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The Cult of Tara

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102 MAGIC AND RITUAL IN TIBET<br />

BAM! HOH!<br />

Fig. 14. <strong>The</strong> mantras and the gestures that (1) summon, (2) absorb,<br />

(3) bind, and (4) dissolve the knowledge being.<br />

4) This power is finally "sealed" into a unitary simulacrum b<br />

the deity's own ritual initiation by the five families <strong>of</strong> Buddhas.<br />

Again, Tsongk'apa says: "Once the knowledge being has been<br />

absorbed, there is the initiation. . . . Here a stream <strong>of</strong> water whose<br />

essence is the thought <strong>of</strong> enlightenment (in most cases from a flask<br />

but occasionally from within a skull-bowl) is said to be bestowed,<br />

and with that water <strong>of</strong> knowledge all defilements and propensities<br />

thereto are washed away: therefore the initiatic liquid takes i 1<br />

place upon the head, and so 'seals' the deity." 156<br />

We may see the structural correspondences between the effigy<br />

and the deity below:

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