Aaa

the body of'states' (gnas skabs, avastha) and the'innatebody* (g'lug ma pa hi lus, nija-deha ). The first of these is the 'body of maturation' (vipakakaya) formed during the ten states (avastha), which arc the lunar months of intrauterine life, and which is born, matures, and dies. The second of these is the

body formed of winds and mind only, the 'mind only' including no five outer-sense based perception (vijiiana) and the 'winds' including only the basic five winds (prana, etc.) and not the secondary five (naga, etc.). According to Mkhas grub rje's Fundamentals. ., the 'uncommon means body' (asadharana-upa-yadtha), a kind of subtle body, is the basis for the tantric machinations; this body seems to be a development of the innate body ' (nija-deha). The Tantras believe that by praxis involving mystic winds and mental muttering, this innate body gradually becomes defined as separate though within the coarse body.

A more advanced stage is when this body can appear separately] as an illusory body and be made to enter an ultimate state'

called the Clear Light, thus returning to a condition from which it had fallen, and which is anterior to the male-female divisions4 As this innate body is strengthened, first it brings out exceeding acuity of one or more senses. The supernormal sharpness of smell is a topic in the celebrated Lotus Sutra (Saddharma-Pundarika) chapter XVIII on advantages of a religious preacher. Xon-tantric Buddhism speaks of six supernormal faculties (abhijiia), while tantric Buddhism adds more, for example, the eight siddhis.

The remarkable occult physiology of the tantric books is really based on their theories of this subtle body. This body is said to have 72,000 'veins' (nadi), of which three are the chief one* located in the position of the backbone. These three, the chief conduits of the 'winds', are differently named in the Hindu and Buddhist Tantras:

Hindu

Buddhist right

Pingala Rnsana

middle

Susumn.i

Avadhuti

left

Ida Lalana

Besides, the Buddhist T;:n:r:> uperimpose on those three ehanncl: four cakra -> •• • ii.i! bow four-fold analogies may be superimposed on the three-fold one- . However, ikw ar*

two systems, earlier and later. One primary group of Tour cakras, important for what is callcd the 'Stage of Completion' (sampanna-krama) and having affinities with Upanisadic teachings, corresponds to four of the Hindu system as follows: head neck heart navel

Hindu Ajna Visuddha Anahata Manipura

Buddhist Mahasukha Sambhoga Dhanna Nirmana

Here I may cite my article "Female Energy and Symbolism in the Buddhist Tantras" for observations stemming from Tson-kha-pa's commentary on the Guhyasamaja Explanatory Tantra Caturdevipariprcchd :

The primacy in this system of four cakras for physiological manipulation in ascetic practices may well go back to the old Upanisadic theories of the four stales of consciousness. The Brahmopanisad, one of the Sainnyasa Upanisads, later than the early Upanisads but preceding the Tantric literature as we now have it, tcachcs that the Purusa has those four states when dwelling in the four places, namely, waking state in the navel, sleep ( i.e. dream) in the neck, dreamless sleep in ihe heart, and the fourth, Turiya, in the head. In agreement, Tsori-kha-pa writes : 'When one has gone to sleep, there is both dream and absence of dream. At the time of deep sleep without dream the white and red elements of the bodhi- citla, which is the basis of mind, stay in the heart, so

mind is held in the heart. At the time of dreaming, those two elements stay in the neck, so mind is held in the neck. At the time when one is not sleeping, they stay at the navel, so mind is held there. When the male and female unite, those two stay in the head.

The later system of four cakras is correlated with the theory of four elements deified as goddesses, and is important for the practice during the 'Stage of Generation' (utpatti-krama). Following the indications of the Manimdld commentary on Nagarjuna's Paacakrama (PTT, Vol. 62, p. 178-2) and the Sarvarahasya-ndma-tantrardji, verses 37-39 (PTT, Vol. 5), the fire-disk at the throat (or neck) is shaped like a bow; the water-

disk at the heart is circular in shape; the wind-disk at the navel is triangular; and the earth-disk in the sacral place is square. These arc also the shapes of the four altars for rites of burnt offering (homa) aimed at certain mundane siddhis (sec niddna verse 15), and they arc also the shapes of the four continents of Puranic mythology (compare the printed geometrical forms in the edition of the Guhyasamaja, Chap. XV). The elements supply the names for these cakras (frequently mahendra for earth, and vfiruna for water). According to the Snags rim (Peking blockprint, 441a-5). jkha sbyor las/ /me hid gaii dan rlttn daft nil hlban chtn dan ni bzhin chuj /hkhor lor sems kyi kun spyod [>a\ I Urn dan nos dan bran hog hgrol zhes gsuns pas me steii dan rlun bsegs dan sa thad kar dan cliu hog lu hgroho /

It says in the Samputa : 'Fire, wind, earth (mahendra), and water, are each the cxccutors of consciousness in a (given) cakra, and move (respectively) upwards, at acute angles, forward, and downwards.' This means that the fire (vibration) moves upwards; the wind, at acute angles to the wave (tiryak); the earth, straight fonvard; and the water, downwards.

The earth disk is equivalent to the Hindu Mulddhdra-cakra, said to lie below the root of the sex organs and above the anus. The series is increased in the Hindu Tantras with Sahasrara at the crown of the head, where Buddhism places the Buddha's Ufnifa (sometimes said to be outside the body); and with Sva-dhisthana at the root of the penis, called in some Buddhist Tantras the 'tip of the gem' (*many-agra). Then we must take for granted that there are three worlds full of gods and demons. In the Cuhyasamajalanlra, Chap. IV, p. 17, there is the line alha vajradharah fasta Irilokas lu tridhi-tukah, on which Pradipoddyotana (,Mchan hgrel edition, FIT., Vol. 158, p. 38.5) explains triloka as being sa hog (pdlala), sa steii (bhumi). and mtho ris (svarga.); and explains Iridhdtuka as being the 'realm of desire' {kdmadhatu), etc. The correspondences can be tabulated as follows:

Old Vedic Hindu period Tibetan Possibly the words Buddhist three Dyaus Svarga sabla = mtho 'formless

ris ('superior realm (arupa

world') dhatu)

Antariksa Bhumi sa steri ('above 'realm of form

the earth') (rupa dhatu)

Prthivi Patala sa hog ('earth 'realm of desire'

and below') (kamadhatu)

The Vedic mantras of the three worlds are also employed in the Buddhist Tantras, as in this passage of Tsori-kha-pa's Snagsrim (f. 311b.4) : jbhur ni rtun gi dkyil hkhor la sogs pa hkhor daii bcas pa hi sa (iog go\bhuvah ni sa sten gi hjig rten nojsiah zhes pa ni mtho ris te srid rise mlhar thug pahoj.

Bhur is the underworld accompanied by the circles of the wind disk (vayu-mandala) and so forth. Bhuvah is the 'perishable receptacle' (loka) of 'above the earth'. Svah is the ultimate pinnacle of existence, the superior world.

The females or goddesses in terms of the three worlds are especially treated in the Sri-Cakrasamiara-tantra and its commentaries. How does one come in contact with any of those

gods or goddesses? Mircea Eliade (Yoga : Immortality and Freedom, p. 208) cites the proverb 'a non-god docs not honor a god' (nddevo devam arcayet). That means that one must awaken the senses of that particular realm and learn the rules. The child cannot make his way in the human world without human senses and without learning the human rules. Thus first one generates oneself into deity ('sclfgeneration' in Mkhas-grub rje's work). The last of these fundamentals is the topic of initiation (abhiffka) meant to confer power, explained as maturing the stream of consciousness. The power, including the permission to continue that tantric lineage, is conferred by the hierophant {vajracarya). The Pradipoddyotana on Chapter XVII (Mehan hgr<l, p. 157-4) contains this passage :

/ tathd caha / mahamahiiydnaratnanijasutre // bhasaian vajrapanih / uddiyanaparratr nifannahjsaridmS (a lajra-yanaSiksitan amantraydmdsaH {inula nikhilavajrayana-

sikfitah tathdgatani parinirvrlaiji na paiyatijSdsldram api tu vajrdcdryo vajraguiuli / so'ya rp iasta bhavatitij And it is also said in the MahamahdydnaratnardjasOtra: The Lord Vajrapani was seated on the mountain of Oddiyana, and addressed all the trainees of the Vajra-yana : "All you trainees in the Vajrayana, listen! When one does not see the Teacher, the Tathagata entered into Parinirvana, then the hierophant, the diamond guru, will serve as his teacher."

Various passages stress that one should look upon the hierophant as upon the Buddha, to disregard his faults and notice only his virtues, in that way, he is able to play the role of master for the disciple.

Initiations are conferred in mandalas and are accompanied by vows (samvara) and pledges (samaya). The 'Stage of Generation' has the five vidya initiations as described in Mkhas-grub rje's work. They are callcd the 'vidyd' because they are adversaries for the five forms of 'avidyd' (nescience), also because they are in reality conferred by the goddess consorts of the five Buddhas. Mkhas grub rjc points out that although

the 'preceptor' and the 'hierophant' lift up the flask (all five rites arc accompanied with 'sprinkling'), in fact the goddesses Locana and soon hold the flask and conduct the initiation. In the transition to the Stage of Completion, there is the hicro-phant's initiation. Then there are three initiations proper to the Stage of Completion, the Secret Initiation, the Insight Knowledge Initiation, and the 'Fourth'. The initiating goddess is sometimes called

the 'seal' <mudrd). The notes to Mkhas grub rje cite the verse: "The seal pledge is explaincdas solidifying the 'body made of mind' manomayakdya); because it solidifies all the body, it is callcd a 'seal' {mudrd)." The fact that in each instance the goddess is imagined as the initiator, or is the female element behind the sccncs, indicates the initiations as the step-wise progress in the solidification of the innate body of the tantras which non-tantric Buddhism calls the 'body made of mind', meaning the progress of that body to the prege-netic androgyne state and then to the Clear Light. D. Winds and mantras A fundamental of the Buddhist Tantras that deserves 70

special treatment is the practice of mantras and machinations with winds. Such practices arc very ancient in India, ccrtainly of Vedic character. The doctrine of life winds is first worked out in the old Upanisads. The basic five winds arc mentioned in Chdndogya Up., III. 13 and V. 19, in the order ptdna, vyana, apdna. samana, uddna. The winds arc the 'breaths' resulting from 'water', as in the well-known 'Three-fold development' discussion of the

Chdndogya; this is made clear in Brhaddranyaka Up., 1.5.3. The functions ascribed to these winds continued to be speculated upon, and so came into the Buddhist Tantras in the theory of breath manipulation through yoga practice. Also a theory of five subsidiary winds developed, clarified later in The Toga Upanisads; in the Buddhist Tantras these latter five are accorded the function of relating external sensory objects to the five sense organs, while the former five are attributed

various internal functions. When ten breaths (prdna) are mentioned in Brhaddranyaka Up., III. 9.4, Vedanlic commentarial tradition takes them to be the ten sensory and motor organs (jrlanakarmendriydni), thus explaining away the palpable reference to winds: but we can infer the real meaning to be that

those winds vivify the sensory and motor organs. In the latter Brhaddranyaka Up. passage, modern translators have rendered the verb rodayanli with causative force ('make someone lament'), thus requiring an unexpressed object. Agood Sanskrit grammar, such as the one by William Dwight Whitney, readily shows that the causative infix-aivj-does not necessarily confer causative force upon a Sanskrit verb. So my translation of the Sanskrit passage:

kalame rudra iti. daieme puruy brand h dlmaikadaiah: te yadasmal farirdn marlydd ulkrdmanli, atha rodayanli. tadyad rodayanli, lasmdd rudrd ili. 'What are the Rudras ?' 'These ten breaths in the person with the alman as the eleventh. When they depart from this mortal frame, they cry out : and because they cry out, they arc callcd Rudras.' In the Satapathabrahmana's celebrated account of the birth of Rudra (Eggeling's translation, SBE, Vol. XL1, pp. 157161) we read : 'bccausc he cried (rud) therefore he is Rudra.' The teaching that the winds make a sound as they depart is continued into the Buddhist Tantras, as in Tson-kha-pa's

commentary Bzhiszhus on the Guhyasamaja Explanatory Tantra Caturdt'iiiparifircchii (Collected Works, Lhasa, Vol. Ca, 13b-5,6): "The reality of mantra tone which each wind has, is not revealed to the 'child' bdla : it* form, that is, its self-cxistencc (si-abhava) or identity (<itmaka . is revealed to thc yogm" (/rlun dehi ran

gdaus snags kvi de Aid du byis pa la mi gsal ba rnal hbyor pa la

gsal bahi gzugs to/ran bzhin nam bdag Aid can/).

In the (iiih)nMiin<ljatantra tradition, the Vajramala Explanatory Tantra, chapter 48 t,PTT, Vol. 3, p. 221) holds that the phenomenal world is due to the two winds prdna and apdna identified with two mantra syllables A and HAM (aham. or egotism , which form the 'knot of the heart' :

VI nni srox »/ ilu i du biadj

/,/,• bzhin lit.n scl HAM du brjodl

I de giiis grig gyur likhoi ba stej

A is explained as the prana wind.

Likewise, apiina is said to be HAM

When those two unite, there is samsara (the cycle of phenomenal existence).

In the full system of human life, there are. as was said, five principal and five subsidiary winds, generically 'vaxu or 'prdna'. The five prim ipal winds have the respective natures of the five Buddhas and are associated with the five mantra- syllables and body-ra/.>"< a* follows:

Orn Vairo —vvana —all over th body, or head

Ah —Amitabha —udana —throat

Hum —Aksobln.i prana —heart

Sva —Ratnasambhava apana —sacral region

Ha —Ainoghasiddhi —samana —navel

The four winds, leaving om :-.i:na, arc held in basic time or ordinary life to breathe in and out cyclically through one or other -iostril or both. Hi ::<••• these four are prdndyama. This word d'> * not ordinal i:\ -ii_'iin the Buddhist Tantra, 'res-

traint 'if breath' but rather / > • a. in-breathing, and drama. out-bicathim;: • >r ' >. the pasAaye ofwinds through theorificcs, and aydma, the • • J ing mental component that 'rides on the wind'. The Pa-\ i/.rama. in i;s first krama. called Vajrajapa, cites the Vajramdla in regard to the ordinary outward passage of the winds:

19. Dakfindd vinirgato raSmir hutabhunmandalam ca tall Raklavarnam idam vyaktam padmandtho 'Ira devatd/l The ray leaving via the right nostril is the fire mandala. This distinguished one of red color (i.e. the udana wind) is the deity Padma-Lord (i.e. Amitabha).

20. Vamad vinirgato raSmir vdyumandalasamjiiitabl HaritaSyamasamkas'ab karmandlho 'Ira devalall The ray leaving via the left nostril is called 'wind mandala'. With a yellowish-green appearance (i.e. samana wind) it is the dcitv Karma-Lord (i.e. Amo-ghasiddhi).

21. Dvdbhydm vinirgato raSmih pitavarno mahadyutihj Mahendramandalam caitad ratiiandtho 'ha dcvatdll The ray leaving via both nostrils is the great radiance of yellow color—the earth mandala (i.e. apana wind) and this is the deity Ratna-Lord (i.e. Ratnasambhava).

22. Adho mandapracdras lu sitakiindendiisaninibliahl Mandala iji vdrunatji caitad vajrandtho 'Ira devoid// Moving slowly downwards (but also leaving via both nostrils) is the water mandala white like the Jasmine (i.e. the prana wind), and this is the deity Vajra-Lord (i.e. Aksobhva).

23. Sarvadehanugo vdyuh sarvaccftdpraiartakahl Voirocanasiabhaio 'sau mrtakayad vinikaretjj The wind that proceeds throughout the body and evolves all activity (i.e. the vyana wind) has the nature of Vairocana and departs only) from the dead body (with blue color).

Recitation of the wind in the Stage of Generation (nidana verse 12) means reciting according to the natural cycle of the winds. This recitation of winds is indicated, according to the Pradipoddyotana commentary, as the meaning of the verses 9-14 (omitting 13) in Chapter Six ('Documents' . Verse 9 deals with meditation on the tip of the nose of the face; at this stage one must take the passage of the winds on faith. Then verse 10 mentions an image of the Buddha, which is Vairocana. But as the Vairocana wind, vyana, docs not enter into the inbreathing and outbreaking, the diamond recitation intended by the verse is in fact Amitabha's fiery udana-wind. The text of Chapter Six interposes a 'Hum' before verse 11, hinting at the recitation

of Aksobhva's watery prana-wind. Verse 12 mentions a ratna-disk which enables the knower of the system to assign here the recitation of Ratnasambhava's earthy apana-wind. Then verse 14 involves recitation of Amoghasiddhi's wind and black samana-wind which is yellow green when passing out through the left nostril.

Then in Chapter Six, verses 15-18 state the advanced level of that recitation, as practiced in the Stage of Completion (nidana verse 241. In the latter stage, the yogin moves those winds from their usual location in basic time to extraordinary combinations in fruitional time, as I summarized from Tson-kha-pa's Rdor bzlas in "Female Energy...", p. 88: Om, the prana wind of the heart cakra, the udana wind of the neck cakra, and the bindu in the position of the ufnifa, is the thunderbolt of body at the Mahasukha-cakra of the forehead. Ah, the initial prana of the heart cakra, the apana wind of the sacral center, along with the udana of the neck center, is the thunderbolt of speech at the neck cakra. Hum, the apana

wind of the sacral center, the udana wind of the neck center, and the pervasive prana (i.e. vyana) normally in the forehead, is the thunderbolt of mind at the nave of the heart lotus. And the winds mixed that way dissolve the knots (mdud) of those centers. Accordingly, in fruitional time, the mantras have been reduced from five to three. This is meant to achieve three photism experiences callcd 'light', 'spread of light', and 'culmination of light'. The further reduction from three to one corresponds to the experience of the Clear Light which is free from the three. Also, the Stage of Completion increases to three the noses meant by 'tip of nose', a teaching found in the Vajramdla, summarized in Tson-kha-pa, "Dkah gnad", Lhasa collected works, Vol. Ca, 8a-2 :

The three 'tips of nose' (nasagra) are 1. the 'tip of nose* of the sacral place; 2. 'tip of nose'of the face' ; 3. 'tip of nose' of the heart (sna rtse gsum ni/gsan bahi sna rtse, gdori gi sna rtse, sfiiri gi sna rtse). Idem: The three 'drops' (bindu) are 1. drop'of substance, 2. 'drop'of light, 3. 'drop' of mantra (thig le gsum ni/rdzas kyi thig Ie, Ijod kyi thig le, shags kyi thig le), Ibid., f. 8a-6: The lustful person contemplates the 'substance drop' on the 'tip-of-

nose' at the sacral placc; the hating person, the'mantra drop' on the 'tip-of-nosc' of the heart; the deluded person, the 'drop of light' on the 'tip of nose' of the face (/hdod chags can gjis gsai: bahi sua riser rdzas kyi Ihig le dan 11 zht sdaA can gyis sfliii gi sna riser snags kyi Ihig le dan II gli mug can gj-is gdoii gi sna riser hod kyi ihig le bsgom par b.tad ciri /)

See in this connection the explanation of pranayama among the six members of yoga in the Pradipoddyotana commentary ('Documents", where the contemplation of the three 'noses' seems not to go with three different persons but with the successive contemplation of a single person. The relation between prdna and mantra is brought out in the discussion about the 'reality' (taltva) of the mantra. Thus Paiicakrama. 1st krama, verse 66; Sri Laksmi, Vol . 63. p. 21-5 and 22-1 :

mantralatli-am idam vyaktam vagvajrasya prasadhanamj jUSnatrayaprabhedena ciltamalre niyojayel // This clear reality of mantra as the accomplishment of the speech diamond, is applied to 'Mind Only' by the variety of three gnoses. Sri Laksmi explains that mantra has two aspccts, by distinction of cause and effect. "The cause is prdna, the cffcct is mantra -. and their reality is the 'reality of mantra' " 'de la rgyu ni srog rlun dan / hbras bu ni snags ste/de dag gi de iiid ni snags kvi dc Aid de/ . The 'three gnoses' mean the three lights.

But then, do mantras have meaning ? See the discussion in The Calcutta Review, 137-1 (Oct. 1955 , a portion of the serial translation by J. V. Bhattacharyya of the Xydyamaiijari. here (pp. 7-13 discussing the validity of mantras. The opponents hold that the mantras do not convey meaning p. 8 : "A mantra renders its assistance to a Vcdic rite only by its recitation." Among their illustrations is the mantra. "Hear, oh slabs of stone !" (srnola grdvdnah . They say pp. 8-9 "This meaning is absurd since unconscious slabs of stone arc never employed to listen to something." The author of the Xydya-maiijari, when replying to their arguments, says of this particular example (p. 12) : "Srnota gravanah is.. a miraculous act by the influence of which slabs of stone can even hear." His chief answer is that the opponents have not taken .. .pains

to find out the meaning. In conclusion he states (p. 13) : "Mantras, revealing their senses, render assistance to a sacrificial rite. But they do not help a rite by their mere recitation like the muttering of a mantra........." The viewpoint of the Nydyama:)jari is quite consistent with that of the Buddhist Tantras, where the mantras do indeed have meaning. For example, one need only consult the Tanjur commentaries on the Vajra-viddrana-ndma-dharani. to learn that cach one of the mantra expressions is given its

explanation in terms of functions of the various deities involved. The Buddhist Tantra also insists that mere muttering of the mantra is useless, since one must simultaneously make a mudrd and concentrate the mind accordingly. And it also agrees when the Buddhist Tantra speaks of success in the incantation as the state when the mantra seems to pronounce itself, thus assuming the role of a deity's body (mantra-miirti . An interesting example of this is in the last chapter of the Sri Paramadya tantra (PTT, Vol. 5, p. 171-5'. understood with the help of Anandagarbha's commentary (PTT, Vol. 73, p. 127-5). The Tantra states: "How is the Bhagavat the master of the deeds of "diamond pride' ? Bccausc the best mudrd belongs to the great lord (maheivara) who has the best of great siddhis and she greatly praises the diamond lord, the one who says

'I am the master of diamond pride' is tlx- Bhagavat. the supreme primordial person.'" de la rdo rje bsftems byahi bdag po bcom ldan hdas ci liar yin zhe na // kun mchog duos grub chen po vi ! dbah phyug chcn po phvag rgyahi mchog // rdo rjc dbah phyug chcr bstod pas // rdo rjc bshems pahi bdag po bdag ces bya ba ni bcom ldan lidas mchog dan pohi skyes buho /) .

The idea here, as gleaned from Anandagarbha's comments, is that 'diamond pride' is the name of a goddess and she is the best mudrd. Since she praises the Bhagavat, he is her master (pati). This alludes to the state when the mudrd coalesces with the mantra to reveal i - sense as the Xydyania^jari would say : and since its sense is'diamond pride' (vajragar; a the mind united with that mudrd can be proud. She praises without any prompting :t he

incantation sounds by itself. She has her own deeds or functions. However, some Western scholars have quite missed the point of how mantras acquire meaning. Take ti e celebrated mantra of the Buddhist Bodhisattva Lord Avalokiie vara, Orp manipadmc hum. Scholars have ascribed this and that meaning

to it; for example, "Om, the jewel in the lotus, hum." The implication of such an explanation is that the mantra has a meaning independent of the recitation, which is denied both by the Hindu Nyayamailjari and the Buddhist Tantras. When one goes into this cult of Avalokitcs vara, he finds out readily that this is called the six-syllabled formula. The six syllables are recited in the six times of day and night, along with fasting and correlated with

gestures (mudra), and the imagined six destinies of gods, men, etc. as associated with six colors. The meaning is the six Buddhas corresponding respectively to the syllables. By continual application to the cult with proper recitation of the six syllables in a correlation of body, speech, and mind, the yogin experts to identify himself with the Lord Ava-lokitegvara who looks with compassion at the beings in the six destinies. Gradually the meaning is evoked by the recitation. While such a translation as "Om, the jewel in the lotus, hum" does not convey any intelligence of the cult; nevertheless, if one

insists on a translation anyway in such form, it is proper to translate the 'mani padmc' portion as "jewel in the lotus" because one would understand mani as the Middle Indie form equal to Sanskrit manilh), the nominative. In terms of mantra construction, because the initial and final syllables arc Om and

Hum, the middle portion 'mani padmc' isequivalcnl to thcsyllablc Ah, for these arc the three heart syllables of the Buddhas corresponding to Body, Speech, and Mind, respectively Vairocana, Amitabha, and Aksobhya. Accordingly, the middle portion stands for the Buddha Amitabha in the heaven Sukhavati.

The gods arc literally expressed into manifestation: that is, they are called into phenomenal forms by mantra. In the Anuttarayoga-tamra cult, the syllables E-VA M serve for this expression. 'Evam' i Thus) is the first word in the Buddhist scriptures, which normally begin "Thus by me it was heard" (evam maya srulam). Mchan hgrel, PTT, Vol. 158, p. 13-3, states : "The syllabic E is like a mother. Therefore, the 'insight' (prajiia) syllabic (E) is symbolized as the sixteen vowels (svara). Va is like a father. The 'seminal drop' (bindu, Ihig le, ip) of Vam makes manifest the vowels. Hence the means' (upaya) syllabic (Vam ] is symbolized as the thirty-three consonants (vyaiijana). Through their union arises, like sons, the

host of words. Thus E is the womb (alaya, kun gzhi) and Vam the progenitor, of pravacana (the Buddhist scripture)." The bindu is also called in this literature the bodhicitta (mind of enlightenment)

The world of light

In the article "Notes on the Sanskrit term Jnana" I first tried to correlate the Guhyasamaja tradition of four lights (three light stages leading to or emerging from the Clear Light) with other systems of thought. Already it was apparent to me that the theory involved a reinterpretation of the old Buddhist formula of Dependent Origination (pratitya-samutpada). With the researches of the present work behind me it is easier to detect the Upanisadic precursors of this theory (it would be hazardous to try to trace it back to the Rg-veda).

Perhaps the most discussed Upanisadic passage is the Chdndogya Upanifad from VI.2 to VI.6. This teaches a development order of 1. heat, becoming speech; 2. water, becoming breath; 3. food, becoming mind. By their respective colors of red, white, and black, they were later (Hindu period) identified with the three gunas (employed extensively in the Buddhist Tantras), to wit: rajas (activity, passion), sattva (buoyancy, clarity), tamas (immobility, darkness), although the guna

applicability to the Chandogya text has been questioned. The Brhaddranyaka Upanifad 1.5 portrays Prajapati's production of the world as food for himself; and this suggestion of'food' as the first produced is consistent with 1.5.3: "Mind, speech, breath, these he made for himself" (tnano vacant pranam, tany atmane kuruta), since we learn from the Chdndogya that 'food'becomes 'mind'. The Brhaddranyaka order is consistent with a tantric interpretation of

Buddhist Dependent Origination, with my understanding of the Yardhopanisad, and with the Guhvasamaja-V nidana doctrine of three lights or three gnoses (jiidnatraya). The Varahopani.-ad is translated by T. R. Srinivasa Ayyangar and edited by G. Srinivasa Murti in The Toga Upanisads. In the I 'ataha we icad: "For says the Sruti, 'These are the five essential features, viz., Asti there is),Bhati (there shines forth), Preyas (whatever pleases), Rupa (form > and Kaman (name). The first three are of the form of the Brahman. The two there-

after are the characteristics of the phenomenal world.' " If we rearrange the order of the Chdndogya terms and employ these other sources, a tabular comparison can be made as shown in Table I.

i. THE WORLD OF LIGHT : BRAHMANICAL & BUDDHIST Brahmanism

Old terminology of Chdndogya Up. Later terminology of Vardha Up.

1. Black Food "It is" (asti) (krsna-anna)

2. Red Heat "It shines forth" (rohita-tejas) (bhati)

3. White Water Whatever pleases(£ukla-apas) (prcyas)

4. Fire, Sun, Moon, 4, 5. Name and Form

Lightning

Buddhism

Old terminology of Later tantric terminology

Dependent Origination

1. Nescience Culmination-of-Light (avidya) S (alokopalabdhi)

2. Motivations Sprcad-of-light (sarnskara) (alokabhasa)

3. Perceptions Light (aloka) (vijfiana)

4. Namc-and-Form Phenomenal World (nama-rupa)

Moreover, the relation of the tantric three lights to the first three members of Dependent Origination is plainly stated by Mchan hgrtl on Pradipoddyotana (Chapter III) in PTT, Vol. 158, p. 38-1. The Pradipoddyotana quotes the Samdhirydkarana's remark, 'said to be the doctrinc of Dependent Origination' (rten cin hbrtl l/byu« chos su grags), to which Mchan ligrrl adds, 'arising from the wind and mind only of the Clear Light' (hod gsal gyi rluft stms isam las skyes pahi).

Maryla Falk wrote a book entitled Noma Rupa and Dharma-Rupa. It is undeniable that she hit upon the basic division by appreciating the significance of the research by the Gcigcrs (p. 71, n.):

One of the principal results of the long and detailed inquiry made by Mrs. M. Geigcr and Prof. W. Geiger into the use of the term dhamma in the Pali Canon (Ptili Dhamma, vornehmlich in der kannnisehen Literatur, Abh. de Bayer. Ak. d. VViss., Philos.-philol. u. hist. Kl., XXXI, 1. Munich 1921) is the conclusion that 'the concept dhamma takes in Buddhism the place of the brahman of older Vedanta' (p. 77). We have shown above that in Upanishadic thought, ever since its Vedic beginnings, the equivalence of both terms reflects the sameness of the entity they designate. In short, the equivalence of Pali dhamma and the old Indian term brahman leads to the equivalence Dharma-rupa =- Brahma-rupa. This Dharma-rupa is therefore the pre-genetic world, anterior to the phenomenal world denoted by Xama-rupa. The Satapatha-brahmana (Eggeling's translation as quoted by Surendranath Dasgupta, A History of Indian Philosophy, I, p. 20) has the celebrated passage:

Then the Brahman itself went up to the sphere beyond. Having gone up to the sphere beyond, it considered, 'How can I descend again into these worlds ?' It then descended again by means of these two, Form and Name. Whatever has a name, that is name; and that again which has no name and which one knows by its form, 'this is (of a certain) form,' that is form: as far as there are Form and Name so far, indeed, extends this (universe). These indeed are the two great forces of Brahman; and, verily, he who knows these two great forces of Brahman becomes himself a great force.

The equivalent statement involving the equation Dharma = Brahman, and taking into account the Paiicakrama list of eighty prakrtis in three sets (seven, forty, and thirty-three), each set constituting momentary dark spots obscuring three light realms, also called the triple vijnana, can be expressed by Vijftana (the (Latkdvatara's 'body of the Tathagata') descending into the womb by means of namc-and-form, the fourth member of Dependent Origination. So also, when Gautama was meditating under the tree of Enlightenment, and according to the tradition found out the formula of Dependent Origination by working backwards from Old Age and Death, in each case

thinking, 'What is the indispensable condition for this to arise?', he proceeded this way : That No. 11 'birth' is the indispensable condition for No. 12 'old age and death, and the whole mass of suffering'; and for No. 11 'birth'—No. 10'gestation' (bhava); for the latter, No. 9 'indulgence' (upadana ; for

the latter, No. 8 'craving' (trfna); for the latter, No. 7 'feelings' (vedana > (and 'ideas', samjha); for the latter, No. 6, 'sensory contact' [sparfa); for the latter, No. 5 'six sense bases' (faddyatana : for the latter, No. 4, 'name-and-form' (ndma-a.nd-rupa . And then, as we can see from the foregoing, in order for Gautama to answer the question 'What is the indispensable condition for nanic-and-form to arise ?' he had to go to the sphere beyond, himself

the Brahman, hence obtaining the Dharma-kaya. In this pre-genetic sphere, Gautama decided that 4. 'name-and-form' has 3. 'perception' (vijiidna) as its indispensable condition; the latter, No. 2 'motivations' (samskara)-. and the latter, No. 1 'nescience' (avidyd). And—the Guhyasamaja tradition suggests— this is his way of stating in psychological terms, the 'white water', 'red heat', and 'black food' of the Chdndogya Up. vision, the atomic triad of the superior realm.

Since the correlation of the supramundane light stages of the Guhyasamaja commcntarial tradition is associated with the first members of Dependent Origination, and with the developmental order of the Brhaddranyaka Upani>ad (rather than with the Chdndogya order), it follows that if we arc to acknowledge a feasibility that the formula of Dependent Origination is based on the Upanisads, we have to further admit that the Brhaddran-yaka Up. is the one with which the Buddhist formula has the most affinity.

Even if we accept that these three light stages may be traceable to such ancient sources as the old Upanisads, it must still be acknowledged that the theory of 80 prakrtis superimposed on the three lights is a development after the rise of the Buddhist Tantras. The Pailcakrama commentary Monitndld cited under nidana verse 6 explicitly mentions that the thirty-three female natures are generated by the wind in the left channel, the forty male natures by the wind in the right channcl. and the seven neuter natures by the wind in the middle. This method of allotting mental states to three groups sc ems to be a development of the assignment of qualities to the three gunas as wc find

in the BhagavadgitS, Chapter 14, but of course in the present form a number of centuries after this Hindu classic. In contrast, as John Woodroffe, Introduction to Tantra Shastra, pp. 49, ff., points out, there are six vrtti associated with the Svadhisthana-cakra, ten vrtti with the Manipura, twelve vrtti with the Ana-hata, twelve vrtti with the Viguddha, sixteen kala with the Sahasrara, four ananda with the Muladhara, with no sets mentioned for the Ajfta-cakra. Thus, this kind of Hindu tantra assigns vrttis to cakras rather than to the three nadi; and very few of the vrttis can be identified with the prakrtis.

As I perused the various commentaries on the Paiicakrama available in the Tibetan Tanjur, I tried to find some explanation for the numbers 'thirty-three' etc., and any suggestions of internal grouping within the three sets of natures, but to little avail. However, the Pancakrama commentary called Manimala attempts to rationalize the eighty prakrtis in terms of the Buddhist Abhidharma set of fifty-one caitasikadharmas ('derivative mentals'), so in PTT, Vol.

62, pp. 186-187. I studied these pages with the help of the collaborated article by Dr. P. Cordier and L. de La Vallee Poussin, "Lcs soixantc-quinze et les cent dharmas." For example, when this commentary analyses the set of thirty-three prakrtis (sec the list under nidana verse I) it includes nos. 1-3, three degrees of aversion, under kaukrtya ('regret'); 4-5 (thinking) future and past, under vitarka and vicara ('searching state of mind'and 'deciding state of mind')— —kaukrtya, vitarka, and vicara being among the list of aniyata-bhumikas ('indeterminate caitasikas'). It includes 11-13,

thrcc«degrees of fear, under the three virtuous roots (kuSalamCla)— non-clinging i alobha), non-hating (advefa), and non-delusion (amoha), which are in the list of ku<alamahdbhumikas (mental elements present in every good conception); and so on. The attempt is obviously forced, but is significant for showing this author's belief that the dharmas arc identical with the prakrtis. This is a common theory that the conscious mind does not create a thought, but that the thought (here a dharma or a prakrti) flows into the mind. Where docs the thought come from ? The Guhyasamaja system holds that the thought comes from one other of three light realms. In terms of 'channels' (nadi), the archetypal world is callcd 'left', 'right', and 'middle'. A consistent theory was earlier stated in the Bhagavadgita (Chap.

X, 4-5): ". . the different states of being proceed from me alone." Moreover, there is a curious resemblance between the thirty-three female prakrtis and the five sthayi-bhaias as discussed by Edward C. Dimock, Jr., The Place of the Hidden Moon, and earlier in his article "Doctrine and Practice Among the Vai-navas of Bengal." There are informative annotations concerning them in Saraswati Goswami Thakur, Shri Brahma-Sun.i.ltd. pp. 10-3, 159-62, which

represents the five as devotion of different individuals. The only source in the English language to my notice which presents these five in the form of stages of a single person to union with the LordKi-na. is Y. Jagannatham, Divine Love and Amorous Sentiment, a modern pamphlet picked up at Jayavclu's in Madras. When I studied these passages and added the advice of Mr. Kirpal Singh N'arang about the five stages of the Sikhs (stated in his very words below on the occasion of his Madison, Wisconsin visit on April 18, 1966, it occurred to me that the thirty-three prakrtis of female consciousness to be

presented under nidana verse no.l arc roughly in five groups the fleeting moments of consciousness in the five stages of the devotee's 'female' soul becoming a Gopi (cow-girl) in union with the Lord. I give here in outline my merely ten- tative solution, observing that should it prove applicable, this would indeed provide a most important link between the Pafica-krama tradition and the early Vaisnava Sahajiya cult.

Sthayi-bhava (or Rasa) Sikh Stages Female Prakrtis

1. Santa, pacification of longing for the external world

2. Dasya, servicc to the Lord

Vairagya ('aversion')

Doing what is pleasing to the Lord

Sakhya, being a friend to the Lord

Vatsalya, the Lord as a child

Fear and Love

Knowing the

Lord's Will

Madhurya or <rrigara, Union the Lord Krsna as a lover

1-3. degrees of aversion

4-9. thinking of future and past, sorrow and calmness

10-22. vikalpa,

fear, down to feelings

23-30, intuition, down to affection

31-33. worry, collccting, and jealousy

In a comparable way, I noticed that the forty prakrtis listed under nidana verse no. 2 seem to be the very characteristics attributed to the Lord Krsna in his various exploits, ranging from the Child Krsna to the Divine Lover, and that the list seems easily to fall into five groups. Perhaps the forty prakrtis of maleconsciousnes* derive from a Vaisnava prototype.

The only way that occurs to me to reconcile the division of the eighty prakrtis into three groups, with what seems to me to be an obvious division of the male and female ones into five groups, is to associate them with the right and left in five cakras starting with no. 1 at the base of the spine, no. 2 at the navel, and moving upward to union in the djiid-cakra or mahasukha-cakra. Admittedly, I have found no textual passage to support this theory.

A. Texts, commentators, and history

The Guhyasamaja literature falls into two distinct groups— the revealed texts in the Tibetan Kanjur and the excgetical literature in the Tibetan Tanjur. In A Complete Catalogue of the Tibetan Buddhist Canons (Tohoku catalog), the Kanjur works have numbers 442-447 (and disputed works 448-453), the Tanjur works 1784-1917 (cf. Alex Wayman, "Analysis of the Tantric Section of the Kanjur Correlated to Tanjur Exegesis," p. 121).

The chief revealed works in the Tibetan language with catalog titles arc :

No. 442. Guhyasamaja mulatantra : Sanatathagatakaya-vakcittarahasya-guhyasamdja-ndma-mahdkalpardja. Chaps. 1-17 of the Sanskrit text. No. 443. Guhyasamaja uttaratantra : Sanskrit text. Chap. 18 of the No. 444. Guhyasamaja-vyakhyatantra karana-nama-tantra. Sandhivyd- No. 445. Guhyasamaja-vyakhyatantra : Srivajramdlabhi-dhanamahayogatanlra-sanatantrahrdayarahasyavi-bhanga-ndma. No. 446. Guhyasamaja-vyakhyatantra prccha. Caturdevipari- No. 447. Guhyasamaja-vyakhyatantra I'ajrajiidna-

samuccaya-nama-tantra (However, from the Tibetan translation one would expect *Jilanavajra-). Tsori-kha-pa writes in his commentary on the Pafuakrama callcd Gsal bahi sgron me (Vol. 158, p. 175-5) : "Five Explanatory Tantras (vydkhydtantra) have been specifically mentioned by the 'noble father and sons' (i.e. the tantric Nagarjuna as 'father' and the tantrics Aryadeva and Candrakirti as 'sons'), that is, Caturdevipariprccha, Sandhivydkarana, and Vajramdld arc stated to be Explanatory Tantras in the Paiicakrama; VajrajAdnasamuccaya is also said to be an Explanatory Tantra in the Caryamddpaka-pradipa; and while the first two syllables of the niddna (i.e.

E-VAM) are being explained in the Pradipoddyotana, the Devendrapariprccha is specifically mentioned as the source;.. the Explanatory Tanira Devendrapariprcchd was not translated (into Tibetan)." That passage in Tibetan : / hdus pahi b<ad rgyud du hphags pa yab sras kyis dnos su gsuns pa na lna ste / rim lna las lha mo bzhis zhus dan / dgons pa luh ston pa dan / rdo rje hphren ba b<ad rgyud du gsuns la / spyod bsdus las ye ses rdo rje kun las btus kyan bsad rgyud du gsuns Sin / sgron gsal las glen gzhihi yi ge dan po gnis hchad pa na lhahi dbah pos zhus pahi khuns dnos su smos §in... /lhahi dbah pos zhus pa bsad rgyud du gsuhs te hdi ma hgyur ro / . The reason the Tibetan tradition accepted the Dtvendrapariprcchd as an Explanatory Tantra is that immediately after the quotation from that work by title 'reproduced in the materials for nidana verses

Evam maya..), Candrakirti continued with a verse citation (reproduced in section B, next) which he introduced by the remark (Pradipoddyotana MSA: / mayetyadi vajrapadanam apy artho vyakhyatantrad avataryatc / "One can understand from the Explanatory Tantra the meaning of the diamond words 'maya' etc." Tson-kha-pa in his Mchan hgrel (p. 14-1) on the Pradipoddyotana mentions, "Skal-ldan-grags-pa examined the Vajramala carefully and could not find this therein." The thrust of the decision lies in the fact that the Vajramdta presents the forty nidana verses in its chapter 59. Its brief chapter 58 is

devoted to a treatment of the two syllables E-vam. 11 is precisely the Vajramala which should have had, but lacked the cited verses. Candrakirti preceded his citation of the forty verses by citation of verses about the nidana sentence but used other sources, first the named Dcirndrapariprccha. and then an unnamed work he calls an 'Explanatory Tantra'. The Tibetans (Tson-kha-pa, in any case) decided that Candrakirti had treated the Devcndrapariprcchd with the authority ordinarily accorded an Explanatory Tantra. and identified that work accordingly. But that Tantra had not itself been translated; the Pradipoddyo-tana passage apparently is the full extant portion of Sanskrit of this work the Subhafita-samgraha, Part II. pp. 32-3, quotes the Devcndrapariprcchd-tanha by lines contained within the Pradi-poddyotana citation).

The Vajrajnana also has a difficulty of literary history. It is a curious feature of Candrakirti's Pradipoddyotana that his

classifying terminology used throughout this commentary on the Guhyasamajatantra, namely the 'Seven Ornaments' (sapid-lamkdra), is ascribed several times near the outset of his work to an Explanatory Tantra which he does not name, but which is none other than the Vajrajfianasamuccaya; and so Tson-kha-pa in turn cannot specify the Pradipoddyotana for containing the name of this Explanatory Tantra. This silence regarding the title ofthe work from which he drew the material he popularized may mean that Candrakirti had a hand in composing the Vajrajnanasamuccaya, the latter portion of it, or the expanded version (Toh. 450;, to justify his commentarial position, as has been suggested by Yukei Matsunaga in his article, "A Doubt to Authority of the Guhyasamaja-Akhyana-tantras."

Another mystery of Explanatory Tantras occurs in Catidi akirti's Pradipoddyotana at the very end of chapter Four: / yathoktani bhagavatd vydkhydtantre j sarvdngabhavandtitam kalpanakalpavarjitam / mStrabindusamdtitam elan mandalam uttamam // As was said by the Bhagavat in the Explanatory Tantra: Transcending the contemplation of all portions (i.e. color and shape), free from both imagination and lack of imagination, transcending the upper sign and its bindu ', that is the supreme mandala.

Tsoh-kha-pa in his Mchan hgrel (p. 41) mentions that an almost identical verse is found in the Candraguhyatilaka (another quotation from this work in the Pradipoddyotana is reproduced in the initiation remarks in the section 'The two stages, initiations, and the clear light'; and Aryadeva appeals to this Tantra for the expression '100 lineages'). The only difference is where in the verse the compound mdtrdbindu is translated in Candrakirti's work as gug

skytd thig le, the Candraguhyatilaka Tibetan version has the words hdren dan tshig ('guide and letter'). Since the expression mdlrabindu is difficult to interpret, it is possible that it is the original for those Tibetan words, with hdren -- bindu, and tshig - matrd. Tson-kha-pa left the matter open; lie appears not to accept the evidence of one similar verse as final proof that Candrakirti had this Tantra in mind. However, it so happens that this same verse is cited by Indrabhuti in his Jiidna-liddhi (GOS ed., p. 83), and attributed to a chapter thirteen. On the preceding page he has cited the Adoayasamatdvijaya, and

his immediately succeeding quotation from a chapter nine, as well as that citation of chapter thirteen are presumably from that Tantra. According to George Rocrich, The Blue Annals, Part Two, p. 417, Bu-ston considered the Advayasamatavijaya to be an Explanatory Tantra of the Guhyasamajatantra; he translated a version of that work in 22 chapters that was incomplete in the middle. Possibly this is the reason that Tsori-kha-pa apparently ignores this work. Several centuries after his time, the Chinese version of this Tantra was used to fill out the missing portion of Bu-ston's translation, accounting for the present version in the Tibetan Kanjur. But if Bu-ston was serious about this Advaya-samatavijaya as an Explanatory Tantra, I can find no confirmation of this in his own Pradipoddyotana commentary in Collected Works (Part 9), where he freely cites the Sandhivyakaraiut (in an older translation preceding the one now officially in the Kanjur), the Vajramala, the Vajrahrdayalamkara, Yoga-tantras (on which he was the great authority), Aryadeva's various works, and other works, but not, as far as I could notice, the Advayasamatavijaya.

Again, in his Pradipoddyotana on chapter XIV, Candra-kirti quotes from an unnamed Vyakhya-tantra an interesting prose passage with Vajrapani as interlocutor (included in this work under 'Van' Finally, having mystified sufficiently the 'Explanatory Tantras,' Candrakirti in his commentary on Chapter XVII cites the 'Mula-tantra', which Tson-kha-pa identifies as the Mula-tantra of the Yoga-tantra, namely the Tattvasamgraha (cf. the passage in the

treatment of initiation). According to The Blue Annals, Book VII ('The Preaching of the Tantras'), there was a distinction of'Outer' Yoga-tantra and 'Inner'Yoga-tantra, with the 'inner' variety becoming separately called 'Anuttarayoga-tantra'. One can therefore understand Candrakirti's citation as indicating his adherence to this terminology, since the Tattvasamgraha is the mula-tantra of the'outer' Yoga-tantra. Indeed, there is much in common between the Yoga-tantra (such works as the Tattvasamgraha, the Mayajala, Sarvarahasya-tantra, and Sri Paramiidya) and the 'Father' class of Anuttarayoga-tantra. Both classes of Tantra use the terminology of 'three samadhis', clarified in our Introduction III. C., although there are differences in definitions.