Manjushri, 'gentle glory', is the bodhisattva who personifies prajna — the discriminating wisdom that sees through conceptual construction — and he is the interlocutor and teacher of wisdom across a large part of the Mahayana sutra literature, including the Prajnaparamita texts and the Gandavyuha. He is shown as a youth (kumara), a flaming sword in the right hand that cuts ignorance at the root and a volume of the Prajnaparamita on a lotus at his left shoulder, riding a lion. The tantric Manjushri-mula-kalpa gives him a large family of forms, including the wrathful Yamantaka, and Mount Wutai in Shanxi is his mountain in the Chinese and Japanese traditions; the Newar tradition of the Kathmandu valley credits him with draining the valley lake at Swayambhu.
Modern Practice
Students, scholars and writers call on him before examinations and before a piece of work, usually with his mantra om a ra pa ca na dhih, and the Tibetan study curricula are built around his praise. The sword is the whole practice: being willing to have a wrong view cut rather than defended.