The Heart Mantra of Gaṇapati
Toh 1084
Degé Kangyur, vol. 101 (gzungs ’dus, wam), folios 251.a–252.a
Imprint
Translated by the Dharmachakra Translation Committee
under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha
First published 2023
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
This text was translated by the Dharmachakra Translation Committee under the supervision of Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche. The translation was produced by Adam Krug and then checked against the Tibetan and edited by Andreas Doctor.
The translation was completed under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.
Introduction
The Heart Mantra of Gaṇapati opens in Rājagṛha on Vulture Peak Mountain where the Buddha Śākyamuni is seated with a saṅgha of 1,250 monks and a great saṅgha of bodhisattvas. Śākyamuni addresses Ānanda and tells him of the benefits of upholding The heart mantra of Gaṇapati, recites the mantra, and explains the mantra’s benefits and protective powers.
The Heart Mantra of Gaṇapati continues to play an integral role in the Newar Buddhist Saptavāra (lit. “Seven Days”) tradition, where it is recited on Tuesday.1 As a result, there are numerous extant versions of the text in Sanskrit manuscript collections of the Saptavāra. Yutaka Iwamoto published a Sanskrit edition of this text in 1939,2 and a translation of this Sanskrit edition was later published in Robert Duquenne’s article “Gaṇapati Rituals in Chinese.”3 Iwamoto’s annotations highlight the fact that the content of this text can vary from one witness to the next, and his edition demonstrates that his sources diverge significantly from the version of The Heart Mantra of Gaṇapati preserved in the Tibetan Kangyurs. Christopher Wilkinson has also published a study and translation of the version of this text preserved in the Tibetan Kangyurs in his chapter on “The Tantric Gaṇeśa: Texts Preserved in the Tibetan Canon.”4
The title of this text appears in the Denkarma5 and Phangthangma6 royal Tibetan catalogs of translated works, which indicates that The Heart Mantra of Gaṇapati had been translated into Tibetan by the early ninth century. There is no independent work that bears the name The Heart Mantra of Gaṇapati in the Chinese canon, though it does contain at least twelve works dedicated to Gaṇapati. The earliest of these is found in Atikūṭa’s translation of the “Compendium of Dhāraṇīs” (Taishō 901)7 completed in 654 ᴄᴇ, and Amoghavajra’s version of the same collection (Taishō 1266),8 completed between 746 and 774 ᴄᴇ. However, neither these nor the works on Ganạpati that would later be translated into Chinese appear to match the Tibetan translation of The Heart Mantra of Gaṇapati.9
In the Degé Kangyur this text appears in both the Tantra Collection (rgyud ’bum, Toh 665) and the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs (gzungs ’dus, Toh 1084).10 This translation is based on both witnesses of The Heart Mantra of Gaṇapati preserved in the Degé Kangyur in consultation with the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) and the Stok Palace Kangyur. Yutaka Iwamoto’s Sanskrit edition of the Gaṇapatihṛdaya was consulted in some cases to clarify the Sanskrit terminology underlying the Tibetan translation.
Text Body
The Translation
Homage to all buddhas and bodhisattvas.
Thus did I hear at one time. The Blessed One [F.251.b] was dwelling at Rājagṛha on Vulture Peak Mountain with a great saṅgha of one thousand two hundred fifty monks as well as bodhisattvas who were all great beings. The Blessed One told venerable Ānanda, “Ānanda, when beings uphold the following heart mantra11 of Gaṇapati, Lord of the Gaṇas, all their endeavors will succeed.12 By upholding it, they will accomplish their goal and all their mantras will be effective.
oṃ kaṭa kaṭa maṭa maṭa dara dara vidara vidara hana hana gṛhṇa gṛhṇa dhāva dhāva bhañja bhañja stambha stambha jambha jambha moha moha dehi dehi dāpaya dāpaya dhādhānyaṃ siddhiṃ me prayaccha | | samayam anusmara mahārudravacanīye svāhā |
oṃ kuru kuru svāhā |
oṃ muru muru svāhā |
oṃ pāpaśāntivasupuṣṭiṃ kuru svāhā |
amṛta15bindukṣubhitacittamahāvidāraḥ samāgacchati mahābhaya mahābala mahāparākrama16 mahāhasti mahādakṣiṇāya17 pravedayāmi18 svāhā |
tadyathā oṃ kuru kuru curu curu muru muru |
oṃ gaḥ gaḥ gaḥ gaḥ gaḥ gaḥ gaḥ gaḥ |
“Ānanda, if any sons of good family, daughters of good family, monks, nuns, male lay practitioners, or female lay practitioners, who write down this heart mantra of Gaṇapati, Lord of the Gaṇas, and perform the mantra practice, travel to another country to make offerings to the Three Jewels, or travel to a king’s court,20 they should read this Gaṇapati heart mantra while making offerings to the blessed buddhas with flowers and incense, and all their endeavors will succeed—let there be no doubt! If they recollect it when they are in the midst of all manner of fighting, arguing, strife, and regional conflict, it will all be pacified. If they recite it every morning [F.252.a] when they get up, they will retain what they have learned. It will expel yakṣas, rākṣasas, and ḍākinīs, and these will no longer steal their vital energy.”
When the Blessed One said this, the entire retinue and the world with its gods, humans, asuras, and gandharvas rejoiced and praised what the Blessed One had said.
This concludes “The Noble Heart Mantra of Gaṇapati.”
Notes
This text, Toh 1084, and all those contained in this same volume (gzungs, wam), are listed as being located in volume 101 of the Degé Kangyur by the Buddhist Digital Resource Center (BDRC). However, several other Kangyur databases—including the eKangyur that supplies the digital input version displayed by the 84000 Reading Room—list this work as being located in volume 102. This discrepancy is partly due to the fact that the two volumes of the gzungs ’dus section are an added supplement not mentioned in the original catalog, and also hinges on the fact that the compilers of the Tōhoku catalog placed another text—which forms a whole, very large volume—the Vimalaprabhānāmakālacakratantraṭīkā (dus ’khor ’grel bshad dri med ’od, Toh 845), before the volume 100 of the Degé Kangyur, numbering it as vol. 100, although it is almost certainly intended to come right at the end of the Degé Kangyur texts as volume 102; indeed its final fifth chapter is often carried over and wrapped in the same volume as the Kangyur dkar chags (catalog). Please note this discrepancy when using the eKangyur viewer in this translation.
Bibliography
Sanskrit Sources
Iwamoto, Yutaka, ed. “Gaṇapatihṛdaya.” In Kleinere Dhāraṇī Texte, Beiträge zur Indologie Heft 2, pp. 10–12. Kyoto, 1937.
Tibetan Sources
’phags pa tshogs kyi bdag po’i snying po (Āryagaṇapatihṛdaya). Toh 665, Degé Kangyur vol. 91 (rgyud ’bum, ba), folios 192.b–193.a.
’phags pa tshogs kyi bdag po’i snying po (Āryagaṇapatihṛdaya). Toh 1084, Degé Kangyur vol. 101 (gzungs ’dus, wam), folios 251.a–252.a.
’phags pa tshogs kyi bdag po’i snying po (Āryagaṇapatihṛdaya). bka’ ’gyur (dpe bsdur ma) [Comparative Edition of the Kangyur], krung go’i bod rig pa zhib ’jug ste gnas kyi bka’ bstan dpe sdur khang (The Tibetan Tripitaka Collation Bureau of the China Tibetology Research Center). 108 volumes. Beijing: krung go’i bod rig pa dpe skrun khang (China Tibetology Publishing House) 2006–9, vol. 91, pp. 703–6.
’phags pa tshogs kyi bdag po’i snying po (Āryagaṇapatihṛdaya). bka’ ’gyur (dpe bsdur ma) [Comparative Edition of the Kangyur], krung go’i bod rig pa zhib ’jug ste gnas kyi bka’ bstan dpe sdur khang (The Tibetan Tripitaka Collation Bureau of the China Tibetology Research Center). 108 volumes. Beijing: krung go’i bod rig pa dpe skrun khang (China Tibetology Publishing House) 2006–9, vol. 98, 872–75.
’phags pa tshogs kyi bdag po’i snying po (Āryagaṇapatihṛdaya). Stok Kangyur vol. 105 (rgyud, pha), folios 167.b–168.a.
Reference Works
Primary Sources
Denkarma (pho brang stod thang lhan dkar gyi chos ’gyur ro cog gi dkar chag). Degé Tengyur, vol. 206 (sna tshogs, jo), folios 294.b–310.a.
dkar chag ’phang thang ma. Pe cin: mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2003.
Edgerton, Franklin. Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 2004.
Herrmann-Pfandt, Adelheid. Die lHan kar ma: ein früher Katalog der ins Tibetische übersetzten buddhistischen Texte. Wien: Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2008.
Lancaster, Lewis R. The Korean Buddhist Canon, accessed May 10, 2019, http://www.acmuller.net/descriptive_catalogue/index.html.
Monier-Williams, Sir Monier. A Sanskrit-English Dictionary Etymologically and Philologically Arranged with Special Reference to Cognate Indo-European Languages. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 2005.
Negi, J.S. Tibetan-Sanskrit Dictionary (bod skad legs sbyar gyi tshig mdzod chen mo). Sarnath: Dictionary Unit, Central Institute of higher Tibetan Studies, 1993.
Resources for Kanjur and Tanjur Studies, Universität Wien, accessed May 10, 2019. http://www.rkts.org.
The Buddhist Canons Research Database. American Institute of Buddhist Studies and Columbia University Center for Buddhist Studies. Accessed May 10, 2019. http://databases.aibs.columbia.edu.
Secondary Sources
Bühnemann, Gudrun, “A dhāraṇī for each day of the week: The saptavāra tradition of the Newar Buddhists.” Bulletin of SOAS 77 no.1 (2014): 119–36.
Duquenne, Robert. “Gaṇapati Rituals in Chinese.” Bulletin de l’École française d’Éxtrême-Orient 77 (1988): 344–45.
Wilkinson, Christopher. “The Tantric Gaṇeśa: Texts Preserved in the Tibetan Canon.” In Studies of an Asian God, edited by Robert L. Brown, 235–75. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991.
Glossary
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Attested in other text
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Attested in dictionary
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Approximate attestation
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Reconstruction from Tibetan phonetic rendering
This term is a reconstruction based on the Tibetan phonetic rendering of the term.
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Vulture Peak Mountain
- bya rgod kyi phung po’i ri
- བྱ་རྒོད་ཀྱི་ཕུང་པོའི་རི།
- gṛdhrakūṭaparvata AS