Mudra of Pa~Catattva Hiroki WATANABE It Is Well Known That In

Jounnal of Indian and Buddhist Studies, Vol. 43, No. 2, March 1995 ( 7 )

Mudra of Pa~catattva

Hiroki WATANABE

It is well known that in what is called Tantrism five things, for which the generic names are pancattva,pancamakara (the Chinese equi- valentof whichis mapancakaor pancadravya,have been used as implementsin the worship service or as the supplementarymeans for meditation, and that they are madya,matsya, matsya, mudra and maithuna in Sanskrit". But what does each of them really mean? Above all, it is not easy to settle the problemwhat the forth tattva, mudra, is. Various interpretations of this term done until now can be classified into two groups: MauriceWinternitz, for example, translated it as "del- icacies of parched food"" and Sir John Woodroffe(Arthur Avalon) rendered it as "parchedgrain" or "fried paddy"3),"whereas PandurangVaman Kane understoodit as "handand fingerposes4)" or a womanhelper of a yogin5)'." In any case most of these scholars failed to show the' groundsfor their constructions. Thoughwe can expect such a problemas mentionedabove to be solved with examinationsof various materials besidesthe literature, the present paper tries to find a solution to this problem by concentrating on the use of the word in the Mahanirvanatantra(= Mnt)6)', one of the typical texts consideredto belongto the Left-handSakta (Vamacdrasdkta)and pre- sumably written in the late eighteenth century7)'. First of all, let us confirmthe fact that the Mnt has exactlythe same Sanskrit expressionsthat are given abovefor the five tattvas respectively:

madyammamsam tatha matsyam mudra maithunam eva ca, saktipujavidhav adyepancatattvam prakirtitam. (5. 22) OhAdya (=Parvati), it is madya(spirituous liquor), mdmsa (meat), matsya (fish),mudra and maithuna (sexual union) that have been prescribedto be the fiveessential ingredients in the worshipof Saktia'. -1046- ( 8 ) Mudra of Pancatattva (H. WATANABE)

Then we find somewhat detailed explanations of each of them, among which we have only to quote the following verses with mudra:

mudra 'pi trividha prokta uttamadivibhedatah, candrabimbanibham subhram salitandulasambhavam, yavagodhumajam va 'pi ghytapakvam manoramam. (6. 9) mudreyam uttama madhya bhrastadhanyadisambhava, bharjitany anyabijani adhama parikirttitd. (6. 10) It is said that mudra is also of three kinds according to the distinction of the best and so on. It is declared that the best mudra is white like the disc of the moon, made of threshed Bali rice, barley or wheat, is cooked with ghee, and ple- asing, while the middle one is made of parched or fried grain and so on9)', and that the inferior is the one consisting of fried seeds of other kinds.

And the following verse is to be refered, to:

sulabham bhumijatan ca jivanam jivanan ca yat, dyurmulam trijagatam caturthatattvalaksanam. (7.107) It is the characteristic of the forth tattva that it is easily obtainable, produced from the earth, is the vital energy of living things, and the root of lives of the three worlds.

These passages make it clear that mudra of Pancatattva is not a sort of hand and finger poses, at least in Mnt, but some food cooked in some way from some kinds of grain. In addition the Mnt prescribes several alternative kinds of grain, and ranhs them as seen above. But we cannot definitely know how they should be cooked, because the Mnt gives no further explanation on mudra of Pancatattva. It may be worth mentioning, in this conneciton, that there are three kinds of mudra in the Mnt: The first is, of course, the forth of pancatattva; The second is a sort of hand and finger poses such as dhenumudra, yonimudra, and the like"'; The third is what is supposed to be some grain which is not one of Pancatattva. Yet we cannot find a mudra which can be construed into a woman helper of a yogin. We should be careful not to confuse one with another among them'". -1045- Mudra of Pancatattva (H. WATANABE) ( 9 )

Needless to say, we cannot jump to a conclusion that all mudras of pancatattva in Tantrism are some sorts of grain. For the moment, we must discreetly deal with this problem for each text.

1) For the most comprehensive account of pancatattva, see Sir John Woodroffe

(Arthur Avalon), Sakti and Sakta, 9th ed. Madras, 1987, (1st ed. 1918), pp. 376- 412.

2) Maurice Winternitz, A History of Indian Literature, Vol. 1, translated by S. Ketkar, 2nd ed. NewDelhi, 1972, (1st published, Calcutta, 1927), p. 567.

3) The Great Liberation (Mahanirvana Tantra), translated into English by Sir John Woodroffe (Arthur Avalon), 6th ed. Madras, 1985, (1st ed. London, 1913), p. 86,

140, and so on. 4) `ˆóŒ_' is the Chinese equivalent term for this expression.

5) Pandurang Vaman Kane, History of Dharmasastra, Vol. 5, Part 2, 2nd ed. Poona,

1977, (1st ed. 1962), p. 1052. Narendra Nath Bhattacharyya, History of the Tantric Religion, (A Historical, Ritualistic and Philosopical Study), reprinted, New Delhi,

1987, (1st published, 1982), p. 121 shows the similar construction.

6) For quotations from this text, I use the following edition: Mahanirvana Tantra with the Commentary of Hariharananda Bharati, Tantrik Texts, Vol 13, ed. by

Arthur Avalon, reprinted, Delhi, 1989, (1st ed. Madras, 1929)

7) See J. Duncan M. Derrett, "A Juridical Fabrication of Early British India: The Mahanirvana Tantra," Zeitschrift fur vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft, Stuttgart,

1968, pp.138-181. 8) Cf. Kularunavatantra, 10. 5 (ed. by Taranatha Vidyaratna, reprinted, Delhi, 1975,

(1st ed. Madras, 1965)) : madyam mdmsan ca matsyas ca mudra maithuam eva ca,

makarapancakam devi devatapritikarakam.

9) Hariharananda Bharati's commentary in Arthur Avalon's edition says: "bhrastadhanyadisambhava lajadi ."

10) On these mudras, see S. C. Banerji, Tantra in Bengal, A Study in its Origin, Development and Influence, 2nd ed., New Delhi, 1992, (1st ed. 1978).

11) Further references: Chintaharan Cakravarti, Tantra Studies on their Religion and Literature, Calcutta,

1972, (1st ed. 1963). Heramba Chaterjee and Satya Rajan Banerjee, an Introduction in A Descriptive Catalogue of Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Sanskrit Sahitya Parishat Calcutta, Vol.

1, Tantra, Calcutta, 1984, p. xviii.

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