The Sovereign Ritual of Amoghapāśa
Introduction

The Amogha­pāśa­kalpa­rāja (AP) is a ritual text dedicated entirely to the deity Amoghapāśa, a form of Avalokiteśvara who appears in both peaceful and wrathful iconographies. He is sometimes referred to in the text as Avalokiteśvara-Amoghapāśa, as the two are considered identical. One could perhaps say that Amoghapāśa is distilled from Avalokiteśvara, with certain qualities of the latter being enhanced in the former, in particular his “unfailing” (amogha) ability to rescue beings drowning in the ocean of saṃsāra by means of his namesake “noose” (pāśa). The form of Amoghapāśa who, in addition to a noose, holds a goad is similarly called Amoghāṅkuśa (Unfailing Goad). As is true of the Kriyātantras in general, the names of Amoghapāśa apply equally to the mantras that correspond to the different deities. Thus, in the AP we find mantras that include expanded or paraphrased renderings of the name Amoghapāśa, depending on the specific form and function of the deity, such as Amoghāvalokita­pāśa (Amogha-Gaze-Noose), Amoghavilokita (Amogha-Gaze), or Adbhutāvalokitāmogha (Wondrous-Amogha-Gaze).

As a Kriyātantra, the AP firmly adheres to Mahāyāna principles and declares itself, explicitly and implicitly, to be part of the Mahāyāna system. The Mahāyāna philosophical tenets reflected in the tantras of this class tend to fall into the category of Yogācāra rather than Madhyamaka, as it is the illusory aspect of things and its corollary, the ability to produce miraculous displays, that is prominent in these texts. The efficacy of the Kriyā ritual is itself founded upon the notion of the indivisibility of mind, mantra, and deity.1 The AP’s Yogācāra affiliation is also confirmed by explicit statements such as “If [the practitioner] casts the seeds among the leaders of assemblies, they will become followers of Yogācāra.”

The exact date when the AP began circulating is unknown. The dates of its Chinese translations, however, provide us with the terminus ante quem: the second half of the sixth century ᴄᴇ for the first chapter (“part 1” in our presentation), and about a century later for the remainder of the work.2 Internal evidence suggests an even earlier provenance; the recurrent use of the word dīnāra (Lat. denarius), a well-attested term for a coin used in India in the fourth or fifth century, may indicate that Amoghapāśa material originated at that time.

Dating the AP in its present form is complicated by the fact that it may be a compilation of Amoghapāśa materials that originally existed as independent but closely related ritual texts. The section of the AP referred to as part 1 in our translation still exists as an independent but slightly different text that is included in the Tibetan canon with the title ’phags pa don yod zhags pa’i snying po zhes bya ba theg pa chen po’i mdo (Toh 682, Skt. Āryāmogha­pāśa­hṛdaya­nāma­mahāyāna­sūtra). It is possible that this work originally circulated independently of the AP and was later compiled along with other materials into the text’s current form. That the various rites recorded in the AP were once independent of one another is further supported by the fact that the main dhāraṇī mantra is taught in the text no less than three times,3 each time with a preamble presenting it as if for the first time. It is taught in part 1 and another two times in the remaining part of the text, suggesting that the entire text could be a compilation of at least three independent works. As they all are centered around the same dhāraṇī, they could almost be regarded as different variations on the same theme. On all three occasions, the dhāraṇī in question is referred to as Amogharāja (Amogha King), the “heart essence of Amoghapāśa” (amogha­pāśa­hṛdaya), and a “maṇḍala of liberation.” But the structure of the text is far more complex than this, with hundreds of minor rites grouped in larger interrelated units. The compiled materials seem to be not always fully integrated, nor is it always clear where a particular set of rites ends and another begins. Another indicator that the text is likely a compilation is the distribution of certain technical terms‍—for example, the recurrent term “sameness of families” (kulasāmānya) is completely absent in the first half of the text. The composite nature of the text thus makes it difficult to arrive at anything but an approximate date of its origin.

The Amogha­pāśa­kalpa­rāja comprises a teaching on the practices of Amoghapāśa delivered by various speakers as part of a dialogue. The main speaker is Noble Avalokiteśvara who delivers the majority of the teachings, with contributions from Noble Tārā as well. Avalokiteśvara teaches the practices and rites of the peaceful and wrathful emanations of Amoghapāśa, who are ultimately his own heart essence (hṛdaya). Tārā gives a short teaching on the dhāraṇī of Amoghatārā, the female counterpart of Amoghapāśa. Both Avalokiteśvara and Tārā are exhorted to teach by the Buddha Śākyamuni‍—the supreme spiritual authority in the text‍—who blesses the speakers and authenticates their teachings. The fourth interlocutor is Vajrapāṇi, referred to throughout the text as the “great general of the yakṣa army.” He elicits additional teachings with his questions and makes a pledge to protect Amoghapāśa practitioners in the future.

The venue, fittingly, is Potala Mountain, the paradise of Avalokiteśvara, who is the true identity of Amoghapāśa. The practice consists of individual but mutually dependent and interconnected rites (kalpa) that, along with their doctrinal framework, constitute a “sovereign” (rājan) standard to follow. The phrase kalparāja has been variously translated below as “sovereign ritual,” when used to refer to the entire text of the AP, or “sovereign rite,” when referring to an individual rite. This phrase is repeated throughout the text, sometimes referring to the entire text, sometimes to an individual rite, and often to both at the same time.

Indeed, the spirit of “sovereignty” or independence pervades the work as a whole. Each rite, often extolled as “supreme” (uttama) or “unsurpassable” (anuttara), is considered sufficient on its own for accomplishing all worldly goals and the attainment of buddhahood. The quality of “sovereignty” extends even further; although all the rites of the AP belong, just like the titular deity, to the lotus family, the realization attained thereby transcends the family divisions, applying to all tathāgata families.4 This is expressed by the recurrent phrase, “the sameness/equality of all families” (sarva­kula­sāmānya). Thus, by accomplishing any “sovereign ritual” of Amoghapāśa, the practitioner establishes a bond (samaya) with not just the lotus family but all the tathāgata families equally (sarva­kula­sāmānya­samaya).

The concept of the “sameness of families” (kula­sāmānya), ubiquitous in all Kriyā rites and practices of the supramundane (lokottara) type, deserves special attention, as it is prominent in the AP and is possibly one of the most important concepts in the Kriyātantras. As this concept is absent in the (possibly older) part 1 but prominent in part 2 of the AP, it probably entered the Kriyā practice system around the time when part 2 was being composed and might have been introduced in this text for the first time. The term defines the Kriyā pantheon of tathāgatas and other uṣṇīṣa deities,5 who are otherwise grouped according to specific families, by introducing an essential cohesion among them and among all supramundane Kriyā practices. The term kulasāmānya has two functions, one classificatory and the other hermeneutic. As a qualifier, the term is most often combined with ritual terms such as “accomplishment,” “maṇḍala of liberation,” or “rite” (karman). The concept is intrinsically soteriological inasmuch as all tathāgata families share in the same ultimate nature, the dharmakāya, and so are subsumed within buddhahood. Thus, regardless of which deity family or practice one accomplishes, one automatically accomplishes all tathāgata families, is blessed by all of them, and enters the samaya bond with all of them. This convergence is called the “sameness of all tathāgata families” (sarva­tathāgata­kula­sāmānya) or, in short, the “sameness of families” (kulasāmānya). Any deity or mantra practice that leads to full buddhahood is, by definition, kulasāmānya, and, inversely, any practice that is kulasāmānya leads to full buddhahood. The broadness of the concept allows for variations in translating sāmānya (“sameness”) depending on context. For example, kula­sāmānya­tattva­siddhi could be translated as “the realization of the reality of the sameness of all the families.” Kula­sāmānya­samayānupraveśa could be translated, descriptively, as “entering the samaya bond with all the families equally.” The term becomes more difficult to translate when used strictly as an adjective, as, for example, in the phrase “sarva­tathāgata­kula­sāmānya rite” that describes a rite (kalpa) that simply falls into the category of kula­sāmānya. One way out of the problem is to translate this phrase as “a rite that is shared by all tathāgata families.” This translation, however, could be misleading, as most practices and rites described as kula­sāmānya are actually family-specific, as is the case in the AP, where virtually all of them belong to the lotus family. It is helpful to understand that being family-specific does not preclude being kula­sāmānya‍—a family-specific rite or practice is kula­sāmānya if it results in an accomplishment that establishes the samaya bond with all the families. Thus, it is only when a practice is fully accomplished that family divisions are transcended, and one truly realizes the kula­sāmānya.

The AP employs technical vocabulary and stock phrases that are common to the Kriyātantras and need some introduction to be properly understood in the context of this genre of tantric literature.6 One such term is vidyādhara, which means “vidyā holder” when it refers to the practitioner of the rites described in this text. Vidyā implies that he7 is a follower of the mantra method, while dhara (“holder”) implies that he is an upholder of this method and also partakes of the magical power (vidyā) that the method bestows. We have used the phrase “vidyā holder” to translate vidyādhara when it refers to the practitioner and left it untranslated as “vidyādhara” when referring to the eponymous class of nonhuman beings. In fact, there is a connection between the two: the vidyā holder who accomplishes the vidyā ascends to the vidyādhara realm and becomes an “emperor of the vidyādharas” (vidyādhara­cakra­vartin).

Another term prominent in the AP is maṇḍala of liberation, which can refer to the text of the AP as a whole or to any section of it that contains rites or procedures that lead to liberation. It can also refer to any individual rite or procedure, as long as this procedure is in itself sufficient for attaining liberation. It can refer to an individual dhāraṇī mantra, and less frequently to an exceptionally powerful mudrā-gesture. In the context of the AP, it has a similar range of applications as the term “heart essence of Amoghapāśa” (amogha­pāśa­hṛdaya); indeed, any mantra, rite, practice, or section of the text referred to as amogha­pāśa­hṛdaya itself constitutes a maṇḍala of liberation.

The term amogha also requires some discussion. It generally means “unfailing” or “unerring” but is often extended to describe a quality of buddhahood; amogha can be used to complement terms, such as vajra or jewel, that describe unique qualities or aspects of buddhahood. Thus, when the term is applied to the lotus family, it refers specifically to the “unfailing” activities associated with this family. When the term is used in this sense in the AP, we have left it, in some instances, untranslated. The specific use of amogha to refer to unfailing activity eventually becomes personified in the higher tantras as the Tathāgata Amoghasiddhi, who presides over the karman (“activity”) family of buddhas. On at least two occasions, Amogha is simply used in the text as a short form of the deity’s name, Amoghapāśa.

The text of the AP exists today in Sanskrit and in Tibetan and Chinese canonical translations. There is only one complete Sanskrit manuscript (China Library of Nationalities, manuscript 69),8 which has been published as a transcript (Kimura 1998) and as an edition (Kimura 2015). The transcript, however, covers only part of the manuscript, from the beginning to folio 97 (out of the 162 folios), and the edition, still in process, consists only of a short section from folio 97 to folio 101. The names of the Tibetan translators of the AP, described in the final colophon of the Tibetan translation as the “four learned translators of the past,” are not available. The same colophon gives the names of two later translators, both active in the fourteenth century, Chödrak Pel Sangpo and Rinchen Drup. These two lotsāwas added and translated additional material not found in the existing canonical translation.9

The present translation is based on the extant Sanskrit text, in consultation with the Tibetan canonical translation. The English draft was prepared from the Sanskrit manuscript and its partial transcript and edition mentioned above, and it was later checked against the Tibetan translation in the Degé Kangyur and in the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma). The Sanskrit text was carefully compared to the Tibetan witnesses so that the resulting English translation reflects the most plausible readings available. All substantive variants have been recorded in the notes.

The translation that follows is of the complete text of the AP as preserved in the extant Sanskrit manuscript. The Tibetan canon preserves a version of the text that is substantially longer, consisting of about 102 Degé folio sides of material,10 that has not been included in full in our translation. At several points the Tibetan is rendered in verse while the corresponding Sanskrit is not, in which case we have followed the Sanskrit and translated as prose. Our translation does include passages from the Sanskrit manuscript that are absent in the Tibetan, but these are rather short, the longest being about two folios of the Sanskrit manuscript, and the junctures where the two versions fall out of alignment are indicated in the notes. The Chinese canonical translation represents a version of the AP that is shorter than both the Sanskrit and Tibetan versions. The differences in composition between all three versions are listed in the collation tables in Kimura 1997.11

One particular challenge in preparing this translation was the precise identification of the various mantras that are repeatedly referred to in the text by a name or a descriptive phrase shared by more than one mantra‍—the same name or epithet, notably “heart essence of Amoghapāśa,” may refer to different mantras. Some of the confusion should perhaps be attributed to the fact that the AP is a compilation with a cumulative nomenclature that had not been completely integrated or fully harmonized. For ease of cross-referencing, the mantras are given the numbers corresponding to those in Kimura 1998,12 but without a comprehensive table of mantra concordances it would be impossible to consistently decide which specific mantra is referred to in a particular context.

So that readers can correlate our translation with passages in the Sanskrit and Tibetan texts, we have included page numbers from the published Sanskrit edition (Kimura 1998 and Kimura 2015) using the siglum T, with Ti–Tvii referring to Kimura 1998, and Tviii–Tix to Kimura 2015. Folio numbers using the siglum A refer to the Sanskrit manuscript held in the China Library of Nationalities, and folio numbers from the Degé edition of the Tibetan are indicated with F. Because of their alignment with some sections of the Tibetan text, the page numbers from Kimura do not always appear in sequential order.