The Indian Buddhist Iconography, Mainly Based on the Sadhanamala and Other Cognate Tantric Texts of Rituals c9.s3.5

c9.s3.5

The difficult psychic process is described in detail and in an elaborate form in the Guhyasamāja which may be called the Bible of the Tāntric Buddhists. A perusal of the book makes it clear that when the Bodhicitta or the Will to Enlightenment mingles with Śūnya or the Infinite Spirit in the highest state of meditation the mind-sky is filled with innumerable visions and scenes, until at last, like sparks the individual visualises letters or germ syllables, which gradually assume the shape of deities, first indistinct, then changing into perfect, glorious and living forms, the embodiment of the Infinite Śūnya. They appear in bright, effulgent, gorgeous and divine beauty in form, ornaments and dress. Violent deities in like manner appear before him in the most violent form conceivable, in an awe-inspiring manner with dishevelled hair, blood-shot eyes, bare fangs, decked in ornaments of human skulls, severed heads and human bones, with frightful weapons and dress. These beings both benefic and malefic, are known as deities, and once realised they never leave the ascetic but become instrumental in bestowing on the ascetic more and more spiritual and psychic powers.