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Vajrayāna Buddhism, also known as Tantric Buddhism and Esoteric Buddhism, is often viewed as the third major school of Buddhism, alongside the Theravada and Mahayana schools. This classification is useful when talking about schools by geographic areas. Others classify Vajrayana as a subset of Mahayana Buddhism, a useful scheme when studying the practices of the schools. Vajrayana Buddhists themselves often classify their school as the final stage in the evolution of Buddhist theory which they enumerate as: Hinayana, Mahayana, Vajrayana (see dharma wheel). None of these classification schemes are particularly inconsistent with the others when the context is understood.

Vajrayana exists today in the form of two major sub-schools:

• Tibetan Buddhism, found in Tibet, Bhutan, northern India, Nepal, southwestern China, and Mongolia
• Shingon Buddhism, found in Japan

What is Vajrayana? A faster path to enlightenment

The key advantage Vajrayana Buddhism claims to provide is an accelerated path to enlightenment. This is achieved through use of tantra, which are practical aids to spiritual development, and esoteric transmission (explained below). Whereas earlier schools might provide ways to achieve nirvana over the course of many lifetimes, Vajrayana techniques make this possible in a much shorter timeframe, perhaps in a single lifetime. Vajrayana Buddhists do not claim that Theravada or Mahayana practices are in any way invalid, only that they represent slower paths to the same goal.

First speed-up technique: Tantra

Vajrayana relies on various tantric techniques rooted in scriptures known as tantras, written in India. Tantric techniques include:

• repetition of special ritual phrases (mantras),
• use of various yoga techniques, including breath control (yantra) and the use of special hand positions (mudras)
• use of an extensive vocabulary of visual aids, such as cosmic mandala diagrams which teach and map pathways to spiritual enlightenment
• the use of ritual objects such as relics, vajra scepters, sacred bells (ghanta), and spirit daggers (phurpa)
• use of specialized rituals rooted in Vajrayana cosmology and beliefs

As a side note, the sensational techniques of tantric sex are confined the more extreme 'Left-Hand path' of Tantra, which uses taboo-breaking as a means of spiritual enlightenment. All mainstream branches of Vajrayana, including Shingon, belong to the more conservative Right-Hand path and do not practice these rites. Sexual symbolism, however, is common in Vajrayana iconography, where it often represents the marrying of wisdom and compassion.

It is from the tantra that Vajrayana Buddhism gets the alternative names of Mantrayana and Tantrayana. The word "Vajrayana" itself comes from vajra, a Sanskrit word which can mean "diamond" or "thunderbolt" and which also has the connotation of "reality". The vajra (or dorje in Tibetan) is an important ritual object held by a lama which symbolizes the power of the dharma, or teaching. This gives rise to two more names for Vajrayana Buddhism: Diamond Vehicle, and Adamantine Vehicle (adamantine means "diamond-like").

Second speed-up technique: Esoteric Transmission

The other conspicuous aspect of Vajrayana Buddhism is that it is esoteric. In this context esoteric means that the transmission of certain accelerating factors only occurs directly from teacher to student and cannot be learned from a book. Many techniques are also commonly said to be secret, but some Vajrayana teachers have responded that the secrecy itself is not important but only a side-effect of the reality that the techniques have no validity outside the teacher-student lineage. The esoteric aspects of Vajrayana Buddhism results in several more names for the school: Secret Buddhism, Esoteric Mahayana, and Esoteric Buddhism (the most common name in Japan).

The esoteric transmission framework can take varying forms. The Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism uses a method called dzogchen. Other Tibetan Buddhist schools and the Shingon school in Japan use an alternative method called mahamudra.

Vajrayana is part of Mahayana

While tantra and esoterism distinguish Vajrayana Buddhism, it is nonetheless primarily a form of Mahayana Buddhism. Sutras important to Mahayana are generally important to Vajrayana, although Vajrayana adds some of its own (see Buddhist texts, list of sutras, Tibetan Buddhist canon). The importance of bodhisattvas and a pantheon of deities in Mahayana carries over to Vajrayana, as well as the perspective that Buddhism is not just for monks but for the laity too.

Some aspects of Vajrayana have also filtered back into Mahayana. In particular, the Vajrayana fondness forthe fearsome and macabre may be found in weakened form in Mahayana temples where protector deities may be found glaring down at visitors. If, however, the temple has not just protector deities but also images of skulls, flaming circles, toothy black musclemen, and shocking sculptures of gods having sex, chances are you are in a Vajrayana temple and you will have to ask the in-house spiritual master to explain the symbolism behind what you are seeing.

History of Vajrayana

India

Vajrayana/Tantric Buddhism began in southern India in the early 4th century, developing alongside Tantric Hinduism. Nalanda University in northern India became a center for the development of Vajrayana theory, although it is likely that the university followed, rather than lead, the Indian folk practices that contributed to tantrism. India would continue as the source of leading-edge Vajrayana practices up through the 11th century.

Vajrayana Buddhism had mostly died out in India by the 13th century, its practices merging with Tantric Hinduism, and both tantric religions experiencing pressure from the rising importance of Islam.

In the second half of the 20th century a sizeable number of Tibetan exiles fled the Communist Chinese to establish Tibetan Buddhist communities in northern India, particularly around Dharamsala. They remain the primary practitioners of Tantric Buddhism in India.

China

Vajrayana followed the same route into northern China as Buddhism itself, arriving from India via the Silk Road some time during the first half of the 7th century. It arrived just as Buddhism was reaching its zenith in China, receiving sanction from the emperors of the Tang Dynasty. The Tang capital at Chang'an (modern-day Xian) became an important center for Buddhist studies, and Vajrayana ideas no doubt received great attention as pilgrim monks returned from India with the latest texts and methods (see Buddhism in China, Journey to the West).

Tibet and other Himalayan kingdoms

In 747 the Indian saint Padmasambhava traveled from Afghanistan to bring Vajrayana Buddhism to Tibet and Bhutan, at the request of the king of Tibet. This was the original transmission which anchors the lineage of the Nyingma school. During the 11th century and early 12th century a second important transmission occurred with the lineage of Tilopa, Naropa, Marpa, Milarepa, and Gampopa giving rise to the other schools of Tibetan Buddhism, namely Kagyupa, Kadampa, Sakyapa, and Gelukpa (the school of the Dalai Lama).

Japan

In 804, the Emperor Kammu of Japan sent the intrepid monk Kukai to the Tang capital at Chang'an to retrieve the latest Buddhist knowledge. Kukai absorbed the Vajrayana thinking and synthesized a version which he took back with him to Japan, where he founded the important Shingon school of Buddhism, a school which continues to this day.

Java

In the late 8th century, Indian models of Vajrayana traveled directly to the Indonesian island of Java where a huge temple complex at Borobudur was soon built. Vajrayana Buddhism would survive in Indonesia and Malaysia until eclipsed by Islam in the 13th century.

Mongolia

In the 13th century, long after the original wave of Vajrayana Buddhism had died out in China itself, two Tibetan eminent Sakyapa teachers, Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyaltsen and Chogyal Phagpa, visited the Mongolian royal court. Marco Polo was serving the royal court at about the same time. In a competition between Christians, Moslems, and Buddhists held before the royal court, Prince Godan found Tibetan Buddhism to be the most satisfactory and adopted it as his personal religion, although not requiring it of his subjects. As Kublai Khan had just conquered China (establishing the Yuan Dynasty), his adoption of Vajrayana led to the renewal of Tantric practices in China as the ruling class found it useful to emulate their leader.

Vajrayana would decline in China and Mongolia with the fall of the Yuan Dynasty, replaced by resurgent Daoism, Confucianism, and Pure Land Buddhism. However, Mongolia would see yet another revival of Vajrayana in the 17th century, with the establishment of ties between the Dalai Lama in Tibet and the remnants of the Mongol Empire. This revived the historic pattern of the spiritual leaders of Tibet acting as priests to the rulers of the Mongol empire. Tibetan Buddhism is still practiced as a folk religion in Mongolia today despite more than 80 years of state-sponsored communism.