Long before Quantum Physics was even a "concept", the Buddha of the vast Multiverse was Maha Vairochana. Two thousand years (or so) before the theories of Quantum Mechanics — and well before Marvel comics — Maha Vairochana already ruled over the boundless Multiverse. He is sometimes called the Buddha of all the Buddhas, and in Japanese he is called Dinichi Nyorai. In Vajrayana he is often called Vajradhara or Samantabhadra, other names for the primordial Buddha.
CONTENTS
00:00 Introduction to Maha Vairochana and the Multiverse
00:58 Many manifestations of Great Buddha of Light
02:07 Maha Vairochana Sutra and Vajrapani
02:50 Maha Vairocahana’s Mantra of Light
03:53 Short Mantra
04:05 Many forms of Vairochana
04:35 Mandala of Five Dhyani Buddhas
05:38 Dharmachakra mudra and other mudras
07:22 Achala Fudo Myoo and Wrathful forms
08:30 Maha Vairochana Sutra and Mantras
Maha Vairochana, whose name means Great Buddha of Light, is also boundless love and compassion. It is through his vast, unimaginable compassion that he emanates in countless Enlightened forms to help sentient beings in all worlds. His manifestations are as vast as the worlds in the multiverse. In the Brahmajala Sutra, he describes his symbolism this way:
"On a thousand flowers surrounding Vairochana are a thousand Shahkyamuni Buddhas. Each flower supports a hundred million worlds; in each world a Shahkyamuni Buddha appears. All are seated beneath a Bodhi-tree, all simultaneously attain Buddhahood. All these innumerable Buddhas have Maha Vairochana as their original body."
In the Maha Vairochana Sutra, Maha Vairochana teaches Vajrapani "how to become enlightened in this lifetime. He elaborately teaches on Bodhi-mind or Bodhichitta, compassion or karuna, and skillful means or upaya as the path.
Two of the skillful or expedient means taught in this vast sutra are visualization and mantra recitation, with an entire chapter dedicated to mandalas and visualizations and another to mantras, with hundreds of mantras written out for recitation.Vairochana's own heart mantra, called the Mantra of Light, brings the shining light and love of Maha Vairochana into our lives.
Chanting the Mantra of Light is the same as chanting all the mantras of all the Buddhas at once, benefiting all sentient beings. The mantra is:
Oṃ amogha Vairochana mahāmudra maṇipadma jvāla pravarttaya hūṃ
Oṃ amogha Vairochana mahāmudra maṇipadma jvāla pravarttaya hūṃ
Oṃ amogha Vairochana mahāmudra maṇipadma jvāla pravarttaya hūṃ
For precise pronunciation in Sanskrit, watch for our feature video with the Mantra of Light.
His shorter mantra is simply:
Om Vairochana Hum
Sometimes, the short mantra is presented as Om Vairochana Om — since Om is the seed syllable of Vairochana.
The translation of this mantra, accordingt to the Dharmachakra Translation Committee is:
“Oṁ, amogha jewel-lotus of the splendorous great mudrā! Blaze! Set in motion! Hūṁ!”
Another translation from Professor Mark Unno, is roughly:
Praise be to the flawless, all-pervasive illumination of the great mudra [or seal of the Buddha ]. Turn over to me the jewel, lotus and radiant light.
Similar, but slightly different translation:
Infallible brilliance of the great mudra! Creating the radiance of the Jewel and the Lotus
- according to John Stevens
But literal translations aren't necessarily that meaningful, as we lose a lot of nuances, since some syllables have extra layers of meaning. Maha Mudra, for example, means "great seal" and , roughly means: the great seal mahamudra, (Sanskrit: “the great seal”) in Vajrayana (Tantric) Buddhism, the final goal, the union of all apparent dualities. Mudra, in addition to its more usual meaning, has in Vajrayana Buddhism the esoteric meaning of prajna (“wisdom”)... and so on. Each mantra has many layers of meaning.
Siddhaṃ: 𑖌𑖼𑖀𑖦𑖺𑖑𑖪𑖹𑖨𑖺𑖓𑖡𑖦𑖮𑖯𑖦𑖲𑖟𑖿𑖨𑖯𑖦𑖜𑖰𑖢𑖟𑖿𑖦𑖕𑖿𑖪𑖯𑖩𑖢𑖿𑖨𑖪𑖨𑖿𑖝𑖿𑖝𑖧𑖮𑗝𑖽
Devanagari: ॐ अमोघ वैरोचन महामुद्रा मणिपद्म ज्वल प्रवर्ताय हूँ
Sanskrit Pronunciationⓘ
Chinese script
唵 阿謨伽 尾盧左曩 摩訶母捺囉 麽抳 鉢納麽 入嚩攞 鉢囉韈哆野 吽
Ǎn ā mó jiā wěi lú zuǒ nǎng mó hē mǔ nà luō me nǐ bō nà me rù mó luó bō luō wà duō yě hōng
Japanese
おん あぼきゃ べいろしゃのう まかぼだら まに はんどま じんばら はらばりたや うん
Romanized: Om abogya beiroshanō makabodara mani handoma jinbara harabari tayaun
Korean
옴 아모가 바이로차나 마하무드라 마니 파드마 즈바라 프라바릍타야 훔
Romanized: om amoga bairochana mahamudeura mani padeuma jeubara peurabareutaya hum
Vietnamese
Án (Ông/Úm) A ma cát Hoài lô giai nã Ma cáp mẫu đức la Ma ni bá đức ma Cập phạp la Bát la phạp nhĩ đả nha Hồng
Tibetan
ཨོཾ་ཨ་མོ་གྷ་བཻ་རོ་ཙ་ན་མ་ཧཱ་མུ་དྲཱ་མ་ཎི་པདྨ་ཛྭ་ལ་པྲ་ཝརྟཱ་ཡ་ཧཱུྃ
Translation
The translation of this mantra, according to Professor Mark Unno, is roughly:
Praise be to the flawless, all-pervasive illumination of the great mudra [or seal of the Buddha ]. Turn over to me the jewel, lotus and radiant light.
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