The Bali Ritual to Relieve the Female Preta Flaming Mouth

Translation of ཡ་དགས་མ་ཁ་འབར་མ་དབགས་དབྱང་བའ་གཏར་མའ་ཆ་ག (ཡི་དགས་མོ་ཁ་འབར་མ་དབུགས་དབྱུང་བའི་གཏོར་མའི་ཆོ་ག)

Language: English
Translator: Krisztina Teleki
Extent: 46 passages, 3,380 words
Text: complete digital text
Source: 84000 · Translated by the Alexander Csoma de Kőrös Translation Group under the patronage and supervision of 84000:… · 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 — 13 parts
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notes Notes — 28 parts

Text

84000's introduction

intro.1

This short text narrates Ānanda’s nocturnal encounter in the Banyan Grove in Kapilavastu with a gruesome female preta, or “hungry ghost,” with a burning mouth. The ghost tells Ānanda that he will die imminently and be reborn in the realm of the pretas unless he satisfies innumerable pretas with offerings of food the following morning. Terrified, Ānanda goes quickly to the Buddha and asks for advice. The Buddha then teaches Ānanda a dhāraṇī and an associated food offering ritual that together will satisfy innumerable ghosts and will cause offerings to the Three Jewels to multiply. The Buddha then instructs Ānanda to memorize and widely propagate this practice.

intro.2

The Bali Ritual to Relieve the Female Preta Flaming Mouth is one of two closely related texts found together in the Degé Kangyur¹ in which the Buddha teaches a dhāraṇī and associated food offering ritual to relieve pretas of their sufferings.² The other text is The Dhāraṇī of Refuge for the Preta Flaming Mouth (/. These texts have had a significant legacy for the ritual traditions of Buddhist Asia, serving as foundations for the traditions of giving compassionate food offerings to alleviate the suffering of spirits and ghosts. The present text is the shorter of the two, corresponding (though not precisely matching) Śikṣānanda’s Chinese translation in the Chinese Buddhist canon (Taishō 1314).

intro.3

The sūtra narrates Ānanda’s³ nocturnal encounter with a gruesome female preta, or “hungry ghost,” known by the epithet Flaming Mouth (Tib. kha ’bar ma),⁴ who threatens him with imminent death unless he satisfies innumerable pretas and brahmin ascetics with food offerings. Ānanda seeks the Buddha’s advice, whereupon the Buddha gives him a dhāraṇī and brief instructions for how to use it to consecrate bali (Tib. gtor ma) offerings that will magically satisfy innumerable pretas, relieve them of their suffering, and cause them to be reborn as gods. The Buddha further states that the ritual will be of great benefit to whoever performs it and will prevent them from being bothered by nonhuman spirits and hostile forces. He instructs Ānanda to propagate the practice widely.

intro.4

The Tibetan text has no colophon, so little is known for certainty about its translation history or possible Indian origins. However, it is listed in the Denkarma imperial catalog,⁵ indicating that the Tibetan translation was made no later than the early ninth century ce. A version of the parallel text (Toh 646/1080) also exists among the manuscripts discovered in the cave library at Dunhuang (IOL Tib J 349). No extant Sanskrit version of either text has been identified, and its Sanskrit title is unknown.

intro.5

This text was translated into Chinese by Śikṣānanda between 700 and 704 ce ⁶ (Foshuo jiu mianran egui tuoluoni shenzhou jing 說救面燃餓鬼陀羅尼神咒經, Taishō 1314).⁷ Some decades later, between 757 and 770, ⁸ a slightly longer version, corresponding to Toh 646, was translated into Chinese by Amoghavajra (Taishō 1313).⁹ Both Chinese texts have been translated into English by Lye (2003).¹⁰ The Chinese and Tibetan texts mirror each other in their respective length and content (Toh 647 with Taishō 1314, and Toh 646 with Taishō 1313), so it is possible that the Tibetan translations were made from the Chinese. However, in some significant details they diverge. For example, in the Tibetan of the present text (Toh 647) the main preta protagonist is explicitly female (Tib. yi dags mo), something that is not found in either Chinese text. This observation led Lye (2003) to tentatively conclude that the Tibetan versions were probably made directly from two variant iterations of the narration that circulated in Sanskrit. The two Tibetan texts, while clearly presenting the same narrative, differ in their wording.

intro.6

As shown by Lye (2003), the Chinese versions of these texts are foundational to the Yuqie yankou (瑜伽燄口) and Shuilu (水陸) ghost-feeding rites, as well as the annual Ghost Festival in Chinese Buddhism, which takes place in the seventh lunar month. Such rituals appear to have developed from the late Tang and early Song periods in China,¹¹ from whence they spread to Vietnam and also to Japan.¹²

intro.7

Fire and flames are a common—if secondary—feature of descriptions of pretas in the canonical literature both Chinese and Tibetan,¹³ and in some Tibetan sources, the preta known by the epithet “flaming mouth” is presented as a “queen of pretas” (Tib. yi dwags kyi rgyal mo), though she is not explicitly described as such in this text. The torma (Tib. gtor ma, Skt. bali) offering ritual for the preta Flaming Mouth has a long history in Tibet. The Blue Annals, for example, mentions the eleventh–twelfth-century master Dzeng Dharmabodhi requesting instruction on the “Great Torma Offering of Flaming Mouth.”¹⁴ The ritual is also mentioned in the writings of Sakya Paṇḍita (1182–1251) in the thirteenth century, who identified it as a rite that was inaccurately performed in Tibet.¹⁵ In the eighteenth century the actual dhāraṇī was included in the compendium of dhāraṇī in four scripts (Tibetan, Manchurian, Chinese, and Mongolian) compiled under Chankya Rolpé Dorjé and the Qianlong emperor.¹⁶

intro.8

The epithet “flaming mouth” or “blazing mouth” (Tib. kha ’bar ma) for pitiful female ghosts, both as a name for an individual figure and a class of beings, features in a number of “averting death” (Tib. ’chi bslu), repelling harm (bzlog pa), and “thread-cross” (mdos) rituals.¹⁷ For example, the figure White Flaming Mouth (kha ’bar ma dkar mo) is found in a number of such ritual texts dating from the eighteenth century, though the relationship between this figure and the protagonist of the present canonical text remains to be explored.

intro.9

As a proper name, “Flaming Mouth,” kha ’bar ma in Tibetan, corresponding in at least some attested sources to the Sanskrit Jvālāmukhī (female) or Jvālāmukha (male), is also found in a range of tantras referring to various minor deities. Of more specific relevance, in the Guhyagarbhatantra and other tantras of the Nyingma tradition the masculine form is the name of the nirmāṇakāya sage (Muni) who manifests in the realm of the pretas, one of six such Munis corresponding to the six realms and numbered among the one hundred peaceful and wrathful deities of the maṇḍala.¹⁸

intro.10

The dhāraṇī and the associated rite of compassionate appeasement for worldly spirits described here, as well as a large number of liturgical arrangements incorporating the dhāraṇī formula are still widely used in the Tibetan and Mongolian¹⁹ cultural areas. Many such liturgies involve the invocation or visualization of Avalokiteśvara, just as some of the related practices in Chinese tradition may incorporate the bodhisattva Guanyin.²⁰

intro.11

The category of such practices in which the offering consists of water alone (Tib. chu gtor) may derive from the additional way of making offerings mentioned in the present text (see )—but not in the other version, Toh 646/ 1080, even though the latter, with its greater detail in other respects, may represent a later and more elaborated form.

intro.12

As far as we are aware, this is the first translation of the Tibetan text into any European language. An early French translation of the parallel text (Toh 646) was published by Léon Feer in 1883.²¹

intro.13

This translation was made from the Tibetan version in the Degé Kangyur, where the text is found twice in almost identical editions, once in the Tantra (rgyud) section and once in the Dhāraṇī (gzungs) section. The Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) and the Stok Palace Kangyur editions were also consulted for variant readings.

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Homage to the Three Jewels.

Once, the Blessed One was staying at Banyan Grove in Kapilavastu with a great congregation of monks, a great assembly of bodhisattvas, and a great assembly of other beings, teaching them the Dharma. In the meantime, Ānanda was in seclusion, meditating and realizing the Dharma through single-pointed contemplation.

During the last watch of the night, the female preta Flaming Mouth came before him and spoke,

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“O Ānanda, you will die the day after tomorrow and be reborn in the realm of pretas.”

Ānanda asked, “What reliable method is there to avoid this?” ²²

The female preta replied, “Ānanda, if in the morning you offer food and drink in the amount of seven large Magadhan bushels to each and every preta as numerous as the billions of grains of sand of the river Ganges, and satisfy one hundred thousand brahmin ascetics, and make an offering in my name to the Three Jewels, then your life will be extended, and I will transmigrate from the realm of the pretas and be reborn in the upper realms.”

Then Ānanda saw that female preta Flaming Mouth. She was wasted and ugly, with an emaciated body, tongues of flame coming from her mouth, and her belly and mouth shriveled up. Her hair was matted and in disarray, and she had long nails and body hair. Hearing her jarring and unpleasant words, he was so afraid that the hairs all over his body stood on end. He rose from his seat, and went hurriedly, very quickly, to where the Blessed One was.

On arriving, he prostrated to the Blessed One and, trembling, he begged, “Blessed One, please protect me! Well-Gone One, please protect me! I will be killed the day after tomorrow. Blessed One, I saw the female preta Flaming Mouth and she told me, ‘You will die the day after tomorrow.’ I asked her, ‘What method is there to avoid it?’ She replied, ‘If you satisfy pretas as numerous as the billions of grains of sand of the river Ganges, as well as one hundred thousand brahmin ascetics, then your life will be extended.’ Blessed One, please tell me how I can do this.”

Then

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the Blessed One, the Thus-Gone One Śākyamuni, said to venerable Ānanda, “Ānanda, do not be afraid! There is a method to satisfy the pretas and the brahmin ascetics. Ānanda, there is a dhāraṇī called the great powerful light that illumines everything.²³ Just making an offering with this will satisfy pretas as numerous as the billions of grains of sand of the river Ganges, so that each and every preta and brahmin ascetic will be given seven Magadhan bushels of food and drink. Long ago, when I was a brahmin, I received this dhāraṇī from the bodhisattva mahāsattva Lokeśvara and the Thus-Gone One Lokeśvaraprabha.²⁴ With this dhāraṇī I satisfied numerous, countless pretas and brahmin ascetics with food and drink, and all of them transmigrated from the realm of the pretas and were reborn in the realm of the gods. Ānanda, remember and accept it:

namaḥ sarvatathāgata avalokite oṃ sambhara sambhara hūṃ²⁵

“Ānanda, recite this spell seven times over the bali for the preta. Then, extending your arm, offer it in front of the door, snap your fingers, and clap. ²⁶ Immediately after you offer it in this way, all the pretas of the four directions, as numerous as the billions of grains of sand of the river Ganges, will be satisfied, and each preta will be given seven Magadhan bushels. Merely by consuming it, they will transmigrate from the realm of the pretas and be reborn among the gods.

“Ānanda, you should constantly and incessantly relate this to the monks and nuns and the male and female lay devotees around you. For those who act in this way,

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a heap of merit will be accrued and their life will be long. They will obtain the combined heaps of merit of a trillion thus-gone ones, and will become invisible to those spirits that wander incessantly in nonhuman forms—bhūtas, piśācas, kumbhāṇḍas, ²⁷ and others; yakṣas, rākṣasas, grahas, and pretas. They will become strong and diligent. They will obtain beauty, charisma, and mindfulness.

“To satisfy brahmin ascetics, fill a container with the clean water to be offered, recite the dhāraṇī seven times, and make the offering at any place where water is swiftly flowing. When this is done accordingly, brahmin ascetics as numerous as the billions of grains of sand of the river Ganges will be satisfied with divine food and drink. Those brahmin ascetics will be thoroughly sated, and they will cry, “ Oṃ! May all be well!” In this way, the intentions of those beings will be completely purified, and they will have the charisma of brahmins. They will always live the religious life, they will obtain the roots of virtue of thus-gone ones as numerous as the billions of grains of sand of the river Ganges, and all their enemies will always be destroyed.²⁸

“Recite the dhāraṇī twenty-one times over flowers, incense, perfume, or food and drink, and then offer them to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Saṅgha. If that is done accordingly, noble sons and noble daughters, monks and nuns, and male and female lay devotees will revere, honor, and worship the Buddha, Dharma, and Saṅgha

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of the buddhafields of all the thus-gone ones in the ten directions with divine offerings and the supreme offerings of the thus-gone ones. They will be in the intentions and prophecies of all the thus-gone ones, and will be protected by all the gods.

“Ānanda, go, and accept this! Teach it correctly, again and again, to all beings. Perform all the roots of virtue. Thus have I spoken.”

Notes

notes.1

1. In the Tantra section of the Degé Kangyur, The Dhāraṇī of Refuge for the Preta Flaming Mouth (Toh 646) comes first, followed by The Bali Ritual to Relieve the Female Preta Flaming Mouth (Toh 647). However in the Dhāraṇī section, in which both texts are also found, the order is reversed, so that the (marginally shorter) The Bali Ritual to Relieve the Female Preta Flaming Mouth (Toh 1079) comes first, followed by the The Dhāraṇī of Refuge for the Preta Flaming Mouth (1080).

notes.2

2. This text, Toh 1079, and all those contained in this same volume (gzungs, wam), are listed as being located in volume 101 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 102. 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 1079 version of this text within vol. 101 or 102 of the Degé Kangyur. See Toh 1079, note 2, for details.

notes.3

3. In the other text, Toh 646/ 1080, the main protagonist is Nanda, the Buddha’s half-brother, rather than Ānanda, his cousin and attendant.

notes.4

4. In the other text, Toh 646/1080, the Tibetan rendering of the epithet is kha nas me ’bar ba, and the preta is not specifically identified as female. Nevertheless (and disregarding this gender difference), both versions have a very similar meaning, and given the presumed common source of the narrative and the likelihood that the same original Sanskrit (or possibly Chinese) epithet could easily have been translated into Tibetan in different ways, we have used “Flaming Mouth,” to render both.

notes.5

5. It is listed in the Denkarma catalog, under the name ’phags pa yi dags kha ’bar ma dbugs dbyung ba’i gtor ma’i cho ga, as being 20 ślokas in length (Denkarma, folio 303.a; Herrmann-Pfandt, p. 234). It is not listed in the Phangthangma catalog, which is believed to have been compiled a few years later.

notes.6

6. Hun Yeow Lye (2003), p. 30.

notes.7

7. A manuscript of the Chinese text is held at the British Library under the title Dharani Sutra for Saving the Burning-Mouth Hungry Ghosts (BL Or.8210/S.4119).

notes.8

8. Hun Yeow Lye (2003), p. 30.

notes.9

9. Foshuo jiuba yankou egui tuoluoni jing 佛說救拔燄口餓鬼陀羅尼經, Taishō 1313.

notes.10

10. Lye (2003), pp. 417–25. An English translation of the longer of the two, the translation by Amoghavajra (Taishō 1313), was also published with an introduction by Orzech (1996).

notes.11

11. Hun Yeow Lye (2003), p. 225. Lye’s study explores the history and evolution of the ghost-feeding rites based on these foundational texts and their liturgical outgrowth into two additional texts included in the Chinese canon (Taishō 1315 and Taishō 1318) that do not appear to have direct Tibetan parallels. See also Rotman (2021), pp. 59–61, who provides and describes a Chinese Ming dynasty painting of Flaming Mouth.

notes.12

12. In the Catalog of Received Items (Shōrai mokuroku 請來目錄), completed in 806 ce, a text called Sūtra on the Dhāraṇī for Bestowing (Food) on the Flaming-Mouth Hungry Ghost (Shi yankou egui tuoluoni jing 施燄口餓鬼陀羅尼) is included among the texts that Kūkai (774–835) brought from China to Japan. This title also appears in the catalogs of several other Japanese monks who traveled to China in the medieval period in search of Buddhist traditions and texts. Lye (2003), p. 232.

notes.13

13. See Rotman (2021), p. 46.

notes.14

14. Tib. kha ’ bar ma’i gtor chen. Zhonnu Pel (1984), p. 223; Roerich (1949), p. 177.

notes.15

15. In his sdom gsum rab dbye (Clear Differentiation of the Three Codes) Sakya Paṇḍita said he had witnessed practices in Tibet in which the names of the four tathāgatas were recited “in prologue to the Burning Mouth oblation,” which he said was not correct as “in the sūtra” the names of the four tathāgatas should be recited after the dhāraṇī. This is a clear reference to in Toh 646. He also said that was incorrect to add food to water offerings, as this causes pretas great torment. It is interesting that the instruction to add food to water offerings is found only in Toh 646, and not in the ritual prescribed here in Toh 647. Here, the instruction is to make food offerings to pretas and water offerings to brahmarṣis. See Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyaltshen (2002), p. 124.

notes.16

16. Lokesh Chandra STP 10.3153, 13.4299.

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17. Sobisch (2019, p. 245) mentions, for example, a mdos ritual text in the Collected Works of Choné Drakpa Shedrup (1675–1748) called kha ’bar ma’i mdos chen ma mo’i gdon sogs gnod pa kun sel (Great Thread-Cross Rite of Jvālāmukhī, Which Removes the Malevolent Influence of the Mundane Mother Deities and All Other Negative Forces).

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18. As, for example, in the ting nge ’dzin mchog gi rgyud (rKTs-G149, f. 163.a) and chos nyid zhi ba’i rgyud (rKTs-G153, f. 228.b); see also the translation of the Guhyagarbhatantra and commentary in Choying Tobden Dorje (2016), vol. 1, p. 198 et passim.

notes.19

19. A Mongolian translation of the Tibetan text is available in the Mongolian Kangyur in two identical versions in the Tantra section (Mong. dandar), entitled Aman daγan γal badaraγči em-e birid-i amuγulqui baling-un ǰang üile. See Ligeti (1942), p. 180.

notes.20

20. The association with Avalokiteśvara-Guanyin may be relevant to the apparent reference to Avalokiteśvara in the dhāraṇī formula (see ). Rotman (2021), pp. 60–61, also alludes to the notion in some Chinese traditions that Flaming Mouth is a manifestation of Guanyin “who expediently assumed the form of Flaming Mouth and precipitated Ānanda’s crisis in order to facilitate the Buddha’s creation of the Yuqie yankou ritual.” The various figures named Jvālāmukha or Jvālāmukhī mentioned in the preceding paragraph () may possibly echo such notions.

notes.21

21. Feer (1883), pp. 447–50.

notes.22

22. The Tibetan reads simply “what reliable method is there?” (brtan pa’i thabs ci yod). The words “to avoid this” have been added for clarification.

notes.23

23. Tib. thams cad du ’od dang ldan pa rgyal chen shugs ldan ’od ces bya ba. In the closely related text (Toh 646/Toh 1080), the name of this dhāraṇī is given as gzi brjid tshad med pa’i dbang du gyur pa’i ’od zer rnam par rgyal ba’i shugs zhes bya ba.

notes.24

24. Tib. ’jig rten dbang phyug dang ’jig rten dbang phyug ’od. According to the parallel Chinese text (Taishō 1314), the Buddha received this dhāraṇī from Guan shiyin pusa and Shijian zizai deli rulai (Hun 2003, p. 420). In Toh 646/1080 he receives the dhāraṇī from the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Tib. spyan ras gzigs) and the Thus-Gone One Vaśavartīguṇa (Tib. de bzhin gshegs pa dbang sgyur yon tan).

The Bali Ritual to Relieve the Female Preta Flaming Mouth

Contents

Text

84000's introduction

Notes