Blue Beryl Registers - Annotated | Registers: Single Image | Blue Beryl Main Page
Blue Beryl Medical Compositions (charts) commissioned by the 3rd Desi Sanggye Gyatso (1653-1705).
The overall image above is created by layering fifteen strips of register found at the top of the first fifteen Blue Beryl compositions. Only the first fifteen compositions have a top register. The strips of register have been combined together to make it easier to follow the sequence and read the name inscriptions.
There are four main sequential topics contained in the registers:
[1] Medicine Buddha and early Indian Gods and Rishis,
[2] the Lineage of the Four Medical Tantras,
[3] the Yutog Nyingtig Lineage and
[4] the Deities and Protectors of the Yutog Nyingtig.
The first topic, Medicine Buddha and the Medicine Buddha Sutras, are a religious teaching and group of several texts. Initially it is using the idea of a Medicine Buddha and healing as a metaphor for suffering as sickness and healing with correct methods as the Dharma teachings of Buddhism. It was only in Tibet in the 11th and 12th century that Medicine Buddha and the Medicine Buddha Sutras began to be directly linked to medicine and the new concept of Tibetan Medicine. The linking of Medicine Buddha and Tibetan Medicine can be found in the Four Medical Tantras and in the later Yutog Nyingtig. Both of these texts are classifies as 'terma' Revealed Treasure teachings of the Nyingma Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.
Up until the 17th century there were many versions of the Four Medical Tantras along with many other medical related manuscripts and texts, a number of them translated from Sanskrit and other languages. Sanggye Gyatso himself in his own writings makes reference to a number of the different versions of the Four Medical Tantras. The Yutog Nyingtig prior to the 17th century appears to be a modest 'terma' found amongst many such Nyingma traditions. It certainly was not mainstream nor considered of significant importance amongst the 'Sarma' traditions of Tibetan Buddhism in general (Sakya, Kagyu, Jonang, Gelug).
The Yutog Nyingtig is first and foremost a meditation practice of the Revealed Treasure Tradition. The principal 'deity yoga' meditation is focussed on Hayagriva who is said to be in this instance a wrathful emanation of the Medicine Buddha. Hayagriva is red in colour, wrathful, with one face and two hands. He embraces the consort Vajrayogini who is similar in appearance to himself. The central couple are surrounded by an assortment of retinue figures. Descriptions of the meditational deities are followed by those of the protectors. The most important protector figure is Mahakala along with his consort Ekajati. They are further accompanied by seven other attendants. Five are male and two are female.
In the 17th century, Desi Sanggye Gyatso chose to adopt the mythology of the Four Medical Tantras combined with the Yutog Nyingtig, unify them as a single mythology, and then teach the result as the official origin of the Tibetan State authorized system of Medicine. The fifteen registers of the Blue Beryl compositions visually depict the synthesis of these mythologies into the new state narrative.