Manuscript of Early Vajrasattva Mantra

stts-ms contract enhanced
Originally uploaded by jayarava

This is a page from the Sarvatathāgata-tattvasaṅgraha (STTS), a 7th century Buddhist text concerning Tantric rituals. The STTS is classed as a Yoga Tantra by Tibetan Buddhists. Here we have the verso of the 15th palm leaf in the mantra containing what became the Hundred Syllable Vajrasattva Mantra. This is the oldest occurrence of the Vajrasattva Mantra (as far as the Chinese Canon is concerned).

This image is modified from the facsimile edition of a 10th century Nepalese palm-leaf manuscript using the Siddhaṃ script, published by Candra and Snellgrove. You will note that the Siddhaṃ script is significantly different from contemporary Siddhaṃ calligraphy (and much more difficult to read!)

If you want to have a go at reading it - note that you read from left to right right across the leaf (i.e. ignore the columns). The transliteration shows subtle differences from the well known 100 syllable mantra.

oṁ vajra sattvasamayamanupālaya vajrasattvatvenopatiṣṭha dṛḍho me bhava sutoṣyo me bhavānurakto me bhava supoṣyo me bhava sarvasiddhiñca me prayaccha sarvakarmasu ca me cittaśreyaḥ kuru hūṁ ha ha ha ha hoḥ bhagavan sarvatathāgatavajra mā me muṁca vajrībhava mahāsamayasatva āḥ||

To see where the mantra is look at the version with the mantra highlihghted
See the text inverted as well - this sometimes improves readability

Stryi and the Karaṇḍamudrā Dhāraṇī

Back in Feb 2009 I was intrigued by a complex seed-syllable seen carved on the side of a Japanese stūpa. I could see the Siddhaṃ elements but wanted to understand the context. Eventually, with a little luck, I managed to identify the bīja as stryi which is associated with an important Japanese liturgical text: the Karaṇḍamudrā Dhāraṇī. I put some notes into this blog, but have now put this material on its own page: Karaṇḍamudrā Dhāraṇī and stryi.

At some point I want to do some Siddhaṃ calligraphy of the dhāraṇī itself, but here at least you can see where the syllable stryi originates from.

Some other versions of stryi can be seen in this Flickr Gallery: Stone Siddhaṃ.

Men who stare at calligraphy

In the movie The Men Who Stare at Goats Jeff Bridges character is twice seen wearing a singlet with a large Siddhaṃ oṃ on it - see left.

See also my version of oṃ on Flickr.

YouTube

Just found a new cache of Siddhaṃ calligraphy on YouTube (thanks to Riccardo's Facebook page Bonji 梵字 - Riccardo is a bit naughty and has been taking images from here without asking, but I'm sure we can sort something out). These are quite interesting examples which from the accompanying text and commentary are from Japan.

The Fudō Bīja hāmmāṃ



The Mahāvairocana Seed Syllable vāṃḥ



Note here that the calligrapher makes an error. He writes ba instead of va. The two are very similar. In ba the curve curls back to meet the stem on the up-stroke, whereas on the va it continues down to the stem on the down-stroke. These letters are similar in most Indic scripts: cf Devanāgarī ब व. Indeed they are often confused in pronunciation as well.

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

Video - Avalokiteśvara Mantra in Siddhaṃ

I'm starting to muck about with making vids of Siddhaṃ calligraphy. Lo fi, but you can see how it works which is the point.

Avalokiteśvara and the bīja sa

Doug wrote recently to ask about the association of the bīja sa (left) with the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara. He had taken a photo of a Tendai altar dedicated to Avalokiteśvara which showed a Siddhaṃ sa. I should mention that in the Tibetan tradition, and on the Visiblemantra.org Avalokiteśvara page the bīja is hrīḥ.

I looked around for more info on this, but couldn't find much. Shingon sources all seem to make the association, but it's not clear why. I did find this in Lokesh Candra's Dictionary of Buddhist Iconography:

Sa, for all forms of Kwannon specially for Shō-Kwannon (ie Ārya Avalokiteśvara). Sa means 1. to see the spiritual lotus in sentient beings; 2. purity of the spiritual lotus; 3. attainment of nirvāṇa. The source of this remark is cited as the Asaba-shō by Shōchō (AD 1205-1282). [v.2, p.463]

This doesn't really explain why sa. Often the syllable relates to the Bodhisattva's name, or a prominent quality, but sa doesn't seem to fit this pattern. If anyone has any thoughts please either leave a comment or email Jayarava.

My Calligraphy...

A Myofascial Approach to Thai Massage: East meets West

This book on Thai massage by Howard Evans has just been published by Churchill Livingstone featuring some of my calligraphy in the cover design.

The Siddhaṃ text is from the Mettā Sutta.

Siddham Question

Kwaidan
Originally uploaded by worsonic

Alex wrote in to ask what the Siddhaṃ syllable on this man's forehead is. The image is from a Japanese poster for the film Kwaidan, and appears on Worsonic's Flickr Site.

It is the short 'a' syllable. Which you can read about in several places on visible mantra, and in my Jayarava Rave essay The Essence of All Mantras.

Introduction to Siddham Calligraphy

Buddhist Calligraphy is a spiritual practice that can be very rewarding in itself - it combines mindfulness, meaningful action, and aesthetic appreciation. The experience itself can be uplifting and transformative especially when combined with reflections on the "meaning" of the letter being written. It is also useful for those who visualise mantras as familiarity with the forms makes for more vivid images.

This class will provide an introduction to the Siddham script. Beginning with the seed-syllable 'a' we will explore the basic methods for creating beautiful calligraphy. A small class means plenty of individual attention and means that you can learn at your own pace.

Lead by Jayarava
All materials provided - no experience necessary
Limit 8 people - booking essential

Cambridge Buddhist Centre
5th April 2008
10am – 12 pm

cost: £15/10 - I will cover my costs and the rest goes to the Cambridge Buddhist Centre.

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.

Siddham in Tricylce Magazine

The Spring 2008 issue of Tricycle Magazine has an article by David Schneider on the Siddhaṃ script. If you are an online subscriber you can also read it online. David Schneider has his own art website, with some attractive calligraphy and some designs that have clearly been photoshopped.

Gothic Siddham?

This chart for a Gothic Siddham character set popped onto the Visible Mantra radar recently. It's messy and doesn't entirely work, but it does raise an interesting possibility in terms of where Siddham calligraphy might go in the west.

Original at: naeddyr.deviantart.com

Naeddyr is a young Finnish "wannabe novelist".

Karanīya Metta Sutta

I've just added a page for the Karanīya Metta Sutta in the Siddham script. It's accompanied by the Pāli text in Roman script, and my translation.

Siddham in the Taisho

The Chinese Tripitaka is an important source for Siddhaṃ. Many mantras are preserved using the Siddham script in the Taisho edition of the Canon. With the help of my friend Maitiu I have copied a couple of examples of the way Siddhaṃ looks in the Taisho, and for the enthusiast you can see the Chinese commentaries on pronunciation alongside.

The example here is from Taisho No.913 and reads:

oṃ a mṛ ta hūṃ pha ṭ - ie oṃ amṛta hūṃ phaṭ.

Amṛta means "immortal" or "undying", and can also refer to a kind of elixir of life. This example is on the scripts page, while another can be seen on the Siddhaṃ page.

Essay on Calligraphy

The Flow of Ink by Jill Bell is about the experience of doing calligraphy, and worth a read. She includes this image of calligraphy by John Stevens but doesn't say what the bija is. Anyone know what it is?

Update 23 Sept:
Thanks to Dekishitai (see comments below) who has identified this bija as dhiḥmma, with some stylistic flourishes. Although the visarga is aligned with the top of the mma, it refers to the dhi - the stem of the first ma has been extended upwards to come between the dhi and the visarga. The curved bit at the bottom seems to just be decorative - especially when compared with the hammaṃ syllables in the links Dekishitai supplies. It does give the character some solidity and balance to write it this way.

John Stevens describes dhiḥmma as: dhiḥ, the syllable of perfect wisdom; combined with mma which stands for Mañjuśrī (although we would expect maṃ here).

I haven't commented on it anywhere else, but the Japanese seem to have adopted the short i for writing dhiḥ. I am fairly sure that it should be dhīḥ with a long ī. Perhaps it was an aesthetic decision as dhiḥ is, I think, more pleasing to the eye, with the body of the syllable balanced by the diacritic marks on either side.

Anyway it just goes to show that you can only learn so much from books and websites - I have been thinking for some time that I would like to go to Japan to study Siddhaṃ.

A further update:
I have received a reply, via Jill Bell, from the great man himself:

The siddham is the seed-syllable for the Heart Sutra (see p.62 in SACRED CALLIGRAPHY OF THE EAST). The kanji on the right are MA KA HAN NYA HA RA MI TA SHIN GYO, Maka Hannya-haramita Shingyo, the title of the sutra. My signature DO SEN HAI SHO, "Respectfully written by Dosen" [Dosen is my pen name] is on the left.

JS

So yes the bija is definitely dhiḥmma. The Maka Hannya-haramita Shingyo is the Mahā Prajñāpāramita Heart Sutra.

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...."

Kukai Calligraphy

I was passing through London this week to give a talk on Kukai at the Southampton Buddhist Centre, and took the opportunity to call into the British Library. I have been keen for sometime to read: R.H. Van Gulik's Siddham : An Essay on the History of Sanskrit Studies in China and Japan and unable to obtain a copy via the interlibrary loan system. I did not have much time to read the text but was delighted at the examples of Siddham calligraphy, and especially to find some reproductions of Kukai's pen.

On the right is the Amitabha mantra: namo amitabaḥ (an idiosyncratic spelling). Alongside it on the left is Kukai's signature and his seal (larger version on the Kukai page).

I've also added an alphabet brushed by Kukai; and a Mantra of Light, on the Vairocana page.

Aum

Aum
Originally uploaded by parhessiastes

Om made to look like a Korean character. I have found some more of these in a book showing an 18th century Chinese manuscript. The characters are made to look a bit like Chinese Seal script. I will do some for Visible Mantra.

This is a nice example of the style and shows that it is a current practice. Good for scaring off ghosts apparently

17/2/2008 - I'm updating this entry to make it clear that the image shows a Korean Style character. My version is on the om page.

Mystery Syllable

The image on the left was sent in by Terence from Singapore who thought it was Siddhaṃ but was unsure what letter or word it was. It is being used in a Japanese Movie called "Aragami - raging god of battle" which seems a bit of an unfortunate association but such is life.

The character in red seems to quite clearly be khaṃ - based on kha (right). I'm not sure but I suspect that the white represents a styalized kanji or Chinese character (let me know if you recognise it). In my reply to Terence's email I explained the traditional associations with this syllable khaṃ:

Khaṃ is what is known as a seed syllable, it is a kind of mantra. There is a Sanskrit word kha which does just mean space. Sanskrit is an inflected language which means that the word ending changes depending on the case of the noun. The ending 'ṃ' is probably a nominative. So it just means space.

However you need to take into account that mantras are esoteric sounds and what the word means in a dictionary may have nothing to do with how it functions as a mantra. Many mantras do not make sense in the ordinary way we use that word. Mantras are sound symbols of something which transcends words. It is common to see khaṃ in the context of discussions of the elements (earth, water, fire, wind, space) - in the Upaniṣads, or the early Buddhist tantras for instance - where it is always associated with the element space. Khaṃ as a mantra, and space itself as a symbol, stand for, amongst other things, the emptiness and vastness of consciousness in it's primordial state. It is effectively equivalent to śunyata.

We could further note that the syllable kha occurs in the mantra of Mahavairocana