TANTRIC BUDDHISM (INCLUDING CHINA AND JAPAN)commenting on JTT, is just another name for the Consecration of the Master
(p. 141). Permission (ST) and Buddha-Order (DVP) are certainly identical, and
as is made clear by the Yugalanaddha-prakiisa-niima-seka-prakriyii, (FBT
p. 141 ), both refer to the third and last stage of the final consecration, namely
that of the Master. According to FBT, this text "explains prophecy (vyiikaral)a),
encouragement (prasviisa), and permission (anujiia) to be the Hierophant's Ini-
tation" ( iiciiryiibhiseka ).
Minor problems are posed by A VS (p. 36) which designates all six initiations
as Irreversible ("because they have the nature of the six Tathagatas"); JTT, as
we have seen, uses the term only for the sixth and last; while YRM, on the other
hand, stresses that the Master is not identical with the Irreversible^21. At the
moment I must leave these difficulties unresolved, and will proceed to discuss
the major consecrations.
These are stated by HVT (1.1.30 and II.iii.l 0) to be four: that of the Master
(iiciirya), the Secret (guhya), the Gnosis of Wisdom (prajiiiijiiiina), and the
Fourth (caturtha). In other words, according to HVT the preliminary consecra-
tions, regarded as a unit, represent the first of a series of four major consecra-
tions, and if this first consecration is styled Master, it is presumably, as
Snellgrove has pointed out2^2 , because the Master-Consecration completes the
preliminary set of six. A VS (p. 36) explicitly states that the first major consecra-
tion, here called the Consecration of the Jar (kalasiibhiseka), consists of the six
preliminary ones, and the following reason is given: "Because all of them
include the use of ajar, they are known (collectively) as the Consecration ofthe
Jar". The same explanation is given by FBT (p. 317).
However, both ST and DVP distinguish clearly between the preliminary con-
secrations and that of the Jar; thus DVP explicitly styles it "the eighth'm.
Further, as will be seen, ST gives a different explanation of the term 'Jar',
linking it with the breast of the mudrii^24 • For while there were only two actors in
the minor consecrations, the neophyte and the preceptor, there now enters a
third, the heroine, one might say, of the sacred drama, namely a young woman
variously known, to quote but the most common of her titles, as mudrii ("Seal"),
vidyii or prajiiii ("Wisdom"), or simply devl ("Goddess"?^5 • In the Consecration
of the Jar (at least when this, as is the case in ST, is clearly distinguished from
the preceding minor consecrations), and above all, in the Consecrations of the
Secret and of the Gnosis of Wisdom, she plays a crucial role. HVT Il.viii.3-5
describes her in glowing terms:
She is neither too tall, nor too short, neither quite black nor quite white,
but dark like a lotus-leaf. Her breath is sweet, and her sweat has a
pleasant smell like that of musk. Her pudenda give forth a scent from
moment to moment like different kinds of lotuses or like sweet aloe
wood. She is calm and resolute, pleasant in speech and altogether
delightful, with beauteous hair and three wrinkles in the middle of her
body. By vulgar men, in fact, she would be classed as first-rate.