Śākyamuni Buddha Mantra
Śākyamuni is a name for the nirmana-kāya aspect of the Buddha, and is therefore considered by Buddhists to be synonymous with the historical Buddha. In early texts the Buddha is most often referred to as Bhagavat or "the Blessed One", or as Gautama (Pāli Gotama) his clan name. He refers to himself as tathāgata or sugata. We refer to him as "the Buddha". Buddha is the past-participle of the verb budh ('to awaken') and thus means 'awakened'.
It is said that the historical Buddha grew up in a life of luxury but after seeing that everyone would grow old, become ill, and die, he abandoned his home and joined a group of ascetics seeking the way beyond death. Subsequently he abandoned severe asceticism as well and pursued a middle way between hedonism and asecticism that enabled him to make a decisive breakthrough known as bodhi, awakening, usually translated as enlightenment. He spent the rest of his life teaching others how they could also awaken.
Seed Syllables
The letter a is the source of all the other letters, the source of all mantras.
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| 'a' in Siddhaṃ | a in Tibetan (Uchen) |
