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སྤྲིན་ཆེན་པོ།

The Great Cloud (1)
Glossary

Mahāmegha

འཕགས་པ་སྤྲིན་ཆེན་པོ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོའི་མདོ།

’phags pa sprin chen po zhes bya ba theg pa chen po’i mdo

The Noble Mahāyāna Sūtra “The Great Cloud”

Āryamahāmeghanāmamahāyānasūtra

Toh 232

Degé Kangyur, vol. 64 (mdo sde, wa), folios 113.a–214.b

ᴛʀᴀɴsʟᴀᴛᴇᴅ ɪɴᴛᴏ ᴛɪʙᴇᴛᴀɴ ʙʏ

Surendrabodhi
Bandé Yeshé Dé

Translated by the Mahamegha Translation Team
under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha

First published 2022

Current version v 1.1.24 (2025)

Generated by 84000 Reading Room v2.26.1

84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha is a global non-profit initiative to translate all the Buddha’s words into modern languages, and to make them available to everyone.

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co.

Summary

s.1

The Great Cloud features a long dialogue between the Buddha Śākyamuni and a bodhisattva named Great Cloud Essence, who are periodically joined by various additional interlocutors from the vast audience of human and divine beings who have assembled to hear the Buddha’s teaching. The topics of their conversation are diverse and wide-ranging, but a central theme is the vast conduct of bodhisattvas, which is illustrated through the enumeration of the various meditative states and liberative techniques that bodhisattvas must master in order to minister to all sentient beings. This is followed by a conversation with the brahmin Kauṇḍinya concerning the Buddha’s cousin Devadatta, who is revealed to be a bodhisattva displaying the highest level of skillful means. Kauṇḍinya then inquires about the possibility of obtaining a relic from the Buddha, and another member of the audience responds with an explanation of how truly rare it is for a buddha relic to appear within the world. Finally, the discourse ends with the Buddha delivering a series of detailed prophecies describing the principal interlocutor’s future attainment of buddhahood, and he further explains the benefits and powers that can be obtained through the practice of this sūtra itself.

ac.

Acknowledgements

ac.1

This translation was produced by Joshua Capitanio for the Mahamegha Translation Team. The translator is grateful to Christopher Jones (University of Cambridge) and Susan Roach for offering several helpful suggestions.

The translation was completed under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.

The translation of this text has been made possible through the generous sponsorship of an anonymous donor, who would like to dedicate it in memory of Lin, Zai-He and Lin Lee, Wan-Zhi.

Introduction

i.1

The Great Cloud is an important Mahāyāna sūtra, known particularly as one source of the idea that a tathāgata is permanent and does not really pass into parinirvāṇa, but strategically displays an illusory body. To exemplify religious attainment for sentient beings, this emanated body seems to take birth, strive for awakening, and eventually pass into parinirvāṇa.1 In this sūtra this view is not merely implied or stated without comment, as it is in many sūtras, but is set out along with the claim that orthodox Buddhist doctrines of impermanence and selflessness are merely provisional teachings imparted by the Buddha for the sake of śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas who were too trepidatious and spiritually immature to accept the realities of permanence and true selfhood.

The Translation

The Noble Mahāyāna Sūtra
The Great Cloud

Chapter 1

[B1] [F.113.a]

1.1

Homage to all buddhas, bodhisattvas, exalted śrāvakas, and pratyekabuddhas.

Thus did I hear at one time. The Bhagavān was residing on Vulture Peak in Rājagṛha with an assembly of nine million eight hundred thousand bhikṣus including Mahākāśyapa. All of them were worthy ones who had exhausted their defilements, had attained mastery, and were free from afflictions. They were omniscient ones, great elephants, their minds perfectly liberated, their wisdom perfectly liberated, who had accomplished their tasks and completed their work. They had cast off their burdens and fulfilled their aims. Their minds had been emancipated through correct cognition, and they had thoroughly exhausted all the fetters binding them to existence. They possessed very pure discipline and had obtained supreme perfection in mastering all mental states. They were proficient in the superknowledges. Together, they were all absorbed in meditation on the eight liberations.

Chapter 2

2.1

Then the bodhisattva mahāsattva Great Cloud Essence said to the Bhagavān, “Ah, these statements of the sacred Dharma teaching of The Great Cloud, spoken by the Tathāgata, are truly a wondrous marvel! Ah, Bhagavān! The domain of this Great Cloud discourse is inconceivable, and the magical manifestation of its miraculous power has appeared right in front of all sentient beings. [F.142.a] When this Great Cloud discourse was expounded, a mass of great clouds arose from its nectar-like reverberations, showering down a great, vast rainfall of nectar filled with all sorts of precious substances and elixirs. Ah! The Tathāgata, who is inconceivable, has excellently uttered this discourse of the inconceivable domain. Ah! All sentient beings have certainly cultivated merit. Ah! The fruition of this merit is inconceivable! Sentient beings are relishing the enjoyment and delights of divine bliss. Today, all sentient beings frolic together with the gods.

Chapter 3

3.1

Then, the bodhisattva mahāsattva Great Cloud Essence addressed the Bhagavān, saying, “Those outsiders who have turned away from these great Vaipulya teachings have become as though deaf; in order to make them whole with the ear faculties of the Great Vehicle, I beseech the Bhagavān to give an extensive explanation of those previously mentioned thirty-six Dharma gateways of dhāraṇī called directly entering the jewel mine of the infinite gnosis of irreversibility.”

Chapter 4

4.1

Great Cloud Essence then said, “In order to tame the minds of unawakened and foolish sentient beings, I beseech you to shine the subtle light rays of the lamp of understanding the concealed intent of the Bhagavān Tathāgata’s speech upon all those who have entered great darkness.”

4.2

The Bhagavān replied, “Great Cloud Essence, you must broadly ignite the twenty-three liberation gateways of the continuous flow of skillful methods of Dharma for those who are ignorant of how to enter into the fundamental divisions of the concealed intent of the Tathāgata’s speech.

Chapter 5

5.1

Great Cloud Essence then said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to give an extensive explanation of the ten Dharma gateways called king of the wondrous secret of the way to engage and abide in the playful appearance of taking birth in cyclic existence.”

5.2

The Bhagavān replied, “Great Cloud Essence, within this Great Cloud discourse, there is the Dharma gateway called king of utter delight at being born within existence. There is the Dharma gateway called desiring and delighting in birth within existence. There is the Dharma gateway called thirsting for birth within existence. There is the Dharma gateway called beginningless birth within existence. There is the Dharma gateway called utmost faith in birth within existence. There is the Dharma gateway called skill in the aspiration to be born within existence. There is the Dharma gateway called singing the praises of birth within existence. There is the Dharma gateway called king of observing birth within existence. There is the Dharma gateway called powerful king of skill in birth within existence. And there is the Dharma gateway called king of the wondrous secret of engaging and abiding in the state of not being obscured by the various categories of unwholesome dharmas when born within existence. These ten are the Dharma gateways called king of the wondrous secret of the way to engage and abide in the playful appearance of taking birth in cyclic existence.” [F.160.b]

Chapter 6

6.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called the secret aspiration to liberation, which is taken up by the mind in order to attain the karmic ground of the field of the afflictions of cyclic existence.”

6.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called obtaining the fruit of the field of the afflictions of cyclic existence. There is the Dharma gateway called king of delighting in the field of the afflictions of cyclic existence. There is the Dharma gateway called fixing the mind on the connection with cyclic existence. There is the Dharma gateway called dhāraṇī of supreme delight in cyclic existence. There is the Dharma gateway called migrating within cyclic existence. There is the Dharma gateway called thoroughly raining down upon cyclic existence. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the uninterrupted wind of the continuity of cyclic existence. There is the Dharma gateway called thief of cyclic existence. There is the Dharma gateway called stainless domain of the root of cyclic existence. And there is the Dharma gateway called bringing illumination to all those who abide for a long time in cyclic existence. These ten are the Dharma gateways called the secret aspiration to liberation, which is taken up by the mind in order to attain the karmic ground of the field of the afflictions of cyclic existence.”

Chapter 7

7.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called king of the magical manifestation that apprehends the inconceivable essence of ignorance regarding gnosis.”

7.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called happily engaging in many deeds as antidotes. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the magical manifestation that is unequaled. There is the Dharma gateway called entering the gateway of peerlessly spreading light. There is the Dharma gateway called producing an understanding of the scriptural tradition. There is the Dharma gateway called the thought that terminates.19 There is the Dharma gateway called luminosity of correct speech. There is the Dharma gateway called perception that is superior to water. There is the Dharma gateway called stainless essence. There is the Dharma gateway called light-radiating earth-holder. And there is the Dharma gateway called gateway of exalted luminosity. These ten are the Dharma gateways called king of the magical manifestation that apprehends the inconceivable essence of ignorance regarding gnosis.”

Chapter 8

8.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called aspects of bringing about the attainment of stable, profound gnosis.”

8.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called reverently engaging in the ten extensive essences. There is the Dharma gateway called guarded by space. There is the Dharma gateway called entering the profound, auspicious time. There is the Dharma gateway called delighting in the subtle. There is the Dharma gateway called oceanic immovability. There is the Dharma gateway called radiant light of gnosis. There is the Dharma gateway called engaging in the natural purity of speech. There is the Dharma gateway called engaging in the stainlessness of incinerating the firewood of the afflictions. There is the Dharma gateway called engaging in steadfast intelligence. And there is the Dharma gateway called stainless intelligence. These ten are the Dharma gateways called aspects of bringing about the attainment of stable, profound gnosis.” [F.161.b]

Chapter 9

9.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called storehouse of inconceivable merit of the flowing rain of the great cloud’s essence.”

9.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called storehouse of delighting in loving-kindness. There is the Dharma gateway called storehouse of delighting in compassion. There is the Dharma gateway called storehouse of delighting in joy. There is the Dharma gateway called storehouse of delighting in equanimity. There is the Dharma gateway called storehouse of water showered down by the truth. There is the Dharma gateway called storehouse of the circulation of fish in the ocean. There is the Dharma gateway called storehouse replete with the names of the Dharma gateways. There is the Dharma gateway called storehouse of the path of the king of streams. There is the Dharma gateway called storehouse of engaging with the scriptural tradition. And there is the Dharma gateway called storehouse of engaging with the precious jewel of the three secret designations. These ten are the Dharma gateways called storehouse of inconceivable merit of the flowing rain of the great cloud’s essence.”

10.

Chapter 10

10.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called path of the aspect of the inconceivable merit of the flowing rain of the great cloud.”

10.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called season of rain. [F.162.a] There is the Dharma gateway called lone king of the precious flow of the net of rain. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the seal of the essence of the veil of rain. There is the Dharma gateway called rain’s cleansing of stains. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the various poison-cleansing waters of the veil of rain. There is the Dharma gateway called pleasing, cooling satisfaction produced by the net of rain. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the domain of the correct perception of various rains. There is the Dharma gateway called coemergence of the correct view of various rains. There is the Dharma gateway called mastery over the field of the aspect of merit of various rains. And there is the Dharma gateway called nāga king who showers down the pleasant, cooling medicinal rain of the veil of rain. These ten are the Dharma gateways called path of the aspect of the inconceivable merit of the flowing rain of the great cloud.”

11.

Chapter 11

11.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called king of the magical manifestation of the mass of great clouds that arises and gathers in space.”

11.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called king of skill in the utter delight that arises from the root. There is the Dharma gateway called constantly expressing the excellent perception of the fundamental nature. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the great perception of the unequaled gnosis. There is the Dharma gateway called seal of comprehension. There is the Dharma gateway called king of perfect inexhaustible intelligence. [F.162.b] There is the Dharma gateway called inconceivable abode. There is the Dharma gateway called aspect of exertion free from desire. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the utmost certainty of the deep ocean tide. There is the Dharma gateway called delight in the pleasant season. There is the Dharma gateway called space storehouse of the great cloud of the rain of gnosis equal to space. These ten are the Dharma gateways called king of the magical manifestation of the mass of great clouds that arises and gathers in space.”

12.

Chapter 12

12.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called brilliant lightning of the great cloud. May the Bhagavān, the Tathāgata, make them blaze forth.”

12.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called lightning of the light rays of the precious storehouse. There is the Dharma gateway called lightning in the sky of the brilliance of resolve. There is the Dharma gateway called most protected. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the seasons. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the mind that desires the intellect guarded by glory. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the stainless golden lightning. There is the Dharma gateway called lightning of the brilliant inexhaustible intelligence of the essence of beryl. There is the Dharma gateway called lightning of manifest conviction in the abodes. There is the Dharma gateway called lightning of the constancy of the deep ocean of virtuous qualities. There is the Dharma gateway called lightning that strikes continuously over the land. These ten are the Dharma gateways called brilliant lightning of the great cloud.”

13.

Chapter 13

13.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to shine forth the infinite great light rays of the sun of buddhahood to serve as medicine for all sentient beings and for the sake of their happiness. I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called the aspects of entering the great cloud that flashes with lightning.”

13.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called king of the lightning flash that is as powerful as the wind’s strength. There is the Dharma gateway called extremely sharp gnosis. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the clear ascertainment of gnosis. There is the Dharma gateway called king of resounding through the power of simultaneous arising. There is the Dharma gateway called king of skill in the fluctuation of ocean waves. There is the Dharma gateway called desiring and completely protecting the Dharma. There is the Dharma gateway called king of skill at connecting with the conquerors through wealth. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the medicine that suppresses poison, the great drum of Dharma. There is the Dharma gateway called producing the endowment of the strengths of the Teacher through exceptional beauty. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the magical manifestation that proclaims the roots of the afflictions, which are like darkness or ice. These ten are the Dharma gateways called the aspects of entering the great cloud that flashes with lightning.”

14.

Chapter 14

14.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called illusory emanation of the lightning of the great cloud.”

14.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called constantly proclaiming. There is the Dharma gateway called constantly guarding the illusory emanation of the lightning of the great cloud. There is the Dharma gateway called constantly joyful. There is the Dharma gateway called constantly wishful. There is the Dharma gateway called playing in fire. There is the Dharma gateway called delighting in entering all birthplaces. There is the Dharma gateway called rejoicing in all migrating beings with material gains. There is the Dharma gateway called white swan. There is the Dharma gateway called displaying the king of radiant light. There is the Dharma gateway called threading the vast garland of constant superiority. These ten are the Dharma gateways called illusory emanation of the lightning of the great cloud.”

15.

Chapter 15

15.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called display of the great miraculous lamp.”

15.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called miraculous display for entering the inexhaustible treasury. There is the Dharma gateway called gathering the precious storehouse. There is the Dharma gateway called storehouse of abiding in inconceivable liberation. There is the Dharma gateway called infinite veneration. There is the Dharma gateway called acquisition of virtue. There is the Dharma gateway called replete with joy. There is the Dharma gateway called engaging in the aspects of reality. There is the Dharma gateway called unobscured spherical mirror. There is the Dharma gateway called inexhaustible mindfulness. There is the Dharma gateway called engaging in the pleasure of definitively liberating all sentient beings. [F.164.a] These ten are the Dharma gateways called display of the great miraculous lamp.”

16.

Chapter 16

16.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called king of the magical manifestation for entry into the elaborate exposition of the hail of Dharma.”

16.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called jewel-mine of hail. There is the Dharma gateway called ocean of hail. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the use of hail. There is the Dharma gateway called teaching of the storehouse of the great medicine of hail. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the universality of hail. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the inexhaustible intellect of hail. There is the Dharma gateway called supreme essence of hail. There is the Dharma gateway called king who has obtained the captaincy of the lamp of hail. There is the Dharma gateway called supreme weapon on the side of Dharma. There is the Dharma gateway called time of profound hail. These ten are the Dharma gateways called king of the magical manifestation of entry into the elaborate exposition of the hail of Dharma.”

17.

Chapter 17

17.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called guarding the storehouse of entry into the vajra gnosis.”

17.2

The Bhagavān replied, [F.164.b] “There is the Dharma gateway called precious storehouse of play. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the utterly delightful manner. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the magical manifestation of the miraculous manner. There is the Dharma gateway called way of abiding of the swan in flight. There is the Dharma gateway called king of well-adorned space. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the medicine produced from the top of the fruit of the kumbha tree. There is the Dharma gateway called king of engaging the intellect that is like an undisturbed deep ocean. There is the Dharma gateway called king of seasons having the brilliant strength of consummate discipline. There is the Dharma gateway called the noncomprehension of the limit of the inconceivable abode. There is the Dharma gateway called extending through an eon. These ten are the Dharma gateways called guarding the storehouse of entry into the vajra gnosis.”

18.

Chapter 18

18.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called king of the magical manifestation of engaging in inexhaustible enjoyments.”

18.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called entering into the intellect of nectar. There is the Dharma gateway called entering into satisfaction through bliss. There is the Dharma gateway called skilled in being joyful. There is the Dharma gateway called skilled in being beautiful and utterly joyful. There is the Dharma gateway called entering into the taste of the water that is deep and constant. There is the Dharma gateway called king of desiring the bliss of the domain of mind’s intelligence. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the bliss that is inexhaustible and primordially stainless. There is the Dharma gateway called king of being utterly elated and delighted with everything. These ten20 are the Dharma gateways called king of the magical manifestation [F.165.a] that enters into the inexhaustible enjoyments.”

19.

Chapter 19

19.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān, the complete and perfect Buddha, to explain the ten Dharma gateways called entry into the direct demonstration of the aspects of the correct path.”

19.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called aspect of subtle proliferation. There is the Dharma gateway called storehouse of the aspect of constancy. There is the Dharma gateway called precious storehouse of complete victory through courageous strength. There is the Dharma gateway called engaging in viewing the abode of all the gods in the eastern direction. There is the Dharma gateway called bringing all scriptural traditions to completion. There is the Dharma gateway called not being obscured by all scriptural traditions. There is the Dharma gateway called utterly delighting in and being elated by all paths. There is the Dharma gateway called aspect of abandoning engagement with all negative paths. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the constant tide of the ocean. There is the Dharma gateway called precious storehouse of playing as the definite tide of the ocean. These ten are the Dharma gateways called entry into the manifest demonstration of the aspects of the correct path.”

20.

Chapter 20

20.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called entry into the subtle and profound topics of discourse.”

20.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called all direct and indirect topics of discourse. There is the Dharma gateway called utterly delighting in experiencing all tastes. There is the Dharma gateway called king of playing within all scriptural traditions. There is the Dharma gateway called king of desiring extensiveness. There is the Dharma gateway called king of delighting in extensiveness. There is the Dharma gateway called king of utterly delighting in the body. There is the Dharma gateway called king of delighting in the path of pleasing, joyful conduct. There is the Dharma gateway called king of seasons adorned by the noble ones. There is the Dharma gateway called king of rendering stainless the essence of stains. There is the Dharma gateway called consummate satisfaction through the virtue of the yoga of observation. These ten are the Dharma gateways called entering the subtle and profound topics of discourse.”

21.

Chapter 21

21.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called observation of the lion’s play.”

21.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called stainlessness that is difficult to replicate. There is the Dharma gateway called fragrance of the flowers of the bees and the flies. There is the Dharma gateway called sporting with the intellect of the majestic jewel and being overcome by sleep. There is the Dharma gateway called the supremacy that is difficult to obtain, of the shimmering heap of jewels. [F.166.a] There is the Dharma gateway called king of the waterfall-like play. There is the Dharma gateway called observation of the play of the vast, utterly and completely quaking earth. There is the Dharma gateway called play that is like distinguishing between the palms of the left and right hands. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the play of the tails of the great fishes. There is the Dharma gateway called playing at the teaching that is difficult to obtain and difficult to comprehend. There is the Dharma gateway called observing play and delighting in the aspects of all adornments. These ten are the Dharma gateways called observation of the lion’s play.”

22.

Chapter 22

22.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called discourse on engaging in activities in harmony with the world that accumulate connections for rebirth.”

22.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called entering the king of forever taking rebirth. There is the Dharma gateway called entering tranquility through skillful means. There is the Dharma gateway called correctly applying and upholding the sweet honey of faith. There is the Dharma gateway called entry into the manifest superiority of the lion’s play. There is the Dharma gateway called entering the times of displaying the stages. There is the Dharma gateway called king of skill in entry into stages, the absence of stages, realms, and nonrealms. There is the Dharma gateway called using skillful means to guide those who are rough and difficult to tame. There is the Dharma gateway called entering a body swiftly like an arrow. [F.166.b] There is the Dharma gateway called initiating the attainment of all desirable offerings. There is the Dharma gateway called entry into the skillful means of performing the activities of the lower abodes. These ten are the Dharma gateways called discourse on engaging in activities in harmony with the world that accumulate connections for rebirth.”

23.

Chapter 23

23.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called entering the precious storehouse of play.”

23.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called topknot of the rising sun. There is the Dharma gateway called pride in the vast play of the ancient essence. There is the Dharma gateway called arising of the precious storehouse of virtuous qualities. There is the Dharma gateway called engaging in play through the excellent limit of conduct. There is the Dharma gateway called engaging in rousing the indestructible strength of initiating the wet season. There is the Dharma gateway called engaging in the play of the pleasant cooling strength of sandalwood. There is the Dharma gateway called speaking without closing the eyes. There is the Dharma gateway called play replete with the water like the kumuda flower and the moon. There is the Dharma gateway called engaging in desire for great emanation bodies and the like. There is the Dharma gateway called engaging in exceptional praise. These ten are the Dharma gateways called entering the precious storehouse of play.”

24.

Chapter 24

24.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called engaging in the garuḍa’s great potent strength.”

24.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called king of the magical manifestation that completely overcomes the strength of the nāga king21 Vāsuki. There is the Dharma gateway called engaging in the display of one’s own strength. There is the Dharma gateway called engaging in the enjoyment of sound. There is the Dharma gateway called entering the waves. There is the Dharma gateway called causing the rising tide to not be filled with pride. There is the Dharma gateway called entering the time of resounding within the cave of the king of mountains. There is the Dharma gateway called entering the direction of the supreme season of wind. There is the Dharma gateway called engaging in the ascertainment that reveals faraway objects to the sight. There is the Dharma gateway called play of the snake with fast-acting poison. There is the Dharma gateway called engaging in obtaining the excellent strength of precious light-rays. These ten are the Dharma gateways called engaging in the garuḍa’s great potent strength.”

25.

Chapter 25

25.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called king of the manifestation of the proclamation of the time of the great roar.”

25.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called manifestation of the profound way of matchless strength. There is the Dharma gateway called manifestation of constant discipline. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the radiant light of the strength of discipline. There is the Dharma gateway called manifestation of the excellent bounds of discipline. There is the Dharma gateway called manifestation of the trickle of precious milk. There is the Dharma gateway called manifestation of the trickling flow of merit. There is the Dharma gateway called manifestation of the trickling strength of loving-kindness. There is the Dharma gateway called manifestation of the trickling strength of compassion. There is the Dharma gateway called manifestation of the trickling strength of joy. There is the Dharma gateway called manifestation of the trickling strength of equanimity. These ten are the Dharma gateways called king of the manifestation of the proclamation of the time of the great roar.”

26.

Chapter 26

26.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called engaging in the magical manifestation of the strength of great fearlessness.”

26.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called engaging in the magical manifestation of the strength of fearlessness in the strong ocean tide. There is the Dharma gateway called delighting in the root of fearlessness. There is the Dharma gateway called precious storehouse of skillfulness. There is the Dharma gateway called glorious body of skillfulness. There is the Dharma gateway called delighting in the cleanliness of skillfulness. [F.168.a] There is the Dharma gateway called strength of engaging in adornment with the ornament of the brilliance of skillfulness. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the season of skill in all precious substances. There is the Dharma gateway called delighting in engaging in the joys of skillfulness. There is the Dharma gateway called endowed with the radiant light of skillfulness. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the luminous aspect of the lightning of skillfulness. These ten are the Dharma gateways called engaging in the magical manifestation of the strength of great fearlessness.”

27.

Chapter 27

27.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called vastness having aspects of an abode.”

27.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called tranquil time of guarding the abode. There is the Dharma gateway called path of the abode of the true essence. There is the Dharma gateway called abode of the essence of the renowned reality of water. There is the Dharma gateway called abode of praising accomplishment. There is the Dharma gateway called abode of the excellent limit of the essence of renown. There is the Dharma gateway called abode of extensive, constant joy. There is the Dharma gateway called abode of strength that arises from the basis. There is the Dharma gateway called abode of the strength of compassion. There is the Dharma gateway called abiding definitively in patience. There is the Dharma gateway called abode of constant purity. These ten are the Dharma gateways called vastness having aspects of an abode.”

28.

Chapter 28

28.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called engaging in the procedures of superior intention.”

28.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called abiding at the excellent limit. There is the Dharma gateway called oceanic seal of knowledge of the rites of the superior intention. There is the Dharma gateway called tide of gnosis. There is the Dharma gateway called engaging in the rites of the superior intention of the miraculous display of the tide of migrating beings. There is the Dharma gateway called play equal to space. There is the Dharma gateway called nonabiding. There is the Dharma gateway called gathering of proliferations. There is the Dharma gateway called king of being worthy of service. There is the Dharma gateway called resolve to delight in generosity. There is the Dharma gateway called engaging in the superior intention with a happy mind. These ten are the Dharma gateways called engaging in the procedures of superior intention.”

29.

Chapter 29

29.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called manifestation of the strength of the heroic king of the great army.”

29.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called field of the completely victorious hero. There is the Dharma gateway called taking birth after perfecting heroic progress. There is the Dharma gateway called king of skill in perceiving the hero’s play. [F.169.a] There is the Dharma gateway called performing the deeds that perfect the strength of entering into the heroic manner. There is the Dharma gateway called aspect of the hero on the battlefield. There is the Dharma gateway called aspect of the perfection of strong-heartedness. There is the Dharma gateway called aspect of the hero with steadfast gnosis. There is the Dharma gateway called aspect of the hero in times of laziness. There is the Dharma gateway called aspect of brilliant strength. There is the Dharma gateway called aspect of the hero’s lightning. There is the Dharma gateway called limbs of the army of the hero’s hail. These ten are the Dharma gateways called manifestation of the strength of the heroic king of the great army.”

30.

Chapter 30

30.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called becoming the king of the magical manifestation of the aspects of excellence.”

30.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called time of the jewel of excellence. There is the Dharma gateway called aspect of excellent faith. There is the Dharma gateway called play manifested through the power of the aspect of excellence. There is the Dharma gateway called store of the wealth of excellence. There is the Dharma gateway called body of perfect excellence. There is the Dharma gateway called aspect of certainty in the purity of excellence. There is the Dharma gateway called royal storehouse of the radiant light of the lightning of excellence. There is the Dharma gateway called intellect that is well adorned with the aspects of excellence. These ten are the Dharma gateways called becoming the king of the magical manifestation of the aspects of excellence.”

31.

Chapter 31

31.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called engaging in marshalling the force that reveals the correct concealment associated with play.”

31.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called correct concealment associated with the play of joy. There is the Dharma gateway called correct concealment associated with the play of delight. There is the Dharma gateway called correct concealment associated with the play of supreme delight. There is the Dharma gateway called correct concealment associated with the play of the aspect of entry. There is the Dharma gateway called correct concealment associated with the play of the lion’s roar. There is the Dharma gateway called marshalling the force that reveals the correct concealment associated with the play of conduct. There is the Dharma gateway called engaging in the strength of revealing the correct concealment associated with the play of loving-kindness. There is the Dharma gateway called engaging in the strength of revealing the correct concealment associated with the play of compassion. There is the Dharma gateway called engaging in the strength of revealing the correct concealment associated with the play of joy. There is the Dharma gateway called engaging in the strength of revealing the correct concealment associated with the play of equanimity. These ten are the Dharma gateways called engaging in marshalling the force that reveals the correct concealment associated with play.”

32.

Chapter 32

32.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called the aspects of engaging in procedures for engendering gnosis.”

32.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called craving for sense objects. There is the Dharma gateway called king of adornment. There is the Dharma gateway called delighting in causing the diminishment of strength. There is the Dharma gateway called inexhaustible skillful body. There is the Dharma gateway called attachment to play. There is the Dharma gateway called performing the activities of offering and worship. There is the Dharma gateway called practice of delighting in the earth. There is the Dharma gateway called entering into the place of rebirth. There is the Dharma gateway called abiding in the practice of the time of joy. There is the Dharma gateway called abiding in the abode of the scriptural tradition. These ten are the Dharma gateways called the aspects of engaging in procedures for engendering gnosis.”

33.

Chapter 33

33.1

Great Cloud Essence asked, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called storehouse of the riches of gnosis attained through concentration.”

33.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called accomplishment of the precious skill of the earnest practice of excellence. There is the Dharma gateway called practice of abiding in the mind concentrated on extreme faith in the sacred Dharma. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the time of truth. There is the Dharma gateway called accomplishment of the precious substances of the ocean having the play of correct depth and stability. [F.170.b] There is the Dharma gateway called accomplishment of joy. There is the Dharma gateway called utter accomplishment of the strength of gnosis. There is the Dharma gateway called accomplishment of motion. There is the Dharma gateway called accomplishment of the qualities of engaging in desire. There is the Dharma gateway called training the body. There is the Dharma gateway called accomplishment of concentration on knowledge, purity, certainty, ascetic practice, and observing precepts. These ten are the Dharma gateways called storehouse of the riches of gnosis that are attained through concentration.”

34.

Chapter 34

34.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called array of procedures conducive to correctly offering and giving.”

34.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called understanding the rites of restraint. There is the Dharma gateway called observing the precious rites that assist in offering and giving. There is the Dharma gateway called time of guarding purity. There is the Dharma gateway called delighting in purity. There is the Dharma gateway called giving the enjoyments of giving. There is the Dharma gateway called utterly giving one’s eyes. There is the Dharma gateway called revealing and explaining the profound secrets. There is the Dharma gateway called cherishing the profound Dharma. There is the Dharma gateway called abiding in the essence of reality. There is the Dharma gateway called revealing all scriptural traditions. These are the ten Dharma gateways called array of procedures conducive to correctly offering and giving.”

35.

Chapter 35

35.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called full production of the correct seed of the buddhafield.”

35.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called victory of the jewel mine. There is the Dharma gateway called shower of jewels from the jewel mine. There is the Dharma gateway called storehouse of merit of the jewel mine. There is the Dharma gateway called intellect of the true essence of the jewel mine. There is the Dharma gateway called body of the jewel mine. There is the Dharma gateway called excellent radiant light of the jewel mine. There is the Dharma gateway called radiant light of the lamp of the jewel mine. There is the Dharma gateway called king crowned with the inexhaustible intellect of the lightning of the jewel mine. There is the Dharma gateway called purity of abiding in the jewel mine. There is the Dharma gateway called mass of flavors of the fruits from the field of all jewels. These ten are the Dharma gateways called full production of the correct seed of the buddhafield.”

36.

Chapter 36

36.1

Great Cloud Essence said, “I beseech the Bhagavān to explain the ten Dharma gateways called engaging in the magical manifestation of the king of delighting in the play [F.171.b] of the state of the essence of reality.”

36.2

The Bhagavān replied, “There is the Dharma gateway called engaging in unwavering joy. There is the Dharma gateway called abiding by the constant root. There is the Dharma gateway called unmoving. There is the Dharma gateway called dwelling in profundity. There is the Dharma gateway called complete liberation of the inconceivable storehouse. There is the Dharma gateway called king of the intellect that has flourished through pleasure. There is the Dharma gateway called strength of the inexhaustible nonabiding intellect. There is the Dharma gateway called culmination of the inconceivable manner. There is the Dharma gateway called culmination of the seal of gnosis. There is the Dharma gateway called king of intellect of all inexhaustible oceans. Great Cloud Essence, these ten are the Dharma gateways called engaging in the magical manifestation of the king of delighting in the play that manifests through the manner of the essence of reality of the tathāgatas and bodhisattvas.”

37.

Chapter 37

37.1

At that time, a devaputra named Swift Intellect made great offerings to the Bhagavān and went before the Bhagavān, joined his palms, and bowed in homage. He then soared into the air, reaching a height equal to that of seven palm trees, and addressed the Bhagavān:

37.2

“Bhagavān, how many discourses are there?

How many samādhis are there?

How many avenues of dhāraṇī are there?

How many secrets can be entered?

37.3

“Bhagavān, how many buddhas abide in the present? [F.172.a]

How many will come in the future?

How many buddhas have existed in the past?

How great is the domain of the Buddha’s activity?

How many world realms are there?

Please speak, O Gautama!

38.

Chapter 38

38.1

At that time, a host of devaputras arrived from the Obsidian Mountain in the southern lands. Together with Mahākāśyapa, they ascended into empty space, hovering at a distance equal to the height of seven tala trees. From there, they scattered flower petals down upon the Tathāgata, piling up layers of petals as high as Mount Meru. Thereupon, their eyes filled with tears, and with voices wailing they addressed the Bhagavān, saying, “Alas, Bhagavān! When the Tathāgata [F.186.a] has passed into parinirvāṇa out of skillful means, what sorts of sentient beings will arise to maintain those discourses such as this one, which were spoken by the Tathāgata?”

Colophon

c.1

Revised and finalized by the Indian preceptor Surendrabodhi and the great editor-translator Bandé Yeshé Dé.

Notes

n.1

Such views comprise one element of Buddha-nature theory associated with the Buddha’s “third turning of the wheel of Dharma” (see below), but also stem from the theory of the emanation body (nirmāṇakāya, sprul pa’i sku) that may have first developed in non-Mahāyāna schools. They have been compared by scholars in the modern era to similar views about Jesus Christ in docetism, a second century belief rejected as heretical by the early Church councils. On “docetic Buddhism” see Anesaki (1911), Seyfort-Ruegg (2008) pp. 31–34, and Radich (2015).

n.2

See Radich 2015, p. 19ff.

n.3

See Brunnhölzl 2014, p. 4ff; however, in his paragraph on the sūtra on p. 46 he does not note the presence in it of the themes just mentioned.

n.4

See Peter Alan Roberts, trans., The Sūtra of the Sublime Golden Light (Suvarṇaprabhāsottamasūtra), Toh 555, 556, and 557 (84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, 2023–24).

n.5

Suzuki (1996) has suggested that The Great Cloud may in fact be the source of the interpolated passage in the Suvarṇaprabhāsa.

n.6

See Robert A. F. Thurman, trans., The Teaching of Vimalakīrti (Vimalakīrtinirdeśasūtra), Toh 176 (84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, 2017).

n.7

See Forte 1976 and Radich 2017.

n.8

Denkarma, 297.a.3. See also Yoshimura 1950, p. 127.

n.19

Following the variant reading of mthar byed pa’i rtog found in the Stok Palace edition.

n.20

Both the Tib. and Ch. refer to ten Dharma gateways in this chapter, although in both versions the chapter contains only eight.

n.21

“Nāga king” is added for clarification.

Bibliography

sprin chen po’i mdo (Mahāmeghasūtra). Toh 232, Degé Kangyur vol. 64 (mdo sde, wa), folios 113.a–214.b.

dri med grags pa’i bstan (Vimalakīrtinirdeśa). Toh 176, Degé Kangyur vol. 60 (mdo sde, ma), folios 175.a–239.a. English translation in Thurman 2017.

yongs su mya ngan las ’das pa chen po (Mahāparinirvāṇa). Toh 120, Degé Kangyur vol. 54 (mdo sde, tha), folios 1.b–151.b.

gser ’od dam pa mdo sde’i dbang po’i rgyal po (Suvarṇaprabhāsottamasūtrendrarāja). Toh 556, Degé Kangyur vol. 89 (rgyud, pa), folios 151.b–273.a; Toh 557, vol. 90 (rgyud, pha), folios 1.b–62.a. English translations in Roberts 2024ab.

Denkarma (pho brang stod thang ldan[/lhan] dkar gyi chos ’gyur ro cog gi dkar chag). Toh 4364, Degé Tengyur vol. 206 (sna tshogs, jo), folios 294.b–310.a.

Phangthangma (dkar chag ’phang thang ma). Beijing: mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2003.

Anesaki, Masaharu. “Docetism (Buddhist).” In Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, edited by J. Hastings, 835–40. (Available on Internet Archive). Edinburgh: Clark, 1911.

Brunnhölzl, Karl. When the Clouds Part: The Uttaratantra and Its Meditative Tradition as a Bridge Between Sūtra and Tantra. Hamburg: Hamburg University Press, 2015.

Forte, Antonino. Political Propaganda and Ideology in China at the End of the Seventh Century: Inquiry into the Nature, Authors, and Function of the Tunhuang Document S. 6502 Followed by an Annotated Translation. Naples: Instituto Universitario Orientale, Seminario di Studi Asiatici, 1976.

Radich, Michael. The Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra and the Emergence of Tathāgatagarbha Doctrine. Hamburg Buddhist Studies 5. Hamburg: Hamburg University Press, 2015.

Roberts, Peter Alan., trans. (2023). The Sūtra of the Sublime Golden Light (1) (Suvarṇaprabhāsottamasūtra, Toh 555). 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, 2023.

Roberts, Peter Alan., trans. (2024a). The Sūtra of the Sublime Golden Light (2) (Suvarṇaprabhāsottamasūtra, Toh 556). 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, 2024.

Roberts, Peter Alan., trans. (2024b). The Sūtra of the Sublime Golden Light (3) (Suvarṇaprabhāsottamasūtra, Toh 557). 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, 2024.

Seyfort-Ruegg, David. “Docetism in Mahāyāna Sūtras.” In The Symbiosis of Buddhism with Brahmanism/Hinduism in South Asia and of Buddhism with “Local Cults” in Tibet and the Himalayan Region, 31–34. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2008.

Seyfort-Ruegg, David (2017). “Problems of Attribution, Style, and Dating Relating to the ‘Great Cloud Sutras’ in the Chinese Buddhist Canon (T 387, T 388/S. 6916).” In Buddhist Transformations and Interactions: Essays in Honor of Antonino Forte, edited by Victor H. Mair, 235–89. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2017.

Suzuki Takayasu. “The Mahāmeghasūtra as an Origin of an Interpolated Part of the Present Suvarṇaprabhāsa.” Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies 45, no. 1 (1996): 28–30.

Thurman, Robert A. F., trans. The Teaching of Vimalakīrti (Vimalakīrtinirdeśa, Toh 176). 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, 2017.

Ye Shaoyong (2023a). “Phun tshogs Tshe brtan, Dngos grub Tshe ring: A Preliminary Report on the ‘Burnt Manuscripts’ from Retreng Monastery; Bundle A.” In Śāntamatiḥ: Manuscripts for Life; Essays in Memory of Seishi Karashima, edited by Noriyuki Kudo, 447–65. Tokyo: International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology at Soka University, 2023.

Ye Shaoyong (2023b). “The Prophecy about Nāgārjuna in the Mahāmeghasūtra: A Perspective Based on the Sanskrit Manuscript Preserved in the Potala Palace.” Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies 71, no. 3 (2023): 62–67.

Yoshimura Shuki. The Denkar-ma: An Oldest Catalogue of the Tibetan Buddhist Canons. Kyoto: Ryukoku University, 1950.

Glossary

Types of attestation for names and terms of the corresponding source language

Attested in source text

This term is attested in a manuscript used as a source for this translation.

Attested in other text

This term is attested in other manuscripts with a parallel or similar context.

Attested in dictionary

This term is attested in dictionaries matching Tibetan to the corresponding language.

Approximate attestation

The attestation of this name is approximate. It is based on other names where the relationship between the Tibetan and source language is attested in dictionaries or other manuscripts.

Reconstruction from Tibetan phonetic rendering

This term is a reconstruction based on the Tibetan phonetic rendering of the term.

Reconstruction from Tibetan semantic rendering

This term is a reconstruction based on the semantics of the Tibetan translation.

Source unspecified

This term has been supplied from an unspecified source, which most often is a widely trusted dictionary.

g.1

Abides in the Certainty of the Hero’s Steadfast Asceticism

dpa’ brtan brtul zhugs nges pa la nye bar gnas pa

དཔའ་བརྟན་བརྟུལ་ཞུགས་ངེས་པ་ལ་ཉེ་བར་གནས་པ།

g.2

Abiding Long as Indra

brgya byin lhar ’dzin yun ring gnas

བརྒྱ་བྱིན་ལྷར་འཛིན་ཡུན་རིང་གནས།

g.3

Abode of All Non-Buddhists

mu stegs thams cad kyi gnas

མུ་སྟེགས་ཐམས་ཅད་ཀྱི་གནས།

g.4

Abode of Prosperity

dpal ’byor gnas

དཔལ་འབྱོར་གནས།

g.5

Abundant Beauty

mdzes ’byor

མཛེས་འབྱོར།

g.6

Abundant Harvest

lo tog ’byor ma

ལོ་ཏོག་འབྱོར་མ།

g.7

Admired by All Worlds

’jig rten thams cad kyis mthong na dga’ ba

འཇིག་རྟེན་ཐམས་ཅད་ཀྱིས་མཐོང་ན་དགའ་བ།

g.8

Adorned with Cat’s Gait

byi la ’gros mdzes

བྱི་ལ་འགྲོས་མཛེས།

g.9

Adorned with Rākṣasa Earrings

srin phyis kyis rna cha gdub ’khor can

སྲིན་ཕྱིས་ཀྱིས་རྣ་ཆ་གདུབ་འཁོར་ཅན།

g.10

Adorned with Rat Teeth

byi so mdzes

བྱི་སོ་མཛེས།

g.11

affliction

nyon mongs pa

ཉོན་མོངས་པ།

kleśa

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

The essentially pure nature of mind is obscured and afflicted by various psychological defilements, which destroy the mind’s peace and composure and lead to unwholesome deeds of body, speech, and mind, acting as causes for continued existence in saṃsāra. Included among them are the primary afflictions of desire (rāga), anger (dveṣa), and ignorance (avidyā). It is said that there are eighty-four thousand of these negative mental qualities, for which the eighty-four thousand categories of the Buddha’s teachings serve as the antidote.

Kleśa is also commonly translated as “negative emotions,” “disturbing emotions,” and so on. The Pāli kilesa, Middle Indic kileśa, and Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit kleśa all primarily mean “stain” or “defilement.” The translation “affliction” is a secondary development that derives from the more general (non-Buddhist) classical understanding of √kliś (“to harm,“ “to afflict”). Both meanings are noted by Buddhist commentators.

g.12

Agasti the Holder of Rāma’s Bow

ri byi rangs byed gzhu can

རི་བྱི་རངས་བྱེད་གཞུ་ཅན།

g.13

aggregate

phung po

ཕུང་པོ།

skandha

g.14

Akṣobhya

mi g.yo ba

མི་གཡོ་བ།

akṣobhya

g.15

All Conquering

kun tu rgyal

ཀུན་ཏུ་རྒྱལ།

g.16

All Equal

thams cad mnyam pa

ཐམས་ཅད་མཉམ་པ།

g.17

Amitābha

’od dpag med

འོད་དཔག་མེད།

amitābha

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

The buddha of the western buddhafield of Sukhāvatī, where fortunate beings are reborn to make further progress toward spiritual maturity. Amitābha made his great vows to create such a realm when he was a bodhisattva called Dharmākara. In the Pure Land Buddhist tradition, popular in East Asia, aspiring to be reborn in his buddha realm is the main emphasis; in other Mahāyāna traditions, too, it is a widespread practice. For a detailed description of the realm, see The Display of the Pure Land of Sukhāvatī, Toh 115. In some tantras that make reference to the five families he is the tathāgata associated with the lotus family.

Amitābha, “Infinite Light,” is also known in many Indian Buddhist works as Amitāyus, “Infinite Life.” In both East Asian and Tibetan Buddhist traditions he is often conflated with another buddha named “Infinite Life,” Aparimitāyus, or “Infinite Life and Wisdom,”Aparimitāyurjñāna, the shorter version of whose name has also been back-translated from Tibetan into Sanskrit as Amitāyus but who presides over a realm in the zenith. For details on the relation between these buddhas and their names, see The Aparimitāyurjñāna Sūtra (1) Toh 674, i.9.

g.18

Ānanda

kun dga’ bo

ཀུན་དགའ་བོ།

ānanda

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

A major śrāvaka disciple and personal attendant of the Buddha Śākyamuni during the last twenty-five years of his life. He was a cousin of the Buddha (according to the Mahāvastu, he was a son of Śuklodana, one of the brothers of King Śuddhodana, which means he was a brother of Devadatta; other sources say he was a son of Amṛtodana, another brother of King Śuddhodana, which means he would have been a brother of Aniruddha).

Ānanda, having always been in the Buddha’s presence, is said to have memorized all the teachings he heard and is celebrated for having recited all the Buddha’s teachings by memory at the first council of the Buddhist saṅgha, thus preserving the teachings after the Buddha’s parinirvāṇa. The phrase “Thus did I hear at one time,” found at the beginning of the sūtras, usually stands for his recitation of the teachings. He became a patriarch after the passing of Mahākāśyapa.

g.19

Anavatapta

ma dros pa

མ་དྲོས་པ།

anavatapta

g.20

Appearance of Beryl-Like Light

bai dUr+ya ltar ’od snang ba

བཻ་དཱུརྱ་ལྟར་འོད་སྣང་བ།

g.21

apsaras

lha’i bu mo

ལྷའི་བུ་མོ།

apsaras

g.22

army in its four divisions

dpung gi tshogs yan lag bzhi pa

དཔུང་གི་ཚོགས་ཡན་ལག་བཞི་པ།

caturaṅgabala

g.23

Arousing Strength

gyad la skul

གྱད་ལ་སྐུལ།

g.24

Ascetic

dka’ thub can

དཀའ་ཐུབ་ཅན།

g.25

Ashen Locks

thal ba’i gtsug phud can

ཐལ་བའི་གཙུག་ཕུད་ཅན།

g.26

Aśoka

mya ngan med

མྱ་ངན་མེད།

aśoka

g.27

Aspiring to Leave Behind the Sanctuary

gnas ’jog sel brtson

གནས་འཇོག་སེལ་བརྩོན།

g.28

asura

lha ma yin

ལྷ་མ་ཡིན།

asura

g.29

at peace, deeply at peace, fully at peace

zhi ba/ rab tu zhi ba/ nye bar zhi ba/

ཞི་བ། རབ་ཏུ་ཞི་བ། ཉེ་བར་ཞི་བ།

śānta praśānta upaśānta

g.30

Authentic Perception

yang dag par mthong ba

ཡང་དག་པར་མཐོང་བ།

g.31

Bald Ṛṣi

drang srong byi bo

དྲང་སྲོང་བྱི་བོ།

g.32

base

gnas

གནས།

g.33

Bearing the Cymbals of the Jewel of Knowledge

rig sngags kyi nor bu sil sil ’chang

རིག་སྔགས་ཀྱི་ནོར་བུ་སིལ་སིལ་འཆང་།

g.34

Beautiful and Charming

legs mthong yid ’phrog

ལེགས་མཐོང་ཡིད་འཕྲོག

g.35

Beautiful Coral

byi ru bzang

བྱི་རུ་བཟང་།

g.36

Beautiful Garland

phreng mdzes can

ཕྲེང་མཛེས་ཅན།

g.37

Bee-King Face

bud rgyal gdong

བུད་རྒྱལ་གདོང་།

g.38

Benighted

mun pa can

མུན་པ་ཅན།

g.39

Beryl Light

bai dUr+ya’i ’od

བཻ་དཱུརྱའི་འོད།

g.40

bhagavān

bcom ldan ’das

བཅོམ་ལྡན་འདས།

bhagavān

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

In Buddhist literature, this is an epithet applied to buddhas, most often to Śākyamuni. The Sanskrit term generally means “possessing fortune,” but in specifically Buddhist contexts it implies that a buddha is in possession of six auspicious qualities (bhaga) associated with complete awakening. The Tibetan term‍—where bcom is said to refer to “subduing” the four māras, ldan to “possessing” the great qualities of buddhahood, and ’das to “going beyond” saṃsāra and nirvāṇa‍—possibly reflects the commentarial tradition where the Sanskrit bhagavat is interpreted, in addition, as “one who destroys the four māras.” This is achieved either by reading bhagavat as bhagnavat (“one who broke”), or by tracing the word bhaga to the root √bhañj (“to break”).

g.41

Bharadvaja-Tree Bark

b+ha ra dwa dza shing shun can

བྷ་ར་དྭ་ཛ་ཤིང་ཤུན་ཅན།

g.42

bhikṣu

dge slong

དགེ་སློང་།

bhikṣu

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

The term bhikṣu, often translated as “monk,” refers to the highest among the eight types of prātimokṣa vows that make one part of the Buddhist assembly. The Sanskrit term literally means “beggar” or “mendicant,” referring to the fact that Buddhist monks and nuns‍—like other ascetics of the time‍—subsisted on alms (bhikṣā) begged from the laity.

In the Tibetan tradition, which follows the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya, a monk follows 253 rules as part of his moral discipline. A nun (bhikṣuṇī; dge slong ma) follows 364 rules. A novice monk (śrāmaṇera; dge tshul) or nun (śrāmaṇerikā; dge tshul ma) follows thirty-six rules of moral discipline (although in other vinaya traditions novices typically follow only ten).

g.43

bhikṣuṇī

dge slong ma

དགེ་སློང་མ།

bhikṣuṇī

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

The term bhikṣuṇī, often translated as “nun,” refers to the highest among the eight types of prātimokṣa vows that make one part of the Buddhist assembly. The Sanskrit term bhikṣu (to which the female grammatical ending ṇī is added) literally means “beggar” or “mendicant,” referring to the fact that Buddhist nuns and monks‍—like other ascetics of the time‍—subsisted on alms (bhikṣā) begged from the laity. In the Tibetan tradition, which follows the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya, a bhikṣuṇī follows 364 rules and a bhikṣu follows 253 rules as part of their moral discipline.

For the first few years of the Buddha’s teachings in India, there was no ordination for women. It started at the persistent request and display of determination of Mahāprajāpatī, the Buddha’s stepmother and aunt, together with five hundred former wives of men of Kapilavastu, who had themselves become monks. Mahāprajāpatī is thus considered to be the founder of the nun’s order.

g.44

bhūta

’byung po

འབྱུང་པོ།

bhūta

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

This term in its broadest sense can refer to any being, whether human, animal, or nonhuman. However, it is often used to refer to a specific class of nonhuman beings, especially when bhūtas are mentioned alongside rākṣasas, piśācas, or pretas. In common with these other kinds of nonhumans, bhūtas are usually depicted with unattractive and misshapen bodies. Like several other classes of nonhuman beings, bhūtas take spontaneous birth. As their leader is traditionally regarded to be Rudra-Śiva (also known by the name Bhūta), with whom they haunt dangerous and wild places, bhūtas are especially prominent in Śaivism, where large sections of certain tantras concentrate on them.

g.45

Bird Throat

bya mgrin

བྱ་མགྲིན།

g.46

Bird’s Beak

bya mchu can

བྱ་མཆུ་ཅན།

g.47

Black Mountains

ri nag po rnams

རི་ནག་པོ་རྣམས།

kālaparvata

g.48

Blissful

bde ba can

བདེ་བ་ཅན།

sukhāvatī

g.49

bodhisattva

byang chub sems dpa’

བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།

bodhisattva

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

A being who is dedicated to the cultivation and fulfilment of the altruistic intention to attain perfect buddhahood, traversing the ten bodhisattva levels (daśabhūmi, sa bcu). Bodhisattvas purposely opt to remain within cyclic existence in order to liberate all sentient beings, instead of simply seeking personal freedom from suffering. In terms of the view, they realize both the selflessness of persons and the selflessness of phenomena.

g.50

Brahmā

tshangs pa

ཚངས་པ།

brahmā

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

A high-ranking deity presiding over a divine world; he is also considered to be the lord of the Sahā world (our universe). Though not considered a creator god in Buddhism, Brahmā occupies an important place as one of two gods (the other being Indra/Śakra) said to have first exhorted the Buddha Śākyamuni to teach the Dharma. The particular heavens found in the form realm over which Brahmā rules are often some of the most sought-after realms of higher rebirth in Buddhist literature. Since there are many universes or world systems, there are also multiple Brahmās presiding over them. His most frequent epithets are “Lord of the Sahā World” (sahāṃpati) and Great Brahmā (mahābrahman).

g.51

Brahmā world

tshangs pa’i ’jig rten

ཚངས་པའི་འཇིག་རྟེན།

brahmāloka

g.52

Brahmā youth

tshangs pa gzhon nu

ཚངས་པ་གཞོན་ནུ།

g.53

Bṛhaspati’s Science of Grammar

phur bu sgra rig

ཕུར་བུ་སྒྲ་རིག

g.54

Brilliant Lotus Storehouse

’od chags pad ma mdzod

འོད་ཆགས་པད་མ་མཛོད།

g.55

buddha heritage

sangs rgyas kyi gdung

སངས་རྒྱས་ཀྱི་གདུང་།

buddhagotra

g.56

Buddha’s Servant

sangs rgyas ’bangs

སངས་རྒྱས་འབངས།

g.57

cakravartin

khor los sgyur ba’i rgyal po

ཁོར་ལོས་སྒྱུར་བའི་རྒྱལ་པོ།

cakravartin

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

An ideal monarch or emperor who, as the result of the merit accumulated in previous lifetimes, rules over a vast realm in accordance with the Dharma. Such a monarch is called a cakravartin because he bears a wheel (cakra) that rolls (vartate) across the earth, bringing all lands and kingdoms under his power. The cakravartin conquers his territory without causing harm, and his activity causes beings to enter the path of wholesome actions. According to Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośa, just as with the buddhas, only one cakravartin appears in a world system at any given time. They are likewise endowed with the thirty-two major marks of a great being (mahāpuruṣalakṣaṇa), but a cakravartin’s marks are outshined by those of a buddha. They possess seven precious objects: the wheel, the elephant, the horse, the wish-fulfilling gem, the queen, the general, and the minister. An illustrative passage about the cakravartin and his possessions can be found in The Play in Full (Toh 95), 3.3–3.13.

Vasubandhu lists four types of cakravartins: (1) the cakravartin with a golden wheel (suvarṇacakravartin) rules over four continents and is invited by lesser kings to be their ruler; (2) the cakravartin with a silver wheel (rūpyacakravartin) rules over three continents and his opponents submit to him as he approaches; (3) the cakravartin with a copper wheel (tāmracakravartin) rules over two continents and his opponents submit themselves after preparing for battle; and (4) the cakravartin with an iron wheel (ayaścakravartin) rules over one continent and his opponents submit themselves after brandishing weapons.

g.58

Candragupta

zla ba skyong

ཟླ་བ་སྐྱོང་།

candragupta

g.59

caraka

spyod pa pa

སྤྱོད་པ་པ།

caraka

g.60

Chariot-Driving Glorious Lotus Essence

shing rta gtong ba’i pad ma’i snying po dpal

ཤིང་རྟ་གཏོང་བའི་པད་མའི་སྙིང་པོ་དཔལ།

g.61

Charming Hands

lag sgeg

ལག་སྒེག

g.62

Charming Youth

gzhon nu yid du ’ong ba

གཞོན་ནུ་ཡིད་དུ་འོང་བ།

g.63

Child’s Play

byis pa rtse

བྱིས་པ་རྩེ།

g.64

Clear-Limbed Deer Eyes

yan lag ’char ri dags mi

ཡན་ལག་འཆར་རི་དགས་མི།

g.65

Cleaved Head

mgo zed

མགོ་ཟེད།

g.66

Cloud

sprin

སྤྲིན།

g.67

Cloud Protector

sprin gyi bsrungs

སྤྲིན་གྱི་བསྲུངས།

g.68

Complete Defeat of Affliction

nyon mongs pa rnam par ’joms pa

ཉོན་མོངས་པ་རྣམ་པར་འཇོམས་པ།

g.69

conqueror

rgyal ba

རྒྱལ་བ།

jina

g.70

Conqueror’s Moon

rgyal ba’i zla ba

རྒྱལ་བའི་ཟླ་བ།

g.71

Conqueror’s Servant

rgyal ba’i ’bangs

རྒྱལ་བའི་འབངས།

g.72

Correct Practice

yang dag sbyor

ཡང་དག་སྦྱོར།

g.73

Courageous Intellect

dpa’ ba’i blo gros

དཔའ་བའི་བློ་གྲོས།

g.74

Crooked Teeth

so rad rod can

སོ་རད་རོད་ཅན།

g.75

Crying Out

ma la ’bod

མ་ལ་འབོད།

g.76

Deer Mother

ma ma ri dags

མ་མ་རི་དགས།

g.77

Defeating the Haughty Powerful Nāgas

klu’i stobs dang dregs pa ’joms pa

ཀླུའི་སྟོབས་དང་དྲེགས་པ་འཇོམས་པ།

g.78

defilement

zag pa

ཟག་པ།

āsrava

g.79

Definitively Possessing Noble Qualities

yon can nges pa

ཡོན་ཅན་ངེས་པ།

g.80

Delight of All Beings

skye bo thams cad dga’ ba

སྐྱེ་བོ་ཐམས་ཅད་དགའ་བ།

g.81

Delighting in the First Time

dus dang po la dga’ ba

དུས་དང་པོ་ལ་དགའ་བ།

g.82

Delights in Dharma

chos la mngon par dga’ ba

ཆོས་ལ་མངོན་པར་དགའ་བ།

g.83

Delights in Gnosis

ye shes la dga’ ba

ཡེ་ཤེས་ལ་དགའ་བ།

g.84

Delights in Subtle Gnosis

ye shes phra ba la dga’ ba

ཡེ་ཤེས་ཕྲ་བ་ལ་དགའ་བ།

g.85

Deserving of Fear

’jigs su rung ba

འཇིགས་སུ་རུང་བ།

g.86

Devadatta

lha sbyin

ལྷ་སྦྱིན།

devadatta

g.87

devaputra

lha’i bu

ལྷའི་བུ།

devaputra

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

In the most general sense the devas‍—the term is cognate with the English divine‍—are a class of celestial beings who frequently appear in Buddhist texts, often at the head of the assemblies of nonhuman beings who attend and celebrate the teachings of the Buddha Śākyamuni and other buddhas and bodhisattvas. In Buddhist cosmology the devas occupy the highest of the five or six “destinies” (gati) of saṃsāra among which beings take rebirth. The devas reside in the devalokas, “heavens” that traditionally number between twenty-six and twenty-eight and are divided between the desire realm (kāmadhātu), form realm (rūpadhātu), and formless realm (ārūpyadhātu). A being attains rebirth among the devas either through meritorious deeds (in the desire realm) or the attainment of subtle meditative states (in the form and formless realms). While rebirth among the devas is considered favorable, it is ultimately a transitory state from which beings will fall when the conditions that lead to rebirth there are exhausted. Thus, rebirth in the god realms is regarded as a diversion from the spiritual path.

g.88

dhāraṇī

gzungs

གཟུངས།

dhāraṇī

g.89

Dharma body

chos sku

ཆོས་སྐུ།

dharmakāya

g.90

Dharma Joy

chos dga’

ཆོས་དགའ།

g.91

Dharma Offering

chos byin

ཆོས་བྱིན།

g.92

Dharma Protector

chos skyong

ཆོས་སྐྱོང་།

g.93

Dharma realm

chos kyi dbyings

ཆོས་ཀྱི་དབྱིངས།

dharmadhātu

g.94

Dharma Teachings

chos sde

ཆོས་སྡེ།

g.95

discipline

tshul khrims

ཚུལ་ཁྲིམས།

śīla

g.96

Donkey’s Bray

bod skad can

བོད་སྐད་ཅན།

g.97

Earring Adorned

rna ’phyang rna cha gdub kor can

རྣ་འཕྱང་རྣ་ཆ་གདུབ་ཀོར་ཅན།

g.98

Earth Garland

sa steng phreng ba can

ས་སྟེང་ཕྲེང་བ་ཅན།

g.99

Earth Lord

sa’i dbang phyug

སའི་དབང་ཕྱུག

g.100

Earth Pacifier

sa steng zhi byed

ས་སྟེང་ཞི་བྱེད།

g.101

Earth Quaker

sa sgul

ས་སྒུལ།

g.102

eight liberations

rnam par thar pa brgyad

རྣམ་པར་ཐར་པ་བརྒྱད།

aṣṭavimokṣa

Eight stages in the pursuit of liberation. One common formulation of these stages is: (1) the liberation of viewing form while internally possessing the notion of form; (2) the liberation of viewing form while internally free from the notion of form; (3) the liberation of observing the sublime; (4) the liberation of the sensory sphere of infinite space; (5) the liberation of the sensory sphere of infinite consciousness; (6) the liberation of the sensory sphere of nothingness; (7) the liberation of the sensory sphere in which there are neither concepts nor the absence of concepts; (8) the liberation of the cessation of concepts and feelings.

g.103

eight unfree states

mi khom pa brgyad

མི་ཁོམ་པ་བརྒྱད།

aṣṭākṣana

g.104

element

khams

ཁམས།

dhātu

g.105

emanation body

sprul pa’i sku

སྤྲུལ་པའི་སྐུ།

nirmāṇakāya

g.106

empowered manifestation body

byin gyis brlabs pa’i lus

བྱིན་གྱིས་བརླབས་པའི་ལུས།

adhiṣṭhānakāya

g.107

empty, signless, and wishless

stong pa nyid dang mtshan ma med pa dang smon pa med pa

སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་དང་མཚན་མ་མེད་པ་དང་སྨོན་པ་མེད་པ།

śūnya-animitta-apraṇihita

g.108

Endurance

’jig rten gyi khams mi mjed

འཇིག་རྟེན་གྱི་ཁམས་མི་མཇེད།

sahā

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

The name for our world system, the universe of a thousand million worlds, or trichiliocosm, in which the four-continent world is located. Each trichiliocosm is ruled by a god Brahmā; thus, in this context, he bears the title of Sahāṃpati, Lord of Sahā. The world system of Sahā, or Sahālokadhātu, is also described as the buddhafield of the Buddha Śākyamuni where he teaches the Dharma to beings.

The name Sahā possibly derives from the Sanskrit √sah, “to bear, endure, or withstand.” It is often interpreted as alluding to the inhabitants of this world being able to endure the suffering they encounter. The Tibetan translation, mi mjed, follows along the same lines. It literally means “not painful,” in the sense that beings here are able to bear the suffering they experience.

g.109

Engaging in Profound Conduct

zab mo tshul chen po la ’jug pa

ཟབ་མོ་ཚུལ་ཆེན་པོ་ལ་འཇུག་པ།

g.110

Enjoying Bliss

bde spyod

བདེ་སྤྱོད།

g.111

Enjoying Jewels

nor bu spyod

ནོར་བུ་སྤྱོད།

g.112

Enjoys Māra’s Daughters

bdud kyi bu mo dga’ ba

བདུད་ཀྱི་བུ་མོ་དགའ་བ།

g.113

Enjoys Preparation

sta gon la dga’ ba

སྟ་གོན་ལ་དགའ་བ།

g.114

Enjoys Seizing by Force

shugs kyis ’khyig par len pa la dga’ ba

ཤུགས་ཀྱིས་འཁྱིག་པར་ལེན་པ་ལ་དགའ་བ།

g.115

Enjoys Subjugating the Clan of the Nāga King Vast Wealth

nor rgyas kyi bu’i rigs rab tu ’joms par dga’

ནོར་རྒྱས་ཀྱི་བུའི་རིགས་རབ་ཏུ་འཇོམས་པར་དགའ།

g.116

Enjoys the Stars

skar ma la dga’ ba

སྐར་མ་ལ་དགའ་བ།

g.117

Enjoys Utterly Defeating the Clan of the Nāga King Vast Wealth

nor rgyas kyi bu’i rigs gzhig par dga’ ba

ནོར་རྒྱས་ཀྱི་བུའི་རིགས་གཞིག་པར་དགའ་བ།

g.118

Entering into Ganges Stainlessness

gang gA dri ma med par ’jug pa

གང་གཱ་དྲི་མ་མེད་པར་འཇུག་པ།

g.119

Entering Profound Stainlessness

dri ma med pa zab mo la ’jug pa

དྲི་མ་མེད་པ་ཟབ་མོ་ལ་འཇུག་པ།

g.120

eon

bskal pa

བསྐལ་པ།

kalpa

A cosmic period of time. According to the traditional Abhidharma understanding of cyclical time, a great eon (mahākalpa) is divided into eighty lesser or intermediate eons. In the course of one great eon, the external universe and its sentient life takes form and later disappears. During the first twenty of the lesser eons, the universe is in the process of creation and expansion (vivartakalpa); during the next twenty it remains created; during the third twenty it is in the process of destruction or contraction (saṃvartakalpa); and during the last quarter of the cycle it remains in a state of destruction (saṃvartasthāyikalpa).

g.121

Essence of Gentle Glory

’jam dpal snying po

འཇམ་དཔལ་སྙིང་པོ།

g.122

Essence of Gnosis

ye shes snying po

ཡེ་ཤེས་སྙིང་པོ།

g.123

Essence of Inexhaustible Intellect

blo gros mi zad pa’i snying po

བློ་གྲོས་མི་ཟད་པའི་སྙིང་པོ།

g.124

Essence of Joy

dga’ ba’i snying po

དགའ་བའི་སྙིང་པོ།

g.125

Essence of Stainless Light

dri ma med pa’i snying po

དྲི་མ་མེད་པའི་སྙིང་པོ།

g.126

essence of the Tathāgata

de bzhin gshegs pa’i snying po

དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པའི་སྙིང་པོ།

tathāgatagarbha

g.127

essential body

rang bzhin gyi lus

རང་བཞིན་གྱི་ལུས།

g.128

excellent minor marks of the Tathāgata

de bzhin gshegs pa’i dpe byad bzang po

དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པའི་དཔེ་བྱད་བཟང་པོ།

g.129

Excellent Purity

gtsang ma bzang po

གཙང་མ་བཟང་པོ།

g.130

Extraordinary Family

khyad par can gyi rigs

ཁྱད་པར་ཅན་གྱི་རིགས།

g.131

Extraordinary Joy

khyad par dga’

ཁྱད་པར་དགའ།

g.132

Extremely Great

shin tu che ba

ཤིན་ཏུ་ཆེ་བ།

g.133

Far Seeing

ring mthong

རིང་མཐོང་།

g.134

Fiercely Wrathful Ferocious One

gtum po drag tu khro ba

གཏུམ་པོ་དྲག་ཏུ་ཁྲོ་བ།

g.135

Fine Blackness

nag po bzang

ནག་པོ་བཟང་།

g.136

Fine Jewel

nor bu bzang

ནོར་བུ་བཟང་།

g.137

five degeneracies

snyigs ma lnga

སྙིགས་མ་ལྔ།

pañcakaṣāya

g.138

five precepts

bslab pa’i gzhi lnga

བསླབ་པའི་གཞི་ལྔ།

pañcaśikṣāpada

g.139

five superknowledges

mngon par shes pa lnga

མངོན་པར་ཤེས་པ་ལྔ།

pañcābhijñā

g.140

Flower Earrings

me tog gi rna cha can

མེ་ཏོག་གི་རྣ་ཆ་ཅན།

g.141

Flower Victory Banner

me tog gi rgyal mtshan

མེ་ཏོག་གི་རྒྱལ་མཚན།

g.142

Forceful

shugs ldan ma

ཤུགས་ལྡན་མ།

g.143

Forceful Wind That Equals the Strength of a Great Mighty Elephant

spos kyi glang po che rlung gi stobs dang mnyam pa’i shugs can

སྤོས་ཀྱི་གླང་པོ་ཆེ་རླུང་གི་སྟོབས་དང་མཉམ་པའི་ཤུགས་ཅན།

g.144

Foremost of Gods

khyu mchog lha

ཁྱུ་མཆོག་ལྷ།

g.145

Fortunate Eon

bskal pa bzang po

བསྐལ་པ་བཟང་པོ།

bhadrakalpa

g.146

four aspects of sweetness

ro mngar ba rnam pa bzhi
ro mngar ba bzhi

རོ་མངར་བ་རྣམ་པ་བཞི།
རོ་མངར་བ་བཞི།

g.147

four elements

khams bzhi

ཁམས་བཞི།

caturdhātu

g.148

four fruitions

’bras bu bzhi

འབྲས་བུ་བཞི།

catuḥphala

g.149

Four Great Kings

rgyal chen bzhi

རྒྱལ་ཆེན་བཞི།

caturmahārāja

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

Four gods who live on the lower slopes (fourth level) of Mount Meru in the eponymous Heaven of the Four Great Kings (Cāturmahārājika, rgyal chen bzhi’i ris) and guard the four cardinal directions. Each is the leader of a nonhuman class of beings living in his realm. They are Dhṛtarāṣṭra, ruling the gandharvas in the east; Virūḍhaka, ruling over the kumbhāṇḍas in the south; Virūpākṣa, ruling the nāgas in the west; and Vaiśravaṇa (also known as Kubera) ruling the yakṣas in the north. Also referred to as Guardians of the World or World Protectors (lokapāla, ’jig rten skyong ba).

g.150

four means of gathering disciples

bsdu ba’i dngos po bzhi

བསྡུ་བའི་དངོས་པོ་བཞི།

catuḥsaṃgrahavastu

g.151

four unpleasant rebirths

ngan song bzhi

ངན་སོང་བཞི།

caturapāya

g.152

four wind kings

rlung gi rgyal po bzhi

རླུང་གི་རྒྱལ་པོ་བཞི།

g.153

Four World Guardians

’jig rten skyong ba bzhi

འཇིག་རྟེན་སྐྱོང་བ་བཞི།

caturlokapāla

g.154

fourfold assembly

’khor bzhi

འཁོར་བཞི།

catuḥparṣad
catuḥpariṣad

g.155

Fragrant Mountain

ri bo spos

རི་བོ་སྤོས།

gandhamādana

g.156

Fragrant Purity

gtsang ma bsung ldan

གཙང་མ་བསུང་ལྡན།

g.157

Frightening Form

skrag byed gzugs can

སྐྲག་བྱེད་གཟུགས་ཅན།

g.158

Fully Absorbing

mngon par sdud pa

མངོན་པར་སྡུད་པ།

g.159

gandharva

dri za

དྲི་ཟ།

gandharva

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

A class of generally benevolent nonhuman beings who inhabit the skies, sometimes said to inhabit fantastic cities in the clouds, and more specifically to dwell on the eastern slopes of Mount Meru, where they are ruled by the Great King Dhṛtarāṣṭra. They are most renowned as celestial musicians who serve the gods. In the Abhidharma, the term is also used to refer to the mental body assumed by sentient beings during the intermediate state between death and rebirth. Gandharvas are said to live on fragrances (gandha) in the desire realm, hence the Tibetan translation dri za, meaning “scent eater.”

g.160

Gandharva King Delightful Appearance

mthong na dga’ ba dri za’i rgyal po

མཐོང་ན་དགའ་བ་དྲི་ཟའི་རྒྱལ་པོ།

g.161

Ganges

gang gA

གང་གཱ།

gaṅgā

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

The Gaṅgā, or Ganges in English, is considered to be the most sacred river of India, particularly within the Hindu tradition. It starts in the Himalayas, flows through the northern plains of India, bathing the holy city of Vārāṇasī, and meets the sea at the Bay of Bengal, in Bangladesh. In the sūtras, however, this river is mostly mentioned not for its sacredness but for its abundant sands‍—noticeable still today on its many sandy banks and at its delta‍—which serve as a common metaphor for infinitely large numbers.

According to Buddhist cosmology, as explained in the Abhidharmakośa, it is one of the four rivers that flow from Lake Anavatapta and cross the southern continent of Jambudvīpa‍—the known human world or more specifically the Indian subcontinent.

g.162

Ganges Offering

gang gAs byin

གང་གཱས་བྱིན།

g.163

Ganges Protector

gang gAs skyong

གང་གཱས་སྐྱོང་།

g.164

Garland of Pleasant Sounds

phreng sgra snyan

ཕྲེང་སྒྲ་སྙན།

g.165

Garland of Stainless Light

dri ma med pa’i ’od kyi phreng ba can

དྲི་མ་མེད་པའི་འོད་ཀྱི་ཕྲེང་བ་ཅན།

g.166

garuḍa

mkha’ lding

མཁའ་ལྡིང་།

garuḍa

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

In Indian mythology, the garuḍa is an eagle-like bird that is regarded as the king of all birds, normally depicted with a sharp, owl-like beak, often holding a snake, and with large and powerful wings. They are traditionally enemies of the nāgas. In the Vedas, they are said to have brought nectar from the heavens to earth. Garuḍa can also be used as a proper name for a king of such creatures.

g.167

Gautama

gau ta ma

གཽ་ཏ་མ།

gautama

g.168

ghat

mu stegs

མུ་སྟེགས།

tīrtha

g.169

Gift of the Swamp

’dam bus byin

འདམ་བུས་བྱིན།

g.170

Glory of Complete Dedication to Joy

dga’ ba la rnam par mos pa’i dpal

དགའ་བ་ལ་རྣམ་པར་མོས་པའི་དཔལ།

g.171

Glory of Completely Victorious Army

thab mo las rnam par rgyal ba’i g.yul gyi dpal

ཐབ་མོ་ལས་རྣམ་པར་རྒྱལ་བའི་གཡུལ་གྱི་དཔལ།

g.172

Glory of Stainless Appearance

dri ma med par snang ba’i dpal

དྲི་མ་མེད་པར་སྣང་བའི་དཔལ།

g.173

gnosis

ye shes

ཡེ་ཤེས།

jñāna

g.174

Golden Face

gser mdog gdong

གསེར་མདོག་གདོང་།

g.175

Golden Wing Offering

gser gyi gshog pa sbyin

གསེར་གྱི་གཤོག་པ་སྦྱིན།

g.176

Golden-Haired Devourer of Ṛṣis

drang srong zas len skra ser

དྲང་སྲོང་ཟས་ལེན་སྐྲ་སེར།

g.177

Great Arms

lag chen

ལག་ཆེན།

g.178

Great Black One

nag po chen po

ནག་པོ་ཆེན་པོ།

g.179

Great Brilliance

’od chen

འོད་ཆེན།

g.180

Great Cloud Acting as a Guide

sprin chen ’dren spyod

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་འདྲེན་སྤྱོད།

g.181

Great Cloud Attainment of Coolness

sprin chen bsil bar gyur

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་བསིལ་བར་གྱུར།

g.182

Great Cloud Bathed in Precious Sandalwood

sprin chen rin chen tsan dan bsil ba’i lus

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་རིན་ཆེན་ཙན་དན་བསིལ་བའི་ལུས།

g.183

Great Cloud Bestowing All Medicines

sprin chen sman kun sbyin

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་སྨན་ཀུན་སྦྱིན།

g.184

Great Cloud Bliss of Renown

sprin chen grags pa’i bde ba

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་གྲགས་པའི་བདེ་བ།

g.185

Great Cloud Captain’s Eye

sprin chen ded dpon mig

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་དེད་དཔོན་མིག

g.186

Great Cloud Coolness of Tamala Leaves

sprin chen ta ma la’i lo ma bsil ba

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་ཏ་མ་ལའི་ལོ་མ་བསིལ་བ།

g.187

Great Cloud Correct View

sprin chen yang dag par lta ba

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་ཡང་དག་པར་ལྟ་བ།

g.188

Great Cloud Delighting in the Eternal Nature

sprin chen rtag pa’i rang bzhin la dga’ ba

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་རྟག་པའི་རང་བཞིན་ལ་དགའ་བ།

g.189

Great Cloud Dispelling Darkness

sprin chen mun sel

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་མུན་སེལ།

g.190

Great Cloud Dispelling Hail

sprin chen rim pa’i thog tog sel ba

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་རིམ་པའི་ཐོག་ཏོག་སེལ་བ།

g.191

Great Cloud Dispelling Stains

sprin chen dri ma sel

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་དྲི་མ་སེལ།

g.192

Great Cloud Entering into the Subtle Essence

sprin chen snying po phra ba la ’jug pa

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་སྙིང་པོ་ཕྲ་བ་ལ་འཇུག་པ།

g.193

Great Cloud Essence

sprin chen snying po

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་སྙིང་པོ།

g.194

Great Cloud Ever Watchful

sprin chen rtag tu lta ba

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་རྟག་ཏུ་ལྟ་བ།

g.195

Great Cloud Excellence

sprin chen dam pa

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་དམ་པ།

g.196

Great Cloud Fame

sprin chen grags

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་གྲགས།

g.197

Great Cloud Fearless Roar

sprin chen mi ’jigs sgra

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་མི་འཇིགས་སྒྲ།

g.198

Great Cloud Field of Merit

sprin chen bsod nams zhing

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་བསོད་ནམས་ཞིང་།

g.199

Great Cloud Fire-Like Lotus of Gnosis

sprin chen me lta bu’i ye shes kyi pad ma

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་མེ་ལྟ་བུའི་ཡེ་ཤེས་ཀྱི་པད་མ།

g.200

Great Cloud Fragrance of Perfume-Infused Utpala Flower

sprin chen bsgo bas bsgos pa’i ud pa la’i dri ldan

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་བསྒོ་བས་བསྒོས་པའི་ཨུད་པ་ལའི་དྲི་ལྡན།

g.201

Great Cloud Fully Exalted within Space

sprin chen mkha’ la mngon par ’phags

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་མཁའ་ལ་མངོན་པར་འཕགས།

g.202

Great Cloud Glorious Golden Mountain King

sprin chen gser gyi ri bo’i rgyal po’i dpal

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་གསེར་གྱི་རི་བོའི་རྒྱལ་པོའི་དཔལ།

g.203

Great Cloud Glorious Lotus Lamp

sprin chen sgron ma pad ma’i dpal

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་སྒྲོན་མ་པད་མའི་དཔལ།

g.204

Great Cloud Glory of Living Joyously

sprin chen dga’ bas ’tsho ba’i dpal

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་དགའ་བས་འཚོ་བའི་དཔལ།

g.205

Great Cloud Great Body

sprin chen lus chen

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་ལུས་ཆེན།

g.206

Great Cloud Heap

sprin chen brtsegs

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་བརྩེགས།

g.207

Great Cloud Heaped Crowns

sprin chen cod pan gyis spungs skyes pa

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་ཅོད་པན་གྱིས་སྤུངས་སྐྱེས་པ།

g.208

Great Cloud Infinitely Renowned as Exalted

sprin chen mngon par ’phags pa’i grags pa mtha’ yas

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་མངོན་པར་འཕགས་པའི་གྲགས་པ་མཐའ་ཡས།

g.209

Great Cloud Joyful Child without Craving

sprin chen dga’ ba sred med kyi bu

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་དགའ་བ་སྲེད་མེད་ཀྱི་བུ།

g.210

Great Cloud King of Magical Manifestation

sprin chen rnam par ’phrul pa’i rgyal po

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་རྣམ་པར་འཕྲུལ་པའི་རྒྱལ་པོ།

g.211

Great Cloud King of Skillful Analysis

sprin chen dpyod pa la mkhas pa’i rgyal po

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་དཔྱོད་པ་ལ་མཁས་པའི་རྒྱལ་པོ།

g.212

Great Cloud King of the Lion’s Roar

sprin chen seng ge sgra sgrogs rgyal po

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་སེང་གེ་སྒྲ་སྒྲོགས་རྒྱལ་པོ།

g.213

Great Cloud King of the Seeing Eye

sprin chen lta ba’i dus tshod rgyal po

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་ལྟ་བའི་དུས་ཚོད་རྒྱལ་པོ།

g.214

Great Cloud Light Protector

sprin chen ’od srung

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་འོད་སྲུང་།

g.215

Great Cloud Lightning Flash

sprin chen glog gi ’od

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་གློག་གི་འོད།

g.216

Great Cloud Lightning Net

sprin chen glog gi ’od kyi dra ba can

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་གློག་གི་འོད་ཀྱི་དྲ་བ་ཅན།

g.217

Great Cloud Lightning Offering

sprin chen glog sbyin

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་གློག་སྦྱིན།

g.218

Great Cloud Lord of Non-Buddhists

sprin chen mu stegs su gyur pa’i dbang phyug

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་མུ་སྟེགས་སུ་གྱུར་པའི་དབང་ཕྱུག

g.219

Great Cloud Lunar Brilliance

sprin chen zla ba’i gzi brjid

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་ཟླ་བའི་གཟི་བརྗིད།

g.220

Great Cloud Lush Face of the White Lotus of the Supreme Dharma

sprin chen dam pa’i chos mchog pad ma dkar po rgyas pa’i gdong

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་དམ་པའི་ཆོས་མཆོག་པད་མ་དཀར་པོ་རྒྱས་པའི་གདོང་།

g.221

Great Cloud Medicine King

sprin chen sman pa’i rgyal po

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་སྨན་པའི་རྒྱལ་པོ།

g.222

Great Cloud Most Skilled in Poetry

sprin chen snyan dngags mkhan gyi khyu mchog

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་སྙན་དངགས་མཁན་གྱི་ཁྱུ་མཆོག

g.223

Great Cloud Ocean of Intelligence

sprin chen blo gros rgya mtsho

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་བློ་གྲོས་རྒྱ་མཚོ།

g.224

Great Cloud Playful Gait

sprin chen rtsal gyis ’gro

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་རྩལ་གྱིས་འགྲོ།

g.225

Great Cloud Priceless Beryl

sprin chen rin thang med pa’i bai dUr+ya

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་རིན་ཐང་མེད་པའི་བཻ་དཱུརྱ།

g.226

Great Cloud Proclaimer of Certainty

sprin chen nges par sgra sgrogs

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་ངེས་པར་སྒྲ་སྒྲོགས།

g.227

Great Cloud Producer of Joy

sprin chen dga’ byed can

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་དགའ་བྱེད་ཅན།

g.228

Great Cloud Protector of Diligence

sprin chen brtson ’grus srung

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་བརྩོན་འགྲུས་སྲུང་།

g.229

Great Cloud Realization of the Continuity of the Excellent Dharma

sprin chen dam pa’i chos kyi rgyun rtogs

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་དམ་པའི་ཆོས་ཀྱི་རྒྱུན་རྟོགས།

g.230

Great Cloud Seed Protector

sprin chen sa bon srung

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་ས་བོན་སྲུང་།

g.231

Great Cloud Skilled in Marvels

sprin chen ya mtshan la mkhas pa

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་ཡ་མཚན་ལ་མཁས་པ།

g.232

Great Cloud Solar Essence

sprin chen nyi ma’i snying po

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་ཉི་མའི་སྙིང་པོ།

g.233

Great Cloud Sustained by Diligence

sprin chen brtson ’grus lto

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་བརྩོན་འགྲུས་ལྟོ།

g.234

Great Cloud Teacher

sprin chen ston par gyur pa

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་སྟོན་པར་གྱུར་པ།

g.235

Great Cloud Thunderclap

sprin chen ’brug bsgrags dbyangs

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་འབྲུག་བསྒྲགས་དབྱངས།

g.236

Great Cloud Thundering

sprin chen sgra ldan

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་སྒྲ་ལྡན།

g.237

Great Cloud Tiger

sprin chen stag

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་སྟག

g.238

Great Cloud Unmixed Conception That Does Not Apprehend Resounding

sprin chen rnam par sgrogs pa len pa med pa’i rtog pa ma ’dres pa

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་རྣམ་པར་སྒྲོགས་པ་ལེན་པ་མེད་པའི་རྟོག་པ་མ་འདྲེས་པ།

g.239

Great Cloud Utter Joy

sprin chen rab dga’

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་རབ་དགའ།

g.240

Great Cloud Vajra Glory

sprin chen rdo rje dpal

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་རྡོ་རྗེ་དཔལ།

g.241

Great Cloud Vast Intellect

sprin chen chu rgyas blo gros

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་ཆུ་རྒྱས་བློ་གྲོས།

g.242

Great Cloud Vast Light

sprin chen ’od rgyas

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་འོད་རྒྱས།

g.243

Great Cloud Victorious Army

sprin chen rnam par rgyal ba’i sde

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་རྣམ་པར་རྒྱལ་བའི་སྡེ།

g.244

Great Cloud Victorious Nāga Offering

sprin chen rnam par rgyal ba’i klus byin

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་རྣམ་པར་རྒྱལ་བའི་ཀླུས་བྱིན།

g.245

Great Cloud Victorious White Lotus

sprin chen rnam par rgyal ba’i pad ma dkar po

སྤྲིན་ཆེན་རྣམ་པར་རྒྱལ་བའི་པད་མ་དཀར་པོ།

g.246

Great Diligent Nāga

brtson ’grus chen po’i klu

བརྩོན་འགྲུས་ཆེན་པོའི་ཀླུ།

g.247

Great Elephant Face

glang po che’i gdong can

གླང་པོ་ཆེའི་གདོང་ཅན།

g.248

Great Elephant’s Trunk

glang po che’i rna ba can

གླང་པོ་ཆེའི་རྣ་བ་ཅན།

g.249

Great Fearsome Terrifier

’jigs chen ’jigs byed

འཇིགས་ཆེན་འཇིགས་བྱེད།

g.250

Great Glory

dpal chen

དཔལ་ཆེན།

g.251

Great Glory

dpal chen

དཔལ་ཆེན།

g.252

Great Light

’od chen

འོད་ཆེན།

g.253

Great Mount Mucilinda

btang bzung chen po

བཏང་བཟུང་ཆེན་པོ།

mahāmucilinda

g.254

Great Name

ming chen

མིང་ཆེན།

g.255

Great Roar

sgra bo che

སྒྲ་བོ་ཆེ།

g.256

Great Sands

bye ma chen po

བྱེ་མ་ཆེན་པོ།

g.257

Great Scattering Wind

rnam par ’thor rlung chen po

རྣམ་པར་འཐོར་རླུང་ཆེན་པོ།

g.258

Great Terrifier

’jigs byed chen po

འཇིགས་བྱེད་ཆེན་པོ།

g.259

great trichiliocosm world-system

stong gsum gyi stong chen po’i ’jig rten gyi khams

སྟོང་གསུམ་གྱི་སྟོང་ཆེན་པོའི་འཇིག་རྟེན་གྱི་ཁམས།

trisāhasramahāsāhasralokadhātu

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

The largest universe described in Buddhist cosmology. This term, in Abhidharma cosmology, refers to 1,000^³ world systems, i.e., 1,000 “dichiliocosms” or “two thousand great thousand world realms” (dvisāhasramahāsāhasralokadhātu), which are in turn made up of 1,000 first-order world systems, each with its own Mount Sumeru, continents, sun and moon, etc.

g.260

great wind king

rlung gi rgyal po chen po

རླུང་གི་རྒྱལ་པོ་ཆེན་པོ།

g.261

group of six monks

drug sde

དྲུག་སྡེ།

ṣaḍvargika

g.262

Guards the Senses

dbang po bsrungs

དབང་པོ་བསྲུངས།

g.263

Half-cakravartin

phyed kyi ’khor los sgyur ba’i rgyal po

ཕྱེད་ཀྱི་འཁོར་ལོས་སྒྱུར་བའི་རྒྱལ་པོ།

ardhacakravartin

g.264

Half-Moon Forehead

’phral ba zla gam ltar ’dug pa

འཕྲལ་བ་ཟླ་གམ་ལྟར་འདུག་པ།

g.265

Heaven of the Thirty-Three

sum cu rtsa gsum pa

སུམ་ཅུ་རྩ་གསུམ་པ།

trāyastriṃśa

g.266

hell realms

sems can dmyal ba

སེམས་ཅན་དམྱལ་བ།

naraka
nāraka

g.267

Holder of Amazing Glory

ma la dpal du ’dzin pa

མ་ལ་དཔལ་དུ་འཛིན་པ།

g.268

Holder of Excellent Dharma

dam pa’i chos ’dzin

དམ་པའི་ཆོས་འཛིན།

g.269

Holder of Great Jewels

rin chen ’chang

རིན་ཆེན་འཆང་།

g.270

Holder of Inexhaustible Enjoyments

longs spyod mi zad ’chang

ལོངས་སྤྱོད་མི་ཟད་འཆང་།

g.271

Holder of Sacred Nāga Water

klu’i ril pa can

ཀླུའི་རིལ་པ་ཅན།

g.272

Holder of Sacred Water Who Accepted the Five Kauravas

sgra mi snyan lnga len ril pa can

སྒྲ་མི་སྙན་ལྔ་ལེན་རིལ་པ་ཅན།

g.273

Holder of Water Power

chu’i shugs ’dzin

ཆུའི་ཤུགས་འཛིན།

g.274

Holding a Wish-Fulfilling Vine by the Head

mgo la ’khri shing thogs pa

མགོ་ལ་འཁྲི་ཤིང་ཐོགས་པ།

g.275

Holds the Rains in Her Hands

lag na sbrang chang thogs pa

ལག་ན་སྦྲང་ཆང་ཐོགས་པ།

g.276

House-Tunneling Robber

khyim ’bigs rkun po

ཁྱིམ་འབིགས་རྐུན་པོ།

g.277

householder

khyim bdag

ཁྱིམ་བདག

gṛhapati

g.278

Increasing Majesty

dpal ’phel

དཔལ་འཕེལ།

g.279

Increasing Purity and Truth

gtsang zhing bden pa’i mtshams ’phel bar mdzad pa

གཙང་ཞིང་བདེན་པའི་མཚམས་འཕེལ་བར་མཛད་པ།

g.280

Indra

dbang po

དབང་པོ།

indra

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

The lord of the Trāyastriṃśa heaven on the summit of Mount Sumeru. As one of the eight guardians of the directions, Indra guards the eastern quarter. In Buddhist sūtras, he is a disciple of the Buddha and protector of the Dharma and its practitioners. He is often referred to by the epithets Śatakratu, Śakra, and Kauśika.

g.281

Indra’s Offering

dbang pos byin

དབང་པོས་བྱིན།

g.282

Indra’s Standard

dbang po’i tog

དབང་པོའི་ཏོག

g.283

Inescapable Wrathful Brow

khro gnyer mig zur can

ཁྲོ་གཉེར་མིག་ཟུར་ཅན།

g.284

Inexhaustible Intellect

blo gros mi zad pa

བློ་གྲོས་མི་ཟད་པ།

g.285

Infinite Light

’od mtha’ yas

འོད་མཐའ་ཡས།

g.286

Intellect That Removes All Locks

bur ma sel ba’i blo gros

བུར་མ་སེལ་བའི་བློ་གྲོས།

g.287

Intelligence Resounding as a Lion’s Roar

seng ge’i sgra sgrogs blo gros

སེང་གེའི་སྒྲ་སྒྲོགས་བློ་གྲོས།

g.288

irreversibility

phyir mi ldog pa

ཕྱིར་མི་ལྡོག་པ།

avinivartanīya

g.289

Jambu river

’dzam bu’i chu bo

འཛམ་བུའི་ཆུ་བོ།

jambunadī

g.290

Jambudvīpa

’dzam bu’i gling

འཛམ་བུའི་གླིང་།

jambudvīpa

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

The name of the southern continent in Buddhist cosmology, which can signify either the known human world, or more specifically the Indian subcontinent, literally “the jambu island/continent.” Jambu is the name used for a range of plum-like fruits from trees belonging to the genus Szygium, particularly Szygium jambos and Szygium cumini, and it has commonly been rendered “rose apple,” although “black plum” may be a less misleading term. Among various explanations given for the continent being so named, one (in the Abhidharmakośa) is that a jambu tree grows in its northern mountains beside Lake Anavatapta, mythically considered the source of the four great rivers of India, and that the continent is therefore named from the tree or the fruit. Jambudvīpa has the Vajrāsana at its center and is the only continent upon which buddhas attain awakening.

g.291

Jewel Garland-Bearing Brahmā

tshangs pa rin chen phreng ba ’chang

ཚངས་པ་རིན་ཆེན་ཕྲེང་བ་འཆང་།

g.292

Jewel Protector

rin chen skyong

རིན་ཆེན་སྐྱོང་།

g.293

jīvañjīva

shang shang te’u

ཤང་ཤང་ཏེའུ།

jīvañjīva

g.294

Jīvañjīva’s Cry

shang shang te’u yi skad ’byin

ཤང་ཤང་ཏེའུ་ཡི་སྐད་འབྱིན།

g.295

Joy Garland King

phreng rgyal po

ཕྲེང་རྒྱལ་པོ།

g.296

Joy of Indra

brgya byin dga’ ba

བརྒྱ་བྱིན་དགའ་བ།

g.297

Joyful Conduct

bde spyod

བདེ་སྤྱོད།

g.298

Joyful Face

bzhin dga’

བཞིན་དགའ།

g.299

Joyful Faith in the Sacred Dharma

dam pa’i chos la dga’ mos

དམ་པའི་ཆོས་ལ་དགའ་མོས།

g.300

Joyful Mind

yid bde ba

ཡིད་བདེ་བ།

g.301

Kalandakanivāpa in the Veṇuvana

’od ma’i tshal bya ka lan da ka gnas pa

འོད་མའི་ཚལ་བྱ་ཀ་ལན་ད་ཀ་གནས་པ།

veṇuvana kalandakanivāpa

Kalandakanivāpa means “feeding place of the kalandakas,” and kalandaka may refer either to a flying squirrel or to a bird, as explained by differing sources. The Kalandakanivāpa was a place within the bamboo grove near Rājagṛha where the Buddha regularly stayed and gave teachings. It was situated on land donated by King Śreṇya Bimbisāra of Magadha and, as such, was the first of several landholdings donated to the Buddhist community during the time of the Buddha.

g.302

kalaviṅka

bya ka la ping ka

བྱ་ཀ་ལ་པིང་ཀ

kalaviṅka

g.303

Kātyāyanī

kA t+yA

ཀཱ་ཏྱཱ།

kātyāyanī

g.304

Kātyāyanīputra

kA t+yA’i bu

ཀཱ་ཏྱཱའི་བུ།

kātyāyanīputra

g.305

Kauṇḍinya

kauN+Di n+ya

ཀཽཎྜི་ནྱ།

kauṇḍinya

g.306

Kharjūrikā

’bra go can

འབྲ་གོ་ཅན།

kharjūrikā

g.307

Killer of Haughty Obstructers

dgra rig dregs ’joms gsod

དགྲ་རིག་དྲེགས་འཇོམས་གསོད།

g.308

King of Lion’s Play

seng ge rnam par rol pa’i rgyal po

སེང་གེ་རྣམ་པར་རོལ་པའི་རྒྱལ་པོ།

g.309

King of Pleasant Music

rangs byed kyi rol mo’i sa ’dzin

རངས་བྱེད་ཀྱི་རོལ་མོའི་ས་འཛིན།

g.310

kinnara

mi ’am ci

མི་འམ་ཅི།

kinnara

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

A class of nonhuman beings that resemble humans to the degree that their very name‍—which means “is that human?”‍—suggests some confusion as to their divine status. Kinnaras are mythological beings found in both Buddhist and Brahmanical literature, where they are portrayed as creatures half human, half animal. They are often depicted as highly skilled celestial musicians.

g.311

knowledge mantra

rig sngags

རིག་སྔགས།

vidyā

g.312

Kośala

ko sa la

ཀོ་ས་ལ།

kośala

g.313

Kṛṣṇa’s Offering

gling bu can

གླིང་བུ་ཅན།

g.314

Kumāra

gzhon nu

གཞོན་ནུ།

kumāra

g.315

kumbhāṇḍa

grul bum

གྲུལ་བུམ།

kumbhāṇḍa

g.316

Lamp of the Nāga Family

klu rigs sgron ma

ཀླུ་རིགས་སྒྲོན་མ།

g.317

Langur-Like Moon Face

spra bzhin zla ba gdong

སྤྲ་བཞིན་ཟླ་བ་གདོང་།

g.318

latent karmic tendencies

bag chags

བག་ཆགས།

vāsanā

g.319

Leader

sde bdag

སྡེ་བདག

g.320

Leaving Behind Desire

’dod pa la rgyab kyis phyogs pa

འདོད་པ་ལ་རྒྱབ་ཀྱིས་ཕྱོགས་པ།

g.321

Licchavi

lid tsha bI

ལིད་ཚ་བཱི།

licchavi

g.322

Light of Indra’s Banner

dbang po’i rgyal mtshan ’od

དབང་པོའི་རྒྱལ་མཚན་འོད།

g.323

Light of Precious Family

rin po che’i rigs kyi ’od

རིན་པོ་ཆེའི་རིགས་ཀྱི་འོད།

g.324

Lightning Garland

glog phreng can

གློག་ཕྲེང་ཅན།

g.325

Lightning-Pacifying Venerable

glog zhi byed btsun

གློག་ཞི་བྱེད་བཙུན།

g.326

Like a Plantain Tree

me tog sil ma

མེ་ཏོག་སིལ་མ།

g.327

links of conditioned existence

srid pa’i yan lag

སྲིད་པའི་ཡན་ལག

bhavāṅga

g.328

Lion Hero

seng ge dpa’ bo

སེང་གེ་དཔའ་བོ།

g.329

Lion Lamp

seng ge sgron ma

སེང་གེ་སྒྲོན་མ།

g.330

Lion-Like Hero

seng ge tar dpa’

སེང་གེ་ཏར་དཔའ།

g.331

Lord of the Devas

lha’i dbang po

ལྷའི་དབང་པོ།

devānām indraḥ

g.332

Lotus-Like Eyes

pad ma’i ’dab ma ’dra ba’i mig

པད་མའི་འདབ་མ་འདྲ་བའི་མིག

g.333

Luminous Renown

’od grags

འོད་གྲགས།

g.334

Luminous Renown of Joy

dga’ bar grags pa’i ’od

དགའ་བར་གྲགས་པའི་འོད།

g.335

Lustrous

sang sang

སང་སང་།

g.336

Lusts after Goddesses

lha’i bu mo la ’bod pa

ལྷའི་བུ་མོ་ལ་འབོད་པ།

g.337

Mahākapila

ser po chen po

སེར་པོ་ཆེན་པོ།

mahākapila

g.338

Mahākāśyapa

’od srung chen po

འོད་སྲུང་ཆེན་པོ།

mahākāśyapa

g.339

Mahāprajāpatī Gautamī

skye dgu’i bdag mo chen mo gau ta mI

སྐྱེ་དགུའི་བདག་མོ་ཆེན་མོ་གཽ་ཏ་མཱི།

mahāprajāpatī gautamī

g.340

Maheśvara

dbang phyug chen po

དབང་ཕྱུག་ཆེན་པོ།

maheśvara

g.341

mahoraga

lto ’phye chen po

ལྟོ་འཕྱེ་ཆེན་པོ།

mahoraga

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

Literally “great serpents,” mahoragas are supernatural beings depicted as large, subterranean beings with human torsos and heads and the lower bodies of serpents. Their movements are said to cause earthquakes, and they make up a class of subterranean geomantic spirits whose movement through the seasons and months of the year is deemed significant for construction projects.

g.342

makara

chu srin

ཆུ་སྲིན།

makara

g.343

Mallikā

phreng ldan ma

ཕྲེང་ལྡན་མ།

mallikā

g.344

Manasvin

gzi can

གཟི་ཅན།

manasvin

g.345

Māndārava Heap

man dAr ba brtsegs pa

མན་དཱར་བ་བརྩེགས་པ།

g.346

Manifest Beauty

mngon par sgeg ma

མངོན་པར་སྒེག་མ།

g.347

Manifest Clarity

mngon par dang ba

མངོན་པར་དང་བ།

g.348

Manifest Clarity

mngon par dang ba

མངོན་པར་དང་བ།

g.349

Manifest Delight in the Nutmeg Flower

sna ma’i me tog la mngon par dga’ ba

སྣ་མའི་མེ་ཏོག་ལ་མངོན་པར་དགའ་བ།

g.350

Manifest Sustenance

mngon par ’tsho bar byed pa

མངོན་པར་འཚོ་བར་བྱེད་པ།

g.351

Many Households

mang khyer

མང་ཁྱེར།

g.352

Māra

bdud

བདུད།

māra

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

Māra, literally “death” or “maker of death,” is the name of the deva who tried to prevent the Buddha from achieving awakening, the name given to the class of beings he leads, and also an impersonal term for the destructive forces that keep beings imprisoned in saṃsāra:

(1) As a deva, Māra is said to be the principal deity in the Heaven of Making Use of Others’ Emanations (paranirmitavaśavartin), the highest paradise in the desire realm. He famously attempted to prevent the Buddha’s awakening under the Bodhi tree‍—see The Play in Full (Toh 95), 21.1‍—and later sought many times to thwart the Buddha’s activity. In the sūtras, he often also creates obstacles to the progress of śrāvakas and bodhisattvas. (2) The devas ruled over by Māra are collectively called mārakāyika or mārakāyikadevatā, the “deities of Māra’s family or class.” In general, these māras too do not wish any being to escape from saṃsāra, but can also change their ways and even end up developing faith in the Buddha, as exemplified by Sārthavāha; see The Play in Full (Toh 95), 21.14 and 21.43. (3) The term māra can also be understood as personifying four defects that prevent awakening, called (i) the divine māra (devaputramāra), which is the distraction of pleasures; (ii) the māra of Death (mṛtyumāra), which is having one’s life interrupted; (iii) the māra of the aggregates (skandhamāra), which is identifying with the five aggregates; and (iv) the māra of the afflictions (kleśamāra), which is being under the sway of the negative emotions of desire, hatred, and ignorance.

g.353

marks of the Tathāgata

de bzhin gshegs pa’i mtshan

དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པའི་མཚན།

g.354

Maurya

mo’u r+ya

མོའུ་རྱ།

maurya

g.355

Meatless Food Offering

sha med zas sbyin

ཤ་མེད་ཟས་སྦྱིན།

g.356

meditative absorption

bsam gtan

བསམ་གཏན།

dhyāna

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

Dhyāna is defined as one-pointed abiding in an undistracted state of mind, free from afflicted mental states. Four states of dhyāna are identified as being conducive to birth within the form realm. In the context of the Mahāyāna, it is the fifth of the six perfections. It is commonly translated as “concentration,” “meditative concentration,” and so on.

g.357

Melody

gdangs snyan

གདངས་སྙན།

g.358

Mind Enchanting

yid ’phrog

ཡིད་འཕྲོག

g.359

Moon Crested

zla ba’i gtsug phud can

ཟླ་བའི་གཙུག་ཕུད་ཅན།

g.360

Mount Kailāśa

ti se’i gangs
ti se’i gangs can

ཏི་སེའི་གངས།
ཏི་སེའི་གངས་ཅན།

kailāśa

g.361

Mount Malaya

ri ma la ya

རི་མ་ལ་ཡ།

g.362

Mount Meru

ri rab

རི་རབ།

meru
sumeru

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

According to ancient Buddhist cosmology, this is the great mountain forming the axis of the universe. At its summit is Sudarśana, home of Śakra and his thirty-two gods, and on its flanks live the asuras. The mount has four sides facing the cardinal directions, each of which is made of a different precious stone. Surrounding it are several mountain ranges and the great ocean where the four principal island continents lie: in the south, Jambudvīpa (our world); in the west, Godānīya; in the north, Uttarakuru; and in the east, Pūrvavideha. Above it are the abodes of the desire realm gods. It is variously referred to as Meru, Mount Meru, Sumeru, and Mount Sumeru.

g.363

Mount Mucilinda

ri btang bzung

རི་བཏང་བཟུང་།

mucilinda

g.364

Mountaintop Cloud

ri bo dang sprin lta bu

རི་བོ་དང་སྤྲིན་ལྟ་བུ།

g.365

muni

thub pa

ཐུབ་པ།

muni

g.366

nāga

ཀླུ།

nāga

g.367

Nāga City

klu khyer

ཀླུ་ཁྱེར།

g.368

Nāga Glory

klu dpal

ཀླུ་དཔལ།

g.369

Nāga Head

klu mgo

ཀླུ་མགོ

g.370

nāga king

klu’i rgyal po

ཀླུའི་རྒྱལ་པོ།

nāgarāja

g.371

Nāga Protector

klus skyong

ཀླུས་སྐྱོང་།

g.372

nine categories of discourses

yan lag dgu’i mdo

ཡན་ལག་དགུའི་མདོ།

navāṅgaśāsana

g.373

nirgrantha

gcer bu pa

གཅེར་བུ་པ།

nirgrantha

g.374

non-Buddhist

mu stegs

མུ་སྟེགས།

tīrthika

g.375

non-returning

phyir mi ’ong ba

ཕྱིར་མི་འོང་བ།

anāgāmin

g.376

Obsidian Hair

stang zil gtsug phud

སྟང་ཟིལ་གཙུག་ཕུད།

g.377

Ocean Stirrer

rgya mtsho ’khrug byed

རྒྱ་མཚོ་འཁྲུག་བྱེད།

g.378

Oceanic Intellect

blo gros rgya mtsho

བློ་གྲོས་རྒྱ་མཚོ།

g.379

once-returning

lan cig phyir ’ong ba

ལན་ཅིག་ཕྱིར་འོང་བ།

sakṛdāgāmin

g.380

Padma

pad ma

པད་མ།

padma

g.381

Pañcāla

ban tsa

བན་ཙ།

pañcāla

g.382

parinirvāṇa

yongs su mya ngan las ’das pa

ཡོངས་སུ་མྱ་ངན་ལས་འདས་པ།

parinirvāṇa

g.383

Pinnacle of Guarding All Sacred Dharmas

dam pa’i chos kun tu srung ba’i tog tu gyur pa

དམ་པའི་ཆོས་ཀུན་ཏུ་སྲུང་བའི་ཏོག་ཏུ་གྱུར་པ།

g.384

piśāca

sha za

ཤ་ཟ།

piśāca

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

A class of nonhuman beings that, like several other classes of nonhuman beings, take spontaneous birth. Ranking below rākṣasas, they are less powerful and more akin to pretas. They are said to dwell in impure and perilous places, where they feed on impure things, including flesh. This could account for the name piśāca, which possibly derives from √piś, to carve or chop meat, as reflected also in the Tibetan sha za, “meat eater.” They are often described as having an unpleasant appearance, and at times they appear with animal bodies. Some possess the ability to enter the dead bodies of humans, thereby becoming so-called vetāla, to touch whom is fatal.

g.385

Played by Five

lngas rtsen

ལྔས་རྩེན།

g.386

Pleasant Glory

rangs byed dpal

རངས་བྱེད་དཔལ།

g.387

Pleasing Proclamation of Great Loving-Kindness

byams pa chen po’i tshig snyan par sgrogs pa

བྱམས་པ་ཆེན་པོའི་ཚིག་སྙན་པར་སྒྲོགས་པ།

g.388

Pleasing to Women’s Hearts

bud med kyi snying du sdug pa

བུད་མེད་ཀྱི་སྙིང་དུ་སྡུག་པ།

g.389

Poisonless

dug med

དུག་མེད།

g.390

Possessing Various Garlands

phreng ba sna tshogs can

ཕྲེང་བ་སྣ་ཚོགས་ཅན།

g.391

Power of Blazing Fire

me’i gzi brjid kyi shugs can

མེའི་གཟི་བརྗིད་ཀྱི་ཤུགས་ཅན།

g.392

Prasenajit

gsal rgyal

གསལ་རྒྱལ།

prasenajit

g.393

pratimokṣa vows

so sor thar pa’i sdom pa

སོ་སོར་ཐར་པའི་སྡོམ་པ།

prātimokśasaṃvara

g.394

pratyekabuddha

rang sangs rgyas

རང་སངས་རྒྱས།

pratyekabuddha

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

Literally, “buddha for oneself” or “solitary realizer.” Someone who, in his or her last life, attains awakening entirely through their own contemplation, without relying on a teacher. Unlike the awakening of a fully realized buddha (samyaksambuddha), the accomplishment of a pratyekabuddha is not regarded as final or ultimate. They attain realization of the nature of dependent origination, the selflessness of the person, and a partial realization of the selflessness of phenomena, by observing the suchness of all that arises through interdependence. This is the result of progress in previous lives but, unlike a buddha, they do not have the necessary merit, compassion or motivation to teach others. They are named as “rhinoceros-like” (khaḍgaviṣāṇakalpa) for their preference for staying in solitude or as “congregators” (vargacārin) when their preference is to stay among peers.

g.395

Precious Flower

rin chen me tog

རིན་ཆེན་མེ་ཏོག

g.396

Precious Glory

rin chen dpal

རིན་ཆེན་དཔལ།

g.397

Precious Lotus

rin chen pad ma

རིན་ཆེན་པད་མ།

g.398

Precious Victory Banner

rin chen rgyal mtshan

རིན་ཆེན་རྒྱལ་མཚན།

g.399

Precious Voice

rin chen mgrin dbyangs

རིན་ཆེན་མགྲིན་དབྱངས།

g.400

preta

gcod byed

གཅོད་བྱེད།

preta

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

One of the five or six classes of sentient beings, into which beings are born as the karmic fruition of past miserliness. As the term in Sanskrit means “the departed,” they are analogous to the ancestral spirits of Vedic tradition, the pitṛs, who starve without the offerings of descendants. It is also commonly translated as “hungry ghost” or “starving spirit,” as in the Chinese 餓鬼 e gui.

They are sometimes said to reside in the realm of Yama, but are also frequently described as roaming charnel grounds and other inhospitable or frightening places along with piśācas and other such beings. They are particularly known to suffer from great hunger and thirst and the inability to acquire sustenance. Detailed descriptions of their realm and experience, including a list of the thirty-six classes of pretas, can be found in The Application of Mindfulness of the Sacred Dharma, Toh 287, 2.1281– 2.1482.

g.401

Profound Definitive Proclamation

nges par sgra sgrogs zab mo

ངེས་པར་སྒྲ་སྒྲོགས་ཟབ་མོ།

g.402

Profound Instruction

zab mo’i tshul bsgos

ཟབ་མོའི་ཚུལ་བསྒོས།

g.403

Protector of Excellence

bzang skyong

བཟང་སྐྱོང་།

g.404

Pure Venerable Family

rigs btsun pa rnam par dag pa

རིགས་བཙུན་པ་རྣམ་པར་དག་པ།

g.405

Purity and Truth

gtsang zhing bden pa’i mtshams

གཙང་ཞིང་བདེན་པའི་མཚམས།

g.406

Radiant Appearance

blta na ’od chags

བལྟ་ན་འོད་ཆགས།

g.407

Radiant Source of Gnosis

ye shes ’byung gnas ’od

ཡེ་ཤེས་འབྱུང་གནས་འོད།

g.408

Rāhu

sgra gcan

སྒྲ་གཅན།

rāhu

g.409

Rāhula

sgra gcan
sgra gcan zin

སྒྲ་གཅན།
སྒྲ་གཅན་ཟིན།

rāhula

g.410

Rājagṛha

rgyal po’i khab

རྒྱལ་པོའི་ཁབ།

rājagṛha

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

The ancient capital of Magadha prior to its relocation to Pāṭaliputra during the Mauryan dynasty, Rājagṛha is one of the most important locations in Buddhist history. The literature tells us that the Buddha and his saṅgha spent a considerable amount of time in residence in and around Rājagṛha‍—in nearby places, such as the Vulture Peak Mountain (Gṛdhrakūṭaparvata), a major site of the Mahāyāna sūtras, and the Bamboo Grove (Veṇuvana)‍—enjoying the patronage of King Bimbisāra and then of his son King Ajātaśatru. Rājagṛha is also remembered as the location where the first Buddhist monastic council was held after the Buddha Śākyamuni passed into parinirvāṇa. Now known as Rajgir and located in the modern Indian state of Bihar.

g.411

rākṣasa

srin po

སྲིན་པོ།

rākṣasa

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

A class of nonhuman beings that are often, but certainly not always, considered demonic in the Buddhist tradition. They are often depicted as flesh-eating monsters who haunt frightening places and are ugly and evil-natured with a yearning for human flesh, and who additionally have miraculous powers, such as being able to change their appearance.

g.412

Ravishing Women’s Minds

bud med sems ’phrog

བུད་མེད་སེམས་འཕྲོག

g.413

Refined Purity

gtsang ma sbyong ba

གཙང་མ་སྦྱོང་བ།

g.414

Rejoices in the Dhāraṇī of the Precious Garland

rin po che’i phreng ba’i gzungs la dga’ ba

རིན་པོ་ཆེའི་ཕྲེང་བའི་གཟུངས་ལ་དགའ་བ།

g.415

Renowned for Delightful Magical Manifestations

rnam par ’phrul pas dang bar byed pa’i grags pa

རྣམ་པར་འཕྲུལ་པས་དང་བར་བྱེད་པའི་གྲགས་པ།

g.416

Renowned for Joyous Faith

dga’ zhing dang ba’i grags pa

དགའ་ཞིང་དང་བའི་གྲགས་པ།

g.417

Reviled by the Land

yul gyis g.yon spyo ba

ཡུལ་གྱིས་གཡོན་སྤྱོ་བ།

g.418

Rib Roaster

rtsib ma sreg

རྩིབ་མ་སྲེག

g.419

Roaring in Front of King Splendid Robe

thag zangs ris kyi mdun na sgra sgrogs

ཐག་ཟངས་རིས་ཀྱི་མདུན་ན་སྒྲ་སྒྲོགས།

g.420

Roaring Wind

’ur ’ur

འུར་འུར།

g.421

ṛṣi

drang srong

དྲང་སྲོང་།

ṛṣi

g.422

Rumbling Like Drums

rnga bo che dang cang te’u yi sgra ltar dir dir

རྔ་བོ་ཆེ་དང་ཅང་ཏེའུ་ཡི་སྒྲ་ལྟར་དིར་དིར།

g.423

Sacred

dam pa

དམ་པ།

g.424

Sacred Goddess

dam pa lha mo

དམ་པ་ལྷ་མོ།

g.425

Sacred Goddess Who Upholds the Teachings and Delights in the Great Vehicle

dam pa lha mo theg pa chen po la rab tu dga’ bar sems pa bstan pa ’dzin pa

དམ་པ་ལྷ་མོ་ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོ་ལ་རབ་ཏུ་དགའ་བར་སེམས་པ་བསྟན་པ་འཛིན་པ།

g.426

Sāgara

rgya mtsho

རྒྱ་མཚོ།

sāgara

g.427

Sage of Mount Kailāśa

ti se’i gangs thub

ཏི་སེའི་གངས་ཐུབ།

g.428

Śakra

brgya byin

བརྒྱ་བྱིན།

śakra

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

The lord of the gods in the Heaven of the Thirty-Three (trāyastriṃśa). Alternatively known as Indra, the deity that is called “lord of the gods” dwells on the summit of Mount Sumeru and wields the thunderbolt. The Tibetan translation brgya byin (meaning “one hundred sacrifices”) is based on an etymology that śakra is an abbreviation of śata-kratu, one who has performed a hundred sacrifices. Each world with a central Sumeru has a Śakra. Also known by other names such as Kauśika, Devendra, and Śacipati.

g.429

Śākya

shAkya

ཤཱཀྱ།

śākya

g.430

samādhi

ting nge ’dzin

ཏིང་ངེ་འཛིན།

samādhi

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

In a general sense, samādhi can describe a number of different meditative states. In the Mahāyāna literature, in particular in the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras, we find extensive lists of different samādhis, numbering over one hundred.

In a more restricted sense, and when understood as a mental state, samādhi is defined as the one-pointedness of the mind (cittaikāgratā), the ability to remain on the same object over long periods of time. The Drajor Bamponyipa (sgra sbyor bam po gnyis pa) commentary on the Mahāvyutpatti explains the term samādhi as referring to the instrument through which mind and mental states “get collected,” i.e., it is by the force of samādhi that the continuum of mind and mental states becomes collected on a single point of reference without getting distracted.

g.431

Scattering Wind

rnam par ’thor rlung

རྣམ་པར་འཐོར་རླུང་།

g.432

sense base

skye mched

སྐྱེ་མཆེད།

āyatana

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

These can be listed as twelve or as six sense sources (sometimes also called sense fields, bases of cognition, or simply āyatanas).

In the context of epistemology, it is one way of describing experience and the world in terms of twelve sense sources, which can be divided into inner and outer sense sources, namely: (1–2) eye and form, (3–4) ear and sound, (5–6) nose and odor, (7–8) tongue and taste, (9–10) body and touch, (11–12) mind and mental phenomena.

In the context of the twelve links of dependent origination, only six sense sources are mentioned, and they are the inner sense sources (identical to the six faculties) of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind.

g.433

seven precious substances

rin po che sna bdun

རིན་པོ་ཆེ་སྣ་བདུན།

saptaratna

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

The set of seven precious materials or substances includes a range of precious metals and gems, but their exact list varies. The set often consists of gold, silver, beryl, crystal, red pearls, emeralds, and white coral, but may also contain lapis lazuli, ruby, sapphire, chrysoberyl, diamonds, etc. The term is frequently used in the sūtras to exemplify preciousness, wealth, and beauty, and can describe treasures, offering materials, or the features of architectural structures such as stūpas, palaces, thrones, etc. The set is also used to describe the beauty and prosperity of buddha realms and the realms of the gods.

In other contexts, the term saptaratna can also refer to the seven precious possessions of a cakravartin or to a set of seven precious moral qualities.

g.434

Sharpest Teeth

mche ba mchog tu rno

མཆེ་བ་མཆོག་ཏུ་རྣོ།

g.435

Sheep Face

lug gdong

ལུག་གདོང་།

g.436

Shining Like Gold

gser ltar gsal ba

གསེར་ལྟར་གསལ་བ།

g.437

Shower of Jewels

rin chen char ’bebs

རིན་ཆེན་ཆར་འབེབས།

g.438

sixteen great inexpiable occupations

las mi zad pa chen po bcu drug

ལས་མི་ཟད་པ་ཆེན་པོ་བཅུ་དྲུག

These are described in the Nirvāṇa Sūtra as (1) raising and fattening sheep for market, (2) butchering sheep for profit, (3) raising and fattening pigs for market, (4) butchering pigs for profit, (5) raising and fattening cattle for market, (6) butchering cattle for profit, (7) raising and fattening fowl for market, (8) butchering fowl for profit, (9) fishing, (10) hunting, being a (11) brigand, (12) executioner, (13) bird catcher, (14) liar, (15) or jailer, and (16) casting incantations on nāgas.

g.439

sixteen great occupations

las chen po bcu drug

ལས་ཆེན་པོ་བཅུ་དྲུག

g.440

Skilled at Proclaiming the Abodes

gnas sgrogs mkhas

གནས་སྒྲོགས་མཁས།

g.441

Skillful Manner

tshul la mkhas pa

ཚུལ་ལ་མཁས་པ།

g.442

Skull Cup with Ears

rna bcas thod pa can

རྣ་བཅས་ཐོད་པ་ཅན།

g.443

Sky Treasury

nam mkha’ mdzod

ནམ་མཁའ་མཛོད།

g.444

Son of Infinitely Vast Wealth

mtha’ yas nor rgyas kyi bu

མཐའ་ཡས་ནོར་རྒྱས་ཀྱི་བུ།

g.445

Son of Nārada

mis byin gyi bu

མིས་བྱིན་གྱི་བུ།

g.446

Source of Jewels

rin chen ’byung gnas

རིན་ཆེན་འབྱུང་གནས།

g.447

Spreading Spotted Wings

gshog zegs bkram

གཤོག་ཟེགས་བཀྲམ།

g.448

śrāvaka

nyan thos

ཉན་ཐོས།

śrāvaka

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

The Sanskrit term śrāvaka, and the Tibetan nyan thos, both derived from the verb “to hear,” are usually defined as “those who hear the teaching from the Buddha and make it heard to others.” Primarily this refers to those disciples of the Buddha who aspire to attain the state of an arhat seeking their own liberation and nirvāṇa. They are the practitioners of the first turning of the wheel of the Dharma on the four noble truths, who realize the suffering inherent in saṃsāra and focus on understanding that there is no independent self. By conquering afflicted mental states (kleśa), they liberate themselves, attaining first the stage of stream enterers at the path of seeing, followed by the stage of once-returners who will be reborn only one more time, and then the stage of non-returners who will no longer be reborn into the desire realm. The final goal is to become an arhat. These four stages are also known as the “four results of spiritual practice.”

g.449

Śrāvastī

mnyan yod

མཉན་ཡོད།

śrāvastī

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

During the life of the Buddha, Śrāvastī was the capital city of the powerful kingdom of Kośala, ruled by King Prasenajit, who became a follower and patron of the Buddha. It was also the hometown of Anāthapiṇḍada, the wealthy patron who first invited the Buddha there, and then offered him a park known as Jetavana, Prince Jeta’s Grove, which became one of the first Buddhist monasteries. The Buddha is said to have spent about twenty-five rainy seasons with his disciples in Śrāvastī, thus it is named as the setting of numerous events and teachings. It is located in present-day Uttar Pradesh in northern India.

g.450

Stainless Light

dri ma med pa’i ’od

དྲི་མ་མེད་པའི་འོད།

vimalaprabhā

g.451

Stainless Light Renown

dri med ’od grags

དྲི་མེད་འོད་གྲགས།

g.452

Stainless Space-Like Eyes

mkha’ ltar mig dri ma med pa

མཁའ་ལྟར་མིག་དྲི་མ་མེད་པ།

g.453

Starlight

skar ’od

སྐར་འོད།

g.454

Stopper

te ma bu ka

ཏེ་མ་བུ་ཀ

g.455

Storehouse of the Domain of the Sacred Dharma

dam pa’i chos kyi dkyil ’khor gyi mdzod

དམ་པའི་ཆོས་ཀྱི་དཀྱིལ་འཁོར་གྱི་མཛོད།

g.456

stream entry

rgyun du zhugs pa

རྒྱུན་དུ་ཞུགས་པ།

srota-āpanna

g.457

Strength of Nāga Joy

klu dga’ stobs

ཀླུ་དགའ་སྟོབས།

g.458

Strong Moving

stobs kyi rgyu

སྟོབས་ཀྱི་རྒྱུ།

g.459

Strong Throat

mgul ngar

མགུལ་ངར།

g.460

stronghold

mkhar

མཁར།

g.461

Strung-Frog Rings

sbal phreng sor rdub can

སྦལ་ཕྲེང་སོར་རྡུབ་ཅན།

g.462

stūpa

mchod rten

མཆོད་རྟེན།

stūpa

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

The Tibetan translates both stūpa and caitya with the same word, mchod rten, meaning “basis” or “recipient” of “offerings” or “veneration.” Pali: cetiya.

A caitya, although often synonymous with stūpa, can also refer to any site, sanctuary or shrine that is made for veneration, and may or may not contain relics.

A stūpa, literally “heap” or “mound,” is a mounded or circular structure usually containing relics of the Buddha or the masters of the past. It is considered to be a sacred object representing the awakened mind of a buddha, but the symbolism of the stūpa is complex, and its design varies throughout the Buddhist world. Stūpas continue to be erected today as objects of veneration and merit making.

g.463

Subduer of Māra’s Armies

bdud kyi sde ’joms

བདུད་ཀྱི་སྡེ་འཇོམས།

g.464

Sudatta

rab sbyin

རབ་སྦྱིན།

sudatta

g.465

Sun Colored

nyi ma’i mdog

ཉི་མའི་མདོག

g.466

Sun Paralyzer

nyi ma rengs byed

ཉི་མ་རེངས་བྱེད།

g.467

Superior King of Sumeru

lhun po’i rgyal po mngon par ’phags

ལྷུན་པོའི་རྒྱལ་པོ་མངོན་པར་འཕགས།

g.468

superknowledge

mngon par shes pa

མངོན་པར་ཤེས་པ།

abhijñā

g.469

Supreme Club

dbyug mchog

དབྱུག་མཆོག

g.470

Sweet Voice

mgrin dbyangs snyan pa

མགྲིན་དབྱངས་སྙན་པ།

g.471

Swift Intellect

blo gros myur ldan

བློ་གྲོས་མྱུར་ལྡན།

g.472

Takṣaka

’jog po

འཇོག་པོ།

takṣaka

g.473

ten perfections

pha rol tu phyin pa bcu
pha rol tu phyin pa bcu po

ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པ་བཅུ།
ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པ་བཅུ་པོ།

daśapāramitā

g.474

Thief of Afflictions

nyon mongs pa rku ba

ཉོན་མོངས་པ་རྐུ་བ།

g.475

three unpleasant rebirths

ngan song gsum

ངན་སོང་གསུམ།

tryapāya

g.476

Thunders throughout Space

nam mkha’ la bsgrags pa

ནམ་མཁའ་ལ་བསྒྲགས་པ།

g.477

Tiger-Like Haughtiness

stag ltar dregs pa

སྟག་ལྟར་དྲེགས་པ།

g.478

Topknot-Bearing Brahmā

tshangs pa thor tshugs ’chang

ཚངས་པ་ཐོར་ཚུགས་འཆང་།

g.479

Treasury-Possessing Kaurava

mdzod ldan sgra mi snyan

མཛོད་ལྡན་སྒྲ་མི་སྙན།

g.480

Tree Bark

shing shun can

ཤིང་ཤུན་ཅན།

g.481

Trident Holder

mdung rtse gsum pa ’chang

མདུང་རྩེ་གསུམ་པ་འཆང་།

g.482

Tumor

myu gu

མྱུ་གུ

g.483

Tuṣita Heaven

dga’ ldan

དགའ་ལྡན།

tuṣita

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

Tuṣita (or sometimes Saṃtuṣita), literally “Joyous” or “Contented,” is one of the six heavens of the desire realm (kāmadhātu). In standard classifications, such as the one in the Abhidharmakośa, it is ranked as the fourth of the six counting from below. This god realm is where all future buddhas are said to dwell before taking on their final rebirth prior to awakening. There, the Buddha Śākyamuni lived his preceding life as the bodhisattva Śvetaketu. When departing to take birth in this world, he appointed the bodhisattva Maitreya, who will be the next buddha of this eon, as his Dharma regent in Tuṣita. For an account of the Buddha’s previous life in Tuṣita, see The Play in Full (Toh 95), 2.12, and for an account of Maitreya’s birth in Tuṣita and a description of this realm, see The Sūtra on Maitreya’s Birth in the Heaven of Joy, (Toh 199).

g.484

twelve austerities

sbyangs pa’i yon tan bcu gnyis

སྦྱངས་པའི་ཡོན་ཏན་བཅུ་གཉིས།

dvādaśadhūtaguṇa

Twelve ascetic practices that renunciants may choose to engage in, they are wearing clothing from a dust heap, owning only three robes, wearing felt or woolen clothes, begging for food, eating one’s meal in a single sitting, restricting the quantity of food, staying in solitude, sitting under trees, sitting in exposed places, sitting in charnel grounds, sitting even during sleep, and staying wherever one happens to be.

g.485

twelve links of conditioned existence

srid pa’i yan lag bcu gnyis

སྲིད་པའི་ཡན་ལག་བཅུ་གཉིས།

dvādaśabhavāṅga

g.486

Understands the Renunciation of Negativity

ngan spong shes ldan

ངན་སྤོང་ཤེས་ལྡན།

g.487

Unflagging Force

shugs ma nyams pa

ཤུགས་མ་ཉམས་པ།

g.488

unforgivable offenses

pham pa’i ’gal ba

ཕམ་པའི་འགལ་བ།

pārājikā

g.489

unfree states of existence

mi khom pa

མི་ཁོམ་པ།

akṣaṇa

g.490

Ungrasping

ma ’dzin

མ་འཛིན།

g.491

Unparalleled Vajra Servant

mtshungs pa med pa’i rdo rje’i bran

མཚུངས་པ་མེད་པའི་རྡོ་རྗེའི་བྲན།

g.492

Uttarakuru

sgra mi snyan

སྒྲ་མི་སྙན།

uttarakuru

g.493

Utter Joy

rab tu dga’ ba

རབ་ཏུ་དགའ་བ།

g.494

Utter Joy

rab tu dga’ ba

རབ་ཏུ་དགའ་བ།

g.495

Utterly Tamed

rab tu dul ba

རབ་ཏུ་དུལ་བ།

g.496

Vaipulya

shin tu rgyas pa

ཤིན་ཏུ་རྒྱས་པ།

vaipulya

g.497

Vaiśravaṇa

rnam thos kyi bu

རྣམ་ཐོས་ཀྱི་བུ།

vaiśravaṇa

g.498

vajra

rdo rje

རྡོ་རྗེ།

vajra

g.499

vajra body

rdo rje’i sku

རྡོ་རྗེའི་སྐུ།

vajrakāya

g.500

Vajra Garland

rdo rje phreng ldan

རྡོ་རྗེ་ཕྲེང་ལྡན།

g.501

Various Herbs Venerable

sna tshogs sngo btsun

སྣ་ཚོགས་སྔོ་བཙུན།

g.502

Vast Delight

rgya cher dga’ ba

རྒྱ་ཆེར་དགའ་བ།

g.503

Vast with Knowledge

shes pas rgyas pa

ཤེས་པས་རྒྱས་པ།

g.504

Vāsuki

nor rgyas kyi bu

ནོར་རྒྱས་ཀྱི་བུ།

vāsuki

g.505

Veyi

be yi

བེ་ཡི།

veyi

g.506

vidyādhara

rig sngags ’chang

རིག་སྔགས་འཆང་།

vidyādhara

g.507

Vulture Peak

bya rgod kyi phung po’i ri

བྱ་རྒོད་ཀྱི་ཕུང་པོའི་རི།

gṛdhrakūṭa-parvata

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

The Gṛdhrakūṭa, literally Vulture Peak, was a hill located in the kingdom of Magadha, in the vicinity of the ancient city of Rājagṛha (modern-day Rajgir, in the state of Bihar, India), where the Buddha bestowed many sūtras, especially the Great Vehicle teachings, such as the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras. It continues to be a sacred pilgrimage site for Buddhists to this day.

g.508

wanderer

kun tu rgyu ba

ཀུན་ཏུ་རྒྱུ་བ།

parivrājaka

g.509

Weasel Jaws

sre mo ’gram

སྲེ་མོ་འགྲམ།

g.510

Wife of Clouds

sprin gyi chung ma

སྤྲིན་གྱི་ཆུང་མ།

g.511

wisdom

shes rab

ཤེས་རབ།

prajñā

g.512

Wise Conduct

shes ldan ngang tshul can

ཤེས་ལྡན་ངང་ཚུལ་ཅན།

g.513

world guardian

’jig rten skyong
’jig rten skyong ba

འཇིག་རྟེན་སྐྱོང་།
འཇིག་རྟེན་སྐྱོང་བ།

lokapāla

g.514

worthy one

dgra bcom pa

དགྲ་བཅོམ་པ།

arhat

g.515

yakṣa

gnod sbyin

གནོད་སྦྱིན།

yakṣa

g.516

Yellow Honey-Color

ser po sbrang rtsi’i mdog

སེར་པོ་སྦྲང་རྩིའི་མདོག

g.517

yojana

dpag tshad

དཔག་ཚད།

yojana

The Great Cloud (1) Glossary

Toh 232

Imprint

Text Body

Attested in source text

Attested in other text

Attested in dictionary

Approximate attestation

Reconstruction from Tibetan phonetic rendering

Reconstruction from Tibetan semantic rendering

Source unspecified

Abides in the Certainty of the Hero’s Steadfast Asceticism

Abiding Long as Indra

Abode of All Non-Buddhists

Abode of Prosperity

Abundant Beauty

Abundant Harvest

Admired by All Worlds

Adorned with Cat’s Gait

Adorned with Rākṣasa Earrings

Adorned with Rat Teeth

affliction

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

Agasti the Holder of Rāma’s Bow

aggregate

Akṣobhya

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

All Conquering

All Equal

Amitābha

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

Ānanda

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

Anavatapta

Appearance of Beryl-Like Light

apsaras

army in its four divisions

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

Arousing Strength

Ascetic

Ashen Locks

Aśoka

Aspiring to Leave Behind the Sanctuary

asura

at peace, deeply at peace, fully at peace

Authentic Perception

Bald Ṛṣi

base

Bearing the Cymbals of the Jewel of Knowledge

Beautiful and Charming

Beautiful Coral

Beautiful Garland

Bee-King Face

Benighted

Beryl Light

bhagavān

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

Bharadvaja-Tree Bark

bhikṣu

Definition from the 84000 Glossary of Terms:

bhikṣuṇī

The Great Cloud (1)
Glossary