The Twelve Names of the Goddess Śrī

Translation of དཔལ་གྱ་ལྷ་མའ་མཚན་བཅ་གཉས་པ (དཔལ་གྱི་ལྷ་མོའི་མཚན་བཅུ་གཉིས་པ)

Language: English
Translators: Gergely Hidas, Péter-Dániel Szántó
Extent: 24 passages, 1,408 words
Text: complete digital text
Source: 84000 · Published by 84000 (v 1.0.1 2024). 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha,… · 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 — 7 parts
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notes Notes — 15 parts

Text

84000's introduction

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.

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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.

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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.

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Homage to the Three Jewels.

Homage to the noble Avalokiteśvara.

Homage to Vajrapāṇi.

Homage to the great goddess Śrī.⁸

Thus did I hear at one time. The Blessed One was residing in the realm of Sukhāvatī. Then the bodhisattva mahāsattva, the noble Avalokiteśvara, set out to where the Blessed One was residing. Having arrived, he bowed his head at the feet of the Blessed One, circumambulated the Blessed One thrice, and sat down on one side. Then the bodhisattva mahāsattva, the great goddess Śrī, also set out to where the Blessed One was residing. Having arrived, she bowed her head at the feet of the Blessed One and sat down on one side.

Then the Blessed One looked at Mahāśrī and said this to the noble Avalokiteśvara:

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“Avalokiteśvara, whosoever, including monks and nuns, laymen and laywomen, gets to know, upholds, recites, accomplishes, or speaks of the twelve names of Mahāśrī here will escape destitution and become very wealthy.”⁹

Then the entire host of spirits¹⁰ said, “May it be so!”

“These are the twelve names of the great goddess Śrī: “It is thus—Welfare, Splendor, She Who Is Wearing a Garland of Lotuses, Mistress of Wealth, White One,¹¹ She of Great Fame, Lotus-Eyed One, She of Great Radiance, She Who Accomplishes, Bestower of Nourishment, She of Jewel-Like Gleam,¹² Great Splendor. Homage to all buddhas! Homage to Avalokiteśvara! Homage to the great goddess Śrī! It is thus—jini ghriṇi, O Accomplisher of All Goals, simi simi nimi nimi,¹³ remove my destitution completely,¹⁴ svāhā.¹⁵

Thus spoke the Blessed One, and the bodhisattva, the noble Avalokiteśvara, was gladdened and praised the speech of the Blessed One.

Colophon

This was translated, checked, and redacted by the Indian preceptor Jinamitra and the great editor-translator Bandé Yeshé Dé.

Notes

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1. Mañjuśrīnāmasaṃgīti (’jam dpal mtshan brjod, Toh 360).

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2. Mahāśrīsūtra (dpal chen mo’i mdo, Toh 740/1005). See The Sūtra of Mahāśrī .

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3. Hidas 2021, p. 33, item no. 3 and p. 52, item no. 40 in Cambridge University Library Ms Add. 1680.8.3 and Ms Add. 1680.8, respectively.

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4. Denkarma, folio 303.b; Herrmann-Pfandt 2008, pp. 247–48; Kawagoe 2005, p. 23. Interestingly, the former gives the length as 8 units, whereas the latter gives 10.

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5. Pelliot tibétain 68.1 , Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, accessed through Bibliothèque nationale de France Gallica. Already identified in Lalou 1939, p. 23.

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6. Da jixiang tiannu shi’er ming hao jing 大吉祥天女十二名號經 (CBETA T1252a; CBETA 1252b).

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7. This text, Toh 1006, and all those contained in this same volume (gzungs ’dus, waM), are listed as being located in volume 101 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 102. 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. Note that there is a discrepancy among various databases for cataloging the Toh 1006 version of this text within vol. 101 or 102 of the Degé Kangyur. See Toh 1006, , for details.

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8. Most if not all of these obeisance formulas are not part of the main text, but the so-called translators’ obeisance (’gyur phyag).

notes.9

9. The Dunhuang version (lines 12–13) adds, “Such a person will become fortunate with many riches, much grain, much livestock, much treasure, many sons, and many retainers and servants” (nor mang ba dang ’bru mang po dang / phyugs mang po dang / bang mdzod mang po dang bu tsa mang po/ + +yog mang po phun sum tshogs par ’gyur ro//; illegible letters are marked with a + sign here; we expect that the lost part was something like ’khor g.yog).

The Twelve Names of the Goddess Śrī

Contents

Text

84000's introduction

intro.1

intro.2