Elements of Buddhist Iconography c6.13

c6.13

Vedic “*yakṣa*,” in its general application to Varuṇa, later Brahman, represents in our view an essential name of the manifested deity as mover in the Tree of Life. 11 (page 10). The tree itself is analogically the Great Awakening, not merely the sign of the place where the Awakening was accomplished, which from the standpoint of the developed Buddhology was not an event in Time. Cf. *pratyabudhyata*, “awakened,” “illuminated,” with reference to angelic, prophetic, or human knowledge of Brahman, whereby the one awakened is identified with That, *Bṛhadāraṇyaka Up.*, I, 4, 10; and *pratibodhaviditaṃ matam amṛtatvaṃ hi vindate, ātmanā vindate vīryaṃ vidyayā vindate amṛtam*, “It (*brahman*) is thought of as known with Awakening, for thus one finds what is deathless; by the Self one finds the virile-strength, by knowledge one finds the Deathless,” *Jaiminīya Upaniṣad Brāhmaṇa*, IV, 19.