Essay name: Hevajra Tantra (analytical study)
Author:
Seung Ho Nam
Affiliation: University of Kerala / Faculty of Oriental Studies
This is an English study of the Hevajra Tantra: an ancient Sanskrit text that teaches the process of attaining Buddha-hood for removing the sufferings of all sentient beings. The Hevajratantra amplifies the views and methods found in the Guhyasamaja Tantra (one of the earliest extant Buddhist Tantras) dealing with Yoga and Mandalas.
Chapter 1 - Tantric Buddhism
46 (of 63)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
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sentient being who still has obstructions to be
be
abandoned], they
completely abandon the two obstructions, thereby attaining Buddhahood in
a Highest Pure Land. They attain a Truth Body, the abandonment of
obstructions and realization of selflessness that is the perfection of their
own welfare, and attain the two Form Bodies [Complete Enjoyment Body.
and Emanation Body], the perfection of activities for others' welfare.
According to some followers of
some followers of
Asanga's "Compendium of Manifest
Knowledge, it is evident that complete enlightenment also can occur in a
human life.
They maintain that Buddhahood can be attained in a human body, not just with
the special body of one in a Highest Pure Land.72
There are Three Bodies of Buddha, Truth Body, Complete Enjoyment
Body, and Emanation Body. A Truth Body is of two types, a Nature
Body and a Wisdom Truth Body. Also, there are two Nature Bodies, a
Nature Body of natural purity and a Nature Body of freedom from
peripheral defilements.
A Wisdom Truth Body is a Buddha's omniscient consciousness, and a Nature Body
is the emptiness of a Buddha's omniscient consciousness. In the sense that a
Buddha's mind has always been essentially free of the defilements, the emptiness
of that mind is called a naturally pure Nature Body. In the sense that a Buddha's
mind has become free of peripheral defilements, the emptiness of that mind is
called a Nature Body as freedom from peripheral defilements.73
Because they assert these points, the Proponents of Mind Only are
called proponents of Great Vehicle tenets.
The prime concern of the Cittam膩trins is to explain the Buddhahood as
a non-dual state where subject and object discrimination ceases. The
Mah膩y膩nist Asanga and his predecessor Maitreya has divided the gradual
path to Buddhahood into five stages or levels and as a consequence the
Boddhisattva doctrine gained in
in
momentum. A Boddhisattva is the
72 As per the quotation given in Geshe Lhundup Sopa & Jeffrey Hopkins, Ibid,
p.276.
73 Geshe Lhundup Sopa & Jeffrey Hopkins, Ibid, p277.
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