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.

Excellent Tibetan Mantra Calligraphy

Tashi Mannox recently dropped me a line, and I am very happy to direct people to his mantra calligraphy website: www.tashimannox.co.uk. His work is of a very high standard as you can see (right). He is fluent in many styles of Tibetan script, and also designs seals.

He also designs tattoos and has a second website devoted to this: Inkessential.

Title: Mani Mantra, Chinese Ink on paper. Size: 71x54cm
(this work is for sale, contact Tashi via his website)

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...."

Bonji Tattoo

This image was sent in today by Jose. He asks "is it a name or is it a listing of different Gods?" I thought it was interesting enough to answer at length.

This is two seed-syllables, or perhaps three depending on how you read it. The top bit is hāmmāṃ - the seed syllable of Fudō Myōō (Acala Vidyārāja). It is written as one syllable, but if you consult the Shingon Buddhist International Fudō webpage you will see that the mantra of Fudō is:

namaḥ samanta-vajrāṇāṃ caṇḍa mahāroṣaṇa sphoṭaya hūṃ traṭ hāṃ māṃ

hāmmāṃ is a combination of hāṃ + māṃ but written, as I say, as one syllable.

At the bottom is the short a syllable. It is in contact with the hāmmāṃ but must be a separate syllable. A is of course the mother of all syllables, and the syllable of Vairocana. John Stevens describes Fudō as an "incarnation and messenger of Vairocana" so it makes sense to have the two syllables together.

A fascinating case. I don't have a page for Fudō but perhaps will add one in the future. One of our order, and a friend of mine, is named Acala.

Comments

Thanks to Ben for his comments on the Heart Sutra mantra. I have now substantially updated the notes on this page. Although I may argue the case, I am keen to get feedback on the content of this site, especially where I may have got facts wrong or overlooked something important. The subject is so broad that it is always going to be difficult to cover all the bases.

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.

Award

Art Space 2000, an artists collective, have given Visible Mantra the "World Web Award of Excellence" for web site design, creativity, and ease of navigation.

Thanks.