A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s6.t5.70

v2.c19.s6.t5.70

Tārā-Sādhana,¹) not only meditations and Mantras, but also a confession of sins, the confession of faith in the "three jewels," the vow to walk in the path of the Buddhas, the Brahmavihāra absorptions, *i.e.* the yielding to the feelings of love, pity, sympathy in joy, and equanimity, together with detailed definitions of these qualities. The language of the Sādhanas is a very frequently defective Sanskrit, and the metre of the verses is very irregular. Of the 312 Sādhanas contained in the Sādhanamālā, some are in prose and are quite short, others are longer, with verse Mantras, and a few are entirely in verse. Every single Sādhana is an independent work. Most of them are anonymous, whilst in a number of cases, the name of the author of the Sādhana is mentioned. The authors mentioned in them belong to the 7th-11th centuries A.D., as far as their period can be determined. As a manuscript of the Sādhanamālā was written in the year 1165, the collection must have been compiled in the 11th century.