Kālacakra (Tibetan: དུས་ཀྱི་འཁོར་ལོ།, Wylie: dus kyi 'khor lo) is a polysemic term in Vajrayana Buddhism and Hinduism that means "wheel of time" or "time cycles". "Kālacakra" is also the name of a series of Buddhist texts and a major practice lineage in Indian Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism. The tantra is considered to belong to the unexcelled yoga (anuttara-yoga) class. Kālacakra also refers both to a patron tantric deity or yidam in Vajrayana and to the philosophies and yogas of the Kālacakra tradition. The tradition's origins are in India and its most active later history and presence has been in Tibet. The tradition contains teachings on cosmology, theology, philosophy, sociology, soteriology, myth, prophecy, medicine, and yoga. It depicts a mythic reality whereby cosmic and socio-historical events correspond to processes in the bodies of individuals. These teachings are meant to lead to a transformation of one's body and mind into perfect Buddhahood through various yogic methods. The Kālacakra tradition is based on Mahayana Buddhist non-dualism, which is strongly influenced by Madhyamaka philosophy, but also draws on a wide range of Buddhist and non-Buddhist (mainly Hindu) traditions (such as Vaibhāṣika, Kashmir Shaivism, Vaishnavism, and Samkhya). The Kālacakra tradition holds that Kālacakra teachings were taught in India by Gautama Buddha himself. According to modern Buddhist studies, the original Sanskrit texts of the Kālacakra tradition "originated during the early decades of the 11th century CE, and we know with certainty that the Śrī Kālacakra and the Vimalaprabhā commentary were completed between 1025 and 1040 CE." Kālacakra remains an active tradition of Buddhist tantra in Tibetan Buddhism, being particularly emphasized by the Jonang tradition, and its teachings and initiations have been offered to large public audiences, most famously by the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso.
Sources The Kālacakra Tantra is more properly called the Laghu-kālacakratantra-rāja (Sovereign Abridged Kālacakra) and is said to be an abridged form of an original text, the Paramādibuddhatantra of the Shambala king Sucandra, which is no longer extant. The author of the abridged tantra is said to have been the Shambala king Manjushriyasas. According to Vesna Wallace, the Vimalaprabhā (Stainless Light) of Pundarika is "the most authoritative commentary on the Kālacakratantra and served as the basis for all subsequent commentarial literature of that literary corpus."
Sanskrit texts The Sanskrit text of the Kālacakratantra was first published by Raghu Vira and Lokesh Chandra in 1966, with a Mongolian text in volume 2.[1] This 1966 edition was based on manuscripts from the British Library and the Bir Library, Kathmandu. A critical edition of the original Sanskrit text of the Kālacakratantra was published by Biswanath Banerjee in 1985 based on manuscripts from Cambridge, London and Patna.[2] A further planned volume by Banerjee containing the Vimalaprabhā appears not to have been published. The Sanskrit texts of the Kālacakratantra and the Vimalaprabhā commentary were published on the basis of newly discovered manuscripts from Nepal (5) and India (1) by Jagannatha Upadhyaya (with Vrajavallabh Dwivedi and S. S. Bahulkar, 3 vols., 1986–1994).[3] In 2010, Lokesh Chandra published a facsimile of one of the manuscripts that was not used by Jagannatha Upadhyaya et al. in their edition.
Tibetan translations The Tibetan translation of the commentary Vimalaprabhā is usually studied from the 1733 Derge Kangyur edition of the Tibetan canon, vol. 40, text no. 1347. This was published by Dharma Publishing, Berkeley, US, in 1981. David Reigle noted, in a discussion in the INDOLOGY forum of 11 April 2020, that, "the Tibetan translation of the Kālacakra-tantra made by Somanātha and 'Bro lotsawa as revised by Shong ston is found in the Lithang, Narthang, Der-ge, Co-ne, Urga, and Lhasa blockprint recensions of the Kangyur, and also in a recension with annotations by Bu ston. This Shong revision was then further revised by the two Jonang translators Blo gros rgyal mtshan and Blo gros dpal bzang po. The Jonang revision is found in the Yunglo and Peking blockprint recensions of the Kangyur, and also in a recension with annotations by Phyogs las rnam rgyal."
Chapters The Kālacakratantra is divided into five chapters. The content of the five chapters is as follows:
The first chapter deals with what is called the "outer Kālacakra" (the world system, loka-dhatu), which provides a cosmology based on Vaibhasika Abhidharma, Samkhya, the Puranas and Jain cosmology. The Kālacakra calendar, the birth and death of universes, the Solar System and the workings of the elements are expounded. The myth and prophecy of the kingdom of Shambhala is also discussed. The second chapter deals with "inner Kālacakra," which concerns human gestation and birth, the functions within the human body, and the subtle body aspects, mainly the channels, winds, drops and so forth. The potentials (drops, bindus) which give rise to these states are described, together with the processes that flow from them. The third chapter deals with the requirements and preparation for meditation, mainly, the initiations (abhiseka) of Kālacakra. The fourth chapter explains the sadhana and yoga (spiritual practices), both the meditation on the mandala and its deities in the generation stage, and the perfection stage practices of the "six yogas". The fifth chapter describes the state of gnosis (jñāna), which is the result or fruit of the practice.
History
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