This twelve syllable formula is closely associated with Padmasambhava, the eighth century figure Nyingma tradition credits with subduing obstacles to Buddhism's establishment in Tibet, but its attestation is bound up with a transmission mechanism particular to the Nyingma school, the terma, or treasure, tradition. Termas are teachings said to have been hidden by Padmasambhava and his circle for revelation at a later, more receptive time, to be discovered centuries afterward by a terton, a treasure revealer, rather than transmitted in an unbroken teacher to student chain the way most Buddhist material is. Because of this, texts and mantras connected to Padmasambhava, including commentary elaborating this mantra out from the shorter Seven Line Prayer, carry a documented history of discovery events, specific tertons at specific dates, that sit alongside and sometimes in place of a continuous historical chain back to the eighth century, a transmission model unlike anything in Theravada or in most of Mahayana practice.
The mantra's own grammar is transparent by tantric standards, vajra guru, thunderbolt or diamond teacher, and padma siddhi, lotus accomplishment, are ordinary Sanskrit compounds naming Padmasambhava by his epithets rather than opaque seed sounds, framed by the body speech mind triad om ah hum at the start and a closing hum. Its use is not confined to a restricted empowerment the way some higher Vajrayana sadhana material is; it is printed on prayer flags and carved into rock across the Himalayan Buddhist world and recited by lay Nyingma practitioners generally, which places it, despite its exalted subject, among the more openly transmitted rather than the initiation bound layer of Vajrayana mantra.