Literary History of Sanskrit Buddhism

Strotras, Dhāraṇīs, Tantras – 144
the final position of the supreme Yogi. The preliminary steps consist
in the purification of the body, speech and mind so that they acquire
the “diamond” nature of the body, the speech and the mind of the
Buddha. But the medium through which the five stages are reached
comprises magical circles, magical formulæ, mysterious syllables
and the worship of Mahāyānistic and Tantric goddesses. In this
manner the Yogi acquires the loftiest step where all else ceases and
there is absolutely no duality at all.
Edited with an introduction by La Vallée-Poussin Etudes et Texte,
Tantriques (Resuil de Travaux publies par la faculate de philosophie
et Letters, Universite de Grand, fasc. 16), Grand et Louvain, 1896.
Burnouf, Introduction p. 497 ff, Vajra “The Diamond” plays a chief
part in the mystics of the Tantras. [121]
Of such a Yogi it is said:
“As towards himself so is he towards his enemy. Like his wife is his
mother to him; like his mother is the courtezan to him; like a Dombi
(a wandering minstrel of the lowest caste) is to him a Brahman
woman; his skin to him is like the garment; straw is like a precious
stone; wine and food like excreta; an abuse like a song of praise;
Indra like Rudra; day as night; the phenomena as dreams; the extant
as the perished; pain as enjoyment; son as a vicious creature; heaven
as hell, – and so to him the bad and the good are one.”
The authorship
If in reality a Nāgārjuna was the author of this section it must be
another person of the same name than the founder of the
Madhyamika system. But as the author of the third section is given