Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c24.s9.19

c24.s9.19

Another allusion in Asaṅga⁴ reveals the existence in Buddhism of Tantric rites, in which the union of the Buddha or Bodhisattva with the personification of wisdom, Prajñāpāramitā, is reproduced on earth as one simple and effective mode of realizing the true identity of the individual with the Buddha; for the doctrine of the absolute lends itself to the Vedāntic identification of the self and the supreme reality, and permits and even encourages the violation of all morality by denying any real distinction between right and wrong; where all is illusion, woman is the most attractive form of that illusion. It would, however, be unjust to ascribe such doctrines as essential parts of the Mahāyāna, though tradition ascribes to Nāgārjuna the Tantric Pañcakrama, to Āryadeva the Cittaviśuddhiprakaraṇa, and makes Asaṅga an authority; we need see no more here than the eternal desire to father on ancients new doctrines badly needing some person of repute to vouch for them.¹