Kūkai's Theory of Mantra

I've just posted a short essay about an aspect of Kūkai's writing about mantra on Jayarava's Raves, my other blog. In Sound Word Reality I link Kūkai's 声字実相義 (Shōji jissō gi) to the Arapacana meditation tradition. I argue that Kūkai's three level analysis must stem from the Arapacana where a sound, represents a word, which reminds us of an aspect of the emptiness (śūnyatā) of all dharmas.

We see this in the phrase:

akāro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ ādyanutpannatvāt

where akāro means the 'letter a', anutpanna is the keyword indicated by 'a' and it means non-arisen. And the whole phrase reminds us that dharmas are just mental events and that nothing substantial arises when we have an experience.

See also:

• The Arapacana Alphabet.
• The Wisdom Alphabet Meditation.

Mantra Quote

"The mantras, however, are mysterious and each word is profound in meaning. When they are transliterated into Chinese, the original meanings are modified and the long and short vowels are confused. In the end we can get roughly similar sounds but not precisely the same ones. Unless we use Sanskrit, it is hardly possible to differentiate the long and short sounds. The purpose of retaining the source materials, indeed, lies here."

- Kūkai. Shōrai mokuroku in Hakeda. Kūkai: Major Works, p.144