The Dhāraṇī “Freedom from the Eight Great Perils” is a succinct dhāraṇī consisting of four sections: the homage, the dhāraṇī, the benefits, and a closing dhāraṇī. The opening homage is made to eight deities—seven buddhas and one bodhisattva—presumably correlating to the eight great perils. Following the primary dhāraṇī the text describes the benefits of dhāraṇīs, namely freeing beings from the eight great perils. Distinct from the standard enumeration of the eight great perils or “fears,” the eight great perils here are those of the hell realm, the animal realm, the world of Yama, the hungry ghost realm, evil states, and birth, sickness, and death. The text closes with a shorter dhāraṇī.
This publication was completed under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.
The text was translated, edited, and introduced by the 84000 translation team. Lowell Cook produced the translation and wrote the introduction. Rory Lindsay edited the translation and the introduction, and Laura Goetz copyedited the text. Martina Cotter was in charge of the digital publication process.
The Dhāraṇī “Freedom from the Eight Great Perils” is a brief dhāraṇī (gzungs phran) that comprises four sections: the homage, the dhāraṇī, the benefits, and a closing dhāraṇī. The opening homage is made to eight deities—seven buddhas and one bodhisattva. The number of eight deities is presumably significant in the context of the eight great perils, although the text never makes an explicit correlation. Following the homage comes the principal dhāraṇī, and the text then goes on to describe the benefits of dhāraṇīs in both general and specific terms. Generally, the text says, dhāraṇīs are taught by buddhas for the benefit of beings in the lower realms, while the specific dhāraṇī at hand can free its practitioner from the eight great perils. The eight great perils enumerated by this text differ from the more standard list of eight, or sometimes sixteen, perils (often translated as “fears”) described elsewhere throughout Buddhist literature. Here the eight great perils are the perils of the hell realm, the animal realm, the world of Yama, the hungry ghost realm, evil states, and birth, sickness, and death. A more common list of eight perils in Buddhist literature usually comprises the perils of lions, elephants, fire, snakes, robbers, waters, imprisonment, and demons. The text seems to be conscious of the fact that its perils are more spiritual perils than mundane dangers and distinguishes its unique eight perils with the qualifier “great.” Finally, the text then ends with a short dhāraṇī.
Little is known about the historical transmission of this text and its dhāraṇī in India. The text appears in a fragmentary Dhāraṇī Compendium (Dhāraṇīsaṅgraha, MS 1680.8.3) from Nepal that is tentatively dated to the twelfth–thirteenth centuries
Freedom from the Eight Great Perils is present in at least twenty-six different Kangyur recensions, though there is little variation among the titles or texts. In the Degé Kangyur, the dhāraṇī appears twice, once in the Action tantra section (Toh 541) and once in the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs (Toh 931).77 In the fourteenth century
Our translation was produced based on the dhāraṇī as preserved in the Degé edition of the Kangyur. We additionally consulted variant readings as found in the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) Kangyur and the Stok Palace manuscript Kangyur. Beyond a few minor scribal differences, the two versions of Freedom from the Eight Great Perils from the Action tantra and Dhāraṇī Compendium sections are identical.
Homage to the thus-gone one Guṇākara.10 Homage to the thus-gone one Samantagandha. Homage to the thus-gone one Aparākitavikrāmin. Homage to the thus-gone one Sarvanivaraṇaviṣkambhin. Homage to the thus-gone one Supreme Moon.11 Homage to the thus-gone one Śāntarāja. Homage to the thus-gone one Candrottara. Homage to the bodhisattva great being Great Compassionate One Who Quells Fear.
tadyathā | dhare dhare dhāre dhāraṇi raṇakoṭe12 abhayakalpe kalpe nigaṇe13 | anantakalpe amṛtakalpe hutāśane anantamukhe anantacakṣusamudgate | oṁ bha svāhā ||14
Noble son, as many blessed buddhas as there are grains of sand in the Gaṅgā river have spoken dhāraṇī mantras, blessed them, and rejoiced in them for the benefit of the beings in the lower realms. Noble son, the bodhisattvas who uphold this dhāraṇī will fully transcend the eight perils—the boundless perils of the hell realm, the boundless perils of the animal realm, the boundless perils of the world of Yama,[F.102.a] the boundless perils of the hungry ghost realm, the boundless perils of evil states, the boundless perils of birth, the boundless perils of sickness, and the boundless perils of death. The blessed buddhas throughout the ten directions will think of them.[F.280.b] They will meet the moment of death with an undistracted mind and be reborn in the presence of buddhas. They will attain an inexhaustible body. They will also attain an emanation body.
namaḥ sarvavidyā | siddhyantu me mantrapada svāhā ||15
This completes the noble dhāraṇī “Freedom from the Eight Great Perils.”
The Dhāraṇī “Freedom from the Eight Great Perils” is a succinct dhāraṇī consisting of four sections: the homage, the dhāraṇī, the benefits, and a closing dhāraṇī. The opening homage is made to eight deities—seven buddhas and one bodhisattva—presumably correlating to the eight great perils. Following the primary dhāraṇī the text describes the benefits of dhāraṇīs, namely freeing beings from the eight great perils. Distinct from the standard enumeration of the eight great perils or “fears,” the eight great perils here are those of the hell realm, the animal realm, the world of Yama, the hungry ghost realm, evil states, and birth, sickness, and death. The text closes with a shorter dhāraṇī.
This publication was completed under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.
The text was translated, edited, and introduced by the 84000 translation team. Lowell Cook produced the translation and wrote the introduction. Rory Lindsay edited the translation and the introduction, and Laura Goetz copyedited the text. Martina Cotter was in charge of the digital publication process.
The Dhāraṇī “Freedom from the Eight Great Perils” is a brief dhāraṇī (gzungs phran) that comprises four sections: the homage, the dhāraṇī, the benefits, and a closing dhāraṇī. The opening homage is made to eight deities—seven buddhas and one bodhisattva. The number of eight deities is presumably significant in the context of the eight great perils, although the text never makes an explicit correlation. Following the homage comes the principal dhāraṇī, and the text then goes on to describe the benefits of dhāraṇīs in both general and specific terms. Generally, the text says, dhāraṇīs are taught by buddhas for the benefit of beings in the lower realms, while the specific dhāraṇī at hand can free its practitioner from the eight great perils. The eight great perils enumerated by this text differ from the more standard list of eight, or sometimes sixteen, perils (often translated as “fears”) described elsewhere throughout Buddhist literature. Here the eight great perils are the perils of the hell realm, the animal realm, the world of Yama, the hungry ghost realm, evil states, and birth, sickness, and death. A more common list of eight perils in Buddhist literature usually comprises the perils of lions, elephants, fire, snakes, robbers, waters, imprisonment, and demons. The text seems to be conscious of the fact that its perils are more spiritual perils than mundane dangers and distinguishes its unique eight perils with the qualifier “great.” Finally, the text then ends with a short dhāraṇī.
Little is known about the historical transmission of this text and its dhāraṇī in India. The text appears in a fragmentary Dhāraṇī Compendium (Dhāraṇīsaṅgraha, MS 1680.8.3) from Nepal that is tentatively dated to the twelfth–thirteenth centuries
Freedom from the Eight Great Perils is present in at least twenty-six different Kangyur recensions, though there is little variation among the titles or texts. In the Degé Kangyur, the dhāraṇī appears twice, once in the Action tantra section (Toh 541) and once in the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs (Toh 931).77 In the fourteenth century
Our translation was produced based on the dhāraṇī as preserved in the Degé edition of the Kangyur. We additionally consulted variant readings as found in the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) Kangyur and the Stok Palace manuscript Kangyur. Beyond a few minor scribal differences, the two versions of Freedom from the Eight Great Perils from the Action tantra and Dhāraṇī Compendium sections are identical.
Homage to the thus-gone one Guṇākara.10 Homage to the thus-gone one Samantagandha. Homage to the thus-gone one Aparākitavikrāmin. Homage to the thus-gone one Sarvanivaraṇaviṣkambhin. Homage to the thus-gone one Supreme Moon.11 Homage to the thus-gone one Śāntarāja. Homage to the thus-gone one Candrottara. Homage to the bodhisattva great being Great Compassionate One Who Quells Fear.
tadyathā | dhare dhare dhāre dhāraṇi raṇakoṭe12 abhayakalpe kalpe nigaṇe13 | anantakalpe amṛtakalpe hutāśane anantamukhe anantacakṣusamudgate | oṁ bha svāhā ||14
Noble son, as many blessed buddhas as there are grains of sand in the Gaṅgā river have spoken dhāraṇī mantras, blessed them, and rejoiced in them for the benefit of the beings in the lower realms. Noble son, the bodhisattvas who uphold this dhāraṇī will fully transcend the eight perils—the boundless perils of the hell realm, the boundless perils of the animal realm, the boundless perils of the world of Yama,[F.102.a] the boundless perils of the hungry ghost realm, the boundless perils of evil states, the boundless perils of birth, the boundless perils of sickness, and the boundless perils of death. The blessed buddhas throughout the ten directions will think of them.[F.280.b] They will meet the moment of death with an undistracted mind and be reborn in the presence of buddhas. They will attain an inexhaustible body. They will also attain an emanation body.
namaḥ sarvavidyā | siddhyantu me mantrapada svāhā ||15
This completes the noble dhāraṇī “Freedom from the Eight Great Perils.”
It is possible that it was misidentified, yet it would not be surprising to find this dhāraṇī in such a body of literature, given how, as demonstrated by its inclusion in MS 1680, it was transmitted among dhāraṇī collections.
This text, Toh 931, and all those contained in this same volume (rgyud ’bum, na), are listed as being located in volume 100 of the Degé Kangyur by the Buddhist Digital Resource Center (BDRC). However, several other Kangyur databases—including the eKangyur that supplies the digital input version displayed by the 84000 Reading Room—list this work as being located in volume 101. This discrepancy is partly due to the fact that the two volumes of the gzungs ’dus section are an added supplement not mentioned in the original catalog, and also hinges on the fact that the compilers of the Tōhoku catalog placed another text—which forms a whole, very large volume—the Vimalaprabhānāmakālacakratantraṭīkā (dus ’khor ’grel bshad dri med ’od, Toh 845), before the volume 100 of the Degé Kangyur, numbering it as vol. 100, although it is almost certainly intended to come right at the end of the Degé Kangyur texts as volume 102; indeed its final fifth chapter is often carried over and wrapped in the same volume as the Kangyur dkar chags (catalog). Please note this discrepancy when using the eKangyur viewer in this translation.
In gsung ’bum rin chen grub [Collected Works] (Lhasa: zhol par khang, 2000), vol. 16 (ma), folio 218.b. BDRC MW22106.
In the Toh 541 version of the text there is a slight discrepancy in the folio numbering between the 1737 par phud printings and the late (post par phud) printings of the Degé Kangyur. Although the discrepancy is irrelevant here, further details concerning this may be found in n.9 of the Toh 541 version of this text.
The folio references of the Degé Kangyur appearing in the Tibetan source and compare view of this publication (or which are shown inline in the PDF and ePub versions) refer to the post par phud printing of the Degé. Note that, as described in the bibliographical reference on the title page, there is a 17-page discrepancy in volume 88 (rgyud ’bum, na) of the Degé Kangyur between the 1737 par phud printings and the late (post par phud) printings. This is due to an extra work, Bodhimaṇḍasyālaṃkāralakṣadhāraṇī (Toh 508, byang chub snying po’i rgyan ’bum gyi gzungs), being added as the second text in the volume.
In the Sanskrit, the first homage is made to Tārā. This is, perhaps, not surprising given her reputation for granting protection from the more common list of the eight perils. Hidas 2021, p. 36.
This dhāraṇī could be translated as “It is like this: O holder, holder, a dhāraṇī that causes to hold, a stronghold in a battle, a remedy for fear, the remedy, sacrificial smoke, endless remedy, the remedy of immortals, sacrificial fire that arises with infinite faces and infinite eyes! Om̐, shine, svāhā!”
This mantra could be translated as “Homage to all the vidyās! May the words of the mantra bring me success!”
The name of a thus-gone one.
The term can be understood to mean “great courageous one” or "great hero,” or (from the Sanskrit) simply “great being,” and is almost always found as an epithet of “bodhisattva.” The qualification “great” in this term, according to the majority of canonical definitions, focuses on the generic greatness common to all bodhisattvas, i.e., the greatness implicit in the bodhisattva vow itself in terms of outlook, aspiration, number of beings to be benefited, potential or eventual accomplishments, and so forth. In this sense the mahā- is closer in its connotations to the mahā- in “Mahāyāna” than to the mahā- in “mahāsiddha.” While individual bodhisattvas described as mahāsattva may in many cases also be “great” in terms of their level of realization, this is largely coincidental, and in the canonical texts the epithet is not restricted to bodhisattvas at any particular point in their career. Indeed, in a few cases even bodhisattvas whose path has taken a wrong direction are still described as bodhisattva mahāsattva.
Later commentarial writings do nevertheless define the term—variably—in terms of bodhisattvas having attained a particular level (bhūmi) or realization. The most common qualifying criteria mentioned are attaining the path of seeing, attaining irreversibility (according to its various definitions), or attaining the seventh bhūmi.
1290–1364. A great scholar at the monastery of Zhalu (zha lu) whose lists of translated works contributed to the emergence of the Kangyur and Tengyur collections.
The name of a thus-gone one.
The eight great perils as listed in Freedom from the Eight Great Perils are the perils of the hell realm, the perils of the animal realm, the perils of the world of Yama, the perils of the hungry ghost realm, the perils of evil states, the perils of birth, the perils of sickness, and the perils of death. See also “eight perils.”
The most common list of the eight great perils comprises the perils of lions, elephants, fire, snakes, robbers, waters, imprisonment, and demons.
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.
The name of a bodhisattva great being.
The name of a thus-gone one.
A collective name for the realms of animals, hungry ghosts, and denizens of the hells.
The name of a thus-gone one.
The name of a thus-gone one.
The name of a thus-gone one.
The name of a thus-gone one.
A frequently used synonym for buddha. According to different explanations, it can be read as tathā-gata, literally meaning “one who has thus gone,” or as tathā-āgata, “one who has thus come.” Gata, though literally meaning “gone,” is a past passive participle used to describe a state or condition of existence. Tatha(tā), often rendered as “suchness” or “thusness,” is the quality or condition of things as they really are, which cannot be conveyed in conceptual, dualistic terms. Therefore, this epithet is interpreted in different ways, but in general it implies one who has departed in the wake of the buddhas of the past, or one who has manifested the supreme awakening dependent on the reality that does not abide in the two extremes of existence and quiescence. It is also often used as a specific epithet of the Buddha Śākyamuni.
The land of the dead ruled over by the Lord of Death. In Buddhism it refers to the preta realm, where beings generally suffer from hunger and thirst, which in traditional Brahmanism is the fate of those departed without descendants to make ancestral offerings.
’jigs pa chen po brgyad las sgrol ba (Aṣṭamahābhayatāraṇī). Toh 541, Degé Kangyur vol. 88 (rgyud, na), folios 101.b–102.a.
’jigs pa chen po brgyad las sgrol ba (Aṣṭamahābhayatāraṇī). Toh 931, Degé Kangyur vol. 100 (gzungs, e), folios 279.b–280.b.
’jigs pa chen po brgyad las sgrol ba. bka’ ’gyur (dpe bsdur ma) [Comparative Edition of the Kangyur], krung go’i bod rig pa zhib ’jug ste gnas kyi bka’ bstan dpe sdur khang (The Tibetan Tripitaka Collation Bureau of the China Tibetology Research Center). 108 volumes. Beijing: krung go’i bod rig pa dpe skrun khang (China Tibetology Publishing House), 2006–9, vol. 88, pp. 340–42; vol. 97, pp. 855–57.
’jigs pa chen po brgyad las sgrol ba. Stok Palace manuscript Kangyur, vol. 102 (rgyud ’bum, da), folios 104.b–105.b.
Denkarma (pho brang stod thang ldan dkar gyi chos kyi ’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.
Butön Rinchen Drup (bu ston rin chen grub). ’jigs pa chen po brgyad las sgrol ba’i sngags. In gsung ’bum rin chen grub [Collected Works], vol. 16 (ma), folio 218.b. Lhasa: zhol par khang, 2000. BDRC MW22106.
Pelliot tibétain 49. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. Accessed through The International Dunhuang Programme.
Beyer, Stephan. The Cult of Tārā: Magic and Ritual in Tibet. University of California Press, 1978.
Halkias, Georgios T. “Tibetan Buddhism Registered: A Catalogue from the Imperial Court of ’Phang Thang.” The Eastern Buddhist 36, nos. 1–2 (2004): 46–105.
Herrmann-Pfandt, Adelheid. Die lHan kar ma: ein früher Katalog der ins Tibetische übersetzten buddhistischen Texte. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2008.
Hidas, Gergely. Powers of Protection: The Buddhist Tradition of Spells in the Dhāraṇīsaṃgraha Collections. De Gruyter, 2021.
Kawagoe, Eishin, ed. dKar chag ’Phang thang ma. Tōhoku Indo Chibetto Kenkyū Sōsho 3. Sendai: Tohoku Society for Indo-Tibetan Studies, 2005.
