The Indian Buddhist Iconography, Mainly Based on the Sadhanamala and Other Cognate Tantric Texts of Rituals c9.3

c9.3

The difficulties of the investigator are increased by the fact that a free and frequent interchange of deities took place among the three religious systems. Such Hindu deities as Pārvatī, Indra, Lakṣmī, Sarasvatī are to be found among the Jainas. The Hindus, on the other hand, have borrowed goddesses like Mahācīnātārā, Jāngulī, Vajrayoginī from the Buddhist pantheon and incorporated them into their own under the names of Tārā, Manasā and Chinnamastā respectively. Thus there is evidence that a free interchange of deities actually took place at the very outset of Buddhism and Jainism as in the more promiscuous Tāntric age. The Jainas and the Buddhists alike borrowed Hindu gods in their earlier stages, but in the Tāntric age Buddhist gods were commonly exploited.