སྒྲལ་མ་ལ་ཕྱག་ཚལ་ཉ་ཤ་རྩ་གཅག་གས་བསྟད་པ་ཕན་ཡན་དང་བཅས་པ intro: 84000's introduction
Praise to Tārā with Twenty-One Verses of Homage intro
- Language
- English
84000's introduction
intro.1
Praise to Tārā with Twenty-One Verses of Homage is a liturgy that consists of twenty-seven verses of praise and reverence dedicated to the deity Tārā. The first twenty-one verses are at once a series of homages to the twenty-one forms of Tārā and a poetic description of her physical features, postures, and qualities. The remaining six verses describe how and when the praise should be recited and the benefits of its recitation.
intro.2
For Tibetan Buddhists, the Praise to Tārā with Twenty-One Verses of Homage is undoubtedly the most popular prayer to the deity Tārā. It is recited on a daily basis by many monks, nuns, and lay practitioners alike. The first twenty-one verses praise Tārā by drawing upon the three epithets that also form the core of her root mantra—Tārā (Deliverer), Tuttārā (Savior), and Turā (Swift One).¹ In doing so, they invoke Tārā’s twenty-one forms that vary in aspect from peaceful to wrathful. These twenty-one verses both pay homage to Tārā and provide a poetic description of her physical features, postures, qualities, abilities, mantras, and hand gestures. The concluding six verses of the liturgy describe how and when the praise should be recited and the benefits of its recitation.
intro.3
The praise has been preserved in the Kangyur in two forms. First, the praise was translated into Tibetan and preserved as an independent text in the Kangyur (Toh 438). It is this text that we present in English translation here. Second, it is also found in transliterated Sanskrit as part of the larger tantra The Tantra on the Origin of All Rites of Tārā, Mother of All the Tathāgatas (Toh 726).² In this tantra, the Buddha reveals the praise in the form of an incantation (dhāraṇī), a circumstance that prompted the Tibetan translators to transliterate the Sanskrit text of the praise rather than translate it into Tibetan. The relationship between these two versions in the Kangyur is not clear. The colophons to some Kangyur editions suggest that the Tibetan translation (Toh 438) was prepared based on the transliterated Sanskrit,³ but this is disputed by the Tibetan commentator Jetsün Drakpa Gyaltsen (1147–1216), who mentions that the praise was transmitted from India and translated as an independent text.⁴
intro.4
Regarding the Indian commentarial literature on the praise, there are seven related texts preserved in the Degé Tengyur. These comprise two sādhanas attributed to Nāgārjuna (Toh 1683–84) as well as two sādhanas (Toh 1685–86) and three commentaries attributed to Sūryagupta (Toh 1687–89). ⁵ Sūryagupta’s commentaries, rather than explaining the meaning of the words in the praise, focus on the iconography of each of Tārā’s twenty-one forms, describing her color, seat, posture, number of faces and arms, implements, and hand gestures.⁶ In Tibet, many scholars composed a variety of commentaries and sādhanas related to this praise.⁷
intro.5
This translation has been prepared based on the Degé Kangyur with reference to the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) and the Stok Palace Kangyur.⁸ We also consulted the Sanskrit editions prepared by de Blonay (1895), Pandey (1984), Willson (1996), and Wayman (2002).⁹ The interested reader may also wish to compare our translation to some of the other published translations of the praise in English.¹⁰