113bC4l

the victory of esoterism and the imperial metaphor ⁄ 165
From the transformation of the letters like pum. , etc., we are to envision the
places—the pilgrimage seats [pitha], etc.—inside the empty spokes of the
cakras located in the head, etc. We should furthermore meditate that both
the pilgrimage seats and the veins inside them are fundamentally transformed
by the form of the divinity. This is similar to the way that pilgrimage
seats in the external world are revived (and therefore transformed) by
the waters of rivers in their proximity. And in the same way the veins revive
the fingernails, and so forth. 155
Here we find a convenient association of many of the elements needed in the
emergence of esoteric Buddhism: the ritualization of external circumstances,
the identity of internal and external, the employment of metaphors in the
process, and transformation as the procedure for sanctification.
The last method for the sacralization of the feudal world was the simple act
of bringing its rituals into the monastic compound, where the rules of the
Vinaya and the vows of the Bodhisattva provided a sense of formal authority,
to which the new rite must be accommodated. Because monastic esoterism
was already based in an institution, dramatic new rules and legal procedures
were not required for the culmination of the new rites. For example, the
Mañju$rimulakalpa provides a rather lackluster statement of guidance to candidates
after their consecration:
So! The secrecy of the pledge of the Great Bodhisattva, the True Prince
Mañju$ri, is never to be transgressed. You are never to produce great demerit.
Nor are any of his mantras to be repudiated. No Buddha or Bodhisattva
is to be contradicted and your master is to be propitiated. Otherwise,
there will be a transgression against the pledge, and the mantras will
not lead to accomplishment, where there may be found great merit. 156
This kind of modest list of commitments is found reinforced elsewhere, as
in the esoteric instruction on the bodhisattva’s virtue by %ubhakarasimha,
and they share a broad range of values that support and promote the monastic
path. 157
When such modest lists of requirements are contrasted with the highly formalized
and well-defined series of vows articulated in siddha communities—
examined in chapter 7—some of the differences in their organizations are evident.
Because the siddhas had no overarching institutional culture in which to
become socialized, they appeared to need a much more structured agenda of
vows and restrictions. Not so the monks. The very act of moving the conse