The History of Buddhist Thought c22.s1.5

c22.s1.5

One of the best known spells of this type is the well-known *oṃ maṇipadme hūṃ*. It has often been misunderstood, for it was first reported by travellers quite ignorant of the language.¹ This was even the case with Klaproth, who expounded it in 1831.² He did not see that *maṇi* is not a separate word, but only a stem. He thought it might be nominative or vocative, but if it were a word and vocative it would be *mane*, and if nominative *maṇiḥ*. Really *maṇipadme* is one word and a feminine vocative,³ so that with the syllables of invocation *oṃ* and *hūṃ* it means “O Maṇipadmā”. Maṇipadmā is “she who has a jewel-lotus”. F. W. Thomas thinks that she was a female counterpart of Avalokiteśvara, but in the *Kāraṇḍavyūha*, where the spell is expounded, there is no trace of such a female being.