[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Indian literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in) › [Buddhist Literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha) › [Buddhist Sanskrit literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.sanskrit) › [Protective spells and dhāraṇī-sūtras](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.sanskrit.dharani) › [Dhāraṇīs of buddhas and uṣṇīṣas](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.sanskrit.dharani.buddha) › [\*Candraprabhanāmānusmṛti](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.sanskrit.dharani.buddha.candraprabhanamanusmrti) › [Toh 868](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.sanskrit.dharani.buddha.candraprabhanamanusmrti*bo-d868) › [Recollecting the Name of Moonlight](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.sanskrit.dharani.buddha.candraprabhanamanusmrti*bo-d868~en-84000) › intro # Toh 868 intro: 84000's introduction Recollecting the Name of Moonlight intro - **Language:** English ### 84000's introduction ### [intro.1](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.sanskrit.dharani.buddha.candraprabhanamanusmrti*bo-d868~en-84000.intro.1) Recollecting the Name of Moonlight contains the dhāraṇī of the Buddha Moonlight. The benefits of recollecting the Buddha Moonlight’s name every morning after rising are that one will remember all one’s lives of the past forty thousand kalpas, one will not fall into the lower realms after death, and one will attain the attributes of awakening. ### [intro.2](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.sanskrit.dharani.buddha.candraprabhanamanusmrti*bo-d868~en-84000.intro.2) Recollecting the Name of Moonlight is a short dhāraṇī preserved in the Degé Kangyur in two nearly identical versions, one in the Tantra section and the other in the Dhāraṇī section. ### [intro.3](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.sanskrit.dharani.buddha.candraprabhanamanusmrti*bo-d868~en-84000.intro.3) Recollecting the Name of Moonlight opens with a brief homage to the buddha named Moonlight. It lacks the customary title (in Sanskrit and Tibetan) at the beginning and has no narrative frame or interlocutors. The dhāraṇī concludes with an enumeration of the benefits that accrue from reciting the dhāraṇī: a son or a daughter of good family who recites this invocation of the Buddha Moonlight every morning after rising will remember all their past lives during forty thousand kalpas. Furthermore, they will not fall into the lower realms after death and will attain the attributes of awakening. ### [intro.4](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.sanskrit.dharani.buddha.candraprabhanamanusmrti*bo-d868~en-84000.intro.4) Recollecting the Name of Moonlight also lacks a translators’ colophon. Therefore, we do not know who the translators were or when it was translated. 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 Phangthangma, do not list it, but it is listed under the title zla ’od kyi mtshan rjes su dran pa in the catalog of translated works in the Kangyur that is included in Butön’s monumental fourteenth-century History of Buddhism.¹ This gives us a very wide time frame for a possible date of its translation, namely, sometime between the ninth century and the first quarter of the fourteenth century.² ### [intro.5](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.sanskrit.dharani.buddha.candraprabhanamanusmrti*bo-d868~en-84000.intro.5) Texts like Recollecting the Name of Moonlight can be understood in the context of the Mahāyāna doctrine of the parallel existence of countless buddhas in different universes, and the idea that hearing, remembering, and reciting the names of these buddhas can become a condition for attaining awakening.³ A buddha named Candraprabha (“Moonlight”) is mentioned in several important Mahāyāna sūtras, and that might be the figure intended here.⁴ ### [intro.6](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.sanskrit.dharani.buddha.candraprabhanamanusmrti*bo-d868~en-84000.intro.6) This English translation was prepared based on the two witnesses in the Degé Kangyur (Toh 535⁵ and Toh 868⁶), in consultation with the versions in the Narthang Kangyur, the Stok Palace Kangyur, and the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) of the Kangyur. --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.sanskrit.dharani.buddha.candraprabhanamanusmrti*bo-d868~en-84000.intro](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.sanskrit.dharani.buddha.candraprabhanamanusmrti*bo-d868~en-84000.intro) · Pramāṇa