About: Bīja   Sponge Permalink

An Entity of Type : owl:Thing, within Data Space : 134.155.108.49:8890 associated with source dataset(s)

In Vajrayana Buddhism and Hinduism, the term bīja is used for mystical "seed syllables" contained within mantras. These seeds do not have precise meanings, but are thought to carry connections to spiritual principles. The best-known bīja syllable is Om, first found in the Hindu scriptures the Upanishads. Khanna (2003: p.21) links mantras and yantras to thoughtforms: Mantras, the Sanskrit syllables inscribed on yantras, are essentially 'thought forms' representing divinities or cosmic powers, which exert their influence by means of sound-vibrations.

AttributesValues
rdfs:label
  • Bīja
rdfs:comment
  • In Vajrayana Buddhism and Hinduism, the term bīja is used for mystical "seed syllables" contained within mantras. These seeds do not have precise meanings, but are thought to carry connections to spiritual principles. The best-known bīja syllable is Om, first found in the Hindu scriptures the Upanishads. Khanna (2003: p.21) links mantras and yantras to thoughtforms: Mantras, the Sanskrit syllables inscribed on yantras, are essentially 'thought forms' representing divinities or cosmic powers, which exert their influence by means of sound-vibrations.
sameAs
dcterms:subject
dbkwik:religion/pr...iPageUsesTemplate
abstract
  • In Vajrayana Buddhism and Hinduism, the term bīja is used for mystical "seed syllables" contained within mantras. These seeds do not have precise meanings, but are thought to carry connections to spiritual principles. The best-known bīja syllable is Om, first found in the Hindu scriptures the Upanishads. Khanna (2003: p.21) links mantras and yantras to thoughtforms: Mantras, the Sanskrit syllables inscribed on yantras, are essentially 'thought forms' representing divinities or cosmic powers, which exert their influence by means of sound-vibrations. In some tantric traditions, the Bija of the 'Varnamala' (Sanskrit; English: "garland of letters"; which may be rendered as alphabet) are understood as aniconic representations and sound embodiments of the matrikas, note how nearly homophonic and etymologically related 'matrika' is to 'mantrika', that is "a practitioner of mantra". In Tibetan Buddhism the seed syllables corresponding to the Three Vajras are: a white oṃ (enlightened body), a red āḥ (enlightened speech) and a blue hūṃ (enlightened mind). Bija are often the vehicle of esoteric transmission of terma to a 'terton' (Tibetan; English: "revealer of terma"), such as that experienced by Dudjom Lingpa.
Alternative Linked Data Views: ODE     Raw Data in: CXML | CSV | RDF ( N-Triples N3/Turtle JSON XML ) | OData ( Atom JSON ) | Microdata ( JSON HTML) | JSON-LD    About   
This material is Open Knowledge   W3C Semantic Web Technology [RDF Data] Valid XHTML + RDFa
OpenLink Virtuoso version 07.20.3217, on Linux (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu), Standard Edition
Data on this page belongs to its respective rights holders.
Virtuoso Faceted Browser Copyright © 2009-2012 OpenLink Software