Notes to Mr. B. H. Hodgson's Sketch of Buddhism. Q55 



person of the Prdjnika Triad is denominated Buddha and U'pa'ya ; of which terms the 

 esoteric sense is this: Every man possesses in his understanding, when properly 

 cultivated according to the rules of iJwfMmK, the means or expedient (Upuya) oi 

 discovering the supreme wisdom of nature (Prajna), and of realizing, by tliis discovery 

 in his own person, a plenary omnipotence or divinity! which begins even while he yet 

 lingers in the flesh {in prairitfi) ; but which is not fully accomplished till he passes, by 

 the body's decay, into the eternal state of nirvritti. 



And as the wisdom of man is, in its origin, but an effluence of the Supreme wisdom 

 (Prajna) of nature, so is it perfected by a refluence to its source, but without loss of 

 individuality: whence Prajna' is feigned in the exoteric system to be both the mother 

 and the wife of all the Buddhas, "janani sarva Buddlia" and " Jin-sdndari ;" for the 

 efflux is typified by a birth, and the reflux by a marriage. 



The Buddha is the adept in the wisdom of Buddhism fbodhijndnj whose first duty, 

 so long as he remains on earth, is to communicate his wisdom to those who are willing 

 to receive it. These willing learners are the " Bddhisatwas," so called fi-om their 

 hearts being inclined to the wisdom of Buddhism, and "Sa7ic/as," from their companion- 

 ship with one-another, and with their Buddha or teacher, in the Vihc'irs or coenobitical 

 establishments. 



And such is the esoteric interpretation of the third (and inferior) member of the 

 Prdjnika Triad. The Budhisatwa or Sanga continues to be such until he has surmounted 

 the very last grade of that vast and laborious ascent by which he is instructed that he 

 can "scale the heavens," and pluck immortal wisdom from its resplendent source: 

 which achievement performed, he becomes a Buddha, that is, an Omniscient Being, 

 and a Tathdguta — a title implying the accomplishment of that gradual increase 

 in wisdom by which man becomes a Buddha. These doctrines are very obscurely 

 indicated in the Bauddha scriptures, whose words have another more obvious and very 

 different sense ; nor, but for the ambition of the commentators to exhibit their learning, 

 would it be easy to gather the esoteric sense of the words of most of the original 

 scriptures. I never was more surprised than when my old friend recently (after a six 

 years' acquaintance) brought to me, and explained, a valuable comment upon a passage 

 in the Prajna Purmita. Let me add in this place, that I desire all searchers after the doc- 

 trine o{ Bvdhij/idn to look into the Baudd/ia scriptures, and judge for themselves; and to 

 remember, meanwhile, that I am not a Sanscrit scholar, and am indebted for all I have 

 gathered from the books of the Buddhists to the mediation of my old Baudda friend, 

 and of my Pundit. 



(30) Their physiognomy, their language, their architecture, civil and religious, their 

 notions in regard to women, and several less important traits in their manners and 

 customs, seem to decide that the origin of the greater part of the Newars must be 

 assigned to the north : and in the SanMu Purana, a Bauddha teacher named Manj- 

 Ghok, and Manj Na'TH and Manju'sri, is stated to have led a colony into Nipal from 

 China ; to have cleared Nipal of the waters which then covered it ; to have made the 

 country habitable; to have built a temple to Jyoti-iiu'p-A'di-Buddha; and established 



