འཕགས་པ་རག་སྔགས་ཀྱ་རྒྱལ་པ་སྒྲན་མ་མཆག་ག་གཟངས notes: Notes
The Dhāraṇī of Agrapradīpa notes
- Language
- English
Notes
notes.1
1. As the term vidyā is feminine, one would expect the title to read vidyārajñī (rig ma’i rgyal mo), “queen of vidyās,” and indeed some versions of the Tibetan translation do read rig ma’i rgyal mo even if the Sanskrit title given is typically the masculine vidyārāja.
notes.2
2. The fragment is cataloged as IOL Khot 25/4 and is part of the British Library’s Stein Collection. It can be viewed at the International Dunhuang Project website. The fragment was published in Skjærvø 2002 and identified as The Dhāraṇī of Agrapradīpa in Chen 2012. The passage of the translation containing the lines preserved in the Khotanese fragment has been noted below.
notes.3
3. Shinohara (2014, p. 88) calls this date and attribution into question.
notes.4
4. Chen (2012, pp. 268–69) speculates that Taishō 1353 may have been wrongly attributed to Jñānagupta.
notes.5
5. Chen 2012, pp. 269–70; Shinohara 2014, pp. 88–89.
notes.6
6. The Dhāraṇī of Agrapradīpa is cataloged as no. 345 in the Denkarma and no. 326 in the Phangthangma. See Herrmann-Pfandt 2008, pp. 193–4, and Kawagoe 2005, p. 29, respectively. See also Denkarma F.302.a.
notes.7
7. This text, Toh 858, and all those contained in this same volume (rgyud ’bum, na), are listed as being located in volume 100 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 101. 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 858 version of this text within vol. 100 or 101 of the Degé Kangyur. See Toh 858, note 7, for details.
notes.8
8. Two sets of folio references have been included in this translation due to a discrepancy in volume 88 (rgyud ’bum, na) of the Degé Kangyur between the 1737 par phud printings and the late (post par phud) printings. In the latter case, an extra work, Bodhimaṇḍasyālaṃkāralakṣadhāraṇī (Toh 508, byang chub snying po’i rgyan ’bum gyi gzungs), was added as the second text in the volume, thereby displacing the pagination of all the following texts in the same volume by 17 folios. Since the eKangyur follows the later printing, both references have been provided, with the highlighted one linking to the eKangyur viewer. In the Toh 528 version of the text there is a slight discrepancy in the folio numbering between the 1737 par phud printings and the late (post par phud) printings of the Degé Kangyur. Although the discrepancy is irrelevant here, further details concerning this may be found in note 8 of the Toh 528 version of this text.
notes.9
9. Tib. lu ta; Skt. lūtā. In addition to spiders, this term can be used for other kinds of insects.
notes.10
10. Tib. sbrang bu lcags phye, which could be more literally interpreted as “biting insects [that are like] iron filings.”
notes.11
11. In the version preserved as Toh 858 all instances of jva use the short vowel, rather than jvā as found in Toh 528.
notes.12
12. Because most of the words in this dhāraṇī-mantra and those that follow are given for their alliterative significance and do not convey a clear meaning, a translation has not been attempted.
notes.13
13. Lines from the passage beginning here are preserved in the Khotanese manuscript IOL Khot 25/4 held in the British Library. See Skjærvø 2002 and Chen 2012.
notes.14
14. The lines preserved in the Khotanese fragments end here. See Skjærvø 2002 and Chen 2012.
notes.15
15. This line can be translated as follows: “Homage to all buddhas, may the dhāraṇī-mantra formula succeed. Svāhā!” Even though this line is rendered in transliterated Sanskrit in the Tibetan text, it is clear from the context that this is not a dhāraṇī formula but rather a benediction for the success of the dhāraṇī formula previously given.
notes.16
16. Wind (vāta), bile (pitta), and phlegm (śleṣman) are, according to Āyurveda, the three primary constituents (doṣa) that affect physical and mental health. Disease results from their imbalance or improper interactions.
notes.17
17. This translation understands the Tibetan text to be a translation of the stock Sanskrit phrase kṛtyākarmaṇakākhordavetāla, in which the term karmaṇa refers to violent rites that employ kṛtyas as harmful magical agents. The Tib. term sgyur ba’i las would more literally mean “the karma/activities of transformation.”
notes.18
18. Reading brgyad pa as brgyad bkag following the Skt. ākrośa.
notes.19
19. This passage, which concerns the use of magical means to avoid criminal punishments according to codes of law, has a close parallel in The Great Peahen, Queen of Dhāraṇīs (Toh 559: Mahāmāyūrīvidyārajñī; rigs sngags kyi rgyal mo rma bya chen mo). Cf. Takubo ed., p. 10: vadhyārho’py ānanda daṇḍena mucyate daṇḍārhaḥ prahāreṇa, prahārārha ākrośena, ākrośārhaḥ paribhāśena, paribhāṣārho romaharṣaṇena, romaharṣaṇārha evam eva mucyate.
notes.20
20. The statement “Excellent!” (sādhu; legs so) is frequently spoken by the Buddha as a way to give his approval of or consent to a statement made by an interlocutor. Often this assent is used to permit an interlocutor to give a teaching, make a doctrinal statement, or in this case speak a dhāraṇī, thereby sanctioning it or otherwise indicating it to be authoritative.
notes.21
21. “Cycle” is understood to refer to the set of dhāraṇī-mantras previously taught in this text.
notes.22
22. The phrase ’jigs med gang gis thos gyur nas has been interpreted as gang gis ’jigs med par thos gyur nas, thus reading ’jigs med adverbially as “fearlessly.” It would also be plausible to interpret this phrase to say “the fearless one who hears.”