Literary History of Sanskrit Buddhism

Strotras, Dhāraṇīs, Tantras – 139
In the Nepalese law courts the Buddhist people are sworn on the
Pañcarakṣa (Hodgson Essays, p. 18).
Sanskrit Dhāraṇīs in Japan
Many dhāraṇīs are only a kind of philosophical sūtras, the doctrines
of which they are intended to present in a nutshell, but in the process
it becomes less a question of the substance of the doctrine than words
which are mysterious and unintelligible. Of this variety are the two
enshrined in the palm leaves in the ancient cloister of Horiuzi in
of the Prajñāpāramitā which is a mantra to assuage all pains which
embodies the perfection of all wisdom and which runs thus: “Oh
Lord, thou that hast gone, gone, gone to the further shore, gone
entirely to the further shore – hail!” This is by the way nothing but
an erroneous etymology of the term Pāramitā. Even this apostrophe
which may be said in a certain measure to represent the essence of
the negative doctrine of Prajñāpāramitāsūtras stands on no more
elevated spiritual level than the Uṣṇiśavijayadhāraṇī which is
likewise bequeathed to us by the palm leaves of Horiuzi and consists
merely in a series of unintelligible invocations.
The ancient palm leaves containin
and the Uṣṇiśavijayadhāraṇī, edited by Max Müller and B. Nanjio
(Anecdota Oxoniensia, Aryan Series, Vol. I, Part III), Oxford, 1884,
Sacred Books of the East, Vol. 49; part II, p. 145 ff.
tra Nepalese Buddhist
Literature, p. 89 f.) is addressed to the Shaivite god Ganapati,
although it is “revealed by the Buddha.” [117]