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.The mother who had given birth to this monster died nine days after its birth.The people of the country decreed that this monstrous infant should be bound to the mother's corpse and left in the cemetery.The infant was then tied to his mother's breast.The mother was borne away in a stretcher to the cemetery, and the stretcher was left at the foot of a poisonous tree which had a boar's den at its root, a poisonous http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas28.htm (3 of 19)07/03/2005 16:04:56Chapter Twenty-eight: Matam Rutra (The Right and Wrong Interpretation) snake coiled round the middle of its trunk, and a bird of prey sitting in its uppermost branches.(These animals are the emblems of lust, anger and greed respectively which "kindle the fire of individuality".) At this place there was a huge sepulcher built by the Rakshasas where they used to leave their dead at the foot of the tree.Elephants and tigers came there to die; serpents infested it, and witch-like spirits called Dakinis and Ghouls brought human bodies there.After the bearers of the corpse had left, the infant sustained his life by sucking the breasts of his mother's corpse.These yielded only a thin, watery fluid for seven days.Next he sucked the blood and lived a week; then he gnawed at the breast and lived the third week; then he ate the entrails and lived for a week.Then he ate the outer flesh and lived for the fifth week.Lastly he crunched the bones, sucked the marrow, licked the humors and brains and lived a week.He thus in six weeks developed full physical maturity.Having exhausted his stock of food he moved about; and his motion shook the cemetery building to pieces.He observed the Ghouls and Dakinis feasting on human corpses which he took as his food and human blood as the drink, filling the skulls with it.His clothing was dried human skins as also the hides of dead elephants, the flesh of which he also ate.He ate also the flesh of tigers and wrapped his loins in their furs.He used serpents as bracelets, anklets, armlets and as necklaces and garlands.His lips were thick with frozen fat, and his body was covered with ashes from the burning ground.He wore a garland of dead skulls on one string; freshly severed heads on another; and decomposing heads on a third.These were worn crosswise as a triple garland.Each cheek was adorned with a spot of blood.His three great heads ever wrathful, of three different colors, were fierce and horrible to look at.The middle head was dark blue and those to the right and left were white and red respectively.His body and limbs which were of gigantic size and proportions were ashy gray.His skin was coarse and his hair as stiff as hog's bristles.His mouth wide agape showed fangs.His terrible eyes were fixed in a stare.Half of the dark brown hair on his head stood erect, bound with four kinds of snakes.The nails of his fingers and toes were like the talons of a great bird of prey, which seized hold of everything within reach, whether animals or human corpses which he crushed and swallowed.He bore a trident and other weapons in his right hands, and with his left he filled the emptied skulls with blood which he drank with great relish.He was a monster of ugliness who delighted in every kind of impious act.His unnatural food produced a strange luster on his face, which shone with a dull though great and terrible light.His breath was so poisonous that those touched by it were attacked with various diseases.For his nostrils breathed forth disease.His eyes, ears and arms produced the 404 different ills.Thus, the diseases paralysis, epilepsy, bubonic swellings, urinary ills, skin diseases, aches, rheumatism, gout, colic, cholera, leprosy, cancer, small-pox, dropsy and various other sores and boils appeared in this world at that time.(For evil thoughts and acts make the vital spirit sick and thence springs gross disease.)The name of this great Demon was Matam Rutra.He was the fruit of the Karma of the great wickedness of his former life as Tharpa Nagpo.At that time, in each of the 24 Pilgrimages, there was a powerful destructive Bhairava Spirit.These Devas, Gandharvas, Rakshasas, Asuras and Nagas were proud, malignant and mighty Spirits, despotic masters of men, with great magical powers of illusion and transformation.These Spirits used to wander over these countries dressed in the eight sepulchral raiments, wearing the six kinds of bone ornaments, and armed with various weapons, accompanied by their female consorts, and reveled in all kinds of obscene orgies.Their chief occupation consisted in depriving all sentient beings of their lives.After consultation, all these Spirits elected Matam Rutra as their Chief.Thus all these non-human beings became his slaves.In the midst of his horrible retinue he http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas28.htm (4 of 19)07/03/2005 16:04:56Chapter Twenty-eight: Matam Rutra (The Right and Wrong Interpretation) continued to devour human beings alive until the race became almost destroyed and the cities emptied.He was thus the terrible scourge that the earth had ever seen.All who died in those days fell into Hell.But, as for Matam Rutra himself, his pride knew no bounds: he thought there was no one greater than himself and would roar out:"Who is there greater and mightier than I? If there be any Lord who would excel me, Him too will I subjugate."As there was no one to gainsay him, the world was oppressed by heavy gloom.At that time, however, Kali proclaimed,"In the country of Lanka, the land of Rakshasas,In a portion of the city called Koka-Thangmaling,On the peak of Malaya, the abode of Thunder,There dwells the Lord of Lanka, King of Rakshasas.He is a disciple of the light-giving Buddha.His fame far excels thine.He is unconquerable in fight by any foe.He sleeps secure and doth awake in peace."Hearing this, the pride and ambition of the Demon became aflame.His body emitted flames great enough to have consumed all worlds at the great Kalpa dissolution.His voice resounded in a deep thundering roar like that of a thousand clasp of thunder heard together.With sparks of fire flying from his mouth he summoned a huge force.He filled the very heavens with them, and moving with the speed of a meteor he invaded the Rakshasa's capital of Koka-Thangmaling.Encamping, Matam Rutra proclaimed his name proudly, at which the entire country of Lanka trembled and was shaken terribly as though by an earth-quake.The Rakshasas, both male and female, became terrified.The King of the Rakshasas sent spies to find out the cause of these happenings.They went and saw the terrible force, and being terrified at the sight reported the fearful news to their king.He sat in Samadhi for a while, and divined the following: According to the Sutra of King Gunadhara it was said, "One who has vexed his Guru's heart, and broken his friend and brother's heart: the haughty son, being released from the three Hells, will take rebirth here, and he will surely conquer the Lord of Lanka.In the end, he will be conquered by many Sugatas (the blissful ones, or Buddhas).And this event will give birth to the Anuttara-Vajrayana Faith." The Buddha Marmedzad having revealed the event, he wished to see whether this was the Matam Rutra Demon referred to in the prophesy.So he collected a force of http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas28
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