Random Mantras on the Internet

I get a lot of questions about mantras. They fall into a few different categories. One is the person who wants a "translation" of a mantra so they can understand what it "means", with the implication that they want to take up, or have already taken up, the practice of chanting the mantra without a teacher or guide.
 
In my opinion a mantra on its own is not much good. A magic spell has 'power' whether you understand it or not. I don't think mantras are like this. Just finding a mantra on the internet and chanting it is of doubtful benefit. If you absolutely must do it, then go for something simple with lot's written about it by a range of well known and well qualified people. You are not so special, or in such a unique situation, that the oṃ maṇipadme hūṃ mantra won't suit you fine.

If you don't feel you understand a mantra then don't use it. If there is no one you can ask about it, face to face, then it's probably not the practice for you. Translating a mantra often just trivialises it, and misses the point. Find a teacher. If there are no Buddhists in your area then try http://www.wildmind.org/.

My website is a resource for practitioners and I don't recommend using it as a sweet shop for collecting mantras, or for choosing mantras at random. I think all Buddhist practices require regular contact with more experienced practitioners.

Don't cheat yourself. 

Mantras are not magic spells. 

Find a teacher. 

This is my advice.

The Om Team

I came across this report on the physics of oṃ in the Guardian, written by Mark Abrahams who is also the editor of the annals of improbable research. Apparently these guys are getting their papers into peer reviewed journals. The surprise goes further when one reads the paper and discovers that the editor allowed it through without correcting the English! I never get such an easy ride! Perhaps in computing they don't care so much about grammar? Having looked through their paper I think it is fair to conclude that several days practice chanting leads to more regular articulation of mantras. This is what their results show, though their conclusions go somewhat beyond this.

Virtual Vinod

There are only a few people in the world able to spot the mistakes I make and Vinod is one of them! He regularly writes in to point out typos.

I have been using his script converter for a year or so now and find it incredibly useful. Vinod has just upgraded his website and added almost a dozen scripts to his converter. This means that we can input in any 19 Indic scripts (including several versions of Romanisation) and output any of the others.

In addition there are a wealth of other resources - essays, translations and calligraphy.


The main website is here: http://www.virtualvinodh.com/
The script converter is here: http://www.virtualvinodh.com/aksharamukha

evaṃ

Last year Tashi Mannox featured the word evaṃ on his calligraphy blog. His calligraphy is always attractive and adept, but I was fascinated by this particular character. Buddhists will know that one of the identifying marks of a sutta/sūtra is that it begins: evaṃ me sutaṃ/evaṃ mayā śrutaṃ. Tantras also begin with this phrase. The word evaṃ means 'so, thus, in this way'. The phrase is a passive construction, literally "thus / by me / it was heard", and attempts by contemporary scholars to override the Victorian rendering "thus have I heard" have not yet succeeded in dislodging it from the English speaking Buddhist psyche.

However in the Hevajra Tantra (ca. late 8th century) this first word takes on esoteric significance. I think this is largely related to the shape of the Siddhaṃ script letter 'e' which is an inverted triangle which in the Hevajra becomes a yoni symbol - i.e. because it looks like the female pudenda it represents the feminine principle. To my eye vaṃ is not particularly phallic, but it comes to represent the masculine principle. Perhaps the most significant correspondence is that of wisdom and compassion. So evaṃ, by combining the two principles, symbolises the union of opposites which is one of the ways in which the Buddhist goal is conceived of in Tantric Buddhism. This is my understanding, though Tashi has more information on his website.

For some time I have pondered how to represent this in the Siddhaṃ script, and I think I have finally found a way of doing it which is aesthetically pleasing.

image top-left: from the top - evaṃ bīja; evaṃ in Siddhaṃ, Lantsa, Tibetan, Devanāgarī.
image right: evaṃ bīja

Tibetan Cymbal Symbols

A friend recently wrote to me:

Please could you tell me what my cymbals say?

I've been taking these cymbals into prison for over 15 years, to ding meditation stages. Occasionally, someone asks me what the symbols mean. I confidently reply that it is the Avalokiteshvara mantra.

Only, last week a bright spark asked if it says "om mani padme hum" how come there are seven symbols rather than six?

The answer is quite simple. It is the Avalokiteśvara mantra written in a Tibetan script called dbu-can (pronounced uchen) - the main formal script they use for texts and printing. The extra symbol is a paragraph marker, known as a 'shed' in Tibetan. It's more often a simple vertical stroke, but sometimes a colon-like thing as you have here.

oṃ ma ṇi pad me hūṃ :

I've added the letters onto your image so you can see which is which. While we're on the subject there is no word break in maṇipadme - it is a single compound word meaning, most likely "in the jewelled lotus" (but clearly not "the jewel in the lotus" as Sanskrit grammar does not allow this meaning, despite it's popularity). I've written about this on my blog post "The Meaning of oṃ maṇipadme hūṃ".

Note the Tibetans write "pa dme" as "pad me" because it looks more Tibetan. In the image below the top line is what is on your bells, and the bottom line is the proper Sanskrit, but still using the same script.

One also sees the mantra on these kinds of bells written in the Lantsa script (below).

My compliments to the bright spark who spotted that there were seven symbols!

Manuscript of Early Vajrasattva Mantra

stts-ms contract enhanced
Originally uploaded by jayarava

This is a page from the Sarvatathāgata-tattvasaṅgraha (STTS), a 7th century Buddhist text concerning Tantric rituals. The STTS is classed as a Yoga Tantra by Tibetan Buddhists. Here we have the verso of the 15th palm leaf in the mantra containing what became the Hundred Syllable Vajrasattva Mantra. This is the oldest occurrence of the Vajrasattva Mantra (as far as the Chinese Canon is concerned).

This image is modified from the facsimile edition of a 10th century Nepalese palm-leaf manuscript using the Siddhaṃ script, published by Candra and Snellgrove. You will note that the Siddhaṃ script is significantly different from contemporary Siddhaṃ calligraphy (and much more difficult to read!)

If you want to have a go at reading it - note that you read from left to right right across the leaf (i.e. ignore the columns). The transliteration shows subtle differences from the well known 100 syllable mantra.

oṁ vajra sattvasamayamanupālaya vajrasattvatvenopatiṣṭha dṛḍho me bhava sutoṣyo me bhavānurakto me bhava supoṣyo me bhava sarvasiddhiñca me prayaccha sarvakarmasu ca me cittaśreyaḥ kuru hūṁ ha ha ha ha hoḥ bhagavan sarvatathāgatavajra mā me muṁca vajrībhava mahāsamayasatva āḥ||

To see where the mantra is look at the version with the mantra highlihghted
See the text inverted as well - this sometimes improves readability

New Essay on oṃ

My Jayarava's Rave blog post this week is on oṃ: Mystical Grammar.

I try to sort out the oṃ/auṃ thing, and look at the process of oṃ becoming an esoteric symbol. A few comments on oṃ in Buddhism, but I still find very little say about it.

Statistics for 2009

visits to the site - 154,519; up 62% from 2008
page loads - 484,360; up 30% from 2008
Most popular mantra - Vajrasattva - 22,315 pageloads. Also no.1 2008.

The Facebook Visible Mantra page now also has 1003 fans.

Thanks everyone for making this website a success.

Offering Mantra

Gino recently asked about the offering mantra used during the maṇḍala offering practice. I thought other people might be interested in this as well.

The mantra reads:

idaṃ guru-ratna-maṇḍalakaṃ niryātayāmi
इदं गुरुरत्नमण्डलकं निर्यातयामि
(above in dbu-can)

If we take this to be a Sanskrit sentence then the words guru and ratna are undeclined suggesting that they are part of a compound: gururatnamaṇḍalakaṃ. So how should be parse this compound? Firstly the individual words: guru = teacher; ratna = jewel; maṇḍalaka is a variant of maṇḍala. The -ṃ ending would appear to match the idaṃ and be an accusative making idaṃ gururatnamaṇḍalakaṃ the object of the verb. I suggest that we take ratnamaṇḍalaka to be a tatpuruṣa - maṇḍala of jewels. Then it would make some sense for this to make a tatpuruṣa with 'guru', but perhaps of the dative kind, 'to or for the guru' rather than the standard genitive 'of the guru'. Looking at the context I think this fits what is being done in practice.

The verb comes from the root √yat 'to stretch'. What we have here is a causative form: yātayati which can mean 'to suffer', or in this case 'to yield up' or 'surrender'. The first person singular is yātayāmi 'I surrender'. The addition of the prefix nir- here indicates that one is giving up to others. Of Monier-Williams' suggestions 'to give back, to restore' seem to fit the context, he notes the sense of 'to give as a present' in the Lalitavistara Sūtra.

So we could render the phrase

idaṃ guru-ratna-maṇḍalakaṃ niryātayāmi
I offer up this jewel-maṇḍala to the guru

Tendai Studies and Art Symposium

Tendai Studies and Art Symposium.

If you live in California then this is an amazing opportunity to hear and meet some of the great names in Buddhist studies including John Stevens author of Sacred Calligraphy of the East (without which none of this website would exist!). There will be an exhibit of Tendai calligraphy from April 1 to June 1 2010.