Kirk wrote: > Bija mantras exist in many tantras. > Maybe so, but aren't most of the tantras relativlely recent? Most of the works which mention bija mantras are recent compositions. For example, the Tripura Upanishad was probably composed as recently as the 18th century. My point is that the invention of the bija mantras used in Tantric Yoga is a new development and is not Vedic at all. Therefore the Tantric tradition is not really supported by ancient scripture.
It has not been established that the historical Buddha, Shakya the Muni, mentioned the use of any bija mantras. > Lakshmi tantra of Vaisnavas and Upanishads from > Narasimhanada and so on. > > Mantras are not news. > There should be a distinction made between 'mantras' and 'bija' mantras. Mantras are mentioned in the Rig Veda but there are no bijas mentioned in the Rig Veda. Niether does Patanjali mention any bija mantras. > They exist in many works including Shrimaddevi > Bhagavatum, the Devi Purana. Mantras of the bija > style pervade the puranas and were primary to the > whole Vedic literature as the Alikali or Sanskrit > language. Every letter is a mantra. > But, some respondents believe that the bija mantras existed for thousands of years, long before the invention of the Sanskrit alphabet. If so, then how were the bija mantras uttered, if there was no alphabet back then? There is no evidence that the inhabitants of the Indus Valley Civilization had an alphabet. There was no alphabet when the Rig Veda was composed. Apparently Pannini was the first Indian to adopt an alphabet, long after the composition of most of the primary Upanishads. > Some of the primary are derived from first four > vowels and other letters, comprising the Shiva > and Shakti mantras. Of which the first two as > described in the Lakshmi tantra, as everyone > knows, are the Tarika, and Anutarika, the mantras > Hrim and Shrim. > Maybe so, but 'Hrim and Shrim' aren't TM bija mantras. > They are described as those two words which ferry > one across the ocean of existance, or make one > transscend however one will read into it. > Maybe so, but if this was the case wouldn't Shankaracharya have mentioned this as a viable means to attain moksha? Apparently Shankaracharya did not advocate a yogic means to liberation. > Do you mean to say RJW that Kanchi should not > handle people's spiritual accounts? > By all accounts Adi Sankara's time was somewhere around 8th to 9th century AD. And of the four Maths that he established Kanchi is not one of them. Either the mutt is less than 100 years old, or if it was founded in 482 B.C., as is claimed by the Kanchi matha, then it must not have been established by Adi Sankaracharya. The Adi Shankaracharya, the one who wrote the Sutrabhasya, the one who founded four mathas, lived in the 8th century A.D. This is be outrageous! Read more: http://rwilliams.blogspot.com/
