This High Priest Is Said To Have The Magic Power Of
Attracting Cups And Plates To Him From A Distance, So That Things Fly
Through The Air Into His Hands." (MS.
Note.
- H. Y.)
The profession and practice of exorcism and magic in general is greatly
more prominent in Lamaism or Tibetan Buddhism than in any other known form
of that religion. Indeed, the old form of Lamaism as it existed in our
traveller's day, and till the reforms of Tsongkhapa (1357-1419), and as it
is still professed by the Red sect in Tibet, seems to be a kind of
compromise between Indian Buddhism and the old indigenous Shamanism. Even
the reformed doctrine of the Yellow sect recognises an orthodox kind of
magic, which is due in great measure to the combination of Sivaism with
the Buddhist doctrines, and of which the institutes are contained in the
vast collection of the Jud or Tantras, recognised among the holy books.
The magic arts of this code open even a short road to the Buddhahood
itself. To attain that perfection of power and wisdom, culminating in the
cessation of sensible existence, requires, according to the ordinary
paths, a period of three asankhyas (or say Uncountable Time x 3),
whereas by means of the magic arts of the Tantras it may be reached in
the course of three rebirths only, nay, of one! But from the Tantras
also can be learned how to acquire miraculous powers for objects entirely
selfish and secular, and how to exercise these by means of Dharani or
mystic Indian charms.
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