Vajrasattva
Vajrasattva South and Central AsiaHe is ‘of the adamantine substance’ and ‘the wielder of the thunderbolt’. This Buddha is one of the six dhyani-buddhas, ‘meditation Buddhas’. In Tibet he is regarded as the primeval Buddha, from whom all the others issued forth, and is invoked as the protector of the devotee in quest of enlightenment. Bronze statuary reveals this inwardness: the Yab-Yum, the eternal embrace of the male and female principles; the union of Vajrasattva with his sakti represents, as in the case of Shiva, the coincidence of opposites, the attainment of oneness. Nirvana and samsara, enlightened extinction and the endless round of rebirth, are thus seen as not fundamentally different from each other, but stand for contrary manifestations of the transcendent source, which is beyond both.
Yet there is a terrible side to the character of Vajrasattva. His violent fury is expressed in rain, hail, and snow–elemental forces he...
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