Relative and Absolute Truth As Reflected in Manjushri’s Mantra

Like all mantras, Manjushri’s mantra carries many precise meanings that correspond to certain aspects of practice and activities.  However, any specific information with regard to the specifics of mantra practice is only useful for the actual practitioner of a specific Manjushri sadhana, in the manner that chemical formulas are only useful for their application within chemistry.  Apart from the context of their function they are meaningless.  They are self-secret, revealing their meaning only through application.  Generally speaking, however, mantras also have ultimate and provisional meanings, pertaining to absolute and relative truth. 

For example, one of the larger Prajnaparamita Sutras explains the meaning of Manjushri’s mantra Om Ah Ra Pa Tsa Na Dhi thus:

Ah represents the fact that whatever appears is not a separate ‘thing’ but in itself open presence.  The very conditionality of everything points to its inherent freedom from the same conditionality.  Why?  Because, if everything is conditional, based on this irrefutable fact it logically follows that by the very nature of its conditionality, it is likewise free from any inherent existence or abiding principle.  In other words, Ah is unbounded open space.   Ra then states that this open space, or presence is forever stainless.  Pa symbolizes that whatever may appear as relative appearance is nevertheless the ultimate truth.  Tsa refers to the fact that the ultimate truth is free of death and decay; and Na that therefore it is also free of rebirth.  Om signifies this truth as universal, or as a common phrase states with regard to any Buddhist teaching or practice: “It is good in the beginning.” As Manjushri’s seed syllable, or the mantra of the specific heruka or main deity of this practice, Dhi affirms that this universal truth can be realized in this very bodymind, which makes it likewise “good in the end.”  

By receiving instruction and initiation by a qualified vajra master and then reciting the mantra, we therefore can transform ordinary elements as the building blocks of obscuration into their unobscured purity.  In other words, the recitation of the mantra Om Ah Ra Pa Tsa Na Dhi amounts to an evocation of the stainless purity inherent in all appearance.  The sound of mantra and its recitation carries the ultimate meaning and truth as given in the Prajnaparamita Sutra, whereas the explanation of the same mantra, helping us to understand its effect in a step-by-step manner pertains to the relative, or provisional meaning and truth.  Like in all Mahayana and thus Vajrayana teachings, in Manjushri’s mantra transcending wisdom and skillful means, or emptiness and compassion, or ultimate and relative truth are inseparable – and act inseparably.