The Quintessence of “The Stem Array”

Translation of Toh 941

Language: English
Translators: Gergely Hidas, Péter-Dániel Szántó
Extent: 20 passages, 1,217 words
Text: complete digital text
Source: 84000 · Published by 84000 (v 1.0.2 2025). 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 — 5 parts
1
2
notes Notes — 13 parts

Text

84000's introduction

intro.1

This text consists of a short dhāraṇī said to encompass a famous sūtra in the Kangyur, The Stem Array (Toh 44–45), and the benefits of its recitation.

This text consists of a short dhāraṇī said to encompass a famous sūtra in the Kangyur, The Stem Array,¹ also said to be the forty-fifth and final chapter of the Avataṃsaka collection (here translated as Ornaments of the Buddhas),² and the benefits of its recitation. In other dhāraṇī texts, the reward typically includes some kind of karmic purification, but here “tantric” fruits are foreshadowed, namely becoming learned in both Buddhist and non-Buddhist esoteric systems.

intro.3

Such short texts served a variety of purposes, the primary being that by reciting them one could acquire the positive karmic benefits of reciting an entire, sometimes extremely long, text. On a practical level, the recitation of these short texts also served as equivalent to the recitation of the parent text, should a prescribed ritual so require.

intro.4

The text lacks both a Sanskrit title and a translator’s colophon. In South Asia, the text was transmitted within collections such as the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs (Dhāraṇīsaṃgraha),³ but it is also embedded into some ritual manuals such as the corpus of “rituals for beginners” (ādikarmika, las dang po pa) texts, in our case the Ādikarmāvatāra by Mañjukīrti,⁴ the Ādikarmavidhi by Tatakaragupta,⁵ and the *Bodhipaddhati by Abhayākaragupta.⁶

intro.5

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 various Sanskrit sources mentioned above, especially the text of Mañjukīrti, which is transmitted in a manuscript noted for its scribal precision.

1

Homage to the Three Jewels.

namaḥ samantabuddhānām apratihataśāsanānām! oṃ kiṇi kiṇi⁸ tathāgatodbhavaśānte⁹ varade uttamottamatathāgatodbhave¹⁰ hūṃ phaṭ svāhā!¹¹

2

By upholding this, one will have read and recited the entire Noble Stem Array Sūtra in full.¹²

One will become knowledgeable in all maṇḍalas and vows, both worldly and transcendental.¹³ One will also know the hand gestures.

Notes

notes.1

1. Gaṇḍavyūha (sdong pos brgyan pa, Toh 44-45). See The Stem Array .

notes.2

2. See the 84000 Knowledge Base article, “Ornaments of the Buddhas.”

notes.3

3. Hidas 2021, p. 27, item 20(a) in Cambridge University Library Ms. Add. 1680.8.1, and p. 77, item 9 in Cambridge University Library Ms. Add. 1326.

notes.4

4. The unique manuscript transmitting this text is currently being studied by Szántó for a forthcoming publication, Buddhism for Beginners II: The Mañjukīrti Corpus. The current location of the manuscript is not known with certainty. It was first seen and identified by Rāhula Sāṅkṛityāyana at Ngor Monastery; see Sāṅkṛityāyana 1935, p. 32. We are reading the text from the photographs kept at the Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Göttingen, shelf number Xc 14/50; for the catalog entry, see Bandurski 1994, pp. 86–87. Little is known of the author; the manuscript is undated but was most likely copied in Magadha during the twelfth century. The dhāraṇī can be found on folio 7 verso within the context of installing caityas. A somewhat carelessly produced edition of the text has now been published in Dhīḥ: Journal of Rare Buddhist Texts Research Unit 62 (2022): 89–150. The dhāraṇī is on p. 102.

notes.5

5. Unpublished, incomplete manuscript, currently at National Archives Kathmandu, showcase 3/7, read from the microfilm images of the Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation Project, reel no. A 1165/7. Little is known of the author; the manuscript is undated but was probably copied in Bengal during the thirteenth century. No Tibetan translation is known. The dhāraṇī can be found on folio 33 recto.

notes.6

6. byang chub kyi gzhung lam (Toh 3766). See folio 120.b for the dhāraṇī. This text heavily depends on Mañjukīrti.

notes.7

7. This text, Toh 941, and all those contained in this same volume (gzungs, e), 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 941 version of this text within vol. 100 or 101 of the Degé Kangyur. See Toh 941, , for details.

notes.8

8. Tatakaragupta’s manuscript transmits kile kile.

notes.9

9. The versions edited in Hidas have either tathāgatodbhave śānte or just tathāgatodbhave. We prefer the readings of the Tibetan versions, Mañjukīrti, Tatakaragupta, and Abhayākaragupta.

notes.10

10. The versions edited in Hidas have uttamottame tathāgatodbhave. We prefer the readings of the Tibetan versions, Mañjukīrti, Tatakaragupta, and Abhayākaragupta, except for retaining the feminine vocative ending.

notes.11

11. A tentative translation is as follows: “Homage to all buddhas whose teaching is unopposed. Oṁ kiṇi kiṇi, O One whose Tranquility Is Born of the Thus-gone Ones, O One Who Grants Boons. O One Springing from Successive Thus-gone Ones, hūṃ phaṭ svāhā .”

notes.12

12. Our Sanskrit witnesses stop here. Instead of what we translate here as “to uphold” to capture the ambiguity of the original, Tatakaragupta, when discussing a similar dhāraṇī said to encapsulate The Perfection of Wisdom in One Hundred Thousand Lines (see The Dhāraṇī of “The Perfection of Wisdom in One Hundred Thousand Lines,” Toh 576/932), Śatasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitādhāraṇī (Toh 576/932). is more explicit when he replaces the verb with kaṇṭhasthīkṛ (“to place it in one’s throat”), which is the Sanskrit idiom for “to learn by heart.” He also spells out the benefit as the “meritorious karmic fruit” (puṇyaphala) of memorizing the parent text. This sentence is then followed by a fascinating short discussion, which merits to be quoted in full: “Surely, this is an exaggeration! No, one should not say this. For countless thus-gone ones have empowered this dhāraṇī to serve as a method for gaining the equipment of merit for women, immature people, and simpletons, as well as for learned people whose minds are confused, just like the pole of a snake charmer[, which is preprepared by the expert snake charmer to be effective even when he is no longer present,] for removing poison; however, it is not a method for gaining the knowledge conveyed by The [Perfection of Wisdom in] One Hundred Thousand Lines. This should be understood to apply in other cases [i.e., where the text is abbreviated into a dhāraṇī] as well” (nanv atyuktir eveti. na caitad vaktavyam. yataḥ strībālamūrkhān paryākulitamatīn paṇḍitān praty api puṇyasaṃbhārasādhanatvenāsaṃkhyeyatathāgatair adhiṣṭhiteyaṃ dhāriṇī, yathā viṣaharatvena gāruḍikaṃ stambhaḥ; na tu lakṣāpratipāditajñānasādhanatvena. evam anyatrāpi boddhavyaḥ). In his note to this dhāraṇī, he reiterates the point about “to uphold” meaning “to memorize” and promises as the reward the fruit of reciting the text (pāṭhaphala).

notes.13

13. That is to say, both non-Buddhist (Śaiva, etc.) and Buddhist.