Buddhist Emanations in Indian Religions

[Nemo]

I think the only person qualified to answer that would be a high Lama who knows both parties personally. Many of these once mundane Gods have been practitioners and students of the Buddhas for aeons. If I kept my Samayas for a thousand years and used the powers of a God to accumulate merit progress on the path would be swift. To think of Gods as static and unchanging sounds like eternalism. Even very negative beings become miraculous protectors full of love when they accept guidance of the Aryas.

Umm, this is not the issue. Kali does not become Vajrayogini by mere fiat.

Agreed. But to say a mundane God who has been practicing and keeping Samaya for many millennia is just a worldly being could be construed as being disrespectful of a Vajra Brother. Most sources on such matters are very suspect and have an ideological axe to grind. Unless you can ask them yourself or know someone who can you must admit you really have no idea about their current realization. There are numerous examples of skillful means where Buddhist Deities have shown themselves as needed for the benefit of beings. If you tried to teach a yoga class Dharma but didn't call it Buddhism it would still be Dharma.

[Malcolm]

Agreed.

Then there is nothing more to discuss.

When you invoke Kali, what you get is death. I have a tatoo of a Kali yantra on my left arm from my pre-Buddhist days. Kali is not Vajrayogini. Kali takes her payment in blood.

[Adamantine]

When you invoke Kali, what you get is death.

Some elder and very seasoned Troma practitioners I know have said almost the same thing about her. . . That her blessing can manifest as corpses, etc. . her practice is certainly not for the slight of heart or the easily nauseous. It is one of the quickest paths because when it comes to cutting through attachment it is no-holds-barred.

But I appreciate you expressing your view, and I will contemplate the matter in more depth.

[Karma Dorje]

But to say a mundane God...

Isn't this rather like the Christians that insist that only those that believe in Jesus will be saved? Who is to say that all beings who aren't nominally Buddhist are samsaric? While I will agree that if we are to make correspondences between Hindu and Buddhist forms of the goddess the correlation is between Vajrayogini and Chinnamasta, there certainly is little conceptual OR energetic difference between the Hindu Mahakali and any of a constellation of Mahakalis in the Buddhist pantheon.

The use of various devatas as a seat is merely the age-old religious principle of "the god of the old religion becomes the devil of the new" that we see around the world. The image is meant to overcome conditioning and the tendency to hypostatize the absolute. This is nothing much different than the development within Hinduism of the idea first of "the Fourth state (turiya)", meaning beyond waking, dream and deep sleep becoming "beyond the Fourth (turiyatita)" as the original concept is grasped at substantially. These are not intended to be considered substantial seats, as the recollections of purity make clear.

Anyone that denies the clearly shared provenance of the Shaiva/Shakta and Vajrayana traditions flies in the face of both history and common sense. Even the most cursory examination of the praxis of both (or more accurately "any" of the traditions, as there is not one single Hindu tantric tradition) bears this out. There are more options than being hopelessly muddled and eclectic on the one hand, as many modern western Hindus have become, and being bigoted and culturally assimilated by Tibet, as many modern western Buddhists have become.

[Malcolm]

But to say a mundane God...

Isn't this rather like the Christians that insist that only those that believe in Jesus will be saved?

Of course not.

Who is to say that all beings who aren't nominally Buddhist are samsaric?

All beings who are not āryas are samsaric.

While I will agree that if we are to make correspondences between Hindu and Buddhist forms of the goddess the correlation is between Vajrayogini and Chinnamasta, there certainly is little conceptual OR energetic difference between the Hindu Mahakali and any of a constellation of Mahakalis in the Buddhist pantheon.

Ṡ́ri Devi is almost certainly not of Indian origin. In fact what relationship there is between Śri̛ Devi is a relationship with Nila-sarasvati.

The use of various devatas as a seat is merely the age-old religious principle of "the god of the old religion becomes the devil of the new" that we see around the world...

The point is that Yogini is not Kali. Yogini forcefully appropriates the garb of Kali just as Heruka forcefully appropriates the garb of Bhairava and in the process "liberates" them, bestowing a prediction of Bhairava's eventual buddhahood. But this by no means can be taken to mean that Shiva is Cakrasamvara or Kali is Yogini, even given the fact of intertextuality between Indian traditions.

N

[conebeckham]

Ṡ́ri Devi is almost certainly not of Indian origin. In fact what relationship there is between Śri̛ Devi is a relationship with Nila-sarasvati.

Interesting. What, then did Marpa receive in India--wasn't it the Permission Ritual of Shri Devi--(among other things?)

[Blue Garuda]

The point is that Yogini is not Kali. Yogini forcefully appropriates the garb of Kali just as Heruka forcefully appropriates the garb of Bhairava and in the process "liberates" them, bestowing a prediction of Bhairava's eventual buddhahood. But this by no means can be taken to mean that Shiva is Cakrasamvara or Kali is Yogini, even given the fact of intertextuality between Indian traditions.

N

I've not seen a 'timeline' which persuades me of the origins of Buddhist deities in earlier Hindu figures. It's a bit like assuming that Vajrapani is Indra because they both wield a thunderbolt. Then, of course, we can bring in Greek deites as well.................

The 'Kali' mentioned in ancient Vedic scritpure is not Kali, the Black Goddess (as worshipped at Dakshineswar for example). I have seen no evidence that Vajrayogini was derived from Kali, and it is historically quite possible that the opposite was the case and that Kali was created in her present form using the form of Vajrayogini as a source.

If we accept the borrowed identities of Hindu deities as the source of Buddhist deities then we accept that Buddhas did not exist prior to Shakyamuni, or even that Shakyamuni and all Buddhist deities are actually Hindu deities in a different form. Again, there is logic in describing all Hindu deities as Buddhist deities assuming another form, since there is nothing to disprove that assumption of their relative provenance in history and even prehistory.

In either case, as you point out, similarity in some aspects is a very incomplete basis for assumptions about their true natures.

[Karma Dorje]

There are two points here: the first that you seem to be saying that the only way to realization is through practicing Buddhism, which your protestation aside amounts to the same claim as Jesus being the only salvation for the world. Do you really think that the bodhisattvas are only going to manifest in one culturally specific way when they can use the found symbols of any number of cultures to liberate beings? Such a narrow interpretation beggars the imagination. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

The second point is that I am not making an equation between Chakrasamvara and Shiva. I have not looked at the historical record of these traditions. The equation between Pashupati and Avalokiteshvara on the one hand and Chinnamasta and Vajrayogini are well documented as two prominent examples of shared provenance. Not to mention the use of pancamakaras in both Kaula and Vajrayana ritual, the identiy of the upacharas used in worship, or shared lineage gurus amongst the 84 mahasiddhas.

I can't see how you can dismiss the cosmology of the central mountain on the one hand and yet still insist on cosmological fables of the creation of the devatas when there is a clearly symbolic agenda to the use of these deities as seats.

Ṡ́ri Devi is almost certainly not of Indian origin. In fact what relationship there is between Śri̛ Devi is a relationship with Nila-sarasvati.

As I am sure you are aware, there is close equation in Hindu tantra between Tara/Nilasarasvati and Kali, particularly at Tarapitha. It is in fact likely that Tara's cult came to Bengal from Tibet, as indicated by her name "Mahacinnatara". Tantra cross-pollenated at many points over the last couple millennia.

The point is that Yogini is not Kali. Yogini forcefully appropriates the garb of Kali just as Heruka forcefully appropriates the garb of Bhairava and in the process "liberates" them, bestowing a prediction of Bhairava's eventual buddhahood. But this by no means can be taken to mean that Shiva is Cakrasamvara or Kali is Yogini, even given the fact of intertextuality between Indian traditions.

I have never made the point that Yogini is Kali. See above. However, reading the mythos as history rather than polemics is nonsensical.

[Nemo]

Nagarjuna springs to mind. Many of his alchemical practices involved Hindu worship of Shiva. Longchenpa was found to have implements for Hindu pudga near his hermitage. Bodhisattvas don't only appear to Buddhists. Karmapa and many other Lamas have had visions of HINDU Ganesha. The scandal! The correlations between Pashupatinath and Avalokiteshwara must be very disturbing to someone steeped in dogma. The identical mantras between some Hindu and Tibetan Tantric practices must be maddening.

The dogma only makes sense if the Gods and Buddhas are imaginary. Real beings are so much more complicated. Jambala is another example of a minor Hindu deity that is also a Buddhist protector. A protector who was a student of a Buddha from a preceding age. Ganesha, Saraswati, Lakshmi, etc, etc

I don't mix practices of course. But I am not so closed minded as to think that the Rahula that the Hindus worship is different from the one Buddhists do. Am I only allowed to do the Buddhist praises to Ganesha and not the Hindu ones?

[Malcolm]

There are two points here: the first that you seem to be saying that the only way to realization is through practicing Buddhism.

I do not believe the ideas about liberation in non-buddhist traditions and Buddhist traditions are commensurate. They are different ideas of liberation which offer different kinds of results.

The second point is that I am not making an equation between Chakrasamvara and Shiva. I have not looked at the historical record of these traditions. The equation between Pashupati and Avalokiteshvara on the one hand and Chinnamasta and Vajrayogini are well documented as two prominent examples of shared provenance.

Once again, if you read the Karandavyuha, you will find Shiva is converted by Avalokiteshvara. Two different persons, if you will.

Not to mention the use of pancamakaras in both Kaula and Vajrayana ritual, the identiy of the upacharas used in worship, or shared lineage gurus amongst the 84 mahasiddhas.

I already accepted intertexuality.

I can't see how you can dismiss the cosmology of the central mountain on the one hand and yet still insist on cosmological fables of the creation of the devatas when there is a clearly symbolic agenda to the use of these deities as seats.

I was arguing from the point of view of the tradition itself. I was not making a truth claim.

Ṡ́ri Devi is almost certainly not of Indian origin. In fact what relationship there is between Śri̛ Devi is a relationship with Nila-sarasvati.

As I am sure you are aware, there is close equation in Hindu tantra between Tara/Nilasarasvati and Kali, particularly at Tarapitha. It is in fact likely that Tara's cult came to Bengal from Tibet, as indicated by her name "Mahacinnatara". Tantra cross-pollenated at many points over the last couple millennia.

There is a tendency on the Hindu side to boil every female manifestation down into a great mother. Likewise, there is tendency on the Buddhist side to boil all female mainfestations down into a great mother. But I don't think one is accurate in portraying Prajñāpāramita as Kali.

However, reading the mythos as history rather than polemics is nonsensical.

No, the mythos is history. It shows the means of Buddhist appropriations of an older religious culture and a repurposing of it to suit Buddhist purposes. The Buddhist stupa's parts is a reworking of the symbolism of the vedic fire altar. But certainly a Buddhist stupa is not a vedic fire altar.

N

[Malcolm]

I don't mix practices of course. But I am not so closed minded as to think that the Rahula that the Hindus worship is different from the one Buddhists do.

There are two, in fact, the mudane one, and the supermundane one used to control the latter.

This is all getting rather far afield.

N

[Karma Dorje]

I do not believe the ideas about liberation in non-buddhist traditions and Buddhist traditions are commensurate. They are different ideas of liberation which offer different kinds of results.

Non-buddhist traditions is a rather wide brush. That would include everything from rampant dualism a la Gaudiya Vaishnavism to the most sublime advaita thought of Trika. Much of modern Hindu thought was informed by Buddhist philosophy in much the same way that Buddhism was informed by the other traditions of its time. The tantric traditions have far more in common than they differ. In fact, the tantric traditions differ less from each other than from the exoteric formulations of their own millieu. However, many centuries have been spent in needless polemics against traditions that did not even exist Tibet and even other Buddhist traditions (READ: Jonangpa) that didn't meet the expectation of ideological purity of the ruling elite.

Has a genuine and impartial evaluation of Trika and Dzogchen been made in the last couple hundred years? No, because on both side there is more importance given to the brand than an honest discussion.

Once again, if you read the Karandavyuha, you will find Shiva is converted by Avalokiteshvara. Two different persons, if you will.

And if you read the Abhidharma there is a square central mountain with the continents arrayed around it. It doesn't take a brilliant polemicist to come up with stories like that and it convinces no one who hasn't already made up their mind.

I already accepted intertexuality.

I am not positing intertextuality. I am positing shared genesis and continued cross-fertilization.

I can't see how you can dismiss the cosmology of the central mountain on the one hand and yet still insist on cosmological fables of the creation of the devatas when there is a clearly symbolic agenda to the use of these deities as seats.

I was arguing from the point of view of the tradition itself. I was not making a truth claim.

The position of the tradition itself is not in dispute. The verity of its claims is.

No, the mythos is history. It shows the means of Buddhist appropriations of an older religious culture and a repurposing of it to suit Buddhist purposes. The Buddhist stupa's parts is a reworking of the symbolism of the vedic fire altar. But certainly a Buddhist stupa is not a vedic fire altar.

No one would argue that a stupa is a fire altar, nor a kila a yupa. However, when one looks impartially at tantric ritual in both Hindu and Buddhist context they see that both draw in exactly the same manner upon the Vedic strata. Tantrism accomplished the same thing in ostensibly different contexts and traditions that likely developed at the same time. What truly distinguishes the Vajrayana now is not difference in kind or goal, but that the vast reach of the teachings have been preserved in an extensive way whereas Hindu tantrism has withered and is in real danger of dying out altogether.

[Malcolm]

Has a genuine and impartial evaluation of Trika and Dzogchen been made in the last couple hundred years? No, because on both side there is more importance given to the brand than an honest discussion.

Trika is realist. Dzogchen is not.

Once again, if you read the Karandavyuha, you will find Shiva is converted by Avalokiteshvara. Two different persons, if you will.

And if you read the Abhidharma there is a square central mountain with the continents arrayed around it. It doesn't take a brilliant polemicist to come up with stories like that and it convinces no one who hasn't already made up their mind.

The persons who authored the Karandavyuha clearly intended different persons by the name "Shiva" and "Avalokiteshvara".

I already accepted intertexuality.

I am not positing intertextuality. I am positing shared genesis and continued cross-fertilization.

Same difference.

I can't see how you can dismiss the cosmology of the central mountain on the one hand and yet still insist on cosmological fables of the creation of the devatas when there is a clearly symbolic agenda to the use of these deities as seats.

I was arguing from the point of view of the tradition itself. I was not making a truth claim.

The position of the tradition itself is not in dispute. The verity of its claims is.

The verity of the claim "Kali is Yogini" is what is underdispute. However, for my part, if the tradition maintains that Kali is the subordinate of Yogini, that they are different person, one indicated by the name "Kali" and the other indicated by the name "Yogini", then I accept that they are different.

For example, Tibetans imagined that Bodhgaya was in Assam for centuries. They went in pilgrimages their, made offerings at Hindu shrines they imagined were Buddhists ones, and so on. But certainly, these gods the Tibetans mistook for Buddhist deities were not.

No, the mythos is history. It shows the means of Buddhist appropriations of an older religious culture and a repurposing of it to suit Buddhist purposes. The Buddhist stupa's parts is a reworking of the symbolism of the vedic fire altar. But certainly a Buddhist stupa is not a vedic fire altar.

No one would argue that a stupa is a fire altar, nor a kila a yupa. However, when one looks impartially at tantric ritual in both Hindu and Buddhist context they see that both draw in exactly the same manner upon the Vedic strata.

Of course, this is the ritual syntax of Pan-Indian culture.

Tantrism accomplished the same thing in ostensibly different contexts and traditions that likely developed at the same time.

I don't agree with you. It is my opinion that different traditions adopted the body based methods of tantrism that grew out of the Upanishadic/Yoga/Ayurvedic traditions and adapted them to their own view and soteriologies. I do not accept as a necessary consquence that these methods offer the same result irrespective of the views of those who practice them.

I prefer Trika to all other versions of Hinduism, but I do not think that Trika and Dzogchen are even remotely the same. I am pretty certain there is no Togal in Trika -- at least, in what I have read in English (a fair amount) I have never run across it. Of course, I do recognize that texts like the Vijñānabhairava have many methods that bear resemblance to certain preliminary Dzogchen practices. Emptiness is not the final view in Trika, however. It is the final view in Dzogchen.

N

[Adamantine]

The verity of the claim "Kali is Yogini" is what is underdispute. However, for my part, if the tradition maintains that Kali is the subordinate of Yogini, that they are different person, one indicated by the name "Kali" and the other indicated by the name "Yogini", then I accept that they are different.

I thought it was regarding Troma and Kali, not Vajrayogini and Kali. You did belittle the tendency to conflate all female divinities into one "mother" in both the Hindu and Buddhist tradition, and yet here you are doing it too. In the Dudjom Tersar lineage Troma, Vajrayogini and Samantabhadri are considered to be emanations related to the 3 kayas. In the same way, in the Nyingma even Saraswati is considered to be an emanation of Samantabhadri. So you indeed have the feminine Dharmakaya mother as the de facto one mother, in a sense.

Similarly, this trinity is also referred to as "the three Mothers". So they are seen as distinct. But if you were to conflate them into one, I believe it would be Samantabhadri, not Vajrayogini.

For example, Tibetans imagined that Bodhgaya was in Assam for centuries. They went in pilgrimages their, made offerings at Hindu shrines they imagined were Buddhists ones, and so on. But certainly, these gods the Tibetans mistook for Buddhist deities were not.

Maybe, but was their practice or realization any different? One of the most common teaching stories circulated by modern Tibetan Lamas is the good old "dog's tooth".

[Nemo]

When you invoke Kali, what you get is death. I have a tatoo of a Kali yantra on my left arm from my pre-Buddhist days. Kali is not Vajrayogini. Kali takes her payment in blood.

I find the overriding flavour is a total lack of control. It could be having a bevy of 16 year old girls trying to seduce you, winning lotto, seeing someone brutally murdered right in front of you or tasting your own madness. Maybe all of them in the same night. If you chose that path you will experience many train wrecks in your life. After a few years you may call them auspicious train wrecks.

I don't mix practices of course. But I am not so closed minded as to think that the Rahula that the Hindus worship is different from the one Buddhists do.

There are two, in fact, the mudane one, and the supermundane one used to control the latter.

This is all getting rather far afield.

N

So when a certain mantra is done in the context of Hindu Japa it is mundane, but if I do it Buddhist style it becomes supermundane. Same mantra but different being. Sounds unlikely.

If a Hindu calls you do they get mundane Malcolm and Buddhists dialing the same number get supermundane Namdrol. Maybe that works on some level. Still the same guy though.

[Malcolm]

The verity of the claim "Kali is Yogini" is what is underdispute. However, for my part, if the tradition maintains that Kali is the subordinate of Yogini, that they are different person, one indicated by the name "Kali" and the other indicated by the name "Yogini", then I accept that they are different.

I thought it was regarding Troma and Kali, not Vajrayogini and Kali.

Troma is a form of Yogini.

You did belittle the tendency to conflate all female divinities into one "mother" in both the Hindu and Buddhist tradition...

No I didn't.

Similarly, this trinity is also referred to as "the three Mothers". So they are seen as distinct. But if you were to conflate them into one, I believe it would be Samantabhadri, not Vajrayogini.

Besides the point.

Maybe, but was their practice or realization any different? One of the most common teaching stories circulated by modern Tibetan Lamas is the good old "dog's tooth".

A lot of bullshit gets swept under that rug.


N

[Malcolm]

So when a certain mantra is done in the context of Hindu Japa it is mundane, but if I do it Buddhist style it becomes supermundane. Same mantra but different being. Sounds unlikely.

Tara mantra is just about the only mantra I know of that is shared between both traditions. But the mahavidyā tradition in Hinduism is quite different in its approach to Tara practice than Tara practice as it exists in Buddhism. Here is a clear example of a popular Buddhist deity being appropriated by Hinduism.

This is the point of the view of the Mahavidyā tradition:

"Tantra is accepted as the authoritative proof then and then only when it contradicts not the Vedas. Whatever goes clearly against the Vedas can in no way be accepted as a proof. In matters concerning Dharma, the Vedas is the Sole Proof."

http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/db/bk11ch01.htm

Buddhists do not accept śruti i.e. Vedic authority.

N

[Lhug-Pa]

Isn't it quite possible, even likely, that the Mahavidya/Tantric Mother-Goddess tradition is originally pre-Vedic Dravidian?

[Malcolm]

Isn't it quite possible, even likely, that the Mahavidya/Tantric Mother-Goddess tradition is originally pre-Vedic Dravidian?

The Mahāvidyā tradition is Puranic.

[Lhug-Pa]

Well I've heard something along the lines of that the Upanishads were originally composed by Dravidian Tantrikas, and then later on the Vedics tacked them onto the Vedas thereby trying to claim the Upanishads as their own.