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The Dhāraṇī-Mantra to Have the Entire Noble “Sūtra of Descent into Laṅkā” Read

Translation of Toh 589

Language
English
Translators
Gergely Hidas, Péter-Dániel Szántó
Extent
18 passages, 1,162 words
Text
complete digital text
Source
84000 · Published by 84000 (v 1.0.1 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…

Contents

Text

84000's introduction

intro.1

This text consists of a short dhāraṇī, the recitation of which is said to be equivalent to reciting one of the most famous sūtras in the Kangyur, The Descent into Laṅkā (Toh 107), from which it is an extract.

intro.2

This text consists of a short dhāraṇī, the recitation of which is said to be equivalent to reciting one of the most famous sūtras in the Kangyur, The Descent into Laṅkā.¹ In fact, it is not an independent text but an extract from Chapter 9 of the sūtra.²

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, in addition to being copied within the sūtra itself, the text was transmitted within the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs (Dhāraṇī­saṃgraha) collection.³

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)⁴ in the Degé Kangyur in consultation with the various Sanskrit sources mentioned above.

1

Homage to the noble Descent into Laṅkā.

“Mahāmati, I shall speak these mantra-words:

tadyathā—padme padmadeve⁵ hine hine hine culu culu culu hule hule hule yule yule yule pale pale pale muñce chinde⁶ bhinde bhañje⁷ marde pramarde⁸ dinakare svāhā! ⁹

“Mahāmati! If any son of good family or daughter of good family upholds¹⁰ these mantra-words, retains them, recites them, and masters them, then no one will be able to find a weak point in them, be that a god or a goddess, a nāga or a nāgī, a yakṣa or a yakṣī, an asura or an asurī, a garuḍa or a garuḍī, a kinnara or a kinnarī, a mahoraga or a mahoragī, a gandharva or a gandharvī, a bhūta or a bhūtī, a kumbhāṇḍa or a kumbhāṇḍī, a piśāca or a piśācī, an ostārako or an ostārakī, an apasmāra or an apasmārī, a rākṣasa or a rākṣasī, a ḍāka or a ḍākī, an ojohāra or an ojohārī, a kaṭapūtana or a kaṭapūtanī, or a human man or a woman.¹¹ One who recites these mantra-words will have recited the entire Sūtra of Descent into Laṅkā. The Blessed One taught these mantra-words so that rākṣasas and others¹² will be kept at bay.”

Notes

notes.1

1. Laṅkāvatāra (lang kar gshegs pa, Toh 107).

notes.2

2. Ed. Nanjio 1923, pp. 261–63; for a translation, see Suzuki 1932, pp. 223–25. For the most up-to-date assessment of this sūtra, see Jia 2015. We are aware of a thesis dedicated to the study of dhāraṇīs in the Laṅkāvatāra, but we could not gain access to it: Lee-li Tay (鄭麗莉), “A Study of Dhāraṇī based on the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra” (master’s thesis, Fo Guang University [佛光大學], Taiwan, 2011).

notes.3

3. Hidas 2021, p. 82, the second dhāraṇī in item no. 12 in Cambridge University Library Ms. Add. 1326.

notes.4

4. This text, Toh 945, 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 945 version of this text within vol. 100 or 101 of the Degé Kangyur. See Toh 945, , for details.

notes.5

5. The Tibetan reads padme devai.

notes.6

6. The Tibetan reads muṃcche danade.

notes.7

7. The Tibetan reads bhanajva.

notes.8

8. The Tibetan reads mande pramade.

notes.9

9. A highly tentative translation might run as follows: “It is thus‍— O Lotus, O Lotus Goddess, hine hine hine culu culu culu hule hule hule yule yule yule pale pale pale O One Who Releases, O One Who Chops, O One Who Splits, O One Who Breaks, O One Who Crushes, O One Who Smashes, O Sun svāhā.” Whether padmadeve is a vocative of a female noun is highly questionable. From “O One Who Chops” up to “O One Who Smashes,” the words might equally be quasi-imperatives. “Sun” is expressed with the common epithet “Day Maker.”

notes.10

10. Instead of what we translate here as “to uphold” in order 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.11

11. The Tibetan has “human or nonhuman,” but all Sanskrit sources indicate that this is a scribal error.

notes.12

12. The word for “and others” is not transmitted in the Sanskrit, but it has an apposite meaning.