[Advaita-l] Hayagriva worship in Buddhism.

[Satish Arigela]

>When and how did the
>Hayagriva worship enter into Buddhism?In Hindu Panthean,"Hayagriva" is
>given an important place as the Devatha of Vidya.We see the
>sentence,"Hayagriva uvaca "at the start of the Lalithasahasranama.We have
>the famous saying in English,"straight from the horse's mouth!

Not just hayagrIva, in vajrAyana, a host of Hindu deities are worshipped.
Like for example, vArAhI, pratya~ngirA, rudra-nIlakaNTha, bhairava etc.

If we look at early(meaning 1st to 6 centurry CE) mantra shAstra texts used by 
bauddha-s, one will find lot of mantra-s of various Hindu deities like viShNu, 
rudra, indra, skanda, bhairava, shrI, etc etc.

So from very early on, did the Hindu deities enter(see comment below) the 
bauddha and also the jaina mantra shAstra.

An important point is that the Hindu deities did not actually "enter" the 
bauddha mata at some historical point. It has been like that(meaning - bauddha-s 
did worship Hindu devata-s) from the very beginning.

It might interest one to know that buddha himself though deviated from 
mainstream vaidika mata when it comes to philosophy, he was more conservative 
when it comes to mantra shAstra(which of-course is the core, important and 
distinguishing aspect of Hindusm). 


Regards