoga event, HE 2nd Kalu Rinpoche gave melodious and moving chanting renditions of the mantras used in the Shangpa Kagyu tradition, the Niguma, Six-Armed Mahākāla and Guru Yoga mantras, during a live public FB teaching, which is still available to watch here . With gorgeous melodies Rinpoche composed himself, I have included video clips of each mantra rendition on the website post.

As my own small offering, and for Tara day tomorrow, I re-publish the Tibetan script (as published online by the Shangpa Kagyu website) together with the phonetic pronunciation (based on the original Sanskrit sounds, not the Tibetan pronunciation). A publicly available transcript of the teaching and audio of the mantra has been on the Shangpa Kagyu website for several days (see here).

I also did a little research on the meaning of the Sanskrit terms in the mantras, (with a little help from a Sanskritist friend/scholar) as I did not see the meaning available on the internet anywhere else and also (interestingly) nothing is said about these mantras in Sarah Harding’s book ‘Niguma: Lady of Illusion‘.

Music? Lady Hear Me Tonight by Modjo and Protection by Massive Attack.

Written and compiled by Adele Tomlin, 31st October 2022.

NIGUMA’S MANTRA CHANTED BY 2ND KALU RINPOCHE

First, Kalu Rinpoche chanted the long-life mantra, then explained that:

“When I gave the empowerment, I was thinking about Niguma herself, with her clothes and her radiance, and translucence, visualising her like that. Then that melody came into my heart and my mind, and I started chanting. Then, I started telling other people to follow my rhythm and melody and so on. That was seven to eight years ago.”

ཨྃ་ཨཱཿགུ་རུ་ཊཱ་ཀི་ནཱི་ཡེ་ནི་གུ་མ་ཨཱ་ཡུ་ཛྙཱ་ན་སི་དྡྷི་མེ་པྲ་ཡ་ཙྪ།

oṁ āḥ guru ḍākinīye niguma āyujñānasiddhi me prayaccha |

The meaning of this mantra is:

Om Ah Guru Dakini Niguma, please bestow on me (ME PRAYACCHA) the accomplishments (SIDDHI) of Long-Life (ĀYU) and Primordial Awareness (JÑĀNA)!

A Shangpa Kagyu practitioner (who is an admirer and supporter of my work and website) informed me that the mantra for Sukhasiddhi is the same, with Sukhasiddhi replacing Niguma in the mantra.

SIX-ARMED MAHĀKĀLA MANTRA

Then, Rinpoche chanted the mantra of the six-arm Mahākāla and Vajrayogini combined. The Shangpa Kagyu’s main Dharma protector is the white six-armed Mahākāla, considered to be an emanation of Avalokiteshvara (more on that in a future post) but I have not heard or read of it combined with Vajrayogini before.

However, the mantra includes the seed syllables HA RI NI SA, which are the seed syllables of Vajrayogini as practiced in the Karma Kagyu tradition.

ཨྂ་བཛྲ་ན་ར་ཀྲིཾ་ཀྲིཾ་ཧཱུྃ་ཧཱུྃ་ཕཊ་ཕཊ།

ॐ आः गुरु आकिन्ये निगुमा आयुज्ञानसिद्धि मे प्रयच्छ |

oṁ vajranara kriṁ kriṁ hūṁ hūṁ phaṭ phaṭ |

This mantra does not seem to have any specific meaning. VAJRANARA means Vajra-man and uses the seed syllable KRIṂ KRIṂ to invoke the energy of protection/cutting away negative influences.

ཨྂ་བཛྲ་མ་ཧཱ་ཀཱ་ལ་་ཀྵིཾ་ཀྵེ་ཧྲ་བིགྷྣན་བི་ནཱ་ཡ་ཀ་ཧཱུྃ་ཧཱུྃ་ཕཊ་ཕཊ།

ॐ वज्रमहाकाल क्षिं क्षे ह्र विघ्न विनायक हुं हुं फट् फट् |

oṁ vajramahākāla kṣiṁ kṣe hra vighnān vināyaka hūṁ hūṁ phaṭ phaṭ |

(vighnān > emendation for vighnan in the text)

This mantra is not easy to translate but VIGANĀN VINĀYAKA here seems to mean ‘remover of obstacles’. So it is:

Om vajra Mahakala KṢIṀ KṢÉ HRA (seed syllables), remover of obstacles, HŪṀ HŪṀ PHAṬ PHAṬ!

གུ་རུ་མ་ཧཱ་ཀཱ་ལ་ཧ་རི་ནི་ས་སི་དྡྷི་ཛཿ་ཡྰ་ཡུཿ་པུ་ནྱེ་དྷརྨ་པུཥྚིཾ་ཀུ་རུ་སྭཱ་ཧཱ།

गुरु महाकाल हरिनिष सिद्धि जः आयुः पुण्ये धर्मपुष्टिं गुरु स्वाहा |
guru mahākāla harinisa siddhi jaḥ āyuḥ puṇye dharmapuṣṭiṁ guru svāhā |

Guru Mahakala HA RI NI SA JAḤ, may long-life (ĀYUḤ), merit (PUNYÉ) and Dharma be abundant (PUṢTIṀ), may it be so (SVĀHĀ)!

There is also a musical rendition of this mantra here, in a more Indian style.

GURU YOGA MANTRA IN SHANGPA KAGYU

Khyungpo Naljor. Shangpa Kagyu founder and lineage holder.

The final mantra transmitted was a Guru Yoga mantra, referring to the ‘father’ lama.

ཕ་བླ་མ། ཕ་བླ་མ། ཕ་བླ་མ་མཁྱེན་ནོ།

pha lama/ pha lama/ pha lama khyenno/

Father lama, father lama, think of us!

དྲིན་ཅན་རྩ་བའི་བླ་མ་ཁྱེད་ལ་གསོལ་བ་འདེབས་སོ།

drinchen tsawe lama khye la solwa debso/

Kind, root lama, to you we supplicate!

On that note of devotion, I conclude this short post. May the kind root lama think of us and may we never forget them until the full awakening!

Further Sources/Reading

Kalu Rinpoche FB Livestream – 23 October 2022 (33′ 50”)

How to appropriately chant mantra by 2nd Kalu Rinpoche (FB LIvestream, 10 October 2021)

THE YOGA OF LADY NIGUMA AS COMPILED BY JETSUN TARANATHA AND PRESENTED BY 2ND KALU RINPOCHE: Niguma Yoga presentations in Bhutan and India by 2nd Kalu Rinpoche; and textual and historical background by Adele Tomlin (October 2022)

3 thoughts on “‘LADY HEAR ME TONIGHT’: NIGUMA’S MANTRA AND MEANING WITH MELODY BY 2ND KALU RINPOCHE”

coopersantafe says:

31st Oct 2022 at 2:08 am

Hi

In the Lha Shi practice there is both Chadrukpa (Black) and Vajrayogini. Also the Mantra for Sukhasiddhi is the Same but with the Niguma replaced by Sukhasiddhi…

Sending you White Mahakala and Lha Shi Practices..

>

1. Dakini Translations says:
  
  31st Oct 2022 at 11:15 am
  
  Many thanks! Will write something on White Mahakala soon 🙂
  
  1. coopersantafe says:
    
    2nd Nov 2022 at 7:56 am
    
    I am enjoying our exchanges.