TANTRIC BUDDHISM (INCLUDING CHINA AND JAPAN)direct imitation of one deity by another: Vajrapar:1i does not imitate Mahesvara,
but Heruka does. The iconography is developed in recognition, specified time
and again in the texts of the Sa-skya-pa, that the tantras of the A nut-tara-yoga
class have been preached to attract those beings filled with all the various defile-
ments and who do not wish to abandon their preferred behavior.
As a corollary, the later myths imply that the lowest variety of behavior leads
to the highest enlightenment. We have every expectation that the tellers of such
myths enjoyed the spectacle of the lowest fiends and their dastardly crimes, with
the gallant Heruka coming to the rescue of all beings. Clearly, Heruka and his
retinue do not enjoy acting in a manner similar to that of Mahdvara but have
undertaken this form of divine activity to attract those addicted to perverse
behavior. We are thus impressed by how far the Buddha's compassion extends,
including even degraded beings. As an antidote to personal guilt, the scenario is
as attractive to the myth's listeners as Amitabha's saving power in another era-
no one need feel irredeemable, whatever their crimes may have been.
In the Cakrasarrzvara system, the exact locales are important, and their speci-
fication is an extension of that lineage's concern for the integration of the
macrocosm and microcosm, each of the twenty-four external locales being iden-
tified with an internal locale within the body of the yogin. While the precise
Indic source for identifying a system of twenty-four lilJgams and bhairavas is
obscure, it cannot be immediately assumed that it was a popular Hindu system
subsumed into the Buddhist fold. Virtually none of the more famous "lingams of
light" (jotirlinga) belong to the Cakrasarrzvara formula; I have encountered no
list in puriit:lic literature which corresponds to either the number twenty-four or
the places identified. Closest in spirit are the various Buddhist places of pilgrim-
age specified frequently in most of the tantras concerned with qiikinzs: the
Cakrasarrzvara, Abhidhiinottara, Hevajra, etc.^66 The Buddhist mythic contention
that these places were initially Saiva cannot be accepted as fact, or even that
they existed outside of the minds of the storytellers, although some clearly did.
Instead, the list is developed out of such geographical lists of places noted in
esoteric Buddhist literature as early as the Mahiimiiyurz-vidyii-rajfii-dhiiraiJI.^67
As a meditative technique, the identity of macrocosmic locales with micro-
cosmic structures is striking. It allows the meditator to understand the cosmic
drama as internal as well as external, Mahdvara as an extension of his own pro-
clivity to defilement and Heruka as the resonance of the Buddha in his own
stream of being. As literature, the specification oflocales is equally dramatic and
is a technique frequently used in Indian and Tibetan tales, whether in the
Puriinqs or the Epic of Ge-sar. For a village-bound audience with little
opportunity or resources for travel, the identification of all the places of the
known world by Le wandering teacher must have seemed at least as romantic
and exciting as travel stories are for us today.^68 To find, moreover, that the entire
itinerary is located within one's own psycho-physical continuum must have been
a stunning validation of the listener's existence.
No such literary devices are available to Ngor-chen; his work invokes neither