Manjushri
Manjushri is the
Bodhisattva of Transcendent Wisdom. The youthful prince carries with his right
hand the double--edged sword able to cut through illusion and with his left
hand a blooming lotus that supports a volume of the Prajna-paramita Sutra. He
is depicted as a youth of sixteen years in order to convey the Buddhist
insight that wisdom is not a matter of mere experience or years, but results
from the cultivation of intellectual genius, which can penetrate directly to
the bedrock of reality. Wisdom is the most honored virtue in Buddhism, called
the Mother of all Buddhas, since only wisdom makes possible the great bliss of
total freedom from all suffering that is the goal of all living beings. Thus,
Manjushri is one of the most important of all Buddhist deities, the veritable
god of wisdom and herald of emancipation.
In the sutras, Manjushri has a Pure Land in
another universe, wherein he manifests himself as the Buddha he actually is.
He is in fact a perfect Buddha who vowed to emanate all over the universe as a
Bodhisattva to put the hard questions to the Buddhas on the topics of
voidness, freedom, and the nature of the self. But in the popular Tibetan
imagination, Manjushri has his earthly Pure Land at the magical Five Mountain
Paradise (Ch. Wutaishan; T. Riwo Tsenga) in northeast China, one of the most
important pilgrimage places for Tibetan, Mongolian, and Chinese
Buddhists.
Manjushri appears in several forms and
different colours linking him to the families
of Amitabha, Akshobhya and
so forth. In his most fundamental form he sits on a lion holding a sword in
his right and the manuscript of the Prajnaparamita in the left. The flaming
sword cuts through all intellectual and emotional entanglements thus revealing
the transcendent wisdom of the Prajnaparamita.
At times (like in the
present thangka), sword and book are placed on a lotus
flower.
Intelligence,
memory, wisdom and eloquence are all qualities that Manjushri bestows. His
name is a compound of the words man-ju (meaning beautiful, pleasing, lovely,
charming, smooth) and shri (meaning brilliance, splendour, glory), and the
connotations of
both these words convey perfectly the kind
of
intelligence and wisdom Manjushri
himself personifies.
The
main figure in this scroll has his hands in the gesture of turning- the-
wheel- of- the- dharma. Being the epitome of all the learning of the Buddha,
Manjushri is the leading proponent of the transmission of esoteric
philosophy.
Directly above in
the centre of the three figures of the top row rests Amitabha, red in
complexion, his hands in the gesture of meditation. He is flanked on either
side by red manifestations of Manjushri, the one on the left in the vajra
posture with sword and book, the one on the right sitting on a lion with his
left leg hanging down, his hands in the gesture of teaching.
The four
manifestations to the left and right of the main figure are all of white
complexion and sit in the diamond posture (vajrasa-na). They can be divided
into two groups: two of them have the right hand in the gesture of giving
(varada mudra), while their left hands hold a manuscript of the
Prajnaparamita; the other two hold a sword in their right hand. They are the
consorts of this Arapacha-na Manjushri, representing "i-a-pa-cha-ria",
the-final four syllables of Manjushri's mantra, while the main deity,
Manjushri, represents the first syllable "a", from which he himself
originates. He is as beautiful as one sadhana describes him: "...resplendent
like the full moon, a smile lingering on his face, decked in a rich variety of
prin-cely ornaments".
The bottom row of
figures has White Prajnaparamita on the left, carrying a manuscript of the
Prajnaparamita Sutra on two lotus flowers that grow out of her hands, while
her hands themselves are in the gesture of teaching. Prayers addressed to her
enhance wisdom, increase intelligence and promote discernment. She personifies
the transcendent wisdom propounded in the books she carries. The centre figure
in the bottom row is a white Manjushri, while in the right corner we see a
white Sarasvati with her vina (lute), the goddess of learning, poetry, music
and eloquence.
As transcendent
wisdom personified and Vagishvari, Lord of Speech (i.e. learning), the
mahabodhisattva Manjushri plays an important role in all Buddhist traditions
throughout history. In the Lotus Sutra his fellow bodhisattva Maitreya exhorts
him: "Remove our doubts! The four kinds of devotees are looking up with joy at
you and me..." The Shurangama Sutra declares him "absolute as such, to be
neither asserted nor negated". Together with Samantabhadra he is also the main
bodhisattva of the Avatamsaka Sutra. An entire tantra is devoted to him: the
Manjushri Mula Kalpa. According to the Zen tradition he attends upon Buddha
Shakyamuni together with mahabodhisattva Samantabhadra. He is mentioned in the
Smaller Sukhavati Vyuha and in the Guhyasamaja Tantra. And this is by no means
all; we could go on enumerating text after texts, such is the importance of
Manjushri for the Buddhist tradition.
The
Svayambhu Purana relates that Manjushri came from Wu Taishan Mountain in
China. After arriving in Svayambhunath in Nepal he lifted his sword and clove
the mountains, so that the la-ke's waters gushed out. Thus the fertile and
lovely Kathmandu valley was formed. According to Chinese tradition, Manjushri
was assigned the duty of turning the Wheel of the Dharma for the bene-fit of
the Chinese people and he chose Wu Taishan mountain as his abode. The famous
pilgrim 1-tsing notes during his travels through Southeast Asia and India
(671-695 A.D.) that the Indians thought Manjushri to be teaching in China at
that time.
Thus
the scroll without exception contains deities that personify and bestow
ordinary as well as transcendent wisdom. They all belong to the category of
Prajna-deities, as Panchen Phyogla Namgyal (1781-1952) decided to call them in
his major work on Buddhist iconography.
(
credits - text in part compiled from the book "Wisdom And Compassion - The
Sacred Art of Tibet")