According to John K. Locke, new Buddhism is primarily ritual Buddhism, and any understanding of the living tradition must be based on an understanding of their rituals, not on an understanding of philosophical texts or sutras which they worship but do not read.
Directly above the shrine of kwapadya is another room called the agam. The shrine of the tantric deities where the secret tantrc rites of Vajrayana Buddhism are performed. The agam dya, as the principal deity is called, is most frequently Herukacaktasamvara and his consort Vajravarahi, though it may be another tantric deity such as Hevajra. Locke says “In the present state of Newar Buddhism with its emphasis on ritual, the Vajracharyas have the dominant position in the community due to their exclusive right to perform the principal rituals…. The superior position of the Vajracharyas is due to the fact that they and they alone, are permitted to act as priests, which means that they may have Jajmans client families for whom they perform religious ceremonies and the life cycle rites. The power to do this is conferred on them in an additional initiation rite, not given to Shakyas, known as the acaluyegu (making of the acarya) in which they are given five tantric consecrations and a mantra of Herukacakrasamvara.”
From the viewpoint of the Vajracharyas. The initiated passes through successively higher forms of Buddhism. Starting as a tatally uninitiated boy, he is first initiated as a householder (upasaka), i.e. a Buddhist layman. Then he becomes a Hinayana monk through the pravajya, with the “laying aside of the robes” he embraces the Mahayana stage.
The claim that the Buddhism of the Newars is a mixture of Buddhism and Hinsuism comes mainly from an evaluation of its iconography and its ritual, as if both of these were something peculiar to the valley of Nepal. The criticism is based on the thesis that Buddhism has little or no ritual and that the purity of the Buddhism practiced in a given place is in inverse position to the amount of ritual. The judgment is given from the viewpoint of Theravada Buddhism by modern rationalists.
When Hsuen-tsang visited Amaravati in A.D. 639, the latter had developed from a Mahasanghika community to a Mahasanghika community to a flourishing Mahayana center and the ritualistic worship had become part and parcel of monastic life. Ritual for its own sake was held by the Buddha to be one of the four great hindrances to enlightenment. During his day, there were Brahmins who believed in magical efficacy of rites supposing that a Vedic ritual perfectly performed would have the desired material effect whether or not the minds of the officiants were properly concentrated.
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