འཕགས་པ་ད་བཞན་གཤགས་པའ་གཙག་ཏར་ནས་བྱང་བའ་གདགས་དཀར་པ་ཅན་གཞན་གྱས་མ་ཐབ་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བའ་གཟངས intro.14

intro.14

Toh 592 and , both of which are titled The Noble Dhāraṇī “The Invincible Sitātapatrā Born from the Uṣṇīṣa of the Tathāgata” (Ārya­tathāgatoṣṇīṣa­sitātapatrānāmaparājitānāma­dhāraṇī; ’phags pa de bzhin gshegs pa’i gtsug tor nas byung ba’i gdugs dkar po can gzhan gyis mi thub pa zhes bya ba’i gzungs), are nearly identical versions of the Sitātapatrā spell. Toh 592 lacks the scriptural introduction and conclusion found in Toh 593 but otherwise varies only slightly and in a manner more consistent with scribal errors and editorial interventions than differences in the source material. Toh 592 lacks a translator’s colophon, making it difficult to determine its origin, but a text with nearly the same title is recorded in the Denkarma (ldan dkar ma), the imperial-period register of Tibetan translations.¹⁵ Toh 593, which does include the introductory and concluding passages absent in Toh 592, has a colophon reporting it to be a translation by the eleventh-century Kashmiri master Mahājana made without the assistance of a Tibetan translator. It is therefore possible that Mahājana’s contribution to the collection was to add the introductory and concluding material known from other Sitātapatrā sources. Mahājana’s colophon identifies the text as a “version of the Uṣṇīṣa” that is “the shorter of those of the heavenly realm.”¹⁶ This ambiguous statement is made somewhat clearer in the catalog of the Urga Kangyur, which says that Toh 593 (Urga no. 594) “is renowned as the shorter Uṣṇīṣa of the heavenly realm” (lha yul ma chung bar grags pa).¹⁷ Sönam Nampar Gyalwa (see above) also refers to this translation as the “condensed version” (bsdus pa) of the Sitātapatrā spell.¹⁸