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Vajrayāna Buddhism, also known as Tantric Buddhism and Esoteric
Buddhism, is often viewed as the third major school of Buddhism, alongside
the Theravada and Mahayana schools.
This classification is useful when talking about schools by geographic areas. Others classify Vajrayana as a subset of Mahayana
Buddhism, a useful scheme when studying the practices of the schools. Vajrayana Buddhists themselves often classify their school
as the final stage in the evolution of Indian Buddhist theory which they enumerate as: Hinayana, Mahayana, Vajrayana (see dharma wheel). None of these classification schemes are particularly inconsistent with the others when
the context is understood.
Vajrayana exists today in the form of two major sub-schools:
What is Vajrayana? A faster path to enlightenment
The key advantage Vajrayana Buddhism claims to provide is an accelerated path to enlightenment. This is achieved through use of tantra, which are
practical aids to spiritual development, and esoteric transmission (explained below). Whereas earlier schools might provide ways
to achieve nirvana over the course of many lifetimes, Vajrayana techniques make this
possible in a much shorter timeframe, perhaps in a single lifetime. Vajrayana Buddhists do not claim that Theravada or Mahayana
practices are in any way invalid, only that they represent slower paths to the same goal.
First speed-up technique: Tantra
Vajrayana relies on various tantric techniques rooted in scriptures known as tantras, written in India. Tantric techniques include:
- repetition of special ritual phrases (mantras),
- use of various yoga techniques, including breath control (yantra) and the use of special hand positions
(mudras)
- use of an extensive vocabulary of visual aids, such as cosmic mandala diagrams
which teach and map pathways to spiritual enlightenment
- the use of ritual objects such as the vajra and bell, hand drum (damaru), sacred
bells (ghanta), and spirit daggers (phurpa), and relics
- use of specialized rituals rooted in Vajrayana cosmology and beliefs
As a side note, the sensational techniques of tantric sex are confined the
more extreme 'Left-Hand path' of Tantra, which uses taboo-breaking as a means of spiritual enlightenment. All mainstream branches of Vajrayana, including Shingon, belong to the more conservative Right-Hand path and do not practice these rites.
Sexual symbolism, however, is common in Vajrayana iconography, where it often
represents the marrying of wisdom and compassion.
It is from the tantra that Vajrayana Buddhism gets the alternative names of Mantrayana and
Tantrayana. The word "Vajrayana" itself comes from vajra, a Sanskrit word which can mean "diamond" or "thunderbolt" and which also has the connotation of "reality". This
gives rise to two more names for Vajrayana Buddhism: Diamond Vehicle, and Adamantine Vehicle
(adamantine means "diamond-like"). The vajra (or dorje in Tibetan) is an important ritual object symbolizes
wisdom, while the bell symbolizes compassion.
Second speed-up technique: Esoteric Transmission
The other conspicuous aspect of Vajrayana Buddhism is that it is esoteric. In
this context esoteric means that the transmission of certain accelerating factors only occurs directly from teacher to
student and cannot be learned from a book. Many techniques are also commonly said to be secret, but some Vajrayana
teachers have responded that the secrecy itself is not important but only a side-effect of the reality that the techniques have
no validity outside the teacher-student lineage. The esoteric aspects of Vajrayana Buddhism results in several more names for the
school: Secret Buddhism, Esoteric Mahayana, and Esoteric Buddhism (the most
common name in Japan).
The esoteric transmission framework can take varying forms. The Nyingma school of
Tibetan Buddhism uses a method called dzogchen. Other Tibetan Buddhist schools and the Shingon school
in Japan use an alternative method called mahamudra.
Relationship with Mahayana
While tantra and esoterism distinguish Vajrayana Buddhism, it is, from the Tibetan Buddhist point of view, nonetheless
primarily a form of Mahayana Buddhism. Sutras important to Mahayana are generally important to Vajrayana, although Vajrayana adds some of its own
(see Buddhist texts, list of sutras, Tibetan Buddhist
canon). The importance of bodhisattvas and a pantheon of deities in
Mahayana carries over to Vajrayana, as well as the perspective that Buddhism is not just for monks but for the laity too.
The Japanese Vajrayana teacher Kukai expressed a view contrary to this by making a
clear distinction between Mahayana and Vajrayana. Kukai characterises the Mahayana in its entirety as exoteric, and therefore
provisional. From this point of view the esoteric Vajrayana is the only Buddhist teaching which is not a compromise with the
limited nature of the audience to which it is directed, since the teachings are said to be the Dharmakaya (the principle of
enlightenment) in the form of Mahavairocana, engaging in a monologue with himself. From this view the Hinayana and Mahayana are
provisional and compromised aspects of the Vajrayana - rather than seeing the Vajrayana as priamrily a form of Mahayana
Buddhism.
Some aspects of Vajrayana have also filtered back into Mahayana. In particular, the Vajrayana fondness for the fearsome and
macabre may be found in weakened form in Mahayana temples where protector
deities may be found glaring down at visitors.
History of Vajrayana
India
There are differing views as to just where Vajrayana started, some claiming that it began in Udyana - the modern day Swat valley in Pakistan, while others say that it began in southern India.
Regardless, early texts were appearing around the early 4th century.
Nalanda University in northern India became a center for the development of Vajrayana
theory, although it is likely that the university followed, rather than led, the early Tantric movement. India would continue as
the source of leading-edge Vajrayana practices up through the 11th
century.
Vajrayana Buddhism had mostly died out in India by the 13th century, its practices merging with Tantric Hinduism, and both tantric religions experiencing
pressure from the rising importance of Islam.
In the second half of the 20th century a sizeable number of Tibetan
exiles fled the Communist Chinese to establish Tibetan Buddhist communities in northern
India, particularly around Dharamsala. They remain the primary practitioners of
Tantric Buddhism in India.
China
Vajrayana followed the same route into northern China as Buddhism itself, arriving from India via the Silk Road some
time during the first half of the 7th century. It arrived just as Buddhism
was reaching its zenith in China, receiving sanction from the emperors of the Tang Dynasty. The Tang capital at Chang'an (modern-day
Xi'an) became an important center for Buddhist studies, and Vajrayana ideas no doubt
received great attention as pilgrim monks returned from India with the latest texts and methods (see Buddhism in China, Journey to the West).
Tibet and other Himalayan kingdoms
In 747 the Indian saint Padmasambhava traveled from Afghanistan to bring
Vajrayana Buddhism to Tibet and Bhutan, at the
request of the king of Tibet. This was the original transmission which anchors the lineage of the Nyingma school. During the 11th century and early 12th century a second important transmission occurred with the lineage of Tilopa, Naropa, Marpa, Milarepa, and Gampopa giving rise to the other schools of
Tibetan Buddhism, namely Kagyupa, Kadampa, Sakyapa,
and Gelukpa (the school of the Dalai
Lama).
Japan
In 804, the Emperor
Kammu of Japan sent the intrepid monk Kukai to the Tang capital at Chang'an to
retrieve the latest Buddhist knowledge. Kukai absorbed the Vajrayana thinking and synthesized a version which he took back with
him to Japan, where he founded the important Shingon school of Buddhism, a school
which continues to this day.
Java
In the late 8th century, Indian models of Vajrayana traveled directly to
the Indonesian island of Java where a huge temple complex at Borobudur was soon built.
Vajrayana Buddhism would survive in Indonesia and Malaysia until eclipsed by
Islam in the 13th century.
Mongolia
In the 13th century, long after the original wave of Vajrayana Buddhism
had died out in China itself, two Tibetan eminent Sakyapa teachers, Sakya Pandita
Kunga Gyaltsen and Chogyal
Phagpa, visited the Mongolian royal court. Marco Polo was serving the royal court at about the same time. In a competition between Christians, Moslems, and Buddhists held
before the royal court, Prince
Godan found Tibetan Buddhism to be the most satisfactory and
adopted it as his personal religion, although not requiring it of his subjects. As Kublai Khan had just conquered China (establishing the Yuan
Dynasty), his adoption of Vajrayana led to the renewal of Tantric practices in China as the ruling class found it useful to
emulate their leader.
Vajrayana would decline in China and Mongolia with the fall of the Yuan Dynasty, replaced by resurgent Daoism, Confucianism, and Pure Land Buddhism. However, Mongolia would see yet another revival of
Vajrayana in the 17th century, with the establishment of ties between the
Dalai Lama in Tibet and the remnants of the Mongol Empire. This revived the historic pattern of the spiritual leaders of Tibet acting as priests to
the rulers of the Mongol empire. Tibetan Buddhism is still practiced as a folk religion in Mongolia today despite more than 80
years of state-sponsored communism.
See also
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