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Vairocana
The name means "he who is like the sun" or "the radiating one."
Vairocana is also called Mahavairocana ("Great Illuminator"), the supreme Buddha, as regarded by many Mahayana Buddhists of East Asia and of Tibet, Nepal, and Java. In the Mi-tsung sect of China and Shingon sect of Japan, he is the chief object of reverence and is regarded as the source of the entire universe. The characteristic gesture displays in these two regions is the mudra of the six elements, in which the index finger of the left hand is clasped by the five fingers of the right, symbolizing the uniting of the five elements of the material world (earth, water, fire, air, and ether) with the spiritual (consciousness). The other gesture popular in Vairocana statues is in the dharma-chakra-mudra ("teaching gesture").
In China and Japan, Vairocana is given reverence by the school of Secrets (the Mi-tsung and Shingon sects). Legend claims that he transmitted to a supernatural personage, Vajrasattva, which was in turn introduced into China in AD 720 by Vajrabodhi and into Japan by Kukai (Kobo Daishi, 774-835). |
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