History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c92.185

v7.c92.185

Tāntrik works have their own mantras and they also employ Vedic mantras. For example, the mantra 'Jātavedase sunavāma' (Ṛg. I. 99 1), though addressed to Agni, is employed in later works for invoking Durgā, the mantra 'Tryambakam yajāmahe' (Ṛg VII. 59. 12) is addressed to Rudra, but is called Mṛtyuñjaya-mantra or mṛtasañjīvinī mantra in Tāntrik works and is prescribed for purifying the mind (*cittaśuddhi*) in the Mahānirvāṇa (VIII. 243). Similarly, the Gāyatrī mantra (Ṛg. III. 62 10) is employed by the Tāntrikas. Vide Śāradātilaka XXI. 1-8 and 16 (latter for *dhyāna* of Gāyatrī) and Prapañcasāra, which devotes the whole chapter 30 to the explanation of *om*, the *vyāhṛtis* and the words of the Gāyatrī and Gāyatrī-sādhana). The Mahānirvāṇa prescribes the performance of Vaidikī *sandhyā* to be followed by the Tāntrikī *sandhyā*. The Tāntrikī Gāyatrī is ‘Ādyāyai vidmahe Parameśvaryai dhīmahi।tan-nah Kālī pracodayāt॥’ (Mahānirvāṇa V. 62–63) Even Śūdra Tāntrikas were to recite this last, while the three higher classes were to repeat the vedic Gāyatrī employing *om*, *śrīm* and *aim* before it respectively. The importance of guru, mantra and devatā is emphatically brought out in the following verse ‘the person, who considers guru as a mere mortal, a mantra as mere letters and images (of deities) as mere stones falls into Hell’.¹⁷⁸⁴ The Rudrayāmala says ‘If Śiva is angered, Guru can save (the pupil), but if Guru is angered, no one can save (the pupil)’.