འཕགས་པ་ཡ་ཤས་ཏ་ལ་ལ་ཞས་བྱ་བའ་གཟངས་འགྲ་བ་ཐམས་ཅད་ཡངས་ས་སྦྱང་བ intro.6

intro.6

Mauro Maggi’s summary of sources for the Jñānolka­dhāraṇī notes that the majority of known extant versions of the text have survived in Khotanese witnesses, and that the earliest Chinese translations of the text derive from both a Khotanese original and a Tibetan translation. According to Leumann, the Tibetan translation of the text does not agree very closely with the Khotanese, and the Khotanese versions vary.² While the differences between the Tibetan translation and Khotanese manuscripts of the Jñānolka­dhāraṇī raise the possibility that the version translated and preserved in the Kangyur derives from a separate source that has yet to be located, the Sanskrit manuscript witnesses that are currently available all indicate Khotan as the most likely location in which the cult of the four tathāgatas and bodhisattvas in this text and the dhāraṇī mantras it preserves flourished. Aside from its obvious applications for purifying those still living of the possible fate after their death of lower rebirth, and its potential function as a ritual liturgy for the bodhisattva’s practice of liberating beings, the narrative frame of the Jñānolka­dhāraṇī indicates that its dhāraṇī mantras could have functioned as part of a funeral liturgy, designed rather to liberate from lower rebirth the recently deceased.