Recollecting the Common Essence of the Tathāgatas includes a short dhāraṇī and a brief statement on the benefit of its recitation for the purpose of purifying karmic obscurations.
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. Catherine Dalton 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.
Recollecting the Common Essence of the Tathāgatas includes a short dhāraṇī that is identified as the common essence of all tathāgatas, along with a statement that reciting it even once brings an end to the obscurations of eight hundred million eons.
The text is found in the Degé Kangyur in both the Tantra section, where it is classed as an action tantra (bya rgyud, kriyātantra), and in the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs section.
The work lacks a Sanskrit title as well as a colophon and is not listed in any of the imperial-period catalogs. However, a text bearing the same title does appear at Dunhuang, suggesting that the text was translated into Tibetan and circulated in Tibet in a relatively early period.1
We are unaware of any extant Sanskrit recension or Chinese translation of Recollecting the Common Essence of the Tathāgatas.
This translation was made on the basis of the two Degé Kangyur recensions of the text (Toh 53623 and Toh 86923), with reference to the Stok Palace edition as well as the notes to the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma). There are no major discrepancies among the recensions consulted. The dhāraṇī itself has been transcribed exactly as it appears in Toh 536.
Reciting this even a single time will exhaust the karmic obscurations accumulated in eight hundred million eons.
This completes “Recollecting the Common Essence of the Tathāgatas.”
Recollecting the Common Essence of the Tathāgatas includes a short dhāraṇī and a brief statement on the benefit of its recitation for the purpose of purifying karmic obscurations.
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. Catherine Dalton 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.
Recollecting the Common Essence of the Tathāgatas includes a short dhāraṇī that is identified as the common essence of all tathāgatas, along with a statement that reciting it even once brings an end to the obscurations of eight hundred million eons.
The text is found in the Degé Kangyur in both the Tantra section, where it is classed as an action tantra (bya rgyud, kriyātantra), and in the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs section.
The work lacks a Sanskrit title as well as a colophon and is not listed in any of the imperial-period catalogs. However, a text bearing the same title does appear at Dunhuang, suggesting that the text was translated into Tibetan and circulated in Tibet in a relatively early period.1
We are unaware of any extant Sanskrit recension or Chinese translation of Recollecting the Common Essence of the Tathāgatas.
This translation was made on the basis of the two Degé Kangyur recensions of the text (Toh 53623 and Toh 86923), with reference to the Stok Palace edition as well as the notes to the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma). There are no major discrepancies among the recensions consulted. The dhāraṇī itself has been transcribed exactly as it appears in Toh 536.
Reciting this even a single time will exhaust the karmic obscurations accumulated in eight hundred million eons.
This completes “Recollecting the Common Essence of the Tathāgatas.”
A text with the same title and which appears to have similar content is listed in Dalton and van Schaik’s catalog as the sixth text included in IOL Tib-J 312. However, that manuscript has not yet been digitized and, therefore, does not appear on the International Dunhuang Project’s webpage, so we were unable to ascertain with full certainty that it is the same text. Dalton and van Schaik’s summary mentions that the dhāraṇī in IOL Tib-J 312.6 serves the purpose of clearing away karmic obscurations, which is also mentioned in the present text, so it is likely to be the same as the present dhāraṇī. The immediately following text in IOL Tib-J 312.7 also bears the same title and a similar description to Toh 537, increasing the likelihood that these two works in the Degé Kangyur are the same as those that appear in the same order in IOL Tib-J 312.
In the Toh 536 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.2 of the Toh 536 version of this text.
Two sets of folio references have been included in this translation due to a discrepancy in volume 88 (rgyud ’bum, na) of the Degé Kangyur between the 1737 par phud printings and the late (post par phud) printings. In the latter case, an extra work, Bodhimaṇḍasyālaṃkāralakṣadhāraṇī (Toh 508, byang chub snying po’i rgyan ’bum gyi gzungs), was added as the second text in the volume, thereby displacing the pagination of all the following texts in the same volume by 17 folios. Since the eKangyur follows the later printing, both references have been provided, with the highlighted one linking to the eKangyur viewer.
This text, Toh 869, and all those contained in this same volume (gzungs ’dus, waM), 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.
A frequently used synonym for buddha. According to different explanations, it can be read as tathā-gata, literally meaning “one who has thus gone,” or as tathā-āgata, “one who has thus come.” Gata, though literally meaning “gone,” is a past passive participle used to describe a state or condition of existence. Tatha(tā), often rendered as “suchness” or “thusness,” is the quality or condition of things as they really are, which cannot be conveyed in conceptual, dualistic terms. Therefore, this epithet is interpreted in different ways, but in general it implies one who has departed in the wake of the buddhas of the past, or one who has manifested the supreme awakening dependent on the reality that does not abide in the two extremes of existence and quiescence. It is also often used as a specific epithet of the Buddha Śākyamuni.
de bzhin gshegs pa spyi’i snying po rjes su dran pa. Toh 536, Degé Kangyur vol. 88 (rgyud, na), folio 83.a.
de bzhin gshegs pa spyi’i snying po rjes su dran pa. Toh 869, Degé Kangyur vol. 100 (gzungs ’dus, e), folio 89.a.
de bzhin gshegs pa spyi’i snying po rjes su dran pa. bka’ ’gyur (dpe bsdur ma) [Comparative Edition of the Kangyur], krung go’i bod rig pa zhib ’jug ste gnas kyi bka’ bstan dpe sdur khang (The Tibetan Tripitaka Collation Bureau of the China Tibetology Research Center). 108 volumes. Beijing: krung go’i bod rig pa dpe skrun khang (China Tibetology Publishing House), 2006–9, vol. 88, p. 322.
de bzhin gshegs pa spyi’i snying po rjes su dran pa. bka’ ’gyur (dpe bsdur ma) [Comparative Edition of the Kangyur], krung go’i bod rig pa zhib ’jug ste gnas kyi bka’ bstan dpe sdur khang (The Tibetan Tripitaka Collation Bureau of the China Tibetology Research Center). 108 volumes. Beijing: krung go’i bod rig pa dpe skrun khang (China Tibetology Publishing House), 2006–9, vol. 97, p. 255.
de bzhin gshegs pa spyi’i snying po rjes su dran pa. S496. Stok Palace Kangyur vol. 102 (rgyud, da), folio 102.b.
Dalton, Jacob, and Sam van Schaik, eds. Tibetan Tantric Manuscripts from Dunhuang: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Stein Collection at the British Library. Brill’s Tibetan Studies Library 12. Leiden: Brill, 2006.
