Buddhist Mantras

As Buddhism travelled to the East, so did its languages. Sanskrit, and even some texts in Prakrits like Gāndhārī gradually found their way into China. But these sacred texts did not contain mere narratives—they also had mantras—potent formulae with soteriological, ritualistic and even magical significance. There was a problem, however. The argument for the necessity of a mantra’s exactitude had been inherited from the ritual environment of South Asia where Buddhism had grown up. But how to render the sacred sounds of mantras into Chinese? When, a few centuries later, it was brough to Japan, the same problem arose, but this time with Chinese as an intermediary, creating a perfect storm of systems nested within other systems—phonetic, semantic and scriptural. By a roll of the phonetic dice, Japanese is acoustically much better suited to the rendition of Sanskrit than its mainland counterparts. However, this did not prevent Japanese Buddhist schools from developing their own ideas about mantras and their usage, mixing and matching phrases, pronunciations and meanings as they went along. In this talk I will attempt to lay out the fascinating problematics of this dynamic using the example of a Japanese Siddham manual from the year 1695. I will explore the interplay of historic pronunciations and their written renditions and look at examples of how Japanese Buddhist traditions took mantras and over the centuries made them their own. This process is still ongoing, as mantras continue to be made, live and evolve even in present-day Japan.

В тибетской традиции Стослоговая мантра Ваджрасаттвыв различных вариациях посвящена разным божествам.Существуют вариации Стослоговой мантры Ваджрасаттвы, Херуки, Ямантаки, Падмасаттвы и других божеств. Есть другая мантра, носящая схожее название:«Стослоговая мантра Татхагаты» (санскр. Tathāgataśatākṣaram; тиб. de bzhin gshegs pa’i yi ge brgya pa), котораяотличается от рассматриваемой в этой статье. Одну из ее версий можно найти в «Антологии некоторых переведенных на тибетский язык мантр и дхарани из сутр и тантр,составленной Цунпа Вангпо» (тиб. btsun pa dbang pos phyogs bsgrigs mdzad pa’i mdo rgyud las ‘byung ba’i gzungs sngags ‘ga’ zhig bod skad du bkrol ba dang bcas pa) [btsun pa dbang po 2006: 62–63]. Название этой мантры основанона количестве слогов, составляющих ее.

By becoming aware of awareness we can experience the innermost sense or the felt sense of spaciousness and self-illumination. Within this state of open awareness, the openness of spacious luminous awareness, we can enter the experience of the radiance of light as energy through the sublime, luminous vibrations. The experience of the unfolding of sublime awareness and the corresponding energetic manifestation of the self-arising of primordial awareness is self-liberation. These experiences of the sublime manifestation of luminous energy was described by the 14 th century Dzogchen master Longchenpa in his text Precious Treasury of The Genuine Meaning. This meditative experience often arises spontaneously in Dzogchen meditation practice. This experience of translucent energetic manifestation is also described in Chan Buddhism, Hindu Kashmir Shavism, and Yan Xin Qi Gong. This experience of energetic manifestation can be experienced within subtle forms of respiration. Sometimes the ongoing sense of subtle luminous respiration can be experienced even as there is a profound sense of breathlessness. Breathlessness used here means no breath or minimal breath. This experience of the ongoing sense of respiration without breath is very powerful and empowering. In this experience of vast stillness there is no breath and yet there arises from deep within, a most subtle respiration within the breathlessness. During this respiration of stillness, the body seems to breathe and be breathed by most subtle inner wind. The inner sense of stillness expands and extends throughout the entire body and beyond the body's boundaries. This stillness opens us into the dimension of potential space, the dharmakaya and pure awareness.

This article discusses a unique Chan practice in the late Ming and early Qing known as ‘regarding mantras as Chan words,’ in particular the usage of mantras as the huatou (critical terms) in Chan meditation. This article investigates the historical background of the emergence of this practice, as well as the hermeneutics by which practitioners interpreted mantras through a Chan lens at that time. It also analyzes some historical examples of Buddhists using mantras as huatou in that period. In doing so, the article shows that since the Ming Dynasty, mantra were not merely regarded as arcane incantations with magical power, as often noted by contemporary scholarship, but also as a medium for Chan meditation. Furthermore, this article reveals that mantra practice also occupied an important position in the syncretized thought of late imperial Chinese Buddhism, calling for further research.
Keywords: mantra, huatou, Chan, esoteric Buddhism, Chinese Buddhism