Essays Lectures on Religion of Hindu Vol 02

Author(s): H H Wilson
Publisher: Trubner and Company London

Page 39

BAUDDHA TRACTS FROM NEPAL.
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form of Hinduism is a comparatively obscure and unavowed innovation, and had not therefore the same claims to consideration. It is, nevertheless, the chief source of the notions and divinities foreign to Buddhism with those Bauddhas, amongst whom the Panchavinšati is an authority. It could only have been brought to their knowledge by contiguity, for the
Tantras, and Tántrika Puráňas, form a literature almost peculiar to the eastern provinces of Hindustan, the origin of which appears to be traceable to KÁMARÚP or western Asam. There is no doubt that the system has principally prevailed in Bengal, Rungpore, Cooch Behár, and Asam; and, following the same direction, has probably spread into Nepal. There seem to be some hints to this effect in the concluding stanza of the Tract that has been translated.
The literal purport of this verse is, that ABJAPÁNI, whoever he might be, came to Lalitapur, after having gone from Saukhavatí to Banga. Saukhavati is called a Lokadhátu, a peculiar Bauddha division of the universe, and probably not in this world; but Banga desa is never applied to any country, except the east or north of Bengal. ABJAPÁNI, or PADMAPÁNI, is a metaphysical Bodhisattwa, but in the present work all these nonentities are converted into substances, and he is therefore a mortal teacher of the Bauddha faith, or employed for the occasion in that capacity. He was invited, the tradition records, to reside in Nepal on the occasion of a famine, by NARENDRA Deva, Rájá of Bhatgong, and BANDHUDATTA, a Vajracharya, and