Later and by degrees the attributes were separated and each one was
personified. For example, the power of Avalokitesvara was separated from
his protecting care and providence. His power was personified as the
bearer of the thunder-bolt, or the lightning-handed one; and this new
personification added to the two other Buddhas elect, made a triad, the
first in Northern Buddhism. In this triad, the thunder-bolt holder was
Vagrapani; Manjusri was the deified teacher; and Avalokitesvara was the
Spirit of the Buddhas present in the church. Before many centuries had
elapsed, these imaginary beings, with a few others, had become gods to
whom men prayed; and thus Buddhism became a religion with some kind of
theism,--which Gautama had expressly renounced.
If any one wants proof of this reversion into the old religions of
India, he has only to notice that the name, given to the new god made by
personification of the attribute of power, Vagrapani, or Vadjradhara, or
the bearer of the thunder-bolt, had formerly been used as an epithet of
the old fire-god of the Vedas, Indra.
It were tedious to recount all the steps in the further development of
Northern Buddhism.[25] Suffice it to say, that out of ideas and
principles set forth in the earlier Buddhism, and under the generating
force reborn from old Brahminism, the Dhyani Buddhas (that is the
Buddhas evolved out of the mind in mystic trance) were given their elect
Buddhas; and so three sets of five were co-ordinated.
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