འཕགས་པ་སངས་རྒྱས་ཐམས་ཅད་ཀྱ་ཡན་ལག་དང་ལྡན་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བའ་གཟངས intro.3

intro.3

The original Sanskrit text for The Dhāraṇī Endowed with the Attributes of All the Buddhas has not been located, but a Chinese translation does exist (Taishō 1346). The Chinese text lists the translator as Devendraprajñā, whose exact dates are uncertain, but who was active in China as a translator under Tang dynasty patronage by the last decade of the seventh century. The Chinese version is quite close to the Tibetan (although it has a different title),¹ but it does contain a number of differences and additional lines or fragments, as well as a short section at the end, not found in the Tibetan versions, describing a ritual procedure for constructing altars and making offerings.² In the Degé Kangyur The Dhāraṇī Endowed with the Attributes of All the Buddhas is included among the tantras belonging to the Action (kriyā) class (Toh 513) and it is also reproduced in the Dhāraṇī (gzungs ’dus) section (Toh 856). ³ The attribution in the colophon of the Tibetan version to the translators Jinamitra, Dānaśīla, and Yeshé Dé puts its translation somewhere around the end of, or shortly after, the reign of King Trisong Detsen, at the turn of the ninth century. Its inclusion in the Denkarma (ldan dkar ma) catalog of the canon, compiled in 812 ce, supports this.⁴ Lastly, it should be mentioned that an English translation of this text by Joan Nicell was published online in 2007.