This doctrine is the well-known Yoga-chara, which has been well
set forth by Doctor Edkins in his scholarly volume on Chinese Buddhism.
As "yoga" becomes in plain English "yoke," and as "mantra" is from the
same root as "man" and "mind," we have no difficulty in recognizing the
original meaning of these terms; the one in its nobler significance
referring to union with Buddha or Gnosis, and the other to the thought
taking lofty expression or being debased to hocus-pocus in charm or
amulet. Like the history of so many Sanskrit words as now uttered in
every-day English speech, the story of the word mantra forms a picture
of mental processes and apparently of the degradation of thought, or, as
some will doubtless say, of the decay of religion. The term mantra meant
first, a thought; then thought expressed; then a Vedic hymn or text;
next a spell or charm. Such have been the later associations, in India,
China and Japan with the term mantra.
The burden of the philosophy of the Shin-gon, looked at from one point
of view, is mysticism, and from another, pantheism. One of the forms of
Buddha is the principle of everything. There are ten stages of thought,
and there are two parts, "lengthwise" and "crosswise" or exoteric and
esoteric.
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