88 charles d. orzech and henrik h. sørensen
The “Mandala generated from the womb of great compassion”
(Mahākaruṇā garbodhbhava mandala, also called the Garbhakosa ̣
dhātu mandala, for an example see color plate 1) is literally and fig-
uratively the place of the birth of the buddhas, and nowhere is the
relationship between generative imagery, mantra, and mandala more
evident. Having had the mandala revealed, and having undergone
an initial abhiṣeka, the disciple is initiated into the secret mantras.
In the Mahāvairocanābhisaṃbodhi sūtra this moment is depicted
in a stunning image, the image of the Buddha’s “secret tongue,”
a tongue that is, in fact, the Garbha mandala itself. From deepest
samādhi Mahāvairocana reveals his tongue which fills all the Buddha
worlds and which is none other that the speech of all the buddhas
(T. 848.18:12c1–2). This speech—uttered in unison by all the bud-
dhas—is itself the “powerful Vidyā-queen of great protection.” (dali
dahu ming fei , T. 848.18.12c4–10). The syllables of the
mantra are explained by Śubhākarasiṃha as the seeds of wisdom—the
bodhisattva Prajñā—“the mother of all the buddhas” (T. 1796.39:673c7–
29). As Abé has noted, “Mahāvairocana, out of his compassion for
those sentient beings to whom the Dharmakāya’s secret language of
the three mysteries remains inaccessible, unveils it (tongue/language)
as his ritual language for initiation into the garbha mandala... the
mantra, then, is the mandala’s manifestation in sound.”^47
Thus, mudrā, mantra, and mandala, first evolved in a variety of prac-
tices prior to the rise of esoteric Buddhism. Undergirded by Mahāyāna
theories concerning the salvific actions of the body, speech, and minds
of buddhas and bodhisattvas, esoteric Buddhism developed the “unified
three secrets” as a ritual technology for producing buddhas, bodhisat-
tvas, and new social bodies, and harnessing their power.
(^47) Abé 1999, 138.