History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c92.197

v7.c92.197

The Buddhist Tantras did not lag behind the Hindu Tantras in the matter of the potency of mantras. The Sādhanamālā¹⁷⁹¹ asserts that there is nothing that cannot be accomplished by mantras if proper procedure is followed. For example, it says that a certain mantra that is a prince among mantras confers Buddhahood, what need is there to say about othere siddhis, that by another mantra even Buddhahood which is extremely difficult to attain is like a jujube fruit placed on the palm of the hand and that a certain mantra (of unmeaning words) if repeated five times at three periods in the day viz. the morning, noon and evening, makes even a fool (lit. an ass) master of three hundred works. The Buddhist Tantras also prescribe repetition of mantras for a lakh¹⁷⁹² of times (vide Sādhanamālā, vol I, No 165 p. 336 and No. 108, p. 221). Some of the mantras embody the doctrines of Mahāyāna with the addition of syllables like om, phat, svāhā (such as 'om śūnyatā-jñānavajrasvabhāvātmakoham' in Sādhanamālā vol I, p. 62). The Prapañcasāra, which is ascribed to the great advaita teacher Śaṅkarācārya and on which Padmapāda is said to have written a commentary (both published by A. Avalon in Tāntrik Texts, vol. XVIII–XIX, 1935), contains a mantra called Trailokya-mohana for the purpose ¹⁷⁹³ of the six cruel magic rites and (in 34. 33) describes a *yantra* (diagram) by worship of which a sādhaka can make a woman smitten with passion for him and draw her to him. This, among other matters such as ungrammatical forms, raises grave doubts as to whether the work was really composed by the first Śaṅkarācārya. It may, however, be stated that the learned Rāghavabhaṭṭa in many places in his commentary on the Śāradātilaka (such as I. 7, 8, 12) quotes the Prapañcasāra (I 42, 44) as the great ācārya's work and several later writers do the same. It has to be borne in mind, however, that about 400 works are ascribed to the great advaita Ācārya and that Rāghavabhaṭṭa was separated by at least seven centuries from the great Ācārya and his ascription therefore cannot be accepted with implicit faith without more evidence.