864 mark unno
moral, or religious—can be healed and one can be liberated. In addi-
tion to the various functions of the mantra, the most distinctive aspect
of this practice is the use of sand. The power of the mantra can be
transferred to grains of sand through a ritual procedure, and once so
effected, the sand can be sprinkled on or near the body or corpses
to provide the purifying power of the mantra even without it being
intoned.
As prominent as the mantra of light has been in the history of
East Asian Buddhism, it has until recently received scant attention in
Western-language scholarship. Beyond the need to address the obvi-
ous neglect, examination of the mantra as a Buddhist ritual practice is
revealing on several counts and helps to illustrate the following three
points: 1) the dynamic interrelation between sacred text and religious
ritual, what Catherine Bell has called the ritualization of text and the
textualization of ritual (1998, 366–92), in which both the sacred texts
of the mantra and its practice evolve organically over time within the
shifting context of social circumstances, human need, religious aspira-
tions, and individual predilection; 2) the relation between the mate-
rial and spiritual benefits of mantra practice,—of social and material
benefits, on the one hand, and of awakening or enlightenment, on the
other; and 3) the range of mantra practice from devotional to yogic.
Text and Ritual in the Mantra of Light
On abokya beiroshanō makabodara mani handoma jimbara harabari-
taya un. The Tathāgata Vairocana, seeking to bestow the mudrā and the
sanmaya, gave primacy to the divine dharma entity (i.e., cosmic truth,
realized teachings). Even though there are the various sins of all of the
ten evils, five transgressions, and four grave offenses from past [lives],
their embers are all extinguished. If sentient beings attain this baptism
and mantra anywhere so that it reaches their ears just two, three, or
seven times, then all evil hindrances will be eliminated.
If sentient beings commit the various sins of the ten evils, five trans-
gressions, and four grave offenses—so many as grains of dust needed to
fill the world—then their bodies will be broken, their lives will come to
an end, and they will fall into the various evil paths [of rebirth]. [In that
case], one should empower the sand with the mystic power of the man-
tra by repeating it one hundred and eight times, and the sand should be
sprinkled on the corpses in the charnel grounds or on the graves of the
deceased; one should sprinkle the sand wherever one encounters them.
The deceased may be in hell, in the realm of hungry ghosts, of angry
gods, or of beasts. However, they will attain the body of light according
to the needs of time and circumstance by means of the mystic power of