This text presents a single dhāraṇī to enable the retention of the Avataṃsakasūtra.
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. Paul G. Hackett produced the translation and wrote the introduction. Rory Lindsay edited the translation and the introduction, and Dawn Collins copyedited the text. Sameer Dhingra was in charge of the digital publication process.
This text presents a single dhāraṇī1 to enable the retention of the Avataṃsakasūtra2, with no additional explanation. The text appears similar in nature to the sort of dhāraṇī presented to enable retention in The Dhāraṇī for the Retention of the Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra in One Hundred Thousand Lines (Toh 583). No Sanskrit title is provided for this text, and its title is given on the basis of the Tibetan alone.
This translation of the text into English relied primarily on the Degé recension while referring to variant readings in other recensions as noted in the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) and validated in the source texts—notably Narthang.33 No previous translation of this text into a language outside the Tibetan sphere of influence is known. Meisezahl (1957) provides a diplomatic edition of the dhāraṇī found in the Linden Museum Tibetan collection.
By taking up this dhāraṇī, one will retain the noble Avataṃsaka. One will be like someone who has written it and recited it.
This completes “The Dhāraṇī for Retaining the Noble Avataṃsaka.”
This text presents a single dhāraṇī to enable the retention of the Avataṃsakasūtra.
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. Paul G. Hackett produced the translation and wrote the introduction. Rory Lindsay edited the translation and the introduction, and Dawn Collins copyedited the text. Sameer Dhingra was in charge of the digital publication process.
This text presents a single dhāraṇī1 to enable the retention of the Avataṃsakasūtra2, with no additional explanation. The text appears similar in nature to the sort of dhāraṇī presented to enable retention in The Dhāraṇī for the Retention of the Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra in One Hundred Thousand Lines (Toh 583). No Sanskrit title is provided for this text, and its title is given on the basis of the Tibetan alone.
This translation of the text into English relied primarily on the Degé recension while referring to variant readings in other recensions as noted in the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) and validated in the source texts—notably Narthang.33 No previous translation of this text into a language outside the Tibetan sphere of influence is known. Meisezahl (1957) provides a diplomatic edition of the dhāraṇī found in the Linden Museum Tibetan collection.
By taking up this dhāraṇī, one will retain the noble Avataṃsaka. One will be like someone who has written it and recited it.
This completes “The Dhāraṇī for Retaining the Noble Avataṃsaka.”
Of the four types of dhāraṇīs described by the fourth-century scholar-yogi Asaṅga—Dharma dhāraṇīs (dharmadhāraṇī; chos kyi gzungs), meaning dhāraṇīs (arthadhāraṇī; don gyi gzungs), mantra dhāraṇīs (mantradhāraṇī; gsang sngags kyi gzungs), and bodhisattva forbearance dhāraṇīs (bodhisattvakṣāntilābhāyadhāraṇī; byang chub sems dpa’ bzod pa ’thob par byed pa’i gzungs)—this text falls into the category of dharmadhāraṇīs, which enable one to retain knowledge of words, that is, Dharma teachings, that have been heard. Cf. Grounds of Bodhisattvas (Bodhisattvabhūmi; byang chub sems dpa’i sa; Toh 4037, folio 144.a). A discussion of various classifications of dhāraṇīs is given in Pagel 2007.
This text, Toh 940, and all those contained in this same volume (gzungs ’dus, 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.
This dhāraṇī translates as, “oṃ nthiṃ. Homage to all the buddhas. oṃ māṃ bhrūṃ mūṃ. It is thus. oṃ bhrūṃ.”
This very long work in 45 chapters fills no less than four volumes of the Degé Kangyur. In its current form, it is presented as a single extensive sūtra (vaipulyasūtra), but it probably evolved as an encyclopedic coalescence of shorter works, many of which circulated independently and are still seen as texts in their own right. The whole work is classified by Tibetan editors as belonging to the Buddha’s third turning of the wheel of Dharma.
See the 84000 Knowledge Base article, “A Multitude of Buddhas.”
The term dhāraṇī has the sense of something that “holds” or “retains,” and so it can refer to the special capacity of practitioners to memorize and recall detailed teachings. It can also refer to a verbal expression of the teachings—an incantation, spell, or mnemonic formula—that distills and “holds” essential points of the Dharma and is used by practitioners to attain mundane and supramundane goals. The same term is also used to denote texts that contain such formulas.
’phags pa phal po che gzung bar ’gyur ba’i gzungs. Toh 584, Degé Kangyur vol. 90 (rgyud, pha), folios 204.a.
’phags pa phal po che gzung bar ’gyur ba’i gzungs. Toh 940, Degé Kangyur vol. 100 (gzungs ’dus, e), folios 282.a.
’phags pa phal po che gzung bar ’gyur ba’i gzungs (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. 90, pp. 661–62.
Meisezahl, Richard O. “Die tibetischen Handschriften und Drucke des Linden-Museums in Stuttgart.” Tribus 7 (1957): 1–166, 102 (item 71 566, Nr. 5).
Pagel, Ulrich. Mapping the Path: Vajrapadas in Mahāyāna Literature. Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 2007.
