On Jan 6, 2007, at 2:27 PM, Bhairitu wrote:
Richard J. Williams wrote:
All Indian mantric practices stem from the ancient Buddhists of
India,
and were adopted, with modifications, by the Shiva and Vaishanava
sects as Hindu tantricism following the Gupta Age.
What is the source of this information?
However, there are no bija mantras in the Rig Veda. According to what
I've read, every bija mantra has four aspects: a rishi or seer, a
raga
or melody, a bija or seed sound, and a kilaka or pillar.
But I don't think that means that bij mantras were not when the Vedas
were composed.
What's the date on the Maheshvara sutra? IMO this is ancient, from
oral tradition and older than Indian Buddhism--but may not be older
than previous forms of Buddhism (some of which are still in
existence). Nonetheless, I bet as far as you go back in both Hinduism
and Buddhism you'll see their usage because anyone who experiences
primordial consciousness will also experience the "arising of
letters" (i.e., the source, in consciousness, of the arising of all
sounds) and these are often synonymous with alphabets. When you are
initiated into many Hindu OR Buddhist non-dual tantras, you are often
initiated into *all* yonis and bijas (the vowels and the consonants)
and IME that always takes the form of the Master implanting these
seeds, as an alphabet, into your mindstream. Therefore I feel it's
safe to say that the origin of the yoni and bija mantras is truly a
primordial one. They've always been there, ready to express their
sonic aspect of creation.
Even likely older, expressing a similar sequential unfolding of
letters is of course the Hebrew/Chaldean alphabet.
The radical western Tantric master Aleister Crowley even claimed to
have found the sequential energetic unoldment of the English alphabet
while in "white hot" samadhi.
So in that sense, it's truly universal and beyond culture or time.
