Korea Journal of Buddhist Studies 불교학연구 ISSN:1598-0642(Print)

The 'mantra doctrine' refers to the true words spoken by the Buddha: the teachings of the Buddha that are contained in all mantras. It refers to such things as the teaching of the letter 阿, the true doctrine found in the mantra. This 'mantra doctrine' first appeared in the Mahāvairocana-sūtra, but the doctrine had been distributed as early as when the Mahāyana Buddhist scriptures were first written, as an understanding of the meanings of Siddhamātṛka. The Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra and Avataṃsaka-sūtra are representative of these early Mahāyana scriptures; there appeared the forty-two teachings of the letter dhāraṇī. The Nirvana-sūtra is a mid-term Mahāyana scripture; there are the forty-nine (or fifty) teachings on the letters. The forty-two teachings of the letter dhāraṇī and the forty-nine (or fifty) teachings on the letters can be said to be the root of the 'mantra doctrine' in the Mahāvairocana-sūtra. In other words, the former the forty-two teachings of the letter dhāraṇī provided the doctrine in the Mahāvairocana-sūtra, while the latter forty-nine (or fifty) teachings on the letters contributed to its grammatical structure. In this way, the esoteric 'mantra doctrine' was described in the so-called first esoteric scripture, the Mahāvairocana-sūtra, through accepting and combining previous scriptures