[Advaita-l] Fwd: {भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्} Aum in Buddhism

[V Subrahmanian]

This may of interest to Advaitins.  The observation of a Buddhist. See
below.

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Krishna Kashyap <kkashyap2011 at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Apr 27, 2020 at 7:49 PM
Subject: Re: {भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्} Aum in Buddhism
To: <bvparishat at googlegroups.com>


My Buddhist friend Dhammaputta wrote to me regarding this:
Prof. Deshpande is right.
There is no reference to  "Om"  in  Pali  Buddhism.

Mahayana  Sutras  &  Vajrayana  Tantras,  yes  indeed
Theravada  says  Mahayana  is  Hinduism  in  the  guise  of  Buddhism
The irony is  that  non-Advaita  Hindus  say  Advaita  is  Mahayana
Buddhism  in  the  guise  of  Hinduism

*Best Regards,*

*Krishna Kashyap*




On Sun, Apr 26, 2020 at 6:18 PM Madhav Deshpande <mmdesh at umich.edu> wrote:

> As far as I know, having read and taught Buddhist Sanskrit and Pali texts,
> I am not aware of a single reference to OM in what might be considered
> early Buddhism.
>
> Madhav M. Deshpande
> Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics
> University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
> Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies
>
> [Residence: Campbell, California, USA]
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 26, 2020 at 6:07 PM Krishna Kashyap <kkashyap2011 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Kamalashila and shantarakshita lived around 700 to 800 CE. It will be
>> interesting to find the meaning of Aum in Buddhism closer to the duration
>> of life of Buddha.
>>
>> *Best Regards,*
>>
>> *Krishna Kashyap*
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Apr 26, 2020 at 5:46 PM K S Kannan <ks.kannan.2000 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> प्रणवो हि किल सर्वेषां शब्दानां सर्वेषां चार्थानां प्रकृतिः ।
>>> - so says Kamalashila, commenting upon
>>> *Tattva-san'graha* of Shantarakshita.
>>>
>>> On Sun, Apr 26, 2020 at 11:52 PM David and Nancy Reigle <
>>> dnreigle at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Dear Sri Abirlal Gangopadhyay,
>>>>
>>>> What you have found is what I have found: the Buddhist texts simply use
>>>> oṃ without explaining it. It is used at the beginning of most Buddhist
>>>> mantras, as may be seen in texts such as the *Sādhanamālā*, besides in
>>>> individual tantras. Its importance and use does not seem to have been
>>>> questioned, but rather was taken for granted.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> As you well know, the great source-work on the syllable oṃ or auṃ is
>>>> the *Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad*, correlating its four elements, a, u, m, and
>>>> the following silence, with the states of waking, dreaming, deep sleep, and
>>>> the fourth. These four states were adopted and used extensively in the
>>>> Buddhist *Kālacakra-tantra*. They are there correlated with the four
>>>> buddha-bodies (nirmāṇa-kāya, sambhoga-kāya, dharma-kāya, sahaja-kāya), and
>>>> with the four drops, bindu, located in the body at four major cakras (head,
>>>> throat, heart, navel), which are used in the Kālacakra sādhana practice
>>>> (see chapter 4, verses 107-108, and chapter 5, verses 125-126, 156, for
>>>> specific references to the four states).
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Some scholars, both western and eastern, have opined that the
>>>> *Kālacakra-tantra* brought in Hindu ideas such as this in order to
>>>> convert Hindus. I personally prefer to refrain from attributing motive.
>>>> Unless a writer says why he has done something, we cannot really know. The
>>>> idea of the four states does not appear to me to be something that was
>>>> brought in and tacked on, but rather to be an integral and fundamental part
>>>> of the Kālacakra system. It seems simpler to think that such ideas were
>>>> used because the writer thought that they were true.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Mantras also occasionally occur in non-tantric Buddhism, of course
>>>> having oṃ as the first syllable. The story of the origin of the famous
>>>> mantra oṃ maṇipadme hūṃ is given in the
>>>> *Avalokiteśvara-guṇa-kāraṇḍa-vyūha-sūtra*, or in short, *Kāraṇḍa-vyūha*.
>>>> This text does not, however, say anything about the significance of oṃ.
>>>> Among the massive Prajñā-pāramitā sūtras, the very short
>>>> *Prajñā-pāramitā-hṛdaya-sūtra*, well known as the Heart Sūtra, has an
>>>> important and often chanted mantra. It, too, does not say anything about
>>>> the significance of oṃ. Eight Indian commentaries on the Heart Sūtra were
>>>> translated into Tibetan, and from Tibetan translated into English by Donald
>>>> S. Lopez, Jr., in his 1996 book, *Elaborations on Emptiness: Uses of
>>>> the Heart Sutra*. In these eight commentaries I noticed only this one
>>>> statement pertaining to the significance of oṃ (p. 201): “*Oṃ* and
>>>> *svāhā* are terms of blessing for the purpose of achieving the effect
>>>> of the repetition.” Not much.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> In the absence of material in Buddhism on the significance of oṃ, it
>>>> may be worth mentioning what may be the most extensive text on the subject:
>>>> the *Praṇava-vāda* of Gārgyāyaṇa. This hitherto unknown text was
>>>> dictated from memory by a blind pandit named Dhanarāj at the end of the
>>>> 1800s. A summarized English translation of it by Bhagavan Das was published
>>>> in three volumes, 1910-1913. It seems that one or more old Sanskrit
>>>> manuscripts of it became available to a few people, and two volumes of the
>>>> Sanskrit text were published in 1915 and 1919. The concluding third volume
>>>> never appeared. The manuscript of the Sanskrit text as taken down from
>>>> dictation, accompanied by Bhagavan Das’ handwritten summarized translation,
>>>> is preserved at the Adyar Library. For anyone who thinks that this text is
>>>> worthwhile, a good project would be to prepare and publish the third volume
>>>> of the Sanskrit text. All the published volumes have been posted by me
>>>> here:
>>>> http://prajnaquest.fr/blog/sanskrit-texts-3/suddha-dharma-mandala-texts/.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Best regards,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> David Reigle
>>>>
>>>> Colorado, U.S.A.
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Dr. K.S.Kannan  D.Litt.
>>>
>>> Sant Rajinder Singh Ji Maharaj Chair Professor, IIT-Madras.
>>>
>>> Senior Fellow, ICSSR, New Delhi.
>>>
>>> Academic Director, Swadeshi Indology.
>>>
>>> Member, Academic Council, Veda Vijnana Shodha Samsthana.
>>>
>>> Nominated Member, IIAS, Shimla.
>>> Former Professor, CAHC, Jain University, Bangalore.
>>>
>>> Former Director, Karnataka Samskrit University, Bangalore.
>>>
>>> Former Head, Dept. of Sanskrit, The National Colleges, Bangalore.
>>>
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