Toh 533 intro: 84000's introduction
The Dhāraṇī of the Essence of Śākyamuni intro
- Language
- English
84000's introduction
intro.1
This short dhāraṇī contains the essence mantra of Śākyamuni. After a formulaic homage to the Buddha Śākyamuni, his essence mantra is presented followed by a description of the benefits of its recitation.
intro.2
The Dhāraṇī of the Essence of Śākyamuni is a very brief dhāraṇī contained in the Degé Kangyur in both the Tantra section and in the Dhāraṇī section. Within the Tantra section, it is classed as an Action tantra (bya rgyud, kriyātantra).
intro.3
The dhāraṇī has no narrative frame or interlocutors and starts with a formulaic homage to the Buddha Śākyamuni. Immediately after that, the dhāraṇī mantra that invokes the Buddha is presented. The dhāraṇī concludes with the marvelous benefit that can be expected when one recites Śākyamuni’s dhāraṇī mantra only once: all the negative actions that one has accrued during eighty million kalpas will be completely purified.
intro.4
The Dhāraṇī of the Essence of Śākyamuni has no Sanskrit title, no translators’ colophon, and we do not know who translated it or when. 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 the Phangthangma, do not list it. The short title is mentioned in the catalog of translated works in the Kangyur that is included in Butön’s monumental fourteenth-century History of Buddhism.¹ Richard O. Meisezahl records an interesting variant of the dhāraṇī in a catalog of Tibetan manuscripts and prints kept in the Linden Museum in Stuttgart. Here, the dhāraṇī of Śākyamuni is clearly comprised of the homage (in transcribed Sanskrit) and the essence mantra, while in the Degé version of The Dhāraṇī of the Essence of Śākyamuni, the homage is translated into Tibetan and appears separate from the essence mantra. The version in the Linden Museum reads as follows: na maḥ śākya mu na ye ta thā ga tā ya| arha te samyaksaṃ buddhā ya| tadya thā| mu ni mu ni ma hā mu ni ye sbā hā.²
intro.5
The mantra of the Buddha Śākyamuni occurs in a few other places in the Kangyur, most notably in The Perfection of Wisdom in a Few Syllables (Toh 22) and in The Perfection of Wisdom for Vajrapāṇi (Toh 29), as well as several times in A Portion of the Practice of the Sovereign Tantra Purifying Evil Destinies (Toh 485).
intro.6
This English translation was prepared based on the two versions in the Degé Kangyur (Toh 533³ and Toh 860⁴) in consultation with the variant readings of the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) of the Kangyur and the version in the Stok Palace Kangyur (S 492). Śākyamuni’s mantra was edited based on the Degé edition and an English translation is provided in a note.