Sword with Fudō Bīja and a mystery

Richard sent me this pic of a Japanese sword asking if the symbols are Siddhaṃ. They are, but there is a bit of a mystery. The top two symbols are hāṃ and maṃ which are both associated with Fudō Myōō.

The bottom syllable looks like Siddhaṃ as well but it is so stylised that I can't read it. Taking a guess I think it might be some variation on 'a' because that would fit what I know about Fudō and his association with Mahāvairocana of whom the 'a' is the bīja. My guess is that it is āṃḥ - the elaborate variation that includes a, ā, aṃ, and aḥ symbolising the four stages of the spiritual path in the Mahāvairocana Abhisaṃbodhi Tantra.

If you know for sure what it is please let me know and I'll pass it on. The original photo is here.

Mystery Mantra

A couple of days ago I noticed a mystery mantra on Omniglot's Puzzles Page. I couldn't see well enough to read so wrote and asked Mitchell who'd posted it to send a better quality image. He sent me the image on the left and things became more clear.

The script is obviously Lantsa. I know some Lantsa and there are one or two Lantsa resources on the web (see the scripts page) but I'm not very confident in it yet.

The centre syllable is obviously oṃ. From 12 o'clock I read ba la bra le bo nde svā hā.

So the mantra is: oṃ bale brale bonde svāhā.

Now in this script as in other Indic scripts the ba and va look very similar and so we could read oṃ vale vrale vonde svāhā. They are similar enough to suggest that they are all ba or all va. Otherwise I'm fairly confident of the reading. However this is not a mantra I am familiar with, nor can I find it in any of my usual sources. If you know this mantra please let me know.

Update: 18-9-08 and 3-11-08

Thanks to Fuxi who wrote in to suggest that this mantra may be related to Zhunti. If you look at Mediation Expert you can see the same diagram on a page of the sadhana instruction. In Sanskrit the name is Cundī, meaning "pure" and she is a feminine form of Avalokiteśvara, or perhaps a form of Uṣas or Mārīcī. In the Mahācundi Dhāraṇī there is a mantra: namo saptanam samyaksambuddha kotinam tadyatha: om, cale, cule, cundi svaha. The mantra above could be a form of this.

If you look at the image on the left, which is a close-up of a Cundi image, you can see some Sinified Lantsa script.

Across the top in larger letters is: oṃ āḥ hūṃ

Around the outer circle of the image reads: namo saptanam samyaksambuddha kotinam tadyatha. It starts just to the right of 12 o'clock.

The centre of the circle matches the image originally sent to Omniglot by Mitchell, with oṃ at the very centre. Ca is distinguished by a point on the loop - so with some hindsight we can see that the character could be ca. On the 3rd character what I took to be an 'r' ligature could be a 'u' diacritic though this usually is more curved and doesn't terminate on the stem. So the mantra above should be read:

oṃ cale cule cunde svāhā.

vajrasattva-mantra

vajrasattva-mantra
Originally uploaded by jayarava

This mantra can be seen on a statue of Vajrasattva in the British Museum. It is flanked by the ye dharma hetu prabhava verse. It clearly starts oṃ aḥ hūṃ and ends svāhāḥ, but much of the rest of it remains obscure to me. If you can read this mantra drop me a line.

Onmyoji - manga translation

I've been working with Patrick Honnore on transliterating some Siddhaṃ mantras in a manga comic called Onmyoji. It is well known in Japan and has even featured in two feature films, but this will be the first translation into a European language (French). It's work in progress and quite fascinating as the mantras appear to be genuine mantras. However in some cases I've not been able to identify the mantra. I'll post them here and would like to hear from anyone who can identify them.

• oṃ pa dmo dbha vā ya svā hā
• oṃ śu ri ma ri ma ma ri ma ri śu śu ri svā hā
• oṃ a mṛ to dbha va hūṃ pha ṭ svā hā (I think this is a Hayagrīva mantra)

Ring any bells?

Mystery Mantra

This photo is one of several taken by Dharmacari Abhayanaga on pilgrimage in Sikkhim, and which I've used on the Avalokiteśvara page. It has a mantra I haven't been able to identify. It's the one in the middle and reads, as far as I can make out:

oṃ ā ma ra ṇi dzi wa na te ye swa ha

Can anyone help me with this?

13/12. It's all right. I've figured it out. It is the Amitāyus mantra.