TANTRIC BUDDHISM (INCLUDING CHINA AND JAPAN)partner. Of this PK III.40-41 and its commentary - if my interpretation 1s
correct-furnishes an example:
He who does not indulge in the union of Vajra and Lotus according to
common practice^68 gains success due to mastery of yoga, even if he has
experienced it only once. Having recognized the action of knowledge in
its true nature according to its divisions^69 , the yogin will again at all
times recognize her (i.e. "Woman"^70 ) as obscurity (pralqti)^71 • (PK p. 29).This passage is perhaps not necessarily to be understood as a rejection of ritual
union, but the commentary certainly gives a wholly interiorized interpretation:
He, i.e. the yogin, who (does not indulge etc.), gains success due to
mastery of yoga, i.e. due to the mastery of union with the Wisdom-deity
(prajfia-devata) who is resplendent with the characteristics of the
Gnosis-Seal^72 , because that yogin has experienced it once, i.e. at the
time of initiation^73 (he has experienced) due to the force of the precep-
tor's instruction the Gnosis of the Great Void which is technically
known as alokopalabdhF^4 •
By "according" etc. (the following is expressed): having recognized
in the woman of flesh-and-blood (bahyangana) the division of aloka^75
etc. which is the cause of obscurity (pralqti), and having obtained the
action of Gnosis, i.e. the action of passion, absence-of-passion, and
medium-passion (raga-viraga-madhyaraga-vrtti)^76 , he will again recog-
nize, i.e. point out, her as obscurity present in women of flesh-and-
blood. (PK p. 34)Although this passage is none too clear, it is at least evident that there is a
rejection of the "woman of flesh-and-blood", whose substitute is an interior
"Gnosis-Seal". This tendency towards interiorization seems to be found above
all in the later exegetical literature; a good example is provided by Munidatta's
commentary (M) to the Caryiiglti, which very strongly tends to emphasize the
interior process, at times even exhorting the adept - as did the commentary to
PK - to abandon the Seal of flesh-and-blood, e.g. M 50.2: By abandoning, o
yogins, the delusion of the woman of flesh-and-blood, obtain the perfection of
the Great Seal!
Yet even in this later exegetical literature the concrete, actual performance of
the rite remained the ideal. Thus a work as late as the 15th century FBT, which
gives a consistently interiorized interpretation of the ritual^77 , nevertheless pre-
sents the opinion that Sakyamuni was himself concretely initiated in the Conse-
cration of the Gnosis of Wisdom:
He equipoised himself in the Space-filling samiidhi. At that time all the
Buddhas of the ten directions assembled and by the sound of snapping