Seed Syllable: Stryi

Sanskrit
Originally uploaded by Woesinger

This seed-syllable often seen carved onto stūpas in Japan is associated with the Karaṇḍamudrā or Casket Seal dhāraṇī. This texts begins:

namastryadhvikānāṁ sarva tathāgatānāṁ
homage to all the Tathāgatas of the three times.

Broken down into syllables for writing this becomes:

na ma strya dhvi kā nāṁ

For more information see the stryi bīja page on visiblemantra.org

Bonji taikan

Today I discovered a most amazing reference book in the Cambridge University Library. Although the text is mostly in Japanese the rest is in Siddhaṃ and Romanised Sanskrit. It is nothing less than a complete calligraphy manual for Siddhaṃ including what looks like every possible combination of consonants (more than 100 pages of them!). It also includes many mantras which look to have come from the Mahāvairocana Sūtra, and other examples of Siddhaṃ, particularly grave markers. I'd say that John Stevens must have consulted this book in writing Sacred Calligraphy of the East because many of the letter charts look identical to what he gives. What a boon! I learned things just by leafing through it and I'm looking forward to giving it a more thorough going over.

Title:	Bonji taikan ( 梵字大鑑).
Published:	Tôkyô : Meicho Fukyûkai, 1983.5.
Description:	2satsu ; 27cm.
ISBN:	4895511154

Amazon Japan are clocking it at ¥ 69 660 which Google tells me is UK£ 336.57. Thank goodness for libraries is all I can say.

Profane Bonji

In modern Japan we see examples of Bonji in all sorts of odd settings. The screen shot on the left is from strapya-world which sells, amongst other things, cell-phone decorations. The 'strap line' says:

Attach Asian coolness. Bonji Cell Phone Strap.
SANSCRIT : Be cool with Asian hand-made phone strap.

They also have Sanskrit and Sanscrite...

Made of light wood "The deep scent stimulates your mind peacefully...."