DISQUS

In Pursuit of Mysteries: Siddham Tattoo

  • Jayarava · 1 year ago
    What you have on your page is the Japanese pronunciation the Sanskrit mantra (backwards) of Mahāvairocana. Kūkai associates each of the five letters with one of the five material elements in his Sokushin jōbutsu gi - Mahāvairocana himself stands for consciousness, the sixth element in Buddhist thought. The syllables as they occur in the Mahāvairocana Abhisaṃbodhi Tantra are
    a vi ra hūṃ kha. They represent in esoteric Buddhist associations earth, water, fire, wind, and space.

    The Buddhist scheme doesn't have air as an element. Wind represents movement, just as earth represent solidity. So yes "space" in your scheme is the space which objects take up, sometimes used as a metaphor for śunyata or emptiness.

    I've just noticed that this is a very old post, but I suppose it doesn't matter if it still pops up on Google.