Philosophies of India

SR No.: 007309
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Heinrich Zimmer, Joseph Campbell
Publisher: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd
Publication Year: 1953
Total Pages: 709
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 34 MB

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BRAHMANISM
qualities of clarity (sūttviku), passion and violence (rājasa), and darkness-inertia (tāmasa), know verily that these proceed from Me; yet I am not in them-they are in Me. This whole universe of living beings is deluded by these states compounded of the three qualities; hence they do not know Me, Who am beyond them and immutable. For this divine illusion (māyā) of mine, which is constituted of land operates through] the guņas, is exceedingly difficult to traverse. Those who devote themselves exclusively to Mc, however, traverse it.” AS
The broad river of ignorance and passion is a dangerous torrent, yet the savior, the divinc ferryman, can bring his devotees safely to the other shore. This is an image held in common by all Indian traditions. The Jaina saviors are termed Tīrthankaras, “Crossing-Makers.” The Buddha traverses a river by walking on its waves, and his Wisdom is known as the “Knowledge that has Gone to the Other Shore" (prajñā pāram-ilā). In the same spirit, the popular Mahāyāna savior Avalokitesvara (Chinese: Kwan-yin; Japanesc: Kwannon) is represented as a uinged steed, named "Cloud” (valāhaka), who carries to the far-off bank of enlightened freedoin-in-extinction all who wish to go.
An amusing allegorical talc, in the Buddhist sūtra known as the Kārandavyūha,so represents Cloud as manifesting himself to a company of shipwrecked merchants who had set sail for the Jewel Isle. These had fallen in with certain alluring women on another enchanted island, who had seemed to receive them hospitably and freely allowed them to make love, but finally proved to be man-eating inonsters only waiting to devour them.
$5 Bhagavad Gita 7. 12-14.
88 The full title of this important Mahāyāna Buddhist sūtra is Avalokitesvaragunakaran davyuha, "The Complete Description of the Baskct of the Characteristics of Avalokitesvara." It appears in two versions, an older in prose and a later in verse. See M. Winternitz, Geschichte der indischen Litteratur, Vol. II, pp. 288-240, and L. de la Vallée Poussin, "Avalokitesvara," in Hastings, Encylopaedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. II, pp. 259-260.
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