. homa 135
Homa is also employed in several different contexts. It is, for exam-
ple, the culminating ritual in the contemporary training of Shingon
and Tendai priests.^3 While in Japan it is frequently performed as a
“stand alone” ritual, it is perhaps more frequently found elsewhere as
part of a larger ceremonial complex (Bentor 1997; Beyer 1978).
Homa rituals from the time of Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra onward
(mid-eighth century) can be analyzed in terms of the following ele-
ments: purification, construction, encounter, identification, and disso-
ciation (Payne 1991, 89). In purification, the practitioner cleanses his/
her body, speech, and mind. Construction is the ritual creation of the
altar as a purified enclosed space into which buddhas, bodhisattvas,
and other members of their retinues may be evoked. Encounter occurs
when the buddhas, bodhisattvas, and their retinues arrive in the ritual
enclosure. Ritual identification is the moment in the ritual when the
practitioner visualizes him/herself as the chief deity, a practice central
to much—though not all—of esoteric Buddhism. The body, speech,
and mind of the practitioner are made identical to those of the chief
deity through the performance of mudrā, mantra, and samādhi.
This is followed by sets of offerings that can vary in number depend-
ing on the complexity of the ritual being performed. These can be as
few as two, to Agni and the chief deity, though at least in the contem-
porary Shingon tradition there are typically five sets of offerings: to
Agni, to the Lord of the Assembly, to the Chief Deity, to the Various
Deities (the five tathāgatas, together with the “Deity who Extinguishes
Evil Destinies”), and to the Worldly Deities (Vedic and astral deities).
The identity of the Lord of the Assembly varies depending on the
Chief Deity of the ritual.
The structuring of homa reflects the ways rituals were organized
in Mahāyāna generally, as well as in esoteric Buddhism. One kind of
organization found in Buddhist ritual is sādhana, “typically a mix-
ture of evocation and visualization overlaying a classical Mahāyāna
liturgy” (Gómez 2004, 525). One such classic Mahāyāna liturgy is
the saptavidhā-anuttarapūjā, the “sevenfold supreme worship.” Pūjā
constitutes one of the most enduring organizing principles of Indian
ritual: the offering of a gift—“the gesture of making an offering to a
deity or esteemed person and in return receiving a blessing” (Flood
(^3) See Payne, “The Foufold Training in Japanese Esoteric Buddhism,” in this volume.