Part 1 - Introduction (to the Advayavajra-samgraha)

Bodhisattva Asvaghosa was the Guru of Kaniska, the Yueh-Chi Emperor, whose territories extended from the Vindhya to the Al-tai, and who flourished at the end of the first century A.D. and was perhaps the founder of the Saka Era which started from 78 A.D. Asvaghosa wrote a poem on the life of Buddha entitled the Buddha-Carita and another entitled Saundarananda embodying Buddha's teachings and giving the story of the conversion of his step-brother Nanda. At the end of this book Asvaghosa says that as physicians often prescribe bitter pills but for the benefit of the patients and have them sugar-coated, so he after writing many difficult and abstruse works on Buddhist philosophy wrote poems to make these abstruse ideas palatable. Asvaghosa wrote many philosophical works, one of which Mahayana-sraddhotpada-sutra though lost in Sanskrit is to be found in Chinese translation, and has been recently translated into English by a deeply read Japanese scholar named Dr. Sujuki. A perusal of that translation dispels the myth that Nagarjuna was the founder of the Mahayana system. It now appears that Asvaghosa was the first great writer of that system and that Nagarjuna preached it enthusiastically at a later time, but that it existed before these great men. Asvaghosa in his Buddha-Carita says that Buddha after his great renunciation went to two well-known scholars of the time for instruction, one Arada-kalama and the other Uddaka, son of Rama; both of them taught him the Sankhya system of Kapila with eight Prakrtis and sixteen Vikaras and Purusa, They taught him of the advance of the human soul from the lowest sentient beings through Kama-dhatu, and Rupa-dhatu to Arupa-dhatu, that is, through the world of desires and world of forms to the world of no form, that is, of light. Arada Kalama further taught that in the formless heaven there are two stages: Akasantyayatana the formless human soul as infinite as the sky, and Akincanyantyayatana or the formless human soul as infinite as consciousness. Uddaka Ramaputra taught him that there was another and a higher stage where the formless human soul is as infinite as Naiva-samjna-na- '

Samjna-nantayatana no holder of a name and no name in infinity." At the final stage the human soul so advancing becomes Kevali or absolute, without any relations, that is, beyond the world of relativity. Buddha was not satisfied. He said if the human soul exists it must exist in relation to something, it cannot be absolute, and so he left his Gurus and proceeded unaided, by study and meditation, to attain the highest position in bliss. He soon saw that the whole of the Sankhya is based on Sat-karya-vada, or the theory that the effects exist in a nascent form in the cause, that is, the cause and effect are both permanent and abiding. So Buddha discarded this theory of permanent effects and established what is known as Ksanaika-vada, i.e., all things exist only for a moment and they are not permanent. The soul also was momentary and so the highest position is that there is no Samjna and no Samjni-'no name and nothing to which a name may be attached.' In this case there is no harm in the human soul (which is not permanent in his theory), being absolute without any relationship. Buddha thought the whole universe to be in a flux, both subjectively and objectively. Thus Buddha exclaimed- Sarvam Ksanikam Ksanikamiti Sarvam duhkham duhkhamiti Sarvam Svalaksanam Svalaksanamiti Sarvam Sunyam Sunyamiti. This is in fact the ontology of all schools of Buddhism both primitive and advanced. So Buddhism had its origin from the Sankhya which was the only system of philosophy in India before Buddha. It permeates through the Upanisads. It is described in its various phases in the Maha-bharata and the Puranas, and it gave rise to the great upheaval of human mind, in seventh and sixth centuries before Christ to which Buddhism and Jainism owe their rise. Primitive "Sankhya gave birth to primitive Buddhism. They looked so wonderfully different, but the fundamental difference is only in one idea: permanence or momentariness. But our present object is not primitive Sankhya but primitive Buddhism, and how it developed during the course of subsequent centuries. The philosophy of primitive Bud-

dhism we have given above. That Buddhism laid greater stress on the regulation of food, conduct, morals, in fact, of the entire life of its votaries. The highest aim was the attainment of Arhatship "worthiness" or, worthy of an escape from birth, death and old age. The four noble truths on which they insisted are misery, its cause, extinction of that cause, and the means leading to extinction. They also had gradual progress of the human soul to the Arhatship, the last three stages being falling in the stream, that is, no return back; then one more birth, then no birth, leading to Arhatship (Srotapatti, Sakrdagami, Anagami and Arhat). The primitive Buddhism revered Buddha as first of the three Jewels. They had no worship of Buddha; their symbol for the three Jewels was Dharma-cakrapravartana, that is, a wheel on the back of two stags sitting back to back with their faces looking at opposite directions. They worshipped the Bo-tree under which Buddha obtained his enlightenment, they decorated their monasteries with scenes from the life of Buddha with figures of huge Stupas which in those days were made of a heap of earth only, on a circular plinth. The primitive Buddhism cared for the escape of its votaries from the miseries of birth and death. It thought of nothing else, it was intensely selfish and narrowminded. It cared for its own self and not for others. Buddha himself could and did save lots of people but his disciples could not save anybody but themselves. They might impart instructions and the disciple so instructed might achieve his own liberation, but he must wait till another Buddha appears in the field. Without hearing from the Buddha no man can be saved. There, however, came a split in the Buddhist camp, in the second century after Buddha's Nirvana. The Maha-vamsa ascribes this split to ten points of conduct, such as storing a bit 1 Wher I was in Nepal in 1897 my friend Bodhisattva Indrananda, a descendant of the well-known Amrtananda, the right hand man of Hodgson, told me that in Hina-yana Buddha occupied the first place among the three Jewels. The Mahasanghikas gave him the second place, Dharma having the first. In Mahayana the three Jewels became Prajna, Upaya and Bodhisattva, i.e. the spiritualized forms of Dharma, Buddha, and Sangha. Transferred to stone or canvas Prajna becomes a female deity, Upaya a male deity and Bodhi-sattava also a male deity. When he found me sceptical he took me to the shrine of Amitabha at the Svayambhu Caitya and showed me a female figure inscribed with the words Dharmaya Namah.

of salt in a horn, taking some refreshment before going to an invitation to a distant village, continuing to take cooked food some minutes after twelve, and so on. The Maha-vamsa says, the younger generation of monks wanted relaxation of the food, conduct and moral regulations so rigidly enforced by Buddha himself and his elderly disciples. But the Elders would not yield an inch and there was a split. Modern thinkers consider these points of difference to be too trivial to warrant an abiding and everlasting separation. A perusal of the Maha-vastuAvadana will convince the reader that there were deeper causes of separation. The primitive Buddhism thought Buddha to be a human being who by exertion sustained through innumerable births attained to Buddhahood, or the position of the teacher and guide of the world. He was, they thought, Laukika or human but the new school thought him to be Lokottara, superhuman. It may be noted here that from the colophons of the Maha-vastu some people thought it to be a work on the Vinaya of the Lokottara-vadins among the Maha-sanghikas, or the new school. But this seems to be hardly convincing; the word Lokottara-vadinam in these colophons is a permanent adjective or Uddesya-visesana and not a predicative adjective or Vidheyavisesana, and among the various schools which arose in the new school, there is hardly any sect named Lokottaravadin. According to this school Buddha was exerting through innumerable Kalpas. (Their idea of time and space is more spacious and of longer duration than that of primitive Buddhism.) In one Kalpa it was pronounced by the Buddha of the time that this disciple of his would be a great man. In another Kalpa the Buddha of the time pronounced that he should be a Buddha, another Buddha of another Kalpa declared that his time was coming. Kasyapa of this Kalpa, appointed him Yuva-raja and so he was born at Kapila-vastu and became Buddha. This is certainly more than human. Primitive Buddhism thought that there were six Buddhas before him and one would follow him. These are called Manusi Buddhas. But the new school enumerates at least three hundred Buddhas (though by counting I got only 297), and says that the number is infinite. In the Maha-vastu which is the gospel of the new school, Buddha is given the miraculous power of sending emanations from him

exactly like him and calling them Nirmitas which were perhaps in later times called Nirmana-kayas. Buddha was the only Bodhisattva in primitive Buddhism, but the new school had many Bodhisattvas; and the ten stages of the advance of Bodhisattvas to the attainment of Bodhi knowledge are given in the Maha-vastu. They are not the same as the ten stages given in later and more advanced Buddhism of Mahayana, but they are in the Maha-vastu in a primitive and a rather alloyed form. They had Sakya-simha's life before them in drawing up these ten stages. In primitive Buddhism sermons were delivered by Buddha in district dialects but in the new school they made him deliver them in a highly inflated hybrid dialect, half Sanskrit and half vernacular, as if these were not meant for the ordinary people but for a fairly learned audience. The food and other regulations are not much thought of in the Maha-vastu, they are relegated only to the end of the work. They have the idea of Dharma-kaya but it is not the later Mahayana Dharmakaya, the all absorbing unity of the Universe, but merely the body of the laws promulgated by Sakya-simha. No mention of Sambhoga-kaya is met with in Maha-vastu. The Mahasanghikas or the new school of the second century of Buddhism with its teachings embodied in the Maha-vastu stands midway between primitive Buddhism and the Maha-yana. The Maha-vamsa places the date of the Nirvana of Buddha in 543 B.C. and they count an Era called the Parinirvana Era from that date. The Orientalists thought that there is a mistake of 66 years in the calculation and so the earlier scholars placed the Nirvana in 477 'B.C. But the discovery of a dotted record in Canton has upset both these calculations and fixes the commencement of the Nirvana Era in 486. Without entering into details it will be sufficient to assume that Buddha flourished and preached in the sixth century before Christ. In the second century of that Era, i.e., fourth century B.C. there was the split and the ideas of the splitters are embodied in the Maha-vastu. The Maha-vastu therefore must have been written in that century or the next. But M. Senart who has carefully edited the work puts it in the fifth century A.D. because in one place in the work the author uses the word Yogacara. Now a sect of the Mahayanists known as Yogacara or Vijnana-vada took

. their rise after Nagarjuna who flourished in the 2 nd century, and therefore Yogacaras rose either in the third or in the fourth century A.D. So when Maha-vastu uses the word Yogacara it must belong to the fifth century A.D. This is M. Senart's argument. But I have carefully studied the use of the word Yogacara in the Maha-vastu; it is not the proper name of a sect, but it is a common noun meaning Yoga and Acara. Asvaghosa used the same word twice in his Saundarananda, but not in the sectarian sense. Therefore, it is not possible to place Mahavastu so late. I think it should go to the third or second century B.C. In the third century B.C. Asoka was the great figure in India and the phenomenal spread of a particular sect of Buddhism was the great event of that century in India. In the seventeenth year of Asoka's reign the monks assembled in the third synod at Pataliputra, prepared a book entitled the Katha-vastu, in which they discussed the points of controversy with twenty different sects of Buddhism the majority of which leaned to the Maha-sanghika school. But in that book there is no mention of Maha-yana. The mode of discussion was primitive, at first the matter in dispute is greatly elaborated upon, and the discussion at length is brought down to one point. This is the primitive Katha or the mode of controversy.' The advanced methods of later logicians, Nagarjuna, Gotama, Vatsyayana, Dinnaga, and others are not to be found there. The method was crude and primitive. Arhatship is one of the topics much discussed upon, but there is no Buddhahood, not much of Bodhi, very little of Tri-kaya, and it marks the latest stage of primitive Buddhism in controversy with the Mahasanghika. The strict adherence to regulations of conduct came in for a large share of attention from the monks. The second century B.C. was rather disastrous for Buddhism in general and specially for that sect hich was favoured by Asoka. Three Brahmin dynasties successively reigned in Northern India. They organised militant Hinduism and persecuted the Buddhists in various ways. The Buddhists in China never pronounce the name of Pusyamitra without a curse, for he is said to have persecuted the Buddhists thrice and massacred the monks. They filed beyond his empire,

to the Punjab, to Southern India, to Western India, and to some bordering countries. That was certainly not the time either for the development of the Buddhist religion or the Buddhist literature. The only isolated work of the second. century is the Questions of Menander. It shows in some points an advance from the Mahasanghika view. Other works are non est. The Lankavatara-sutra is sometimes attributed to this century but it is in a language almost Sanskrit, and shows an advance in some points. Then comes the great Emperor Kaniska. His conversion to Buddhism is a great event in the first century A.D. He held a synod of monks to which the primitive Buddhists were not invited. So they do not acknowledge its existence. Yuan-chwang says that in this synod a commentary was made on all Buddhist works then available, inscribed in copper leaves, and buried under a Stupa in Kasmira. Some Orientalists still entertain the hope of digging out these copper-plates and making use of their contents. In this synod the president was Parsva, the then patriarch of the Buddhist church. Parsva was succeeded by Punya-yasas. Asvaghosa was the successor's successor of Parsva. A small body called Maha-yanists, were present in that synod, they did not however succeed in making much impression, but Asvaghosa some time after the synod took up their cause and wrote many works on their system. One of his works is the Mahayana-Sraddhotpada-Sutra and the other work is Sutralankara. This has not yet been found either in Sanskrit or in translation. The Sraddhotpadasutra though not found in Sanskrit has been found in Chinese translation and has been translated into English. It gives within a small compass all the points in which the Mahayana excelled its predecessors. All the twenty sects in Asoka's time are indiscriminately delegated to a lower position and called Hina-yana. Asvaghosa wrote four other small works in Buddhist Sutra form; (1) on Anatma-vada; (2) A sutra on ten Akusala Karma; (3) on the relation between the Guru and Sisya and (4) on Sadgati or the six stages of existence' in the world of desire. All these works have their Chinese translations. I discovered a second poem of his, Saundarananda by name, which I have edited in the Bibliotheca Indica. '

The Asvaghosa distinctly calls his works as Maha-yana. Maha-yana with him is not a sect, not a school of thought, but a theory, which later on crystallized into a school and a sect. All the great Maha-yana ideas are to be found in his works, though many of them not in a developed form. Sunya-vada or the theory of void was there; the two kinds of truth, practical and pure, are there; but not in the developed form which was given to it by his successor Nagarjuna. What he developed is the theory of Dharma-kaya in both its aspects: (1) The aspect of the Absolute, universal, unchanging and unchangeable; (2) The aspect of Samsara, i.e., the aspect of phenomenality changeableness, momentariness and birth and death. Asvaghosa also gives some idea of the three Kayas, Dharma-kaya, Sambhoga-kaya and Nirmana-kaya. Dharmakaya as explained before is the totality of the Universe to which nothing can be added and nothing can be subtracted, which is full of Prajna, or 'all comprehending knowledge' and Karuna all comprehending love or activity.' Then comes Sambhoga-kaya in which aspect the Dharma-kaya is said to enjoy the bliss of the Universe. This is a mysterious form which reveals itself only to the enlightened Bodhisattvas. This form is endowed with thirty-two Laksanas and eighty Anuvyanjanas. The third aspect is Nirmana-kaya or 'the body of transformation.' Sakya-simha is a Nirmana-kaya emanating from the Universal Dharma-kaya. The idea of Tri-kaya was not in the Maha-vastu. There when the king of Kalinga wanted Lord Buddha's help, Buddha sent some Nirmitas or duplicates' of his own self to that country. Among the Brahminists this is known as Kayavyuha-racana, or sending forth duplicates of one's self. Of the Tri-kayas, the Dharma-kaya is absolute, others are mere emanations from it and are ultimately absorbed in it. The difference between the Maha-yana and Hina-yang may be described here. Maha-yana is active, Hina-yana is passive. Maha-yana takes an extended view of the Universe whereas the Hina-yana is extremely narrow-minded. The Maha-yana extends 1 C 1 The Rasa-lila of Krsna is an example of Kaya-vyuha-racana by which Krsna is said to have sported simultaneously with sixteen thousand milkmaids of Vrnda-vana.

its philanthrophic benevolence to all sentient beings while the Hina-yana confines itself to one man. The Maha-yana acts according to the spirit of Buddha's teaching, while the Hina-yana adheres to the letters of his sermons. The Nirvana of the Maha-yana is complete absorption in the Dharma-kaya. It is called Nirvana without an abode, while that of the Hinayana is an escape from birth, death, and old age. It is simply Santa." A comparison of these two sects, of their aims and objects is fully given in the first chapter of Maha-yana sutralamkara of Asanga which has been edited with a translation in French, by Prof. Sylvain Levi. Asanga's work, the editor says, is based on the Sutralankara of Asvaghosa. :: After Asvaghosa comes the great propagator of Maha-yana Bodhisattva Nagarjuna. It is said that he recovered from the nether world a complete Sutra literature composed by Buddha in Sanskrit. This is called the Prajna-Paramita which has many recensions; one is Sata-sahasrika, one is Panca-vimsatiSahasrika, one is Sapta-satika and one is Svalpaksara. The Prajna-paramita eight thousand was edited by Raja Rajendralala Mitra and the one of hundred thousand is in the course of publication by the Asiatic Society of Bengal. The teaching of the Prajna Paramita is Sunya-vada, pure and simple. It is written in the form of an interlocution between Buddha and one of his disciples and as it is in the form of a popular lecture, it is full of repetitions. Raja Rajendra-lala denounces the style of Prajna-paramita as verbose. But he does not take into account the fact that they are popular lectures on subjects extremely abstruse; one cannot expect to impress on common people such abstruse ideas without hammering it into their brain and hammering by means of repetitions. The Prajnaparamita 8,000 is concerned with the Sunya-vada. It is a religious work. It treats of the merits of offering flowers, etc., on Caityas. Prajna-paramita is said to be the mother of all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. It generally follows the theory of Asvaghosa's Sraddhotpada and Nagarjuna's Madhyamakakarika the great controversial work which made Nagarjuna's name famous. In the very first chapter it examines everything under four heads: (i) Sat, existence (ii) Asat, Nonexistence, (iii) Tadubhaya, a combination of existence and non-

existence, (iv) Anubhaya, a negation of existence and nonexistence. Anything that stands under the examination under these four heads is real or true, the others are false, momentary and phenomenal. That real thing is described in the very Mangalacarana as Eight Noes' The Mangalacarana runs thus :- ☑ anirodhamanutpadamanucchedamasasvatam | vyanekarthamananarthamanagamama nirgamam || The work examines from the point of view of the idealistic philosophy the senses and the objects of the sense, and proves that neither the senses nor the objects exist. By the word existence is meant pure existence or real existence not practical existence. It says that there are two aspects of truth, Param- artha Satya and Samvrta Satya, and the Maha-yana school shows by gradual steps that the Samvrta Satya merges into Paramartha Satya. In Vedantic language this would be the merging of the Vyavaharika Satya into the Supreme Brahma. The Madhyamaka shows this line of argument to the best advantage, but the best means of studying the nature of these two truths is to be found in the ninth chapter of the Bodhicaryavatara by Santi Deva. This chapter is called Prajnaparamita or Knowledge par excellence. But what is this Prajna? Examine it under the four heads, and it is a thing which has neither existence, nor non-existence, nor a combination, nor a negation of the two. And this is what is called Sunya. Some people think that Sunya is negation of existence, but no! it is the Absolute which transcends human faculties and embraces the whole Universe. It is neither created nor can it be destroyed, it is the totality of our knowledge, this is Prajna, it is Sunyata. This is one phase of Prajna. Of the other phase we will speak of later. Shortly after Nagarjuna there arose a new school of thought amongst the Maha-yanists who were not satisfied with the Sunya-vada. They thought that Sunya-vada cannot be the highest aim of human aspirations. They wanted consciousness along with it. A great monk named Maitreya-natha wrote a very short, but a very pregnant work in eight short chapters, entitled, the Abhisamayalankara-karika and the Prajna-paramita 8,000 was converted into a larger recension in 25,000 slokas

according to these Karikas. This was the Prajna-paramita which the Yogacaras took up as their standard work, and Asanga and Vasu-bandhu derived their inspiration from this historical Maitreya-natha, and not from the future Buddha Maitreya as it is represented in Yuan-chwang's work. The new Prajna-paramita is divided into 8 chapters according to the chapters in the Karikas. The new school examined the world according to three aspects of the knowledge. These three aspects are Parikalpita, Para-tantra and Parinispanna. The first is for the ordinary man who looks upon the world from the ego-centric point of view, Para-tantra knowledge depends upon others that is, in relation to others, or in other words, upon relativity. But when relativity is banished and the absolute immerges and absorbs our own intellect, then it is called Parinispanna or finished knowledge. Buddhist philosophy has four different schools: (1) Vaibhasika depending on the Vibhasa literature prepared in the fourth synod during the reign of Kaniska. It believed in the existence of both the external and internal worlds, though as a Buddhist school both the worlds were Ksanika or momentary and Sunya; (2) Sautrantikas base their philosophy on the Sutranta literature of the Buddhists. They do not believe in the external world but think that it is simply a projection of the internal world which we wrongly think to be external (3) Yogacaras do not believe even in the existence of the internal world. They think that the only truth available is one single idea. We are sure of a single idea, the present idea, neither of the past nor of the future. How can there be identity if a past thing is not compared with the present? How can one pronounce that this is the same as that. Therefore this school thinks there is a chain of ideas. The ideas may be momentary but the chain is not. This chain is called the Alaya-Vijnana and to the idealist this serve all the purpose of an ego or Atma. (4) Last of all comes the Madhyamakas, who do not believe even in the ideas and the Alaya-Vijnana; they are Sunya-vadins, pure and simple. But Sunya as I have already said is neither void nor a negation of existence, but the Absolute One. They call it Sunya, because the human language has no word to express the idea of the Absolute, which is beyond the comprehension 5 -

of Man, and language concerns itself with those things which Man can and does comprehend. The four schools have four other names: (1) Sarvasti-vada, those who believe both in the external and internal world; (2) Bahyartha-bhanga, those who do not believe in the external world; (3) Vijnana-vada, those who believe in ideas alone; and (±) Sunyavada, those who believe in nothing beyond the Absolute. I am not sure if I am exactly right in putting the two sets of names in the order in which I have done. The Philosophical names are in this philosophical order and Sankara in his Bhasya accepts them in this order. He, however, speaks of Suny-vada as the raving of a mad man. The Buddhists however take it in a more serious light and charge Sankara with stealing the idea, Sunya, from them and giving it a new name, Brahma. The order does not appear to me to be historical, Sunya-vada of Nagarjuna preceded the Vijnana-vada of Maitreya-natha and his followers Asanga and Vasu-bandhu. There is a good deal of misapprehension as regards the tenets of the Sautrantikas and Vaibhasikas. No book belonging to these schools has yet been discovered. I have taken the order as I have got it in Sankara's Bhasya. Two Yanas are well-known, the Maha- and the Hina-yana. Of course, the Maha-yanists arrogate upon themselves the title of 'great' and relegate all others as Hina-, or 'low.' The latter however, do not take this opprobrious epithet lying, they call themselves as belonging to either Sravaka-yana or Pratyekayana and return the abuse on the Maha-yanists by calling them Kapalikas. The Sravakas hear from Buddha his Upadesa, act according to his directions and strictly follow his instructions. They cannot get Nirvana (even the lowest form of Nirvana, which they aspire to) without a Buddha. The Pratyeka Buddhas are those who by their own exertions at times, when there were no Buddhas in the world, attain to Nirvana. They call the Maha-yanists not Maha- but Bodhisattva-yana. That also, I believe, in derision, because according to them there can be but one or two Boddhi-sattvas in the world at a time; but every votary of Mahayana is a Bodhisattva. There are hundreds and thousands of Bodhisattvas at one time and at one place. Every Gubhaju in Nepal is a Bodhisattva.

The distribution of the four schools in the three Yanas was a matter of speculation among the students of Buddhism. Advaya-vajra who belonged to the eleventh century of the Christian Era, however, makes a distribution. He says that the Sravaka-yana has three phases, Mrdu, Madhya and Adhimatra or Moderate, Intermediate, and Extreme. The Western Vaibhasikas are either moderate or intermediate Sravakas, and the Vaibhasikas of Kasmira are extreme Sravakas, Pratyeka-buddha-yana is like the extreme Sravaka. Mahayana is of two sorts: Paramita-naya and Mantra-naya The word Mantra-naya is often used as Mantra-yana which is rather misleading. The Paramita-naya which generally goes by the name of Maha-yana has also three phases: moderate, intermediate and extreme. The moderate people are Sautrantikas, the intermediate people are Yogacaras and the extremists are Madhyamakas. This, according to Advaya-vajra, is the complete distribution of the four schools into the three Yanas. The Buddhists did not believe in the aggregates. Trees they were prepared to believe but forests they did not believe. What is called Samanya or generality was an abomination to them. They were prepared to believe in the five elements but they would not believe a general principle as element. This is a matter of standing dispute between the Brahmins and the Buddhists. Sabara, the commentator of Purva Mimamsa, quotes this theory of the Maha-yanists, and says: "anena pratyukto Maha-yanikah paksah. In a short work, called the Samanya-Nirakarana-Dik-Prakasika the Buddhists categorically refute one of the seven categories of the Vaisesikas known as Samanya or generality. One of the elder contemporaries of Sakya Simha named Ajita-Kesa-Kambala started the theory that as water, molasses and the seed of wine coming together produce intoxicating effect, so earth, air, fire and water coming together produce vitality (Caitanya). There is no such thing as Atma. When 1 man dies the elements return to their proper places and the vitality is gone. So Buddha taught that man is simply an aggregate of five Skandhas or bunches: (i) Rupa, matter, (ii) Vedana, feeling, (iii) Samjna, conception, (iv) Samskara, activity and (v) Vijnana, consciousness. They come together

xxviii << INTRODUCTION. by force of their previous Karma and form a human being. At death the five separate and go their own way as directed by their Karma. So there is no Atma or soul. The five Skandhas enjoy or suffer according to their Karma. This is directly opposed to Brahmanical ideas that the aggregate (Samghata) works for others and not for himself. As I have said before Buddha's difference with his Samkhya teachers turned mainly on the point of Atma. They said it exists, it thinks, it enjoys; Prakrti is simply a dancing girl who dances according to her own will. As soon as the seer of the dance says Bas" there is an end of the connection between the Purusa or the human soul and the Prakrti the internal world, and the Purusa becomes Absolute. Buddha says this cannot be the Purusa is still subject to the condition of birth as it has the character of seed. The seed may remain dormant for want of requisite conditions but when these conditions are favourable it will again germinate, and so he said that the soul or Purusa is nothing but the aggregate of five Skandhas. In other words he did not believe in the existence of an ego. All that was permanent in Samkhya, Buddha made momentary. The Purusa is distinct from the permanent matter and so its permanency also is to be destroyed, and Buddha destroyed i After the full development of the Maha-yanic ideas of Tri-kaya, of Prajna, of Karuna, and of others there was in the seventh century A.D. a craving among the Buddhists for the representation of these subjective, etherial and metaphysical ideas on canvas and in stones for the edification of those who are not fit for such a hard study as the Mahayana required, and so the five Skandhas were represented as the five Dhyani Buddhas. The phrase Dhyani Buddha is a misnomer given to those representations by people who did not understand their import. They were neither Buddhas nor were engaged in Dhyana or meditation. They are simply the representations of the absolute form of the five Skandhas. Just at this point it is necessary to digress a bit to explain what the ardent Maha-yanist philosopher did for the benefit of those who were either unable or incapable of so much study and meditation as is required to understand the subtle theories

of Maha-yana. They invented Dharanis for them. They are rather long Mantras and a philosopher said to his disciples, "Read, recite and repeat" this Dharani and you will get all the benefit of studying such and such work and practising such and such Dhyana. The Mantras will hold you fast to your creed and so they are called Dharanis. The Dharanis generally range from fifty to hundred syllables. In the fifth or sixth century A.D. all Indians, Hindus and Buddhists alike, had Hrdaya Mantras rather longish, certainly longer than Dharanis, giving the essence of certain creeds. Thus Prabhakara Vardhana repeated the Aditya Hrdaya Mantra, his elder son, RajyaVardhana, repeated the Prajna-Paramita Hrdaya Mantra and his younger son, Harsa-Vardhana, repeated the Mahesvara Hrdaya Mantra. These Mantras are simply symbolic; they symbolised particular creeds, particular schools and particular works. If so, if it is all symbol, why not make the symbol as short as possible. So they began to take the initial letter as the symbol of the idea in the case of Buddhists, and of the deity in the case of the Hindus. But after a certain time they gave up taking the initial letters. They evolved out of the shapes of different characters of the alphabet, the form of different deities. Thus is Visnu, written with a hook below is Ananta, the serpent God who often remains coiled Kunddalita, used to be written with three dots and so that letter represented Tri-vikrama, and so on, to the end of the alphabet. These were called the Bijas and the Yogis used to evolve out of these Bijas the form of the deities whom they worshipped. But these Mantras were not so effective as the representation of the deities either on canvas or in stone. So the five Skandhas were transformed into five forms, Vairocana, Aksobhya, Ratna-sambhava, Amitabha and Amogha-siddhi. Meditate on these and you meditate on the five Skandhas, no ego, no soul. In later Buddhism and in later iconography which rose after the full development of Maha-yana, Sakya Simha lost his pre-eminent position in the Buddhist pantheon. He was not much heard of. When I went first to the Svayambhu Ksetra in company with Pandita Indrananda, a learned Buddhist priest, my first question was: where is Sakya Simha? He is not in the Stupa where I

. see the five Dhyani Buddhas. My friend replied, Sakya Simha is a mere writer, like Vyasa or Moses, he simply records the decrees of these five. There he is at some distance from the Stupa on a high pedestal. Sakya Simha sat with a pen in hand, at the top of the old road which at one time led from below to the top of the hill. But at the head of the new staircase of 600 steps there is a big Vajra covered with gold leaf on a big Mandala. The Mandala and the Vajra have more significance than the old Sakya-muni had some centuries before. It is the received opinion amongst the archaologists that the miniature image of one of the Dhyani Buddhas on the crown of a male or female image indicates that the Buddha is either a father, or a Guru, or a husband of these deities. But Advaya-vajra gives another tale. He says that, the other four Dhyani Buddhas have the stamp of a miniature Aksobbya on their crown and Advaya explains this fact by stating that the other four Buddhas cannot be known without Aksobhya or the stamp of Vijnana. The relationship here is neither husband or Guru, nor father. But Aksobhya again is stamped with the miniature figure of Vajra-sattva which is something like a sixth Dhyani Buddha. But what is Vajra-sattva? If Vijnana is more important than the other four Skandhas, Vajra-sattva must be still more important. Yes, he is. Vajra means Sunyata and Sattva means Jnana-matra, i.e., knowledge only. So Vajrasattva means the pure knowledge of Sunyata. This is certainly much more important from the Buddhist point of view than mere Vijnana; and so, Aksobhya is stamped with the miniature Vajra-sattva. The Sadhana-mala says, that the Saktis orfemale emanations from these Dhyani Buddhas are five, and there are five Bodhisattvas also emanating from them. Other emanations follow and the magnificent Buddhist Iconography is the result of these emanations. Advaya-vajra though he has got several Sadhanas in the Sadhana-mala does not say so here, except that he speaks of the female emanations or Saktis. Having thus given the history of Buddhism according to my own light I now proceed to give some account of the more important topics treated of in this work, such as the doctrines of the different Yanas, theory of the three Kayas, of Karuna

according to different schools of the theory, of Maha-sukha, and of such other topics.