དཔལ་གྱ་ལྷ་མའ་མཚན་བཅ་གཉས་པ intro: 84000's introduction
The Twelve Names of the Goddess Śrī intro
- Language
- English
84000's introduction
intro.1
The Twelve Names of the Goddess Śrī is a short text revealed to Avalokiteśvara in the pure land of Sukhāvatī. In essence, it is a dhāraṇī centered on twelve epithets of the goddess of wealth. The spell is said to provide prosperity.
intro.2
The Twelve Names of the Goddess Śrī is a short text revealed to Avalokiteśvara in the pure land of Sukhāvatī. In essence, it is a dhāraṇī centered on twelve epithets of the goddess of wealth and a short ritual instruction concerning its recitation. Lists of the epithets of a deity are a common type of dhāraṇī, and such texts can sometimes be extremely long (for example, Reciting the Names of Mañjuśrī).¹ An alternative version of this text is The Sūtra of Mahāśrī,² from which it differs in only minor details.
intro.3
Mahāśrī, or simply Śrī, or commonly Lakṣmī, is a goddess who is perhaps more prevalent in the brahmanical tradition, where she is said to be the great god Viṣṇu’s consort. She is associated with well-being and prosperity. Here her names constitute the inner core of the dhāraṇī, which is promised to provide prosperity. This text styles her a bodhisattva.
intro.4
The text is extant in Sanskrit in the old palm-leaf Nepalese Compendium of Dhāraṇīs (Dhāraṇīsaṃgraha). Two such witnesses have been published by Hidas.³ The first is unfortunately fragmentary, and we cannot determine what the end of the text looked like. The second witness concludes the text with the application of the dhāraṇī, which is not mirrored in the Tibetan but is paralleled by the penultimate section of The Sūtra of Mahāśrī. Another difference is that in the Sanskrit, the name-dhāraṇī is revealed not only to Avalokiteśvara, but also to Mañjuśrī.
intro.5
The Tibetan translation dates from the imperial period, sometime in the early ninth century. It is listed in both imperial catalogs,⁴ and the colophon attributes it to the famous translator-duo Jinamitra and Yeshé Dé. We know of at least one Dunhuang copy of the Tibetan translation;⁵ this was copied on the back of a Chinese scroll in a somewhat unusual way, in columns.
intro.6
The Chinese translation dates to the Tang dynasty and holds the distinction of being the earliest attestation of the text, which thus must have been in circulation before the middle of the eighth century. Although some catalogs list this translation as one item (Taishō 1252),⁶ in fact, what we have here is not one, but two translations of the same text. Both are attributed to Amoghavajra, arguably the most influential master to propagate esoteric Buddhist lore at the Tang court. A part of the dhāraṇī portion is also included here in the siddham script. There are some differences when compared to the Sanskrit and the Tibetan: the male bodhisattva to whom the name-dhāraṇī is revealed is Samantabhadra, and this version also transmits some passages on the application of the spell, as well as another dhāraṇī, which is quite similar to the famous dhāraṇī of the Heart Sūtra, (gate gate, etc.)
intro.7
This translation was made principally on the basis of the Tibetan translations of the text found in the Tantra Collection (rgyud ’bum) and the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs (gzungs ’dus)⁷ in the Degé Kangyur, in consultation with the editions of two Sanskrit witnesses, the Dunhuang version, the Stok Palace Kangyur, and The Sūtra of Mahāśrī.