SANCTUS ET BENEDICTUS 123. Sacred Site 2: Chaitya Hall: Ellora      Om mani-padme hum . . . . Lustration's place I splurge and make in you, a space where every urge finds swift embrace within the winding gate you point me to as, ringed, we fumble in delight to lace our freedom in our fit, and then release, discover incarnation and its blessing, this new-found chaitya hall where I increase, my lingam strong in you, pushing, pressing, a furious relic, evolution’s gift, in this traversed and surging stupa cave exalted, in the yab-yum lotus lift called prajna paramita, while I rave.     Even Borobudur you can surpass;     And Sanchi has no gate to match your ass. The EPIGRAPH is a famous Tibetan (chanted) mantra, with the vocables on either side given various meanings and the middle often translated “the jewel is in the lotus,” sometimes understood as a sexual metaphor for Enlightenment. Lama Anagarika Govinda’s entire 1960 book on the mantra, The Foundations of Tibetan Buddhism, is an example of the rich possibilities for interpreting these sacred syllables; p187: “If OM is the ascent towards universality, then HUM is the descent of universality into the depth of the human heart.” Lustration is a ritual purification, as by water. Fit is a paronomasia. A chaitya hall is an Indian Buddhist sacred architectural form, originally wood, resembling a church nave with ribbed vaulting. Surviving examples include elaborate caves carved into rock cliffs at Ellora, India. At the far end is a stupa, a Buddhist memorial mound sometimes containing relics, itself derived from the chaitya. The stupa evolved into an emblem of Enlightenment. The lingam is the sign of manhood, and especially the phallus of the fiery god Shiva >«Ahimsa». The lotus flower (padma/padme) is a multivalent symbol in Hinduism and Buddhism; its purity is untainted by the mire from which it grows, the difficulties we face in life, and thus often symbolizes Enlightenment. Yab-yum is the union of male and female forms which, according to a Tibetan source, means “that skillful action is impossible without compassion, that energy cannot be effective without intellect, and that  bliss is impossible without emptiness.” Prajna paramita means “perfection of wisdom” and is applied to a class of Buddhist scriptures. A tendency toward concentration influenced by the erotic spirituality, Buddhist Tantra compressed the expression of the meaning of these texts to mantras, sacred phrases for chanting. Borobudur is the site of an elaborate stupa with 22-miles of carvings as one ascends the terraces which in effect diagram the spiritual universe, which justifies its comparison to a mandala as well. A famous stupa as an independent form appears in central India at Sanchi, where four huge stone gates are richly decorated. Δ The three quatrains, one sentence, should be read as if in one breath. This sonnet is paired with the previous one. copyright © 2015, 2025 by Vern Barnet, Kansas City, MO

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