tree of Bodhi, that

the Buddha saw the eternal truths which it is necessary to realize in order to become a Buddha, and every Buddha has to proceed in the sa ne way. It is this intuition, this perfection which makes a human being a Buddha, which creates the Buddha. It exists as an eternal entity since the beginning of things and is older than all the Buddhas, brings them into being, creates them, is their mother, jananē.

The Prajñāpāramitā was at an early time brought into shape in a book or in books, which were not, however, anything else than verbal pictures of the real thing, with the usual identity between the picture and the thing pictured. And it was also represented in actual pictures, as a woman, the mother of the Buddhas.

This representation seems at first sight to belong to the realm of poetical and mythical fiction, just as the Virgin is, to the average Christian, a definite personality within the sphere of Christian tradition. To the ancient Aryan mind, and to a great extent in Indian art on the whole, a picture does not, however, represent an individual being or definite personality, but rather an idea or some eternal force or power. The Prajñāpāramitā is pictured as a woman, but this woman is the mother who has produced all the Buddhas, she is personified motherhood, the eternal mother herself.

This idea of abstract motherhood as a kind of living entity, which has been at work as long as the universe has existed and even may be said to precede the universe, is very old in India. It is a living force, say an eternal fluid, which manifests itself everywhere where life is procreated. Thereby it is often coupled with another force, the active principle of procreation, the ideal fatherhood, and this conception is at the bottom of the vague references to Pṛthivi mātā and Dyaus pita in the Ṛgveda, motherhood being manifest in Earth and fatherhood in the Sky, the bestower of the fertilizing rain. They are not real gods, in the common sense of the word, but the mystic powers of the male and female elements in generation.

Every productive generating force may be viewed under this double aspect, and we therefore find female counterparts of the great gods, already in the hymns of the Ṛgveda. Mythic imagination then leads to widespread speculations. Every god, every representative of mystic power, may be viewed as an active male deity and also as a sprouting and developing energy, a sakti.

The doctrine of sakli has especially been developed within Saivism and Buddhism, in the Tantras, which in their present form are comparatively late productions, but which have evolved and systematized very ancient ideas. As we know them, they are more or less under the influence of the idea of the one god, which seems to have some of its deepest roots in ancient Yoga and in Saivism. God is one and eternal, with no wishes and wants, and consequently with no desire to manifest himself. He is the only existing reality, and as such he also comprises the potential force of evolution and activity. And this force, his sakti, manifests itself in the manifold universe.

In the further development of this idea the ancient conception of eternal forces at the bottom of life and the manifested universe has been further framed under the influence of the theory of karma, which is already met with in the oldest Upanisads. Karma, which shaped the destiny of man, was an eternal force, to which everybody was subject, and its effect was not to be avoided. Now this karma came to be considered as the moving power in the evolution of divine sakti. The transcendent calm of eternal divinity was disturbed through karma, in order that it might display its force in framing the destiny of the souls and finally exhausting itself. The activity of divine Sakti thus becomes a manifestation, a pravṛtti, through which the innumerable beings enter into life and earn the fruit of their karma. But behind this display we have always the static reality of God, and the aim of the whole process is to lead the universe back to him, the everlasting reality after the pravrtti follows the nirvṛtti, the return. Both processes, the pravrtti as well as the nirvṛtti were viewed as a kind of generation, with

the aim to produce, on the one hand the manifold display of the world of phenomena, on the other eternal reality of true existence. The latter generation is framed on the model of the former one, which has its roots in the oldest conceptions of the Aryan and probably in Indo-European worship, with mystic ceremonies and rites, wherewith magio copulation may have played a considerable rôle. And these rites were partly taken over in the practice of the later philosophical school.

This whole theory has at an early date penetrated Buddhism. The Buddhas are evolved from, born by the eternal energy or Sakti, the Prajñāpāramitā, and come forward in pravṛtti in order to enable man to get rid of the effects of karma, through the eradication of craving, tṛṣṇā, which alone makes karma fatal to the individual. And then their activity gets a higher aim, to lead the man who is freed from tṛṣna back to the eternal reality, where there is no birth or growth or decay, no impermanency or suffering, to Nirvāņa. And in this activity they each have their own individual Sakti, with which they are united in order to bring about the desired result. But these individual Saktis, the consorts of the various Buddhas, are in reality only manifestations of the one eternal Sakti, the Prajñā or Prajñāpāramitā, which was the mother of the Buddhas who now became her husbands.

This union is, perhaps in imitation of ancient rites, pictured as a couple, the Buddha or Bodhisattva embracing his Sakti, and this embrace can be imitated, and its effect realized by human beings who have entered on the path of nirvṛtti. Thereby there are, in Saivism as in Buddhism, two schools, the dakṣinācāra, where the imitation of the ideal union is a spiritual process, and the vāmācāra, when it is effected through a ceremonial union with a woman.

The spiritual union can be effected by means of pictures which lead the mind into the proper direction, but also by means of verbal pictures, sacred formulas (and spells. In both cases the picture is an actual realization. Such pictures are well known to every student of Buddhism, and the corresponding

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5 Res. J.

formulas and spells have often been discussed by scholars. They are called dharaṇī, and their form and length are varying. They are commonly introduced by the sacred syllable om, and they usually contain a designation of the power or force which they are meant to bespeak, to fix (dhṛ). Finally they contain a bija, a syllable indicating the deity which is intended. Such bijas sometimes consist of the initial of some god's name. Thus in is used as a bija of Indra, ga of Gapesa. More commonly, however, the bija is apparently a meaningless soundcomplex such as klim, srim, hrīm, hrām, hrum, khat, phat, etc. The syllable om itself occurs as a bija, and several bījas can already be traced in Vedic literature and may be considerably older still. They aim at the same result as the dharani, to effect an ideal union with some eternal power. From later times we have indexes of such lijas, and if such works had been available for the Vedic period as well, we should rarely be in doubt about the identity of the deity invoked in a dhāraṇī.

The sadakṣari is such a dharani. It is introduced by the syllable om, which is not here a bija, but meant to impress upon the mind that the aim is to attain union with the eternal reality for which the syllable often stands. The actual bija is hum. For the reason already mentioned, we cannot say with certainty which deity had in ancient times this bija, but it may be of interest to note that it is frequently in Tantric literature connected with Siva's consort, the goddess with the many names.

The remaining portion of the dharani seems to consist of two words, mani, jewel, and padme, the locative of padma, the red lotus. They have commonly been translated "O thou jewel in the lotus ", and attention has been drawn to the fact that the red lotus is an attribute of Avalokitesvara, whose intimate connexion with the formula cannot be doubted. The whole dharaṇī would accordingly consist in an invocation of the merciful Bodhisattva.

Everybody who is acquainted with Sanskrit will, however, know that this translation is impossible.

Mani cannot be the vocative, and we should have to state that the formula was written in ungrammatical language. That would of course be possible, if it were late and had been framed outside of the territory where Sanskrit was properly taught and cultivated, e.g., in Tibet. We know however that it goes back into a time and a country where Sanskrit was well known, and we must try to analyse the words under the supposition that the grammatical forms are correct. But then we must infer that mani, which is the mere theme without any case suffix, is not a separate word but only the first part of a compound, so that manipadme should be taken together as one word.

That such is the case has also often been recognized. Wilson saw in manipadme the locative of a word which he explained as synonymous with padmapani, he who has the lotus in his hand, i.e., Avalokitesvara. It is not necessary to discuss this explanation, because we know from numerous other dhāraṇīs that the word or words designating the deity or divine power invoked are always put in the vocative. Manipadme must therefore be a vocative, and as such, it can only be a vocative of the femine base manipadma. This explanation has been correctly given by Dr. F. W. Thomas, 1 who has suggested to explain the sadakṣarī as an invocation of Tara, who is so often pictured and invoked together with Avalokitesvara, as his śakti.

1

Dr. Thomas has not given any analysis or translation of the form manipadme, probably because he did not think it necessary. It is evident that the meaning can only be "thou whose padma is a maņi", or, "thou in whose padma there is a mani". The former analysis does not seem to give any sense, the latter, on the other hand, is quite satisfactory and no doubt correct. The proper explanation of this designation has already been indicated by Koeppen, who drew attention to the fact that mani also means linga and padma the yoni. Manipadma is accordingly a female deity with a linga in her yoni. The conceptions which I have already discussed about the god and

1 1 J. R.A.S. 1906, p. 464.