Part 17
The Master Padmasambhava went there to tame those beings. He took residence in a cave on the island. There he entered meditative concentration, and through that power actually summoned the rulers of that land—the king’s queens, the sixty-four mantradhārinīs, emanations of the sixty-four mātṛkās. He tormented them with wrathful mantras and mudrās to make them faint, become paralyzed, and experience intense pain and sorrow. “Now, I will burn you in the hearth of a fire offering,” he threatened, at which they instantly became docile and agreed to do whatever the Master commanded. They made all the other chief mantradhārinīs gather, and the Master gave them Dharma teachings. This was the first binding under oath.
Once, when the Master was staying in a town, he saw many mantradhārinīs leading away and eating some human beings of Jambudvīpa. Once again, he opened a great wrathful maṇḍala in a cave. All the ḍākinīs, powerless to resist, were summoned and scolded. When they were about to escape, he struck their limbs with a kīla-dagger. From that time forward they vowed never to harm the people of Jambudvīpa, and received the bodhisattva vow and generated bodhicitta. This was the second binding under oath.
Another time, the Master arrived at an inn where many women were boiling water in pots. After a little while, some of the water turned into blood, some turned into fat, some turned into sperm, some turned into human flesh, some turned into clarified butter, some turned into molasses, some turned into cooked rice, and some turned into beer and other substances. On seeing this, the Master asked them what they were doing. Not recognising that it was in fact the Master, they said, “We have summoned the essences of the food and bodies of the people of Jambudvīpa.” “Did you not take an oath in front of the Master Padmākara?” he exclaimed, and to this they replied, “Our mistress took an oath, but we did not!” So, in the same cave as before, the Master summoned the leaders and retinue of the mantradhārinīs by practising the maṇḍala. It is said that one hundred and twenty thousand appeared. He demanded, and received, their vitality mantras and their means of propitiation. Their chiefs had no choice but to enter the maṇḍala, and the retinue received the bodhisattva vows and generated bodhicitta. All had to take an oath. This was the third binding under oath.