New Publications: Four Publication of Sitātapatrā

The above four texts from the Kangyur are centered on the goddess Sitātapatrā, the “White Umbrella goddess,” and her dhāraṇī or spell, the practice of which has been widely used in Buddhist traditions over the centuries to avert all sorts of misfortunes, illnesses, and obstacles, and is still popular today. Sitātapatrā was emanated by the Buddha from his uṣṇīṣa while he was in deep meditation in the Heaven of the Thirty-Three. In some of the texts she is identified with other female deities such as Tārā.

The four texts in the Action Tantra section of the Kangyur, two of which are also duplicated in the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs, represent different arrangements of Sitātapatrā practice and perhaps different stages in its evolution, but are all based on the same material. The Invincible Sitātapatrā (1),/i> (Toh 592/986) may be the earliest of the four to have been translated into Tibetan, and The Invincible Sitātapatrā (2) (Toh 593) is very similar except that it includes introductory and concluding passages not present in the former. In The Supreme Accomplishment of Invincible Averting, Sitātapatrā Born from the Uṣṇīṣa of the Tathāgata (Toh 591), brought to Tibet from Kashmir in the eleventh century, the verses and spells are divided in a different way than in the earlier versions, and Sitātapatrā Born from the Uṣṇīṣa of the Tathāgata (Toh 590/985), which may be a later translation still, includes some additional lines of homage.