which everything that is salutary and blissful flows, the ladder to rebirth in higher existences, the door which bars evil rebirths, the ship which takes us across transmigration, the torch which illuminates black darkness, the brave conqueror of the five evils, the fire ocean which consumes sin and worry, the hammer which crushes all pain, and the accompanying friend for converting the rough snow land."1

A religious formula which plays such a prominent rôle in the mentality of numerous human beings, must necessarily be of considerable interest to the student of religions, and eminent scholars have devoted much time and study to its elucidation. But it has not, so far as I know, been satisfactorily explained. It raises numerous questions, which cannot as yet be finally solved, and I do not flatter myself in thinking that I am able to clear up every doubt. The ideas underlying the formula are, however, so intimately connected with what I consider to be the leading principles of Indian and Indo-European religion that every new attempt at an explanation may be of value, if not otherwise, at least in instigating other scholars to take up the investigation on broader lines. The remarks which I have to offer are therefore not meant to be fiual but rather in the way of a preliminary study.

The formula is only known to us in connexion with Buddhism, but that is no reason for inferring that it cannot have its origin in non-Buddhist conceptions, and Koeppen has already suggested that it may have been borrowed from Saivism.

It seems certain that it does not properly belong to Southern Buddhism as it is laid down in the Pali Tipitaka, but to the Mahāyāna.

The most striking feature in this system in the great rôle played by the Bodhisattva. The Hinayana teaches the way to bliss by insight, intuition and faith, where every individual must strive for perfection by himself, guided by the eternal truths preached by the Buddha, but without the help of a saviour. It is a small vehicle, in so far as it only carries one individual

Die Lamaische Hierarchie und Kirche, page 59.

into the haven of bliss, and it can only be used by him who has renounced the world for good. It is the last, the final means of attaining to the eternal reality of Nirvāṇa,

We know that the Buddha did not point to this yana when preaching to the masses. To them he spoke about the duties of common life, about the merit of giving alms and following the precepts of morality, and about the reward set out for such conduct in the bliss of heaven. To them he was a guide on the right way, and most of his upasakas and upásikās no doubt found rest in the hope he held out to them of rebirth in the celestial abodes of bliss.

This more popular teaching has been continued and perfected in the Mahāyāna. The merciful Bodhisattva, who has acquired the high state which enables him to become a Buddha, stops short and devotes his merit to the salvation of all beings. His teaching and mercy become the great vehicle on which all mankind can drive to the haven of bliss. Also within the Mahāyāna, at least in some sects, the individual salvation through self-exertion and dhyāna is the last end to the ultimate goal. What strikes us most, however, are the attempts at making salvation universal, and here we have before us the explanation of the fact that Mahāyāna and not Hinayana has become a universal religion, which many Buddhists think will some day be adopted by all mankind.

There are, as is well known, many Bodhisattvas, but none of them has acquired a higher rank than Avalokitesvara, whose name according to Dr. Zimmer characterizes him as a being who is able (isvara) to acquire avalokita, the highest insight. He it is who leads man to Sukhāvati, the western paradise, where Amitabha, the immeasurable light, is enthroned, and it is also he who is believed to have revealed the sacred formula om mani padme hum.

The Mahāyāna is not only a further development of the teaching of the Buddha. It is, at the same time, a reawakening of the deepest religious tendencies of the Indian people. The old conceptions and ideas, which had always pervaded the

religious life, and which are also at the bottom of Buddhism, came to light again, and it is therefore not to be wondered at that many features of Mahāyāna have striking parallels in other Indian religions. The deep primeval substratum is common to all of them. Nothing would accordingly be more intelligible than if the famous formula of Lamaism should prove to be derived from this ancient substratum, and to have, in its origin, nothing Buddhistic about it.

The tradition according to which the saḍakṣarī was revealed by Avalokitesvara, is not of Tibetan origin. The first time it is met with is, so far as I know, in a Sanskrit work of the Mahāyana, one of those who are believed to be due to higher inspiration, the Karaṇḍavyuha. In the Divyāvadāna, where a şaḍakṣarī is also mentioned, the formula is not given in the usual words. The Karaṇḍavyuha is stated to have been translated into Chinese about the year 270 A.D., and as we cannot trace the systematical Mahayana further back than to about the second century, the work cannot be much older.

It is written in prose, and I know it from an edition which seems to have been brought out in such a way that a corrupt manuscript has been sent to press, while the actual editing was left to the printer. There exists, besides, a poetical version, which has not, so far as I know, been printed, but which may be used as a commentary.

This version is comparatively late, and it is possible that also the prosaic recension has been altered and enlarged since it was trauslated into Chinese in the third century. Some sinologist will perhaps give us information about this question. There is not, however, any reason for suspecting that the account of the revelation of the şaḍakṣari formula is a later addition. It is to the following effect:

The Bodhisattva Sarvanivaranaviskambhin enquires from the Buddha how he can obtain the ṣaḍakṣarī vidya. The Buddha relates how the Buddha Padmottara had learnt it from Avalokitesvara and revealed it to himself. Vişkambhin, however, ought to proceed to a certain Dharmabbāṇaka in Benares in order to learn the formula.

We are told how Amitabha, when the saḍakṣarī was to be revealed to Padmottara, declared that it could not be taught before he had learnt the corresponding maṇḍala. The latter should be square, four hands long on each side.. In the centre one should draw Amitabha, to his right the Bodhisattva Mahamanidhara and to his left the saḍakṣari itself. The şaḍaksari mahavidya is to be piotured in the shape of a four-armed female, white like the crescent of the autumnal moon. In her left hand she holds a red lotus (padma), in her right a rosary. The remaining two hands should be held in certain mudrās.

This description of the mandala is not found in the poetical version but it is in agreement with the general trend of religious ideas in India. The saḍakṣari, the sacred formula, is what is so often called a devatâ, i.e., a manifestation of eternal power. Such powers and forces have their own life, their own independent existence just as well as ordinary living beings. The ancient Aryan and Indo-European mentality was, with regard to them as to every more or less abstract idea, Bomewhat different from ours. In addition to the things and beings perceived by the senses the universe consisted of countless entities of a different description, but no less real : faculties like speach and thought, qualities like strength and fertility, forces and potencies of various kinds. They were often viewed in personal or semi-personal shape, and the great Vedio gods are such personifications, manifestations of the occult forces, through which it becomes easier to approach them in worship. In the same way the saḍakṣarī vidya stands for the mysterious power hidden in its six syllables, and it may be pictured in human or super-human shape. That it is personified as a woman, may of course be a consequence of the fact that the words sadakṣarī vidya are of the feminine gender. It is, however, more likely that the sex belongs to ancient conceptions which have been continued in the belief in the efficacy of the ṣaḍakṣari.

If we now examine the picture drawn of the formula in the mandala, it will be seen that the red lotus and the rosary are

prominent attributes, and we are involuntarily reminded of the fact that these same attributes qualify Prajñāpāramitā. We are inclined to think that the ṣadakṣari was considered to be a manifestation of that derata, and we do not get astonished when we read in the poetical recension of the Karaṇḍavyuha that such is the case, that the formula is in fact the Prajñāpāramita, the mother of all the Buddhas.

The Prajñāpāramita, the perfect and transcendental insight and wisdom, belongs to the philosphical conception of Buddhahood. A Buddha has to practise and master several perfections pāramitās, in dana, in sila, etc. And these perfections were not simply qualities or faculties belonging to the individual Buddha, but real entities, existing independently of him and filled with their own life, eternal forces, which had to combine in order to produce a Buddha. In Vedic times we hear about such forces having their body, their tanu. The conception was accordingly strongly materialistic, and I have already mentioned how it was personalized in the case of the Vedic gods. And later on, when the Aryans began to represent the eternal powers in pictures and statues, the personal stamp naturally asserted itself. It should be remembered that the picture does not only represent, but actually is the thing represented, and though the representation of the forces in human or superhuman shape was apt to give rise to the creations of poetical and mythical fancy so that the ancient conception might be overlaid and overshadowed by fiction, it never lost its hold on the mind.

Among the perfections constituting Buddhahood the perfection of knowledge and insight naturally occupied a prominent position. For Buddhism is essentially a jñānamarga, a way to emancipation through insight and knowledge. This insight into the nature of things, into the eternal law pervading the universe, which leads to emancipation, is not, however, a mere reasoning, but essentially a reflex of eternal truth, acquired through direct intuition, and in this way it becomes an image of, and as an image essentially identical with, the eternal law itself. It was in direct intuition, under the