The Sūtra of Mahāśrī
Toh 740
Degé Kangyur vol. 94 (rgyud ’bum, tsha), folios 234.b–235.a
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First published 2024
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Table of Contents
Summary
The Sūtra of Mahāśrī is a short sūtra revealed to Avalokiteśvara in the pure land of Sukhāvatī. In essence, it is a dhāraṇī centered on twelve epithets of the goddess of wealth and a short ritual instruction concerning its recitation. The spell is said to provide protection, wealth, and good social standing.
Acknowledgements
The text was translated from Tibetan by the Buddhapīṭha Translation Group (Gergely Hidas and Péter-Dániel Szántó).
The translation was completed under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha. Andreas Doctor edited the translation and the introduction, and Laura Goetz copyedited the text. Martina Cotter was in charge of the digital publication process.
Introduction
The Sūtra of Mahāśrī is a short sūtra revealed to Avalokiteśvara in the pure land of Sukhāvatī. In essence, it is a dhāraṇī centered on twelve epithets of the goddess of wealth and a short ritual instruction concerning its recitation. Lists of the epithets of a deity are a common type of dhāraṇī, and such texts can sometimes be very long (for example, Reciting the Names of Mañjuśrī).1 This text can be said to be an alternative version of The Twelve Names of the Goddess Śrī,2 from which it differs in only minor details. One significant difference, however, is that in that text the ritual instruction is not provided.
Mahāśrī, or simply Śrī, or commonly Lakṣmī, is a goddess who is perhaps more prevalent in the brahmanical tradition, where she is said to be the great god Viṣṇu’s consort. She is associated with well-being and prosperity. Here her names constitute the inner core of the dhāraṇī, which is then accompanied by a short ritual instruction about how to recite it. The spell is promised to provide protection, wealth, and good social standing.
The text is not present under this title in the imperial-period catalogs, but its sibling text is. The colophon of the Tibetan translation of this text attributes it to the famous translator-duo Jinamitra and Yeshé Dé, dating it to sometime in the early ninth century. While the two texts are nearly identical, we may observe that name-epithets in particular were translated somewhat differently.
This translation was made principally on the basis of the Tibetan translations of the text found in the Tantra Collection (rgyud ’bum) and the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs (gzungs ’dus)3 in the Degé Kangyur in consultation with the Stok Palace Kangyur and the various witnesses of the sibling text, The Twelve Names of the Goddess Śrī.
Text Body
Sūtra of Mahāśrī
The Translation
Thus did I hear at one time. The Blessed One was residing in Sukhāvatī. Then the bodhisattva mahāsattva, the noble Avalokiteśvara, set out to where the Blessed One was residing. Having arrived, he bowed his head to the feet of the Blessed One, circumambulated the Blessed One thrice, and sat down on one side.
Then the Blessed One looked at Mahāśrī and said this to the noble Avalokiteśvara: “Whosoever, including monks and nuns, laymen and laywomen, gets to know, upholds, recites, writes down, or commissions to have written down these twelve names of Mahāśrī will escape destitution and become wealthy.”
Then the Blessed One spoke the twelve names of Mahāśrī: “It is thus—Splendor, Welfare, She Who Is Wearing a Garland of Lotuses, Mistress of Wealth, White One, She of Great Fame, Lotus-Eyed One, She of Great Radiance, She Who Accomplishes, Bestower of Nourishment, She of Jewel-Like Gleam,6 Great Splendor.
syād yathedam—jini ghriṇi7 sarvārthasādhani śaśini | alakṣmīṃ me nāśaya | sidhyantu me mantrapadāḥ svāhā | oṁ bhṛkuṭi paramasubhage svāhā |8
“One should recite this three times. Whosoever recites it at the three junctures of the day will have all their adversities destroyed and will become fortunate and of inexhaustible wealth. [F.235.a] If one recites this before going out to meet other people, those people will think of one as their son, they will be pleased, and they will do whatever one instructs. If one recites continuously, Brahmā and brahmins may perform aggressive rituals, but one will not be harmed; rather, it will be as if one had performed service to many buddhas.”9
Thus spoke the Blessed One, and the bodhisattva, the noble Avalokiteśvara, was gladdened and praised the speech of the Blessed One.
Here ends the noble “Sūtra of Mahāśrī.”
Colophon
This was translated, checked, and redacted by the Indian preceptor Jinamitra and the great editor-translator Bandé Yeshé Dé.
Notes
Note that there is a discrepancy among various databases for cataloging the Toh 1005 version of this text within vol. 101 or 102 of the Degé Kangyur. See Toh 1005, n.3, for details.
Bibliography
Tibetan Sources
dpal chen mo’i mdo (Mahāśrīsūtra). Toh 740, Degé Kangyur vol. 94 (rgyud ’bum, tsha), folios 234.b–235.a.
dpal chen mo’i mdo (Mahāśrīsūtra). Toh 1005, Degé Kangyur vol. 101 (gzungs ’dus, waM), folios 171.a–172.b.
dpal chen mo’i mdo. Stok Palace Kangyur vol. 108 (rgyud, tsa), folios 86.a–87.a.
dpal gyi lha mo’i mtshan bcu gnyis pa. Toh 741, Degé Kangyur vol. 94 (rgyud ’bum, tsha), folios 235.a–235.b; Toh 1006, Degé Kangyur vol. 101 (gzungs ’dus, waM), folios 172.a–172.b. English translation The Twelve Names of the Goddess Śrī, 2024.
Secondary Sources
84000. The Twelve Names of the Goddess Śrī (dpal gyi lha mo’i mtshan bcu gnyis pa, Toh 741, 1006). Translated by the Buddhapīṭha Translation Group (Gergely Hidas and Péter-Dániel Szántó). Online publications. 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, 2024.
Hidas, Gergely. Powers of Protection: The Buddhist Tradition of Spells in the Dhāraṇīsaṃgraha Collections. Beyond Boundaries 9. Boston: de Gruyter, 2021.
Skorupski, Tadeusz. A Catalogue of the Stog Palace Kanjur. Bibliographia Philologica Buddhica, Series Maior 4. Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 1985.
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.
Avalokiteśvara
- spyan ras gzigs dbang phyug
- སྤྱན་རས་གཟིགས་དབང་ཕྱུག
- avalokiteśvara AO
Bandé Yeshé Dé
- ban+de ye shes sde
- བནྡེ་ཡེ་ཤེས་སྡེ།
- —
bodhisattva mahāsattva
- byang chub sems dpa’ sems dpa’ chen po
- བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ་སེམས་དཔའ་ཆེན་པོ།
- bodhisattvamahāsattva AO
She of Jewel-Like Gleam
- rin po che rab tu sbyin ma
- རིན་པོ་ཆེ་རབ་ཏུ་སྦྱིན་མ།
- ratnaprabhā AO
She Who Is Wearing a Garland of Lotuses
- pad+ma’i phreng ba can
- པདྨའི་ཕྲེང་བ་ཅན།
- padmamālinī AO