The Cult of Tara

WORSHIP 37
million times. Only a god can employ a god's omnipotence, and
only after this extended period of self-generation can the monk evoke
the deity before him, request the magical attainments, and be
capable of directing the divine power. In this connection, Tsongk'apa
quotes the Questions of Noble Subahu: ,s
After first reciting 100,000 times according to the ritual,
one should set out upon the actual effectuation of the mantra,
for then one will quickly gain the magical attainments
and by the various mantra rituals long be without misfortune.
This verse marks the distinction between the actual "effectuation
of the mantra"—its recitation as a means of directing the deity's
power—and the "contemplation of the mantra" which takes place
during the ritual service ("100,000 times according to the ritual. . .")
as a means of acquiring the capacity to direct the deity's power.
"It is only after one has done the ritual service," glosses Tsongk'apa,
"that one may employ the deity, evoking his functions of pacifying,
increasing or destroying (to increase, for example, one's life or wisdom)."
76
During this period a keen monk would try to get through the recitation
of the mantras of as many deities as possible, each, ideally, with
the appropriate visualization, beginning with those deities regularly
evoked in the monastic ritual and those whom he had taken as his
own personal deities, and then proceeding to those whom he might
at any time in the future be called upon to evoke. An incarnate
lama might have to perform the ritual service for an immense
number of different deities, and by the time he was finished he
would hope to be quite expert at "vivid visualization"; and any
monk might well return periodically to the hermitage for the ritual
service of a new deity whose initiation he had received.
Again, Tsongk'apa glosses the Great Tantra on Proper Evocation:''''
In investigating the functions and powers
inherent in the various families,
we will begin with the ritual service in the mantra
which is in harmony with their respective minds.
'According to this," he says, "a wise man who has gained the proper
initiations . . . and who has taken the Bodhisattva vows of the
thought of enlightenment and the Tantric pledges of the mantra in
their proper sequence, will first find a habitation and a friendly guide
of the proper characteristics . . . and then, in short, he should