A Ritual Manual for the Uṣṇīṣavijayā Dhāraṇī

A Ritual Manual for the Uṣṇīṣavijayā Dhāraṇī opens in Sukhāvatī, where the Blessed One Amitāyus is residing. Amitāyus addresses the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, informing him that there are beings who suffer from illnesses and short lifespans, and introducing the uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī as a remedy for such painful circumstances. Avalokiteśvara immediately asks Amitāyus to pronounce the dhāraṇī, which the Tathāgata does from within a state of samādhi.

After he pronounces the dhāraṇī, Amitāyus explains the benefits of reciting the uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī, noting that it purifies evil deeds and extends the lifespan of someone who recites it and follows the rite that is explained in the text.

The rite itself involves the creation of a maṇḍala in which the Tathāgata Uṣṇīṣa Arisen from the Natural Essence is drawn in the center of an eight-spoked wheel and surrounded by eight other uṣṇīṣa buddhas. These are surrounded by a sixteen-petaled lotus on which are drawn uṣṇīṣa buddhas with names correlated with the sixteen emptinesses. These are surrounded by four Uṣṇīṣavijayā goddesses and four other goddesses. The maṇḍala is to be surrounded with different types of offerings, with a thousand of each offering item set around the maṇḍala, and the dhāraṇī recited a thousand times. The text concludes by stating that the performance of this rite will extend one’s lifespan, cure illness, and prevent untimely death. The last line of the text mentions that this is the “first chapter,”1 but no further chapters appear.

This work is one among a group of texts in the Kriyātantra section of the Tibetan Kangyurs that contain the uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī and its related rituals (kalpa). The present text is one of four short dhāraṇī texts‍—three of which have the same title‍—that present the uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī with its ritual manual (kalpa).2 These four works share a similar narrative opening (nidāna) up through the presentation of the dhāraṇī proper, and several among them also share additional passages (though the present text does not). The present text, moreover, shows evidence of having been edited to improve upon some of the awkward readings found in the other members of this group of texts. These changes‍—which include using a more standardized spelling of Amitāyus’ name and the change of the name of a samādhi from an obscure name to one that is more common‍—along with the content of the ritual section describing a maṇḍala of eight uṣṇīṣa buddhas surrounding a central uṣṇīṣa buddha, confirm what we know from the colophon (see i.­13) about the date of its translation: this work, in comparison to the other uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī works preserved in the Tibetan canon, began to circulate considerably later.

Evidence for the later circulation not only of the Tibetan translation but probably of its Sanskrit source, too, comes in its use of a greater number of oṁs in the main dhāraṇī. All the other texts in the Uṣṇīṣavijayā group‍—Toh 594, 595, 596, and 597/984, as well as the Dunhuang manuscripts‍—include only three oṁs in the dhāraṇī. In this text, and in the Sanskrit edition prepared by Gergely Hidas based on Nepalese manuscripts that date from the seventeenth century onwards, oṁ appears no less than nine times. The Tibetan translation of this text being of a significantly later date than the other works of the group, as its colophon indicates, may possibly demonstrate a change in the circulation of the uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī that is also reflected in extant Nepalese Sanskrit versions of the texts. This shift is described in the colophon of the version of Toh 597 found in the Phukdrak (phug brag) Kangyur,3 where a note stating that the texts with only three oṁs are to be considered more correct also claims that although there may have been Sanskrit sources with as many as nine oṁs, the twelfth-century translator Sumpa Lotsāwa reported that all the Sanskrit texts he had seen contained only three, and that the Sanskrit manuscripts of the texts held at Sakya monastery had no more than that. Because Sumpa Lotsāwa4 is known to have lived and studied in Nepal, his comment on the “correct” number of oṁs in the Sanskrit manuscripts available to him offers a glimpse into the evolution of the text in the Nepalese tradition.

There are many Sanskrit witnesses of the uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī proper.5 Moreover, what we will call‍—simply for the purpose of distinguishing it from the present group of dhāraṇī-kalpas‍—the “primary” uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī text (Toh 597, which is titled Sarva­durgati­pariśodhana-uṣṇīṣavijayā-dhāraṇī rather than Uṣṇīṣavijayā-dhāraṇī-kalpasahitā)6 survives in at least one incomplete early manuscript.7

While our text seems no longer to be extant in Sanskrit, there is at least one surviving Sanskrit uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī work that is closely related to it and belongs to the same group of related dhāraṇī texts described above. This Sanskrit work shares the same opening narrative and some of the ritual material with the texts from this group.8

The primary uṣṇīṣavijayā text was first translated into Chinese by Buddhapāli in the late seventh century, and then at least five times subsequently.9 Several ritual manuals for the dhāraṇī’s recitation were also translated into Chinese, but our text does not appear to be among them.10 One ritual manual (Taishō 978), translated into Chinese by Dharmadeva between 973 and 981, is among the group of uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī texts to which the present work belongs.11 Another ritual manual surviving in Chinese is similar to our text in that it describes a maṇḍala of eight uṣṇīṣa buddhas. The eight buddhas themselves are, however, not the same as those described in the present text, a set that indeed appears unique within the Tibetan canon.12 The primary uṣṇīṣavijayā text was significant in East Asia, and one scholar has even identified it as the most important esoteric Buddhist scripture translated into Chinese in the seventh century.13 Practices connected with the uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī were important in China, in particular in conjunction with funerary rites, where the dhāraṇī was written on pillars near tombs, especially from the mid-Tang to Ming dynasties (ca. 800–1600 ᴄᴇ).14 In addition to its ritual uses, in China this dhāraṇī receives mention in poems and tales of miracles and is analyzed in philosophical commentaries.15

The uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī also appears to have been popular in Dunhuang. A number of Tibetan manuscripts from Dunhuang include just the dhāraṇī on its own, both in Tibetan transliteration (dhāraṇīs, like mantras, are commonly left untranslated in Tibetan texts) and in Tibetan translation. The primary uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī text (Toh 597) also appears in several Dunhuang manuscripts.16 Several drawings from Dunhuang show maṇḍala (altar) arrangements corresponding to uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī texts.17

In Nepal, uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī rituals continue to be performed as part of modern Newar Buddhist practice, where their practice is sometimes prescribed for Wednesdays in particular.18 Practices connected to the uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī likewise continue in modern Tibetan Buddhism. The so-called Tongchö (stong mchod)‍—the thousandfold offering practice of Uṣṇīṣavijayā, a version of which is mentioned briefly in our text‍—is currently performed in Tibetan monasteries, sometimes using a ritual manual composed by the nineteenth-century polymath Jamyang Khyentsé Wangpo. Other notable Tibetan works on the uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī and its associated practices include commentaries by the great Sakya lama Butön (bu ston rin chen grub, 1290–1364) and the fourth Panchen Lama, Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen (blo bzang chos kyi rgyal mtshan, 1570–1662).

The question of what, or who, exactly, Uṣṇīṣavijayā is is a complex one that cannot be clearly answered here. In short, like a number of uṣṇīṣa deities, she is sometimes identified as a protective deity, in this case a goddess, emanated from the Buddha’s uṣṇīṣa. Indeed, Uṣṇīṣavijayā is clearly depicted as a goddess in a number of short sādhanas included in Indian anthologies such as the Sādhanamāla, compiled from the works of many authors probably during the period of the Pāla kings (eighth to twelfth century).19 Three closely similar sādhanas of a three-faced, eight armed form of the goddess are included in the Tengyur, one in each of the three related anthologies translated from the Indian collections into Tibetan in the eleventh to fourteenth centuries respectively,20 two of them translated earlier than this text. A variety of other forms are depicted or described in Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, Mongolian, and Kashmiri sources.21 In the later Tibetan tradition Uṣṇīṣavijayā can even appear as one of a group of three long-life deities along with the Buddha Amitāyus and White Tārā. However, the present text is the only one of the uṣṇīṣavijayā works in this section of the Kangyur to use the name Uṣṇīṣavijayā to refer clearly to a goddess. The present text contains an homage to Uṣṇīṣavijayā (whereas the other texts in the series pay homage to the buddhas and bodhisattvas), and the maṇḍala described in the rite here includes four different Uṣṇīṣavijayā goddesses surrounding the central maṇḍala of uṣṇīṣa buddhas. In contrast, while the dhāraṇī itself does use the feminine vocative form throughout, in the other uṣṇīṣavijayā texts in this section of the Kangyur, the name uṣṇīṣavijayā is not rendered into Tibetan in the feminine, and the word uṣṇīṣavijayā is used only to refer to the name of the dhāraṇī‍—the dhāraṇī of the crown victory.22

The range of possible answers to the question of what the name Uṣṇīṣavijayā refers to is enlarged even further by the existence of a group of related texts widely used in Southeast Asia, sharing the Pali title Uṇhissa-vijaya-sutta (or in some cases simply Uṇhissa-vijaya) but found in a number of different forms, some in Pali but others in Siamese, Lao, Yuon, and Khmer. Some refer at least briefly to the story of the god Supratiṣṭhita (Pali Supatiṭṭhita) which, although it does not feature in the present text, is the frame story or a secondary narrative element in others of the group. But instead of the dhāraṇī of the Sanskrit and Tibetan texts these Southeast Asian texts contain a set of verses (gāthā) to be recited whose content is unrelated to that of the Sanskrit dhāraṇī. The gāthā are also found alone in several ritual compilations. Even in the vernacular versions, the verses are written in Pali. In these texts, in their own opening lines, it seems to be the verses themselves that are referred to as the Uṇhissa-vijaya.23

According to its colophon, this text was translated into Tibetan by Lotsāwa Neten Palkyi Nyima Gyaltsen Sangpo at Tharpa Ling in accordance with the instructions of Ne’u Khenpo. Tharpa Ling is a monastery near Zhalu in Central Tibet, and Tharpa Lotsāwa Nyima Gyaltsen, active in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, was one of Butön’s teachers. This translation was therefore among the last translations to be included in the canon. One Uṣṇīṣavijayā-dhāraṇī-vidhisahitā is listed in the ninth century imperial Phangthangma catalog. While the dating means that it cannot refer to the same Tibetan translation as the present text, it is certainly a work of a similar type, and its inclusion in the Phangthangma, along with the records of uṣṇīṣavijayā texts at Dunhuang, indicate the early presence in Tibet not just of the uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī, but also of some of its associated rites.24 Nonetheless, as noted above, its contents make it clear that the present text began to circulate later than the other similar uṣṇīṣavijayā texts included in the canon‍—even those that include associated rites.

The present translation is based on the Tibetan translation of the text found in the Tantra Collection (rgyud ’bum) section of the Degé Kangyur,25 in consultation with the Stok Palace Kangyur and the notes in the Comparative Edition of the Kangyur (dpe bsdur ma). The text is stable across all the Kangyurs consulted, with the same title and colophon and only minor variants. We also consulted Hidas’ edition and translation of the surviving Sanskrit Uṣṇīṣavijayā-dhāraṇī text for the passages that are parallel with the present text.

The main dhāraṇī is not identical in every detail across the five different versions in the Degé Kangyur (Toh 594–598), and the existence of further variations across different Kangyurs and versions in extra-canonical collections further complicates the picture. Reference to the dhāraṇī as presented in Hidas’ edition of the Sanskrit yields useful orthographic confirmation, but may be misleading as a model given that the ten different Nepalese Sanskrit manuscripts on which it is based are of much later date than any of the present Tibetan witnesses. Here and in the other works in the group we have therefore chosen to transcribe the dhāraṇī as it appears in the Degé version of each text, making only minor choices of orthography and adding annotations to point out the most significant discrepancies.

Over the centuries, the textual transmission of the dhāraṇī has preserved the major portion of it with remarkable fidelity. Nevertheless, the few anomalies to be seen across all these closely related texts are a reminder that here, as with other dhāraṇī works, some variations over time and place are to be expected.