The Bell and the Sound Symbols of Dharma
"The world is sound. Immediately the question arises: What kind of sound?"
— Berendt, p. 19.
Just after the Buddha Śākyamuni attained Enlightenment on the Vajra Seat (Vajrāsana) beneath the Awakening Tree, He was hesitant to speak, certain that He would not be understood. He was even thinking to live out the rest of His days in a lonely forest retreat. The gods Brahma, famous for his melodious speech, and Indra, famous for his power, came to convince Him that it would be worth the effort to begin teaching His insights in the form of the Dharma. The Wheel is one common symbol of the Dharma, since the Buddha is said to have ‘set the Wheel of the Dharma in motion.’ As a symbol of the same thing, Indra presented to the Enlightened One a Conch shell.
The sūtras, when they describe the Buddha’s first acts of teaching, prefer sound metaphors (or couldn’t we in fact call them auditory symbols?) that emphasize a pealing or booming quality, sounds that are clearly identifiable and sustained and that carry for a long distance. Such metaphors as the Conch, the Large Drum, Melodious Brahma Voice, the Cymbal, the Lion’s Roar and the cry of the Kalapinka Bird are common in many sūtras.[[[1]]] Less common is the Thunder, and later on we even find the cry of the Cuckoo Bird as a symbol of Buddha Word. These sounds are unified by their startling quality, communicating not only the Buddha’s act of vocalization as a kind of ‘wakeup call’ to greater awareness, but also the revolutionary nature of His revelation which, in His time, seemed to be coming right out of the blue...
In a time when Indian religious teachers were emphasizing the ultimacy of the Self or Atman, His revelation announced to the world that there is no such thing. In other words, these metaphors (they were never simply metaphors) served as symbols not only of the quality of the Buddha’s voice, but of the content of His message, with deep sounds to correspond to His depth of insight. But there is still one further step to the symbolism that might be a little difficult to follow. It is nevertheless essential for a fuller understanding of these symbols. Since the Buddha’s expression of the Dharma tells us the way things are, the ‘things,’ i.e., the elements of apparent existence as Buddhistically conceived, are also called dharmas.[2] Hence, our sonorous symbols of Buddha Word are, besides being identified with the Buddhist scriptures which preserve His Word, equally identified with the world of phenomena.
The Bell as such (Ghaṇṭa in Sanskrit and Dril-bu in Tibetan[3]) is not listed among these metaphors of Dharma in the Mahāyāna Sūtras we have consulted. Bells, in the plural, appear there rather as a meritorious offering which came to form a permanent fixture of the Buddhist reliquaries called Stūpas. These bells, probably rather small ones equipped with cloth hangings attached to their clappers that made them ring when the wind blew, were evidently hung in strings attached to Stūpas. Even without being explicitly identified with the Dharmas (scriptural or phenomenal) in the Mahāyāna sūtras as far as we know at present,[4] the brief explanations of the symbolisms of the Bell in its entirety and in its parts all identify the Bell as the Transcendent Insight Sūtra, as well as the Voidness of all phenomena which is the main message of that Sūtra. The head of Transcendent Insight even looks out at us from the center of the Bell’s handle.[5] Tsong-kha-pa, in his most famous work on the stages of the tantric Path, directly states, “The Bell’s sound symbolizes the proclamation of the masses of Dharma.”[6]
And Dragpa Gyeltsen says on the symbolism of the Bell in its entirety: “Its empty interior means Voidness, the main point of the Transcendent Insight [[[Sūtra]]]. The center [of the Bell] is the reality of Full Knowledge of awareness. Its sound indicates Voidness.”
Following closely Dragpa Gyeltsen’s brief explanations of the individual parts of the Bell, we start with the handle. The handle is composed of (in descending order) [[[1]]] a half-Vajra, [2] a Lotus (or Crown?), [3] a face, and [4] a vase of plenty. Although less common, some Bell handles incorporate a ring, below the face, which seems not to have any special symbolism, but serves the utilitarian purpose of a thumb-ring to keep a better grasp.[7] This ring I think to be more common in Newar Buddhist examples. About the half-Vajra, Dragpa Gyeltsen says,
“As for the Vajra, its use as a decorative covering is a symbol of Insight being ornamented by Method.”
Like the prongs of the complete Vajra, the prongs of the half-Vajra are also supposed to be supported by a lunar disk resting on a Lotus, although the Lotus is not always clearly distinguishable in every example, frequently looking more like a crown for the face below.[9] The face is one element which is clearly present in nearly every example of the Tibetan Bell (if they have any designs on them at all) and, in nearly every explanation known to us,[10] this face is identified as the face of Insight or Transcendent Insight, sometimes simply as the Mother (Yum), while some authorities call it the face of Dharma[11] (I would say the latter is, given our earlier discussion, entirely apt, even if not directly supported in our particular Tibetan-language sources).
