Buddhism : Critical Concepts in Religious Studies, Vol. VI

A CRITICAL TANTRISM

Sarvanivaral)avi~kambhin ( ~--wJ1iiEII:$:) etc., preached the truth of the

teaching called 'the phrase of the sameness of body, speech and mind'

after blessing (those people) as the 'sun-like tathiigata'.

Accordingly, those bodhisattvas such as Samantabhadra etc. and

vajradharas headed by Vajrapal)i entered into the storehouse of inex-

haustible ornaments of the sameness of the body (..J~fZF~ii.1!\liiUi±ffc'ti0

which was displayed to them though the blessing of the Lord Vairo-

cana. They entered also into the storehouse of inexhaustible ornaments

of the sameness of the speech and the sameness of the mind. They did

not, however, imagine that they had entered into the body, the speech

and the mind of the Lord Vairocana, nor did they imagine that they had

come out of them.

They saw that all the bodily activities, all the oral activities and all

the mental activities of the Lord Vairocana were preaching teachings

broadly in all the spheres of living beings in all the places of the world

by means of the words of the way of the secret mantras ( ~JP&i 11(§~).

They saw people having the same appearance as the vajradharas and

bodhisattvas such as Samantabhadra, Padmapal)i (~~'¥)etc, that is to

say, the people who were preaching by means of the words of the way

of the secret mantras, by means of completely purified words in ten

directions, so as to have beings, who were in their (present) lives totally

as a result of former deeds, live through the whole process of their

lives, starting from the first birth of the (bodhi-) mind and lasting until

the tenth stage (or bodhisattvas), and fulfil (their lives) by attaining this

(tenth stage). They were preaching so as to have the lives of beings,

whose lives of deeds (~'a) had been interrupted, bud out again."^11

They, the vajradharas and bodhisattvas, entered into the mm;¢ala, the world
of the ultimate reality, and saw the mar:ujala itself. Vajrapal)i expresses this state
ofbeing as follows:

"Tathiigatas, arhats, samyaksambuddhas, having attained the omni-

science (sarvajiiajiiiina -"W~~), display this omniscience perfectly to

all the living beings."^12

This remark shows the fact that, the mm:ujala is nothing but omniscience
(sarvajiiajiiiina, literally, the knowledge of the omniscient), the totality of all the
spiritual existences extending all over the world.

ii. Various aspects ofthe world ofVairocana

It is convenient to represent the maf)gala of the Vairocaniibhisambodhi-sutra as
a figure with a large circle which represents the entire maf)gala with a small
circle in the centre of it. The former indicates theistically the buddha as the