ད་བཞན་གཤགས་པ་ཐམས་ཅད་ཀྱ་གཙག་ཏར་རྣམ་པར་རྒྱལ་བ་ཞས་བྱ་བའ་གཟངས་རྟག་པ་དང་བཅས་པ intro.15

intro.15

One noticeable difference across both Tibetan and Sanskrit versions of the dhāraṇī is the presence or absence of the syllable oṁ at the beginning of certain phrases. In the present work and in Toh 594, 596, and 597 there are only three such oṁ syllables, while in Toh 598 oṁ appears no less than nine times, as it does in Hidas’ edition from Sanskrit sources and in extra-canonical liturgies. The Tibetan translation of Toh 598 was made at a significantly later date than the other works of the group, and may possibly signal a change in usage that is also reflected in the Nepalese Sanskrit texts of even later date. This is corroborated by the absence of extra oṁ-s in the Dunhuang manuscripts. The colophon of Toh 597 found in the Phukdrak (phug brag) Kangyur includes a note claiming that the texts with only three oṁ-s are to be considered more correct.²³ The note also states that although there may have been Sanskrit sources with as many as nine oṁ-s, the twelfth-century translator Sumpa Lotsāwa²⁴ reported that all the Sanskrit texts he had seen contained only three, and that the Sanskrit manuscripts of the texts held at Sakya monastery had no more than that. Because Sumpa Lotsāwa is known to have lived and studied in Nepal, his comment on the “correct” number of oṁ-s in the Sanskrit manuscripts available to him offers a glimpse of the evolution of the text in the Nepalese tradition. As Hidas’ edition of the Nepalese manuscripts suggests, the number of oṁ-s in the dhāraṇī seem to proliferate, eventually reaching a total of nine.