Toh 1091In Praise of the Goddess Revatī

Summary

In Praise of the Goddess Revatī includes a short
praise to the goddess Revatī along with a dhāraṇī extracted from The
Great Tantra of Supreme Knowledge (Toh 746). The praise itself is just a
few lines long and addresses Revatī’s characteristics—her body is said to be made of gems
and precious substances—and her familial lineage.

Acknowledgements

The translation was completed under the patronage and supervision of 84000:
Translating the Words of the Buddha.

The text was translated, edited, and introduced by the 84000 translation team.
Catherine Dalton produced the translation and wrote the introduction. Andreas Doctor
edited the translation and the introduction, and Dawn Collins copyedited the text. Martina
Cotter was in charge of the digital publication process.

Introduction

In Praise of the Goddess Revatī includes a short
praise to Revatī along with her dhāraṇī. The praise itself is just a few lines long
and addresses Revatī’s characteristics and her familial lineage. There is no narrative
setting and the praise is preceded by two short introductory lines. It is immediately
followed, with no introduction or framing, by Revatī’s dhāraṇī, which closes the
text.

It is worth noting that while this work has the title In
Praise of the Goddess Revatī in the incipit of all versions consulted, the
explicit consistently gives an alternative title, The Dhāraṇī of
the Great Goddess Rematī. The
names Revatī (nam gru) and Rematī
(re ma ti), although sometimes
conflated as they are in this text, in fact appear to refer to two distinct goddesses
with separate characteristics and pedigrees. The present text is a praise to Revatī, so both the
title given in the explicit, as well as a line of homage at the beginning that also
addresses Rematī rather than Revatī, are likely to have been added by later redactors
who conflated the two names. In this translation we have nevertheless left the name
Rematī in the homage and the explicit as they are found in the Tibetan text, even
though it is clear that this text relates to Revatī.

There is no reference in the text of In Praise of the
Goddess Revatī to any source for the lines of praise it contains. However,
these verses are also found in The Great Tantra of Supreme
Knowledge (Vidyottamamahātantra, Toh
746) where they feature as part
of a larger narrative in which they are addressed directly to Revatī by
Vajrapāṇi. In this section of The Great Tantra of Supreme
Knowledge, a group of gods and sages praise Vajrapāṇi and request from him
a ritual for taming and pacification. Vajrapāṇi replies that he is
pleased by their diligence in helping beings and by their entry into the king of
maṇḍalas. At this point Revatī approaches but is unable to enter the maṇḍala herself.
She nonetheless frightens the gods and the sages because she is powerful, diligent,
and kills children. The gods and sages seek protection from Vajrapāṇi, who becomes
wrathful and proclaims that all the hateful beings in the world will be destroyed. The
gods and sages are grateful for this protection and respond by requesting Vajrapāṇi to
praise Revatī in order that she may now be able to enter the maṇḍala. Vajrapāṇi
replies by expressing, directly to Revatī, the same lines praising her family line and
her qualities as appear in the present work.

In that narrative of The Great Tantra of Supreme
Knowledge, Vajrapāṇi continues speaking with additional verses describing
Revatī and the evils she inflicts, as well as methods that offer protection from those
evils. He concludes with the dhāraṇī that is also found here. Upon hearing all
this, Revatī cries out, enters the maṇḍala, and begs Vajrapāṇi for protection, which
he grants. She requests instruction and he commands her to protect everyone who has
seen the maṇḍala and who wears an amulet on which an account of her family history and
characteristics are written. She promises to do so, adding that any child who wears
such an amulet will be protected from graha spirits (gdon;
Revatī herself is typically considered a graha). The words that are to be written on the amulet—the account of
Revatī’s family history and her characteristics—are contained in the praise spoken
earlier by Vajrapāṇi and are indeed precisely the contents of the present short work.
In Praise of the Goddess Revatī has the added benefit
of including a dhāraṇī in addition to the praise. In this sense, then, we can consider
In Praise of the Goddess Revatī to be a kind of
textual recipe needed to create a protective amulet for warding off harm caused by
Revatī.

An abbreviated version of the very same narrative from The Great Tantra of Supreme Knowledge, including the praise and dhāraṇī,
makes up the contents of a short work from Dunhuang entitled The
Dhāraṇī of the Goddess Revatī (lha mo nam gru
ma’i gzungs, IOL Tib J 442/2), which is, however, not included in any
Kangyurs.
The Dhāraṇī of the Goddess Revatī appears to have been
extracted from The Great Tantra of Supreme Knowledge, and
presents the longer narrative summarized above verbatim, but in abridged form, with
some passages omitted.

In short, The Great Tantra of Supreme Knowledge,
The Dhāraṇī of the Goddess Revatī, and In Praise of the Goddess Revatī are closely related works
that include the same content, but with varying amounts of detail. The most extensive
version of the narrative, including the praise and dhāraṇī, is found as a section of
The Great Tantra of Supreme Knowledge; an abbreviated
version is found in The Dhāraṇī of the Goddess Revatī
from Dunhuang; and the standalone praise and dhāraṇī, without any
narrative context, is found in the present work, In Praise of the
Goddess Revatī.

As indicated in the summary above, the goddess Revatī who is praised in these
three works is a powerful and frightening graha or goddess known to harm or kill children. This Revatī seems to be closely related to, or perhaps
even identical with, the bālagraha
(child-snatching spirit) Revatī who appears in the Mahābhārata and other non-Buddhist Indian works. This Revatī also harms
children and her praise protects against such harm.

In Praise of the Goddess Revatī is not extant in
Sanskrit or in Chinese translation, nor is The Great Tantra of
Supreme Knowledge, from which In Praise of the
Goddess Revatī has been extracted. The Tibetan text does not include a
Sanskrit title and there is also no translator’s colophon at the end. The title does,
however, appear in both the Phangthangma and the Denkarma imperial catalogs. This
confirms the presence in Tibet during the early ninth century, if not of this very
text, at least of one with an identical title. Moreover, The Great Tantra of
Supreme Knowledge, from which the verses of praise and dhāraṇī were
extracted, was translated by the Indian paṇḍita Vidyākaraprabha and the Tibetan
translator Kawa Paltsek, who were both active during the ninth century.

The text is included in the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs section of the Degé Kangyur
and other Tshalpa-lineage Kangyurs that include a separate Dhāraṇī section. In Tshalpa-lineage Kangyurs
that lack a section so named, the text is found in the Tantra section, but only in the
equivalent but unnamed dhāraṇī collection comprising part of the Tantra section. It is
not included in any Thempangma-lineage Kangyurs.

Notably, this is one of only twelve works in the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs
section that are not duplicated in other sections of the Kangyur. It appears that
these twelve texts found their way into the Tshalpa-lineage Kangyurs specifically
because of being part of the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs, which most likely was compiled
based on earlier collections of dhāraṇīs and associated ritual texts. These collections, known in Sanskrit as dhāraṇīsaṃgraha, circulated throughout South Asia and Tibet—including at
Dunhuang—as extracanonical dhāraṇī collections.

This English translation was made on the basis of the Degé Kangyur recension
with reference to the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma). We also consulted the relevant parts of
the Degé recension of The Great Tantra of Supreme
Knowledge and The Dhāraṇī of the Goddess
Revatī from Dunhuang (IOL Tib J 442.2).

The Translation

In Praise of the Goddess Revatī

The family and characteristics

Of Revatī should be explained:

Your body is made of precious substances—

Your back is Jambu River gold,

Your front is silver,

The surface of your belly is covered in vajra.

Your brothers are Treasure and Treasure Guardian,

Your mother is She Who Goes Everywhere,

Your father is called Vāyu.

Your bloodline is that of Bhagīratha;

You are renowned in the heavens.

namo
vajrapāṇisya cili cili bhindi bhindi muñca muñca muñca havalakana svāhā|
vajrapāṇīr ajñāpayati svāhā| deva samājñāpayati svāhā| rīṣayaḥ samājñāpayati
svāhā|

namo ratna trayāya| tadyathā| ruru viṣiṣṭhava dhotsi
svāhā||

This completes the dhāraṇī of the great goddess Rematī, the Powerful Lady of the Desire Realm, the Great Mother of
Demons.

Notes

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Secondary Sources