The Dhāraṇī of Siṃhanāda

The Dhāraṇī of Siṃhanāda (Toh 704), also known as The Dhāraṇī of Siṃhanāda’s Promise (Toh 912), is preserved in two separate Kangyur recensions1 with different titles, which contain essentially identical content.2 This short dhāraṇī text includes a dhāraṇī for Siṃhanāda and a short instruction for a ritual that employs the dhāraṇī to cure illness. Its contents closely parallel a section from the longer Dhāraṇī of Avalokiteśvara Siṃhanāda (Toh 703),3 where the dhāraṇī and ritual content of The Dhāraṇī of Siṃhanāda‍—along with several other dhāraṇīs, mantras, and rituals‍—is incorporated into a narrative framework that describes how Siṃhanāda acquired his curative powers. The concise Dhāraṇī of Siṃhanāda, in contrast, opens directly with the dhāraṇī, followed by instructions for making eight maṇḍalas with cow dung that is subsequently incanted and smeared onto a sick person to cure their illness. In the end, Avalokiteśvara states that if a curative result were not achieved from the practice, it would be as if he himself had performed the five deeds of immediate retribution. This is a set of acts that include patricide, matricide, killing an arhat, causing a rift in the saṅgha, and drawing the blood of a tathāgata with malicious intent. This forceful statement implies that it is as impossible for this rite to fail as it is for Avalokiteśvara‍—the very embodiment of compassion‍—to perform any of these heinous acts. In the longer Dhāraṇī of Avalokiteśvara Siṃhanāda, this promise is made even more explicit, with Śākyamuni telling Mañjuśrī, “Mañjuśrī, this is the Great Compassionate One’s own promise.”4 This sentence from the longer dhāraṇī text provides the context for the title of Toh 912: The Dhāraṇī of Siṃhanāda’s Promise.

Siṃhanāda, “Lion’s Roar,” also sometimes called Lokeśvara Siṃhanāda, is a form of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara. There are nine Siṃhanāda sādhanas and several other Siṃhanāda praises and ritual texts preserved in the Tibetan Kangyur, attesting to his importance in India. Images of Siṃhanāda have been found at the Mahābodhi temple in Bodh Gaya prior to that temple’s nineteenth-century renovation,5 and in Sri Lanka where it seems Siṃhanāda was especially popular.6 The association of Siṃhanāda with curative properties that we find in the present text appears to be quite an old one. A tenth-century Nepalese miniature painting kept at Cambridge depicts Siṃhanāda and includes a caption reading, “Lokeśvara of the hospital on the island of Siṃhala.”7 While Avalokiteśvara in general has a close iconographical association with the deity Śiva, this is even more clear in the case of Siṃhanāda. In The Dhāraṇī of Avalokiteśvara Siṃhanāda, Siṃhanāda‍—just like Śiva‍—holds a brahmin’s skull and a snake-wrapped trident, and wears a sacred thread made of a snake.

Although it is not described in this text, Siṃhanāda’s iconography is generally consistent across textual and artistic sources. In the descriptions found in his many sādhanas and praises, Siṃhanāda is white in color, has two legs and two arms, is dressed as an ascetic (tapasvin, dka’ thub ldan pa) and sits on a lion. In most descriptions, a skull-adorned trident rests at his right side, but in some he holds it in his right hand. This trident is also frequently depicted with a white snake coiled around the shaft. With his left hand, he holds the end of a lotus stalk that rises upwards, with a sword standing on the open lotus blossom. Nearby and to the left, sits what is variously described as a cup (karoṭaka), pot (bhājana, snod), or skull cup (kapāla, thod pa) filled with fragrant flowers. This vessel often sits on a lotus or water lily.8

The Siṃhanāda form of Avalokiteśvara continues to be practiced in contemporary Tibetan Buddhist traditions. Two arrangements of practices centered on Lokeśvara Siṃhanāda are found in the Compendium of Sādhanas (sgrub thabs kun btus) compiled by Jamyang Loter Wangpo,9 and the nineteenth-century scholar Mipham Gyatso wrote a short summary of the story of The Dhāraṇī of Avalokiteśvara Siṃhanāda.10

The Dhāraṇī of Siṃhanāda is extant in Sanskrit, as text number 21 in the Sādhanamālā,11 and as part of the dhāraṇī collection published by Gergely Hidas.12 It does not appear to be extant in Chinese translation. In Tibetan, in addition to the two Kangyur recensions of this short work‍—one included the Tantra section (Toh 704) and the other in the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs section (Toh 912) of the Degé Kangyur‍—another version is found in the Tengyur with the tile The Dhāraṇī of Siṃhanāda (Toh 3156),13 which was translated by a different Tibetan translator and lacks attribution to a specific author. Toh 3156 contains several minor variants from Toh 704/912, suggesting that, in addition to being translated by different translators, the latter texts were also based on different Sanskrit recensions. Although the differences are minor, the Tengyur recension stands closer to the extant Sanskrit text as preserved in the Sādhanamālā than the present Kangyur recension.

The version of the text translated into English here was translated into Tibetan by the Indian master Vāgīśvara and the Tibetan translator Lokya Sherab Tsek, who were active in the eleventh century. The Tengyur recension was translated in the eleventh or twelfth century by Patshab Lotsawa Tsultrim Gyaltsen and is part of the collection called “The ‘Hundred’ Sādhanas translated by Patshab” (pa tshab kyis bsgyur ba’i sgrub thabs rgya rtsa) in the Tantra section of the Tengyur. It is one of only two dhāraṇīs in that collection of one hundred and sixty-three texts, the majority of which are indeed sādhanas.

This English translation was made on the basis of both Degé Kangyur recensions of this work, with additional reference to the Stok Palace recension, the notes from the Comparative Edition (dpe sdur ma), the Tengyur recension (Toh 3156), the parallel passage in the longer Dhāraṇī of Avalokiteśvara Siṃhanāda (Toh 703), as well the Sanskrit Siṃha­nāda­dhāraṇī from the Sādhanamālā, and Hidas 2021. The Dhāraṇī of Siṃhanāda is generally stable across all recensions consulted, including the Sanskrit, with only minor variants. We edited the dhāraṇī itself very slightly based on the Sanskrit text from the Sādhanamālā and have noted those emendations.