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.

oṃ

Seed-syllable oṃ
in Siddhaṃ

I upgraded the oṃ page.

I don't whether to be pleased that my calligraphy and other methods have improved, or horrified at how poor some of my earlier work was. Hopefully the whole site will gradually be brought up to a higher level.

ye dharma hetu prabhava

Replaced Tibetan, and added images of Lantsa (left), Sinhala (Pāli) scripts to the Ye dharma page. This phrase is often called the Buddhist credo (Latin: I believe)

Ye dharmā hetuprabhavā hetuṃ teṣāṃ tathāgataḥ hyavadat teṣāṃ ca yo nirodha evaṃ vādī mahāśramaṇaḥ

New Logo

Some of you will notice that I've created a new logo for the site - this is partly in preparation for the publication of the book of the website. The character is dma. In Sanskrit 'visible mantra' would be darśataḥ mantraḥ giving the initials D.M. Combined into one bīja you get dma.

Amitāyus

I have re-evaluated my Sanskrit re-creation of the Amitāyus mantra from the Tibetan, which is on the Amitābha page. The Tibetan reads (in Unicode)

ཨོཾ༌ཨཱ༌མ༌ར༌ནི༌ཛི༌ཝན༌ཏེ༌ཡེ༌སྭཱ༌ཧཱ།

This is usually transliterated: om amarani dziwantaye soha which reflects Tibetan pronunciation. The actual syllables are: oṃ ā ma ra ṇi dzi wan te ye svā hā, from which I have now reconstructed the Sanskrit:

oṃ amaraṇi jīvantaye svāhā
ओं अमरणि जीवन्ताये स्वाहा

More details and Siddhaṃ calligraphy on the Amitābha page. Ideally I'd find a Sanskrit source for this mantra to clarify the matter - if you know one please let me know.

Padmasambhava

Alerted to a minor error on the Padmasambhava page I have updated it. I've replaced the the Siddhaṃ calligraphy, and the Tibetan calligraphy (with a font based image), but I've also added some material that I had prepared for the forthcoming Visible Mantra book (don't hold your breath). Now you will also find the Thöthrengtsal or Skull Garland mantra, and the Seven Line Invocation - both in Uchen and transliterated - with Saṅgharakṣita's translation of the latter which is based on the oral explanation he received from Dhardo Rinpoche. Both of these are popularly chanted in the FWBO.

100,000 Visitors

Earlier today visiblemantra.org topped 100,000 visits for 2009 which is very gratifying, especially as I haven't done much work on the site lately. Thanks everyone!

100,000 visitors have downloaded more than 320,000 pages with the Vajrasattva page being the most popular by a long way. 2% - which is, like, 2000 sessions - have looked at more than 100 pages - 10 out of 10 for perseverance whoever you are.

Work on turning the site into an attractive book is progressing rather slowly, but it is progressing. That work will eventually translate back into the site with vastly improved Tibetan, and Devanāgarī for everything. I'm hoping to get hold of a good Lantsa font before too long as well.

Vajrasattva Mantra

Vajrasattva: I replaced my rough Tibetan Calligraphy of hūṃ and oṃ vajrasattva hūṃ with images created using fonts. Much better! I've also added the 100 syllable mantra in Unicode - here it is again:

ཨོཾ་བཛྲ་སཏྭ་ས་མ་ཡ་མ་ནུ་པ་ལ་ཡ། བཛྲ་སཏྭ་ཏྭེ་ནོ་པ་ཏིཥྛ། དྲྀ་ཌྷོ་མེ་བྷ་བ། སུ་ཏོ་ ཥྱོ་མེ་བྷ་བ།
སུ་པོ་ ཥྱོ་མེ་བྷ་བ། ཨ་ནུ་ར་ཀྟོ་མེ་བྷ་བ། ས་རྦ་སི་དྡྷི་མེ་པྲ་ཡ་ཙྪ། ས་རྦ་ཀ་རྨ་སུ་ཙ་མེ ཙི་ཏྟཾ༌ཤེ་ཡཿ་ཀུ་རུ་ཧཱུྂ།
ཧ་ཧ་ཧ་ཧ་ཧོཿ བྷ་ག་བ་ན ས་རྦ ཏ་ཐཱ་ག་ཏ་བཛྲ་མཱ་མེ་མུ་ཉྩ། བཛྲཱི་བྷ་བ་མ་ཧཱ་ས་མ་ཡ་སཏྭ ཨཱཿ །།
ཧཱུྂ ཕ་ཊ

You can use this (ie cut and paste) to display the mantra using any Unicode font which has the Tibetan range - such as Tibetan Machine Uni, or Microsoft Himalaya. There are a number of other fonts around. Note that the 100 syllables end with āḥ - hūṃ and phaṭ are added for special purposes - see the page for explanations. Note also that there are variations in the spelling and my version is my best attempt to convey the Sanskrit using Uchen.

Sabbe Satta Sukhi Hontu

Thanks to stumble.com the page with my decorative version of the Pāli mantra sabbe sattā sukhi hontu has become one of the most popular pages on visiblemantra.org. As a result I have spruced up the sister page - May all beings be happy - which shows the mantra in formal siddhaṃ (new calligraphy), and added versions in Tibetan (Uchen), Devanāgarī and Sinhala - using images of fonts to spare you my ragged calligraphy in those scripts (screen shot left).

I've discovered a good utility for transcribing Sinhala so will be adding that script for other Pāli phrases - if you know of one for Burmese and Thai let me know.

New Mantra

Caught up with Tashi Mannox on a recent visit to London which was cool. He gave me a calligraphy of a mantra I hadn't come across before. It is used in the conclusion of Tibetan sadhanas.

oṃ supratiṣṭhavajraye svāhā

So after doing some research and consulting him about the Tibetan writing and pronunciation I've added the first new page to visiblemantra.org for some time. I'm calling it the supratiṣṭha mantra for want of a better name. The page has Siddhaṃ, Uchen and Devanāgarī.

Fix

This blog is generated using blogger.com and there were problems with links back into the site (which is written in notepad if anyone is interested). This is now fixed.

Onmyoji 3 & 4

The Manga Onmyoji 4 has just been published in French translation by Patrick Honnore. You may recall that I was helping Patrick transliterate the mantras used in the comic which are written in the Siddhaṃ script. I also worked on Onmyoji 3.

The mantras in the comic are used by tantric wizards, often to subdue demons. So if you read French and like mangas check it out.

Sometime back on this blog I asked for info about some obscure mantras but never heard anything. In Onmyoji 3 the Fudo mantra is featured - which is what made me create a Fudo page for visiblemantra.org.

White Tārā

I've recently updated the notes on the White Tārā mantra in accordance with a new understanding of Sanskrit. Not all ambiguities are able to be resolved, but at least it is now clear what is ambiguous and in what way. I've changed the way I present the variations on the mantra. My previous efforts were too dependent on books, and have again benefited from my Sanskrit studies.

Much remains to be done in this vein, although it is important to recall that mantras are not entirely translatable and that this kind of approach is limited. The White Tārā mantra is somewhat unusual in containing grammatical sensible phrases.

Words

I've updated the words section, replacing the relatively scruffy miscellaneous collection of calligraphy with a more consistent style, and add a number of new words.


I haven't had any requests in this section for a while, so if there is something you would like me to add, please say so.

Heart Sūtra Mantra

A keen tattoo enthusiast noticed an error in my Siddhaṃ Heart Sūtra Mantra, and so I've updated it, and replaced the appalling Tibetan with a pic of it done with a font (Tibetan Machine Uni if you're interested). So far rendering Tibetan in browsers is a bit hit and miss, so I'll stick to images. Georg Fisher of Indian Scripts in Tibet says he's going to make his gorgeous Lantsa fonts available so eventually I might have some decent Lantsa mantras here as well.

Also since I've just covered past-participles in Sanskrit I've updated my Heart Sūtra mantra notes on the mess that is exegesis of the word 'gate'. I wrote something related on my blog recently as well: Words in Mantras that End in -e.

Kurukullā

I've added a new page for the first time in a while. This one is for the Tantric figure Kurukullā, who is associated with the Red Rite, or the Rite of Fascination. She resembles a ḍakiṇī in form and is distinguished by the fact that she is drawing back a bow with an arrow fitted - both of which are covered in flowers.

Medicine Buddha

Spurred on by the new Wildmind Bhaiṣajyaguru mantra page I have updated the Visiblemantra Bhaiṣajyaguru page. I've improved the Tibetan script (by using a font!) and added a Devanāgarī script transliteration. In the Sūtra of the Medicine Buddha (Taisho XIV, 450) there is a Sanskrit introduction to the mantra which I have written out in Siddhaṃ. Note that Bodhipakṣa says this is a long form of the mantra, but the sūtra notes say the mantra starts at "oṃ...". I see the extra bit as an introduction to the mantra per se, but it could be chanted along with the mantra I suppose, as it is a praise to Bhaiṣajyaguru. The new part goes:

• namo bhagavate bhaiṣajyaguru vaiḍūryaprabharājāya tathāgatāya arhate samyaksambuddhāya tadyathā: oṃ bhaiṣajye bhaiṣajye mahābhaiṣajya-samudgate svāhā
• नमो भगवते भैषज्यगुरु वैडूर्यप्रभराजाय तथागताय अर्हते सम्यक्सम्बुद्धाय तद्यथा । ओं भैषज्ये भैषज्ये महाभैषज्यसमुदगते स्वाहा ॥

The praise says: homage to the blessed medicinal teacher, to the king of jewel-like radiance, to the one who is like that, to the worthy, fully awakened one, thus:

Note that as வினோத் ராஜன் comments below the word vaiḍūrya can mean Lapis Lazuli. It can also mean jewel or anything excellent of it's kind (according to Monier-Williams). Since Lapis doesn't actually radiate (prabha) I've gone with "jewel" and take vaiḍūryaprabharāja to mean "jewel-radiance-king" or king who has the radiance of a jewel.

Downloads

I have finally got around to creating a downloads page. At present the only menu link is on the index page. On the downloads page you will find fonts I use; keyboard maps for Windows that I've created and regularly use for Roman with Unicode diacritics and देवनागरि; and a desk top interface for the digital Monier-Williams Sanskrit Dictionary which is very handy. As far as I know I'm free to give this stuff away, but let me know if you think there are copyright problems.

I'm interested to get feedback on whether the keyboards work and on what systems. So if you try them, please drop me a line to let me know how you get on.

The keyboards are especially cool because they allow you to type characters in whatever application you want (notepad even which is what I use to write Visible Mantra) and this is good because it allows more accurate searching of Google for instance compare these three searches: appamāda vs appamada vs अप्पमाद. I have a Tibetan keyboard for writing Sanskrit as well which is a bit more complex - hope to document it soon and upload it.

BTW if you use Firefox you can specify different fonts for Roman and Devanāgarī - my current set up is Times Ext Roman for Western and Arial Unicode MS for Devanāgarī. There are lots of Devanāgarī Unicode fonts around now.

A Visible Mantra Book

I have two projects which will fill up most of the next year. Firstly I will be turning the site into a book and publishing it. I'll be setting up my own imprint to do this and plan a series of books on mantra and related subjects based on this site and my blog, including a primer on how to write Siddhaṃ. The preliminary work on the book has brought to light very many typos and mis-spellings (in English and Sanskrit) and some factual errors which I will correct in the book first, and then on the site. For the book I will use fonts for Tibetan and Devanāgarī which will considerably improve the look for those scripts. I'm investigating a Ranjana/Lantsa font but these seem less well developed - I'm undecided as to how important Lantsa is in a Western context. The only Siddhaṃ font I am aware of is in brushstyle and is rather unattractive - so I'll use my calligraphy for Siddhaṃ. So generally speaking the book will have some distinct advanatges over the website - and the images will be hi-res as well.

I'm also finally going to formally learn Sanskrit at Cambridge University. Hopefully in the long run this will lead to considerable improvement in the site.

I think at some point I will start using a Tibetan font on the website - although there is Unicode for Tibetan, not many standard fonts include the Tibetan range, so it would require that readers install a font. I've been avoiding that, but realise that I'm unlikely to have the time to really master the Uchen script. I still haven't seen any other Tibetan script fonts.

Errors and Oṃ vs Auṃ

While I do my very best to get things right on this site - I want it to be authoritative - occasionally I make errors of spelling in mantras. I recently discovered a real howler in the short Vajrayoginī mantra! (leaving off vowel markers in Tibetan). I have now corrected this. Apologies is this caused confusion.

I also took the time to change the Devanāgarī oṃ from this one - ॐ - to this - ओं. This is more than cosmetic since the ॐ is actually transliterated as auṃ rather than oṃ. The former is the long vowel the latter is short. (See also below). I use a web transliteration tool to create Devanāgarī text for the site and this was tuned to create ॐ even when I wrote oṃ, but I've now found a work around which is to use the Hindi version. Now that I've done this on one page I've realised that I need to make it more clear on the oṃ page! Which is an example of the law of unintended consequences I suppose.

Phonosemantics

I've added an essay which introduces the subject of phonosemantics - the study of the way vocal sounds are meaningful. To my mind this is a very exciting area of linguistics which may provide insights into how and why mantras affect us. I serendipitously found Margo Magnus's Magical Letter website many years ago and almost instantly became fascinated with her research and it's conclusions.

There are a small number of linguists prepared to take the subject seriously and they are making slow progress in describing the phenomenon - an essential first step in understanding it! It is a minority interest, and progress is slow, because the major paradigm in operation in linguistics denies the possibility that individual syllables can bear meaning. Because it is held to be impossible, very few people are prepared to even examine and comment on the data. Such is the way of scientific revolutions!

Mañjuśrī and Arapacana

I've rejigged the info relating to Mañjuśrī and Arapacana. I wanted to add some Mañjuśrī mantras and this would have made his page a bit unwieldy. So I have split off the material that relates only to the Arapacana alphabet onto a new page. I've added the Vagiśvara mantra, and one that I discovered recently on Glenn Wallis's website which is also related to Mañjuśrī's role as Lord of Speech. So now there are three pages to consult:

• Mañjuśrī and Mañjughoṣa - material relating to the mantra of the Bodhisattva
• The Arapacana Alphabet and it's history
• Meditating on the Wisdom Alphabet with reference to the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra

Redecorating

I finally got bored with all the green on Visible Mantra and have opted for basic black in the new colour scheme, with red drop capitals. The latter are inspired by the red seals Nathaniel Archer uses in his calligraphy. I keep thinking I must have a go at making some...

I'm also slightly rejigging the menu (which is time consuming because I use stone age technology to create VM) and have renamed a couple of the pages to better reflect what they are about. There is a new section of reading material. I have been working on some background material for the site which I think will fill a gap for anyone who is interested in Buddhist mantra.

Names

I've now completed a project to add calligraphy of the names for all of the deity mantra pages, and other figures with Sanskrit names. At the same time I've updated a few of the less elegant mantras (my calligraphy has improved somewhat since I set this site up). Do take the time to revisit pages you may be familiar with to see what's new.

Acala Vidyārāja - Fudō Myōō (不動明王)

The latest addition to Visible Mantra is a page for Fudō. Fudō is a wrathful manifestation of Mahāvairocana who acts as a messenger and protector. He is one of a group of Vidyārājas. Vidyā is sometimes used as a synonym for "mantra" in Tantric Buddhism, though it's basic meaning is knowledge (the word is related to the Sanskrit Veda), and it is often used to connote magical or esoteric knowledge. A Vidyārāja then, is king of esoteric knowledge especially of mantra. Fudō is one of the thirteen principal deities of the modern Shingon School.

I have to admit I'm not very familiar with this character as he does not figure in the Western Buddhist Order to any great extent. I'm drawing entirely on Shingon sources for this mantra, but especially the Shingon "Handbook for Followers" by Abbot Yusei Arai.

Updates

I've updated the Prajñāpāramitā and Śākayamuni pages with some extra info, and fixed a number of typos.

Four Great Kings

I have added a page for the Four Great Kings after finding some mantras for them in the reference book Bonji Taikan. Because I don't read Japanese I can't say what the source of these mantras is, but it won't be the Mahāvairocana Sūtra where the mantras do not begin with oṃ, but with namaḥ samanta buddhānaṃ.

I have been interested in the Kings -Dhṛtarāṣṭra, Virūḍhaka, Virūpākṣa, and Vaiśravaṇa - since my ordination retreat when we carried out rituals involving them. The kings are not originally Buddhist and still show signs of their origins in Indian folk religion, as well as influences from Brahminism. However they must has been widely popular even at the time of the Buddha because they make frequent appearances in the Pāli Canon. They are devas from the lowest devaloka, and are therefore the closest to the human realm. As kings they are lords over the various chthonic spirits such as yakṣas, nāgas, kumbhāṇḍas, and gandharvas that inhabit the Buddhist mythic landscape.

I hope to do more thorough research on the kings in the future. The fact that there are mantras to these, and other Vedic/Hindu gods (such as Agni, Indra, and Śiva) is a very interesting facet of esoteric Buddhism.

Vajrasattva Mantra Audio

A few people now have asked me if I'll do some audio for Visible Mantra. So I've started with the most popular mantra on the site : the hundred syllable Vajrasattva Mantra. My Sanskrit pronunciation is not perfect by any means, but you get the idea. I've also done it chanted FWBO style, although this is not as straight-forward as it might be because there is now more than one version. This is my preferred version with (an attempt at) accurate Sanskrit pronunciation, correcting the mispronunciations that have crept into due to transmission. This is one good thing about preserving the tradition in writing - even if pronunciation shifts one can still here how it sounded at the time when it was written down. This is still not guarantee of perfection due to what the scholars call "scribal error" but it is helpful especially when the mantra gets transmitted through non Indo-European speaking cultures such as Japan and Tibet.

Anyway have a listen and see what you think. Feel free to comment. Any requests?

Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar

I've added some examples of Jai Bhim and some of the commmon chants used by Indian Buddhists to celebrate their great leader Dr. Ambedkar. This is the first time I have employed Devanāgarī for calligraphy but it seemed appropriate to the subject.

This is Dr. Ambedkar's name in Devanāgarī: ढॉक्टर् भीमरव् रामजी आंबेड्कर

Ratnaguṇasaṁcayagāthā

Added calligraphy of the first verse of the Ratnaguṇasaṁcayagāthā. I'm looking for more small projects which I can do, perhaps other verses from this sutra, but others as well. The Perfection of Wisdom in one letter would be an obvious one if I can find the Sanskrit.

The Last Words of the Buddha

I have a long fascination with the official last words that the Buddha spoke: vayadhammā sankhārā appamādena saṃpadethā. They are so pregnant with meaning and siginificance. I've just added some calligraphy of the words using Siddhaṃ to write the Pāli from the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta, along with my translation and links to my blog article on them.

Vajrasattva Tops

I've started collection more statistics on Visible Mantra. The top mantra on the site is the Vajrasattva Mantra, with more than half of people who find it, looking at at least one other page. The scripts page is also popular. I'm hoping that this kind of information will help me tailor the site to meet people's needs.

Cheers
Jayarava

Pali Chants

I've just added another of those really fundamental phrases from early Buddhism:

This being that becomes,
With the arising of this, that arises.
This not being, that does not arise,
With the ceasing of this, that ceases.

I know these things are neither strictly speaking mantras, nor were they ever traditionally written in Siddham, but I like them, and its fun writing them.

There are a few of them now which can be found in the miscellaneous section of the mantra page. I'm working on the Metta Sutta, and a better version of the Heart Sutra. Anything else you'd like to see?

Artwork

I've finished the project that I have been working on for some time to provide line drawings for each of the figures for which I have mantras. I have replaced other images that were a bit of a mixed bag. This will , I hope, contribute to a consistent look and feel for the site, and make it more visually interesting.

Although the influence of Buddhist art is positive and strong in most traditions, I am of the opinion that a mantra - whether chanted or written - is just as good a representation of a Buddha or Bodhisattva as an anthropomorphic image. I am wary of thinking of a Buddha as a happy monk sitting on a lotus floating up in the sky. Mantra being more abstract lessens the tendency to reify the Buddha.

Update

I've tweaked the mantra page which was starting to get very image heavy and taking an appreciable time to load. It also means I don't have to make all those little mantra images.

Also added svāhā and phaṭ to the bija page and created pages for them - still need to fully link them into the rest of the site. I know they aren't really seed-syllables, but they had to go somewhere, and they are in fact used like seed syllables.

Milarepa & White Tārā

Added the Milarepa mantra in Uchen and Siddhaṃ, and the Long-Life mantra for Sangharakshita on the White Tārā page. Also some time back I added my notes on White Tārā and her iconographic relationship to the Five Buddha Mandala and the Siddhaṃ version of taṃ.

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.

Update

I have been chipping away at minor improvements over the last few weeks. My big improvement (I hope) will be the replacement of all artwork with my own simple line drawings. These are not masterpieces of religious artwork, just illustrative of the basic outline of iconography. I hope they will help to contribute to a cohesive look and feel for the site.

Current examples are akasagarbha and ksitigarbha (right).

A few more updates

The page on hūṃ has been expanded with information from Kūkai' Ungi gi and a new calligraphy which demonstrates the elements which make up the seed syallbale.

There is a new calligraphy section which has links to projects which go beyond the basics. There are a couple of projects there already and I'll add more as I can.

Another new section is words which has some common Buddhist terms in the Siddhaṃ script.

The shop now has two sections: you can buy books, calligraphy equipment, and incense from Amazon; and clothing and giftware with selected Visible Mantra designs. I'm open to suggestion about adding design to the shop.

Updates

I've made some more additions to the site.

I've added a shop which beefs up my Amazon Associate relationship. In the last 12 months links to Amazon have generated the enormous sum of £9 (with a payout threshold of £25). Hopefully the new shop will boost that a little. There are some Japanese Siddham books I'd like to get which are rather expensive!

I've added Siddham calligraphy of the Refuge formula - the three refuges.

Also some Lantsa bijas.

Search

I've added a Google search facility. This searches only Visible Mantra so should come in handy (if only for me trying to remember where I've put things!