ཤས་པས་ཐམས་ཅད་མཐར་ཕྱན་པར་གྲབ་པའ་མཆད་རྟན་ཞས་བྱ་བའ་གཟངས intro.11

intro.11

There is also little known about the provenance of the Tibetan translation of The Dhāraṇī for a Caitya. Among the numerous versions of the translation included in the Kangyur and other scriptural collections, none include a translator’s colophon that would provide information on its translators or the time and place in which it was translated. The text is not included in the imperial-period catalogs under its main title, but the Phangthangma (’phang thang ma) catalog does list a series of texts related to the vimaloṣṇīṣa dhāraṇī that cannot be correlated with extant Tibetan translations. Among them we find The Dhāraṇī-Mantra of the Radiant Stainless Uṣṇīṣa Together with Its Rite (’phags pa gtsug tor dri ma med par snang ba’i gzungs sngags cho ga dang bcas pa),¹⁰ which as the title indicates concerns the vimaloṣṇīṣa dhāraṇī in combination with ritual instructions for its use. Although this is more likely to be a reference to The Radiance of the Stainless Uṣṇīṣa (Toh 599) as mentioned above, it may possibly refer instead to The Dhāraṇī for a Caitya under a different title, as this text does describe an elaborate ritual that employs the vimaloṣṇīṣa dhāraṇī. If that were the case, it would indicate that The Dhāraṇī for a Caitya was translated prior to the Tibetan empire’s collapse in 843.¹¹ As noted above, The Dhāraṇī for a Caitya appears to be known by multiple titles, yet another of which might be the title found in the Phangthangma. The colophon of the text translated below identifies it as The Vimaloṣṇīṣa Dhāraṇī, and both the Phukdrak (phug brag) and Lang do (lang mdo) Kangyurs provide the alternate Sanskrit title Vimaloṣṇīṣa­sarva­caitya­nāma­dhāraṇī, which can be tentatively translated as The Dhāraṇī Called the Stainless Uṣṇīṣa for All Caityas.