The Dhāraṇī Praising the Qualities of the Immeasurable One

Translation of འཕགས་པ་ཡན་ཏན་བསྔགས་པ་དཔག་ཏ་མད་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བའ་གཟངས (འཕགས་པ་ཡོན་ཏན་བསྔགས་པ་དཔག་ཏུ་མེད་པ་ཞེས་བྱ་བའི་གཟུངས)

Language: English
Translator: Adam Krug
Extent: 17 passages, 1,157 words
Text: complete digital text
Source: 84000 · Translated by The Dharmachakra Translation Committeeunder the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating… · CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha). Shown whole and unaltered, with its notes, on a…

intro 84000's introduction — 5 parts
1
notes Notes — 11 parts

Text

84000's introduction

intro.1

The Dhāraṇī that Praises the Qualities of the Immeasurable One contains a short dhāraṇī mantra praising the tathāgata Amitābha and brief instructions on the benefits that result from its recitation.

The Dhāraṇī Praising the Qualities of the Immeasurable One consists of a short dhāraṇī praising Buddha Amitābha and a brief description of the benefits one accrues by reciting this dhāraṇī. These benefits range from the purification of negative deeds to having visions of the bodhisattva Maitreya, the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, and the buddha Amitābha himself. The Sanskrit term for the English “immeasurable” (aparimita) that appears in the title of this work can be interpreted as referring both to the Buddha Amitābha as “The Immeasurable One” and to the fact that the qualities that Amitābha possesses are themselves “immeasurable.” The phrase “The Immeasurable One” is used here to give coherence to the title in English, but the reader is invited to entertain the dual significance of the term when reading or reciting the text—that Amitābha is both immeasurably vast and possesses immeasurable qualities.¹

intro.3

A Sanskrit version of this work is to our knowledge no longer extant. The text seems to have been translated from Sanskrit into Tibetan no later than the early ninth century, as its title is recorded in the Denkarma² and Phangthangma³ Tibetan imperial translation catalogs. However, the Tibetan translation does not contain a colophon, so further details surrounding its translation into Tibetan are unknown. A Chinese translation of the text (Taishō 934) was completed by a certain Faxian (whose identity is surrounded with uncertainty) sometime between 989 and 999 ce.⁴

intro.4

This brief scripture is missing from some Kangyur collections but appears twice in others.⁵ Its title does not appear in any of the Kangyur collections that belong purely to the Thempangma (them spangs ma) lineage. However, the Kangyur collections that belong to the Tshalpa (tshal pa) lineage include it twice, while the mixed lineage and independent collections include it either twice or only once. In the Degé Kangyur it appears in both the Tantra Collection (rgyud ’bum, Toh 679) and the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs (gzungs ’dus, Toh 851).⁶ The dhāraṇī mantra featured in the text is also included in Butön Rinchen Drup’s (bu ston rin chen grub, 1290–1364) Collection of Dhāraṇī of the Four Classes of Secret Mantra.⁷

intro.5

This English translation is based on the Degé Kangyur version of Toh 679 in consultation with the variant readings recorded in the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma). In addition, we have compared Toh 679 to Toh 851 (Degé and Comparative Edition) and accounted for all significant differences in the notes. The dhāraṇī is rendered in Sanskrit diacritics following the Tibetan transliteration in the Tantra Collection of the Degé Kangyur (Toh 679), with major variants between Toh 679 and Toh 851 noted. An English translation of the dhāraṇī is also provided in a note.

1

Homage to the Three Jewels.

namo ratnatrayāya namo bhagavate amitabhāya tathāgatāya arhate saṃyaksambuddhāya | tadyathā oṃ amite amitodbhave amitasaṃbhave amitavikrānte amitagamini gaganakīrtikare⁸ sarvakleśakṣayaṃkare⁹ svāhā |¹⁰

The ritual instructions for this dhāraṇī are as follows: Reciting it once purifies the karmic obscurations that you have accumulated over one hundred thousand eons. If you recite it three times a day every day, all your misdeeds will be purified, and you will obtain the roots of virtue generated by one thousand buddhas. If you recite it twenty-one times it will purify the four root downfalls.¹¹ If you recite it one hundred thousand times you will have a vision of Noble Maitreya. If you recite it two hundred thousand times you will have a vision of Noble Avalokiteśvara. If you recite it three hundred thousand times you will have a vision of the tathāgata Amitābha. Since the additional benefits are innumerable, this is only a brief summary.

Notes

notes.1

1. We have translated the title of this text based on the Sanskrit title provided in the Tibetan text (aparimitaguṇānuśāṁsa). Here we have interpreted the Sanskrit compound to reflect the internal syntax *aparimitasya guṇānām anuśaṁsaḥ. A literal translation of the Tibetan title (yon tan bsngags pa dpag tu med pa) might be Immeasurable Praising of Qualities. If the Tibetan title were to reflect our reading of the Sanskrit compound aparimitaguṇānuśāṁsa it would have to be emended to dpag tu med pa’i yon tan bsngags pa. Ultimately, the decision to follow the reading reflected in the Sanskrit title was supported by the fact that the dhāraṇī itself is clearly addressed to the buddha Amitābha. Translating the title based on the Tibetan would obscure the fact that the title is a reference to Amitābha, not just a generic sense of “immeasurable qualities.”

notes.2

2. Denkarma folio 303.a.6; see also Herrmann-Pfandt (2009), p. 238.

notes.3

3. dkar chag ’phang thang ma (2003), p. 30.

notes.4

4. For details about this translation and the inconclusive identification of Faxian (法賢), see Lancaster, “K 1224i,” Korean Buddhist Canon, 2018.

notes.5

5. For details, see Resources for Kanjur & Tenjur Studies.

notes.6

6. Note that there is a discrepancy among various databases for cataloging the Toh 851 version of this text within vol. 100 or 101 of the Degé Kangyur. See Toh 851 note 6 for details. This text, Toh 851, 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.

notes.7

7. See Butön Rinchen Drup (1965–1971), vol. ma, p. 258.a.7–258.b.3.

notes.8

8. This reading is attested in Toh 851 as well as the Yongle, Narthang, and Lhasa (Zhol) editions of the Kangyur. Toh 679 reads gaganakīrtikari.

notes.9

9. This reading is attested in the Kangxi (Peking) edition of the Kangyur. Toh 679 and Toh 851 read sarvakleśakṣayaṃkari.

notes.10

10. Translation: “I pay homage to the Three Jewels. I pay homage to the thus-gone, worthy, perfect buddha—the blessed Amitābha with the following: Oṃ infinite one who arises from the infinite, whose nature is infinite, whose stride is infinite, whose range is infinite, who grants renown vast as the sky, who brings an end to all the afflictions, svāhā .”

notes.11

11. The translation here follows the Yongle, Kangxi (Peking), Narthang, and Lhasa (Zhol) editions of the Kangyur, which read ltung ba rtsa ba’i bzhi po.