Which of the following statements with reference to Mahayana (Buddhism) is/are correct ? 1. Female deities are benevolent saviours and protectors who embody Buddhist virtues. 2. In Prajñāpāramitā texts, knowledge is visualised in feminine form, as a deity called Prajñāpāramitā. 3. Prajñāpāramitā is described as the source of the omniscience of all the Buddhas and the mother of all the Buddhas. Select the answer using the codes given below :

Correct — A, (a) 1, 2 and 3.

The three statements describe a single development in Mahayana Buddhism - the emergence of female deities, and of one female deity in particular - and each is sound.

Statement 1 is correct. The Mahayana pantheon includes a substantial group of goddesses, and their characteristic role is protective and saving rather than destructive. Tara, the best known, is invoked as a rescuer from dangers and her name is traditionally glossed as she who ferries across; Vasudhara grants abundance, Marici protection on a journey, Parnashabari relief from disease, and Prajnaparamita wisdom itself. Each is understood to embody a Buddhist virtue or perfection rather than to represent a natural force, which is what distinguishes them as a class. The wrathful and terrifying female forms that a candidate may have in mind belong chiefly to the later Vajrayana development, and even there they are read as protective.

Statement 2 is correct. In the Prajnaparamita literature - the Perfection of Wisdom sutras, composed on the Indian subcontinent over several centuries and among the earliest Mahayana texts - the perfection of wisdom is spoken of in feminine terms, and the Sanskrit noun prajna is itself feminine. From about the seventh to the eighth centuries CE this personification hardened into an actual deity, Prajnaparamita Devi, worshipped in her own right and represented in sculpture and painting with a book, a lotus and the gesture of teaching. Knowledge, in other words, is visualised in feminine form and given a name.

Statement 3 is correct and is the standard description of that deity. She is called the Mother of All Buddhas - sarva-buddha-mata - and the Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita speaks of her as the genitrix, the mother of the victorious ones. The reasoning behind the title is that it is her wisdom that produces enlightenment, so that even Buddhas and bodhisattvas owe their omniscience to her and pay homage accordingly. Source of the omniscience of all the Buddhas, and mother of all the Buddhas, is exactly how the tradition describes her.

With all three sound, the answer is (a).

Why the others are wrong

• (b)1 and 2 only — This option accepts the general description of Mahayana goddesses and the personification of wisdom, and rejects the account of what Prajnaparamita is called. That is the one statement in the item that is closest to a direct quotation from the tradition. The title Mother of All Buddhas is her principal epithet, and the reason given for it in the texts is precisely the one the statement gives - that the Buddhas owe their omniscience to her wisdom, which is why they are described as her sons and she as their mother. Rejecting statement 3 discards the best-attested claim in the item.
• (c)2 only — This option accepts only the personification of wisdom and rejects both the general characterisation of female deities and the epithets. It is the choice of a candidate who knows the Prajnaparamita literature but is cautious about a sweeping statement covering all female deities. The caution is understandable and the statement survives it: within Mahayana, the goddesses are consistently saviours and protectors embodying virtues - Tara rescuing from perils, Vasudhara granting abundance, Prajnaparamita conferring wisdom - and the item is expressly framed with reference to Mahayana rather than to Buddhist iconography at large.
• (d)3 only — This option accepts the epithets while rejecting the two statements that explain how they came about. That is internally awkward: a deity cannot be described as the mother of all the Buddhas unless wisdom has first been personified as a deity, which is what statement 2 asserts, and the character of that deity as a benevolent embodiment of a Buddhist virtue is what statement 1 asserts. The three statements form a single account, and an option that keeps the conclusion while discarding the premises is worth suspecting on structure alone.

Mahayana Buddhism developed a large pantheon, and its female deities arose in two related ways.

The first is personification of a quality. Prajnaparamita, the perfection of wisdom, is the clearest case. The word is a feminine noun in Sanskrit; the sutras that bear the name speak of the perfection of wisdom as a mother who gives birth to enlightenment; and by about the seventh to eighth centuries CE that language had produced a goddess, Prajnaparamita Devi, with her own iconography - seated, making the teaching gesture, holding lotuses that support the Perfection of Wisdom scriptures, sometimes with multiple arms in later forms.

The second is the elevation of protective figures. Tara, the goddess most widely worshipped in the Mahayana and Vajrayana worlds, is the saviouress from perils, and later tradition multiplies her into twenty-one forms. Vasudhara, Marici, Parnashabari, Hariti and Cunda belong to the same class.

The Prajnaparamita literature itself is worth knowing in outline. It is a body of some forty texts composed on the subcontinent over roughly seven centuries, among the earliest Mahayana scriptures, and it includes the Ashtasahasrika or Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines, generally treated as the oldest, along with much longer recensions and the very short Heart and Diamond Sutras. Its philosophical content is the doctrine of emptiness - that all phenomena, from form up to omniscience itself, are without intrinsic nature - which is the teaching the goddess personifies.

The two developments meet in the epithet: because wisdom produces Buddhahood, the goddess who is wisdom is the mother of every Buddha.

Key facts

• Prajnaparamita means the perfection of wisdom; prajna is a feminine noun in Sanskrit, and the sutras of that name speak of the perfection of wisdom as a mother who gives birth to enlightenment.
• The personification hardened into a distinct deity, Prajnaparamita Devi, from about the seventh to eighth centuries CE, represented with a book, lotuses and the teaching gesture.
• Her principal epithet is Mother of All Buddhas, sarva-buddha-mata, and the reason given is that the Buddhas owe their omniscience to her wisdom, so that they are described as her sons.
• The Prajnaparamita corpus is a body of about forty texts composed in India over several centuries, including the Ashtasahasrika in eight thousand lines, generally regarded as the earliest, and the much shorter Heart and Diamond Sutras.
• Mahayana's female deities - Tara the saviouress, Vasudhara of abundance, Marici, Parnashabari, Cunda - characteristically embody a virtue or perfection and act as protectors rather than as personified natural forces.

Common traps

• Assuming a three-statement set must contain an error and rejecting the broadest statement to find one.
• Importing wrathful Vajrayana female forms into a question expressly framed on Mahayana, and concluding that the goddesses cannot all be benevolent.
• Treating Prajnaparamita only as a body of texts and rejecting the statement that a deity of that name exists; the paper's own italics distinguish the two.
• Reading 'mother of all the Buddhas' as a claim about physical descent rather than as the tradition's own metaphor for wisdom producing enlightenment.
• Confusing Prajnaparamita with Tara; both are female deities of wisdom and compassion, and later Tibetan tradition treats Tara as an emanation of Prajnaparamita, but the epithets in this item belong to the latter.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The epithet 'Mother of All Buddhas' in Mahayana Buddhism belongs to which figure, and on what ground ?

  • (a)Tara, because she rescues beings from perils
  • (b)Prajnaparamita, because the Buddhas owe their omniscience to her wisdom
  • (c)Maya, because she was the mother of the historical Buddha
  • (d)Vasudhara, because she grants abundance to all beings

  Answer(b) Prajnaparamita, because the Buddhas owe their omniscience to her wisdom - the perfection of wisdom is what produces enlightenment, so the goddess who is that wisdom is called the mother of every Buddha.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita is best described as :

  • (a)A Mahayana sutra on the perfection of wisdom in eight thousand lines
  • (b)A Theravada commentary on monastic discipline
  • (c)A Vajrayana manual of ritual practice
  • (d)A biography of the historical Buddha in verse

  Answer(a) A Mahayana sutra on the perfection of wisdom in eight thousand lines - generally regarded as the earliest of the Prajnaparamita texts, from which the longer and shorter recensions developed.