Yantra are magical diagrams used in
popular-folk Buddhist mystical and meditation practices throughout Theravada
Buddhist countries. They are practiced in tantra. The yantra is created by a master of yantra, a gru, which may
have a vaguely Shivaite or Visnivite memory. The gru is usually a former Buddhist monk, or a current monk, who
claims to have learned his healing arts from Buddhist ascetics.
A yantra is a physical expression of a mantra – a mantra being a divine
aspect in the form of sound vibration – yantra
in the form of geometrical figure. When mantras or divine ideas are meditated
upon, certain images are brought out and these images are used in meditation or
worship to symbolize or express certain divine ideas and qualities.
The word “yantra” means “yam” with
the suffix “tra” – where tra means “instruments or tools” and
“Yam” means “to gain control over the energy inherent in some element or
being.”
A yantra is “an instrument designed to curb the psychic forces by
concentrating them on a pattern, and in which a way that this pattern becomes
reproduced by the worshiper’s visualizing power.” [Myth and Symbols in Indian Art
and Civilization, Heinrich Zimmer]
The yantra may serve as:
·
A
representation of some personification or aspect of the divine
·
A
model for the worship of a divinity immediately within the heart, after the
paraphernalia of outward devotion (idol, perfumes, offerings, audibly uttered
mantra) have been discarded by the advanced initiate.
·
A
kind of chart or schedule for the gradual evolution of a vision, while
identifying the self with its slowly varying contents, that is to say, with the
divinity in all its phases of transformation.
The
abhidhamma is the important source book
of the practices of yantra. Ian
Harris says, “A yantra designed to
exorcise spirits contains the written text, ‘Please give the heartwood of the
abhidhamma, the one that is the greatest, to come and take away the anger.’”
The
Khmer Gru have medical manuals, with symbolic diagrams (yantra) and mantras. These books are used in an oral teaching
tradition, under a master, and cannot be understood without them.
“The
texts underpinning the tradition are often obscure, are clearly symbolic, and
may be subjected to multiple interpretations. They have much to say about
ritual and frequently contain mantras in Pali. The tradition is certainly old
and certainly predates the reform movements of the nineteenth century.”
[Harris, p.93]
Francois
Bizot wrote in The Gate: “I was very familiar with the
diagrams for protection which the war had made
fashionable again. Every enlisted man – except the Khmer Rouge – wore
one of these, in the form of a shirt, a scarf or a turban, given by his father
or by a spiritual teacher. They were sacred items, and the principle of their
protective properties was based upon the powers of Buddhism ascribed to
letters: wrapped in the immortal worlds of the doctrine the warrior is
invulnerable. Certain designs were very ancient and signed by a great master….”
*****
Donald Swearer writes of the yantra traditions of northern Thailand.
“Yantras play an extraordinarily
important role in northern Thai culture even though they are most often
associated with Hinduism, Tantra, or esoteric forms of Buddhism. Protection yantras are as pervasive in northern
Thai Buddhism practice as is the chanting of protective suttas. Chanting the paritta (protection) in Thai Buddhist
parlance is called “chanting the mantra”, and this act links the oral and
visual dimensions of various protective and empowering rites. For example, when
a new house or business is consecrated monks chant protection suttas and draw a
yantra in a prominent place, usually
over the front door. Thai ethnic groups in northern Thailand and the Shan
states often wear protective yantras
on their persons; as inscriptions on amulets worn around the neck, as bodily
tattoos that may cover much of the upper torso, or as yantra inscribed on undershirts. Protective yantra banners are sold at all famous wats, especially pilgrimage
sites with reliquary chetias.” [Becoming the Buddha, Swearer,
p63.]
Yantras
were also used during the construction and consecration of Buddha images,
inscribed on gold foil and placed on, or within the Buddha image.
“Yantras are made in a variety of shapes,
although the most common are either round or square with a specific number of
‘eyes’ or connected squares in which the syllables of a gata are written. While some yantra
chessboard grids can be read sequentially from left to right, line by line,
most are the ‘skip’ variety. Meaning cannot be derived from skip yantras simply by reading the letters
sequentially in any direction. Skip yantras
resemble a picture puzzle in which the individuals pieces must be correctly
placed if the picture is to be revealed, or a game of anagrams with individual
letters that must be placed in a specific sequence to spell a word. The form of
the yantra suggests that it
encapsulates meaning on both esoteric and exoteric levels – meaning that is
both hidden and manifest – much like the [Buddha] images itself represents
reality in both a particular form (rupakaya)
and beyond form (arupa or dhammakaya). An elderly monk informed me
that a yantra maker perceives the
arrangement of the letters during meditation; however, the publication of yantra books demonstrates that yantras formats are routinized. Insome
Shaiyachom phy observes that the yantra
maker must both memorize the gatha to
be inscribed and the maze-like grid on which he writes the syllables.” [Becoming the Buddha, Swearer.]
“Yantras became a cult, subject to a
strict set of rules, governing taboos regarding the parts of the body,
especially below the waist and acts considered impure. The liquid used to
inscribe yantras varies, as does the
objects on which they are written and method of application. Some may be
inscribed on a betel leaf and ingested, written on a small metal scroll and
worn around the waist or places over a doorway, sewn as a yantra shirt, or written on a piece of cloth attached to a monks
robe. Depending upon the circumstance, they are often used to procure a
specific objective such as beauty, holiness, longevity, or invulnerability. Yantras are written in Pali inscribed in
a variety of scripts, for example, mul
in Cambodian, kham and yuan in Thailand, tham in Laos, and the Burmese and Shan scripts in Myanmar.”
“Bizot is especially interested in Buddha
image yantras composed of Pali
mantras taken from the Tripitaka, commentaries, and paracononical works. As
evidenced in the Buddha Yantra text, the manual for making a Buddha image, and
in Bizot’s research, these yantras
may be inscribed on the body of the image (or the chedi) or on strips of metal or other materials and then applied to
the image to empower and protect it. Bizot explores the historical development
of this esoteric, apotropaic tradition from its probably vedic and Hindu roots
to its general use throughout Buddhist Southeast Asia. Of particular importance
to the buddhabhiseka [Buddha image
consecration ceremony] are the 108 katha (gata) of the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha, the source for
which appears to be a text entitled the Ratanamala (The Garland of Jewels),
versions of which are found in Myanmar, Thailand, and Cambodia. The unique
Southeast Asia Pali texts have no apparent connection to the five texts
entitled Ratanamala in the Tanjure. The earliest reference
appears to be a Pagan inscription dated 1442 C.E. the 108 katha are divided respectively into fifty-letters (Iti pi
so), thirty-eight letters (svakitto) and fourteen letters (supatipanno) representing the powers (guna) of the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the
Sangha. In this yantric acrostic form, ‘Praise to the Triple Gem.’ It is
impossible to decipher without decoding the words to which the letters refer
and knowing the correct word order. This katha
is changed during the buddhabhiseka
and in other ritual contexts with its power and meaning embedded in its dual
esoteric-exoteric nature.”
“The Buddha image is a homologic
structure: the eternal body of the Dhamma (dhammakaya)
made visible in the bodily form of the Buddha (rupakaya). Bizot and Coedes…link the dhammakaya to the yogavacara
tradition of Sri Lanka, a system that teaches the method by which a yogic adept
can realize the state of the Buddha’s omniscience.” [Coedes, “Dhammakaya”
Adyar
Library
Bulletin
20, 1956.
This
tradition suggests “two aspects of meditation practice directly applicable to
the dhammakaya, namely, that
individual sounds, syllables, or words such as A-Ra-Han likewise have a hidden
meaning or reality, in the instance cited, Dhamma (A), Buddha (RA), and Sangha
(HAN).”
“Both Bizot
and Coedes consider a Thai Pali text entitled the Dhammakayassa Atthavannana
to be an example of the yogavacara tradition the text is a
doctrinal abridgment in thirty paragraphs of Buddhist teachings homologically
identified with twenty-six bodily parts and four elements of Buddha’s
vestments. The order of the paragraphs is determined not by a logical or
philosophical classification but by the arrangement of bodily parts beginning
with the head and ending with the feet. This suggests a natural or a proiri correspondence between the
Buddha’s teaching, namely, the dhamma, the parts of the Buddha’s body. Bizot,
furthermore, notes that in the Khmer tradition the dhammakaya associates the thirty-two bodily parts with the mulakammatthana, or meditative foci.”
[Bizot Le chemin de Lanka]
“Even though
such a homologic tradition may have roots in early Vedism, the mythic,
cosmological model represented by the Purusa Sukta underwent a
significant transformation in subsequent yogic traditions, including Buddhism.
The longstanding Indian tradition as the thirty-two major and eighty minor
marks of the mahapurisa (Lakkhana
Sutta),
came to be linked to the dhammakaya,
with possible origins in the cultic veneration of material signs of the
Buddha. Although the identification of
the dhamma with the body of the Buddha was the subject of wide ranging
philosophical speculation, it may also reflect the practice of putting
fragments of scriptures in stupas and Buddha images, a tradition popularized in
the legends that King Ashoka’s 84,000
stupas enshrined both the bodily relics and dharmas.”
Bizot
described the eye-opening ritual ceremony of consecrating a Buddha image, “he
divides the ceremony in three parts; implanting the marks, opening the eyes,
and the consecration. In comparing it
with the yogavacara tradition, Bizot
likens to practice of the eye opening ritual to the yogavacara transformation of the body through meditation. The
parallel of the transformation of the body through Samadhi, and the
transformation of a material representation into the Buddha provides a striking
insight into the operative significance of the meaning of the Buddha image
consecration ritual.” (Swearer, Becoming the Buddha.)
The Bayon
temple in Cambodia is a physical yantra. “The Bayon was always intended to
transform – a matter over which there can be little doubt when we remember that
it is named to derive from ‘Pa yantra, the ‘father’ or ‘master’ of yantra. This
is a Sanskrit world, meaning literally ‘instrument’ defined as a form of mandala: ‘a diagram used as a support
for meditation….the component parts of the yantra take the believer along the
different steps of Enlightenment….” – Grahm Hancock, Heavens Mirror.
