The Dhāraṇī of the Essence of Śākyamuni
Toh 860
Degé Kangyur, vol. 100 (gzungs, e), folios 87.a
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
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. Bruno Galasek-Hul produced the translation and wrote the introduction. Nathaniel Rich edited the translation and the introduction, and Dawn Collins copyedited the text. Martina Cotter was in charge of the digital publication process.
Introduction
The Dhāraṇī of the Essence of Śākyamuni is a very brief dhāraṇī contained in the Degé Kangyur in both the Tantra section and in the Dhāraṇī section. Within the Tantra section, it is classed as an Action tantra (bya rgyud, kriyātantra).
The dhāraṇī has no narrative frame or interlocutors and starts with a formulaic homage to the Buddha Śākyamuni. Immediately after that, the dhāraṇī mantra that invokes the Buddha is presented. The dhāraṇī concludes with the marvelous benefit that can be expected when one recites Śākyamuni’s dhāraṇī mantra only once: all the negative actions that one has accrued during eighty million kalpas will be completely purified.
The Dhāraṇī of the Essence of Śākyamuni has no Sanskrit title, no translators’ colophon, and we do not know who translated it or when. To our knowledge, no Sanskrit text of this dhāṛaṇī is extant and it does not appear to have been translated into Chinese. The catalogs of the early imperial translations, the Denkarma and the Phangthangma, do not list it. The short title is mentioned in the catalog of translated works in the Kangyur that is included in Butön’s monumental fourteenth-century History of Buddhism.1 Richard O. Meisezahl records an interesting variant of the dhāraṇī in a catalog of Tibetan manuscripts and prints kept in the Linden Museum in Stuttgart. Here, the dhāraṇī of Śākyamuni is clearly comprised of the homage (in transcribed Sanskrit) and the essence mantra, while in the Degé version of The Dhāraṇī of the Essence of Śākyamuni, the homage is translated into Tibetan and appears separate from the essence mantra. The version in the Linden Museum reads as follows: na maḥ śākya mu na ye ta thā ga tā ya| arha te samyaksaṃ buddhā ya| tadya thā| mu ni mu ni ma hā mu ni ye sbā hā.2
The mantra of the Buddha Śākyamuni occurs in a few other places in the Kangyur, most notably in The Perfection of Wisdom in a Few Syllables (Toh 22) and in The Perfection of Wisdom for Vajrapāṇi (Toh 29), as well as several times in A Portion of the Practice of the Sovereign Tantra Purifying Evil Destinies (Toh 485).
This English translation was prepared based on the two versions in the Degé Kangyur (Toh 5333 and Toh 8604) in consultation with the variant readings of the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) of the Kangyur and the version in the Stok Palace Kangyur (S 492). Śākyamuni’s mantra was edited based on the Degé edition and an English translation is provided in a note.
Text Body
Essence Dhāraṇī of Śākyamuni
Notes
In the Toh 533 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.3 of the Toh 533 version of this text.
This text, Toh 860, and all those contained in this same volume (gzungs, e), 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.
Bibliography
Tibetan Sources
’phags pa shAkya thub pa’i snying po’i gzungs. Toh 533, Degé Kangyur vol. 88 (gzungs, na), folio 82.b.
’phags pa shAkya thub pa’i snying po’i gzungs. Toh 860, Degé Kangyur vol. 100 (gzungs, e), folio 87.a.
’phags pa shAkya thub pa’i snying po’i gzungs. Stok Palace Kangyur vol. 102 (rgyud, da), folio 101.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). chos ’byung (bde bar gshegs pa’i bstan pa’i gsal byed chos kyi ’byung gnas gsung rab rin po che’i gter mdzod). In The Collected Works of Bu-Ston, vol. 24 (ya), folios 1.b–212.a (pp. 633–1055). New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture, 1965–71. BDRC W22106.
Modern Sources
Davidson, Ronald M. “Studies in Dhāraṇī Literature II: Pragmatics of Dhāraṇīs.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 77/1 (Feb. 2014): 5-61. doi:10.1017/S0041977X13000943
Herrmann-Pfandt, Adelheid. Die lHan kar ma: ein früher Katalog der ins Tibetische übersetzten buddhistischen Texte. Vienna: Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2008.
Meisezahl, Richard Othon. “Die tibetischen Handschriften und Drucke des Linden-Museums in Stuttgart.” Tribus. Verōffentlichungen des Linden-Museums, Nr, 7, 1957, pp. 1-166. Stuttgart: Museum für Länder- und Völkerkunde, 1957.
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