Exploring an Anti-Epidemic Protective Pill Recipe in the 15th Century Tibetan Medical Work, Relics of Countless Oral Instructions by Zurkhar Nyamnyi Dorjé (1439-1475)
 
Barbara Gerke (University of Vienna)
 
 
During the plague outbreak in Gujarat (1994), the SARS outbreak (2003), and the recent
COVID-19 pandemic, Tibetan physicians in India produced and distributed protective anti-
epidemic pill amulets. One of these is the “9-compound black pill” or Nakpo Gujor (nag po dgu
sbyor). Worn around the neck as a pendant, Nakpo Gujor is deemed to be effective through the
odors and anti-epidemic properties of its nine ingredients, which are ritually consecrated. The
potency of these ingredients is enhanced through their alignment with nine different deities and
their respective mantras. The formula for this pill is found in many Tibetan medical works dating
back to the thirteenth century.

This presentation explores one version of this formula in the work of the Tibetan physician
scholar Zurkhar Nyamnyi Dorjé (Zur mkhar mnyam nyid rdo rje; 1439-1475) from Central
Tibet. I found that some privately practicing amchi in India employed this formula during the
recent pandemic. In his Relics of Countless Oral Instructions (Man ngag bye ba ring bsrel pod
chung rab 'byams gsal ba'i sgron me), Zurkhar Nyamnyi Dorjé introduces the nine ingredients of
this protective pill in relation to nine deities, and nine mantras. While attributing the formula to
Nagarjuna—he phoneticizes the formula’s Sanskrit name as kala naba yoga— he also links the
nine ingredients to some of the “wide-spread diseases” (rims nad) discussed in the third section
of the Four Tantras (Rgyud bzhi), the foundational Tibetan treatise dating back to the 13/14 th
centuries.

In analysing Zurkhar Nyamnyi Dorjé’s recipe and interrelated connections to earlier conceptions
of infectious disease categories in the Four Tantras, I argue that in the way he presents and
writes about Nakpo Gujor he establishes a broad therapeutic spectrum for this formula. This not
only includes the three types of potency recognized in Vajrayana Buddhist medical texts (the
potency of substances, mantras, and meditative accomplishments), but also integrates some of
the established “wide-spread disease” categories of the Four Tantras. Thus, Zurkhar Nyamnyi
Dorjé presents Nakpo Gujor as a medico-religious protective formula for all kinds of epidemic
disease. My analysis highlights how a 15 th century anti-epidemic formula weaves together Indian
origins, Tibetan foundational texts, and aromatic substances as carriers of spiritual potencies in
such accessible ways that it was used by amchi practitioners in the 21 st century as a protective
olfactory amulet for COVID-19.
 
Further reading: https://www.medanthrotheory.org/article/view/4996
"Thinking through complex webs of potency: Early Tibetan medical responses to the emerging coronavirus epidemic: Notes from a field visit to Dharamsala, India" by Barbara Gerke