The Indian Buddhist Iconography, Mainly Based on the Sadhanamala and Other Cognate Tantric Texts of Rituals c9.s3.24

c9.s3.24

According as the impurities are removed one after another, the Bodhi mind commences an upward march in the different spiritual spheres, called Bhūmis, and stays in them only so long as it is not qualified to ascend to a higher sphere. The number of Bhūmis are recognized generally as ten and the Sūtra which describes them is called the Daśabhūmika Sūtra. The Bodhi mind obtains emancipation, or in other words when it crosses the ten Bhūmis mentioned above, it is rewarded with moniscience. These Bhūmis are not meant for the Hīnayānists but were exclusively designed for the Mahāyānists who are the real Bodhisattvas. No Buddhist will be called a Bodhisattva who has no compassion for suffering humanity or who will not be prepared to sacrifice his all for the benefit of others, The Vajrayānist conception is the same, and it defines Bodhi mind as one where Śūnya and Karuṇā (compassion) work in unison. In the eye of a Vajrayānist the external world has much the same significance as it appears in Yogācāra. The Tantras characterize the external world with its movable and immovable objects like a pot, picture, carriage, house, stone-house, mountains and the rest as reduced by reason to mere appearances, in the same way as magic and dream are considered to be appearances. Therefore, the Vajrayānists hold that external objects have no greater reality than magic, mirage, shadow or dream, and their reality cannot be proved by reason.