Note 23 — NOTES, AUTHORITIES, AND ILLUSTRATIONS

Footnote 23:

(return)

To put this dogma into intelligible English is, as Mr. Satow says, more difficult than to comprehend the whole doctrine, hard as that may be. "Dai Nichi Ni-yorai (Vairokana) is explained to be the collectivity of all sentient beings, acting through the mediums of Kwan-non, Ji-zō, Mon-ju, Shaka, and other influences which are popularly believed to be self-existent deities." In the diagram called the eight-leaf enclosure, by which the mysteries of Shingon are explained, Maha-Vairokana is in the centre, and on the eight petals are such names as Amitabha, Manjusri, Maitreya, and Avalokitesvara; in a word, all are purely speculative beings, phantoms of the brain, the mushrooms of decayed Brahmanism, and the mould of primitive Buddhism disintegrated by scholasticism.