Book Title: Essays Lectures on Religion of Hindu Vol 02
Author(s): H H Wilson
Publisher: Trubner and Company London

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Page 344
________________ 334 mixed prose and verse; and the latter is very remarkable, as containing many ungrammatical forms; the narratives are prolix and marvellous; and new persons are introduced who, although unknown to the simple Sútras, evidently performed a conspicuous part in the subsequent dissemination and corruption of the Buddhist religion; such are Nágárjuna or Nágasena, Manjuśrí, and Padmapáni, to the latter of whom the invocation that is now so conspicuous in the temples of Nepal and Tibet is addressed under a modified name in ungrammatical Sanskrit, and with additions palpably borrowed from the Tantras of the Brahmans-Om! Manipadme! Húm!-Glory to Manipadma-Húm! Another personage is also, for the first time, introduced, -Avalokiteś wara, who is regarded by the Tibetans as their particular patron, and who is an object of especial worship to the Mongols and Chinese, amongst whom he is sometimes represented as having eleven heads and eight arms; or sometimes a thousand eyes and a thousand hands, as expressed by his Chinese name Kwan-shi-in*. Many absurd legends respecting this Bodhisattwa are current amongst the Buddhists of the north, but they, and the multiplied limbs of Avalokiteśwara, are, no doubt, unauthorized additions, even to the texts of the Vaipulya Sútras. The introduction of such legendary and mythological personages is, however, sufficient evidence that these works are later than the * BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM. [See Wassiljew, 1. 1., I, 135.]

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