The Dhāraṇī “Unhesitating Compassion”

Summary

The Dhāraṇī “Unhesitating Compassion” is a short dhāraṇī text that includes several short dhāraṇīs and one longer dhāraṇī of Avalokiteśvara, spoken by an unidentified speaker along with the request for Avalokiteśvara to appear, pacify illness, purify karma, and provide protection from danger.

Acknowledgments

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. Sameer Dhingra was in charge of the digital publication process.

Introduction

The Dhāraṇī “Unhesitating Compassion” is a short dhāraṇī text in which an unidentified first-person speaker proclaims the dhāraṇī called “Unhesitating Great Compassion,” and makes the aspiration for Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva who embodies compassion, to appear. Further short dhāraṇīs are repeated along with the request for Avalokiteśvara to appear, to pacify illness, and to purify karma. The text also includes a much longer dhāraṇī with a request for protection from danger, harm, and illness.

This dhāraṇī text is one of several canonical texts that focus on Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva who embodies compassion, and like many works classified as dhāraṇī texts and kriyā tantras, it teaches the recitation of dhāraṇīs for pacifying and curative purposes.

A Sanskrit witness of The Dhāraṇī “Unhesitating Compassion” does not appear to be extant, nor does it appear to have been translated into Chinese. The text does not appear in the imperial catalogs, nor at Dunhuang, and it lacks a translator’s colophon. In the absence of such a colophon, and since the text’s title does not appear in any of the imperial catalogs or at Dunhuang, we are unable to date the text or its Tibetan translation. However, nearly the same dhāraṇī, with some variants, appears in The Sovereign Root Tantra of Noble Avalokiteśvara: The Net of Lotuses (Toh 681), where it is identified as the root vidyāmantra of a form of Avalokiteśvara named Unhesitating Compassion (thugs rje mi bshol ba). There, the whole dhāraṇī is given in Sanskrit transliteration, whereas in the present text, sections of what appears in The Sovereign Root Tantra of Noble Avalokiteśvara in Sanskrit transliteration are here translated into Tibetan, interspersed with sections of Sanskrit transliteration. The Sovereign Root Tantra of Noble Avalokiteśvara was translated into Tibetan in the eleventh or twelfth century,^⁠1 but as just noted, the rendering of the dhāraṇī in the present text has been approached differently than in The Sovereign Root Tantra of Noble Avalokiteśvara, so the present dhāraṇī does not appear to have been extracted from the Tibetan translation of that tantra.

Like many dhāraṇī texts, The Dhāraṇī “Unhesitating Compassion” is found in the Tantra section of both the Tshalpa and Thempangma lineage Kangyurs as a kriyā tantra. In the Degé Kangyur and other Tshalpa lineage Kangyurs that have a Dhāraṇī section, it is additionally found there. The text as found in the Tantra section of the Degé Kangyur (Toh 698) and in the Dhāraṇī (Toh 908)^⁠2⁠2 section does have some minor differences. In brief, Toh 698 includes slightly expanded phrasing of the same passages in comparison with Toh 908 (e.g., yang dar par rdzogs pa’i sangs rgyas in Toh 698 vs. rdzogs pa’i sangs rgyas in Toh 908), elimination of doubled phrases in some (but not all) passages, a slightly more condensed colophon, and somewhat different punctuation throughout. All of this suggests that, while the two represent the same translation, Toh 908 seems to have been edited. Toh 698 also has a Sanskrit title added at the beginning, whereas Toh 908 does not. The dhāraṇī itself is the same with only minor orthographic variation. The recension preserved in the Stok Palace Kangyur matches Toh 908 rather than Toh 698.

The title given at the incipit and in the colophon of both Degé recensions reads snying rjes mi bshol ba’i gzungs, “The Dhāraṇī: Unhesitating Due to Compassion.” The title in the incipit in the Narthang, Lhasa, and Stok Kangyurs, and in the colophon in both Lhasa and Stok, reads snying rje mi bshol ba’i gzung, “The Dhāraṇī: Unhesitating Compassion,” which also follows the internal reading for the name of the dhāraṇī given in all recensions consulted in giving the nominative rather than the agentive case ending.^⁠3 This also corresponds with the name of the form of Avalokiteśvara associated with this dhāraṇī in The Sovereign Root Tantra of Noble Avalokiteśvara.^⁠4 We therefore prefer the nominitive reading and have followed this reading thoughout our translation, as well as in the Tibetan title given on the title page.^⁠5

This English translation was made based on both recensions of the text found in the Degé Kangyur, with reference also to the Stok Palace Kangyur and the notes from the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) of the Kangyur. In the places where there are minor variations between the two Degé recensions, as described above, our translation follows Toh 698, and we have noted in the footnotes all variants in Toh 908 that would affect the translation of the passage. In addition, the dhāraṇīs are rendered exactly as they appear in the Degé Kangyur recension from the Tantra section (Toh 698).