Phurba

New branches: Tantric techniques: Fourfold division: Twofold division: Thought forms and visualisation: Yoga: The phurba (Tibetan: ཕུར་པ or ཕུར་བ, Wylie: phur pa or phur ba; alternate transliterations: phurpa, phurbu, purbha, or phurpu)[needs IPA] or kīla (Sanskrit Devanagari: कील; IAST: kīla) is a three-sided peg, stake, knife, or nail-like ritual implement deeply rooted in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism and Bön traditions.

Ultimately, the phurba stands as a potent emblem of transformation, symbolic power, and the interconnectedness of the spiritual and material realms.

Scholars such as F. A. Bischoff, Charles Hartman and Martin Boord have shown that the Tibetan literature widely asserts that the Sanskrit for their term phurba is kīlaya (with or without the long i).

The term (vajra)kīlaya is frequently found in Sanskrit texts (as well as in virtually every kīlamantra) legitimately used as the denominative verb 'to spike,' 'transfix,' 'nail down,' etc.

Having pommel, handle, and blade, phurba are often segmented into suites of triunes on both the horizontal and vertical axes, though there are notable exceptions.

Meteoric iron was highly prized throughout the Himalaya where it was included in sophisticated polymetallic alloys such as Panchaloha for ritual implements.

Cantwell and Mayer (2008) have studied a number of texts recovered from the cache of the Dunhuang manuscripts that discuss the phurba and its ritual usage.

[4] The phurba is one of many iconographic representations of divine symbolic attributes (Tibetan: phyag mtshan)[5] of Vajrayana and Hindu deities.

[citation needed] Chandra, et al. in their dictionary entry 'korkor' (Tibetan: ཀོར་ཀོར, Wylie: kor kor) "coiled" (English) relates that the text titled the 'Vaidūry Ngonpo' (Tibetan: བཻ་ཌཱུརྻ་སྔོན་པོ, Wylie: bai dUry sngon po) has the passage: ཐག་བ་ཕུར་བ་ལ་ཀོར་ཀོར་བྱམ "a string was wound round the (exorcist's) dagger [phurba].

Müller-Ebelling, et al. affirm that for the majority of Nepalese shaman, the phurba is cognate with the world tree, either in their visualisations or in initiatory rites or other rituals.

Phurba, particularly those that are wooden are for shamanic healing, harmonizing and energy work and often have two nāgas (Sanskrit for snake, serpent and/or dragon, also refers to a class of supernatural entities or deities) entwined on the blade.

[citation needed] The phurba as an iconographical implement is also directly related to Vajrakilaya, a wrathful deity of Tibetan Buddhism who is often seen with his consort Diptacakra (Tib.

The art of tantric magicians or lamas lies in their visionary ability to comprehend the spiritual energy of the material object and to willfully focus it in a determined direction.

The tantric use of the phurba encompasses the curing of disease, exorcism, killing demons, meditation, consecrations (puja), and weather-making.

[8] As Beer states: The sting of the scorpion's whip-like tail transfixes and poisons its prey, and in this respect it is identified with the wrathful activity of the ritual dagger or kīla.

Padmasambhava's biography relates how he received the siddhi of the kīla transmission at the great charnel ground of Rajgriha from a gigantic scorpion with nine heads, eighteen pincers and twenty-seven eyes.

As Padmasambhava reads this terma text spontaneous understanding arises, and the heads, pincers, and eyes of the scorpion are 'revealed' as different vehicles or yanas of spiritual attainment.

As an emblem of the wrathful kīla transmission the image of the scorpion took on a strong symbolic meaning in the early development of the Nyingma or 'ancient school' of Tibetan Buddhism.

[citation needed] In the Kathmandu Valley, the phurba is still in usage by shamans, magicians, tantrikas and lamas of different ethnic backgrounds.