Toh 537Recollecting the Names of the Buddha Ratnaśikhin

Summary

Recollecting the Names of the Buddha
Ratnaśikhin includes a short dhāraṇī and the brief statement that if
it is recited at the time of death, one will avoid lower rebirth and be reborn
in the Heaven of the Thirty-Three.

Acknowledgements

This publication 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.
Nathaniel Rich edited the translation and the introduction, and Dawn Collins
copyedited the text. Martina Cotter was in charge of the digital publication
process.

Introduction

Recollecting the Names of the Buddha
Ratnaśikhin includes a dhāraṇī invoking the buddha Ratnaśikhin.
The text then states that whoever recites it at the time of death will not
be reborn in the lower realms but will instead take rebirth in the Heaven of
the Thirty-Three.

This dhāraṇī text appears to be connected with the account from
The Sūtra of the Sublime Golden Light (Toh
555), in which it is recounted that, in the past, the Buddha Ratnaśikhin
made a commitment that any being who hears his name at the time of death
will be reborn in the Heaven of the Thirty-Three. The fruits of his commitment are borne out in the
narrative of The Sūtra of the Sublime Golden
Light, in which several beings report having taken higher
rebirths through the fortune of hearing the Buddha Ratnaśikhin’s name. The
specific dhāraṇī found in the present text is, however, not included in
The Sūtra of the Sublime Golden Light.

According to a number of canonical works, the Buddha Ratnaśikhin is
a buddha from the past in whose presence the Buddha Śākyamuni trained during
earlier lifetimes, prior to his awakening. The Play in
Full, in describing Śākyamuni’s service to former buddhas,
mentions that Śākyamuni “offered a candle to Ratnaśikhin.” Vasubhandu’s Abhidharmakośa identifies Ratnaśikhin as the
buddha under whom Śākyamuni completed the first of his three “incalculable
eons” of training.

Like many dhāraṇī texts, Recollecting the Names
of the Buddha Ratnaśikhin is found in both the Tantra section as
well as the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs section of the Degé Kangyur. It lacks a
Sanskrit title as well as a colophon and it is not listed in any of the
imperial-period catalogs. However, a text bearing a nearly identical title
does appear at Dunhuang, suggesting that Recollecting
the Names of the Buddha Ratnaśikhin was translated into Tibetan
and circulated in Tibet in a relatively early period.

The Sanskrit for the first part of the dhāraṇī proper is included in
a series of dhāraṇīs located on two gold foils found in a reliquary from a
shrine at Candi Plaosan in Indonesia. A variant of the dhāraṇī is found in
the Sūtra of the Dhāraṇī of Knowledge of Former
Lives (Sumingzhi tuolouni
jing), which was translated into Chinese by Faxian in 996. However, it appears that no Sanskrit recension or
Chinese translation of Recollecting the Names of the
Buddha Ratnaśikhin is extant.

This English translation was made on the basis of the two Degé
Kangyur recensions of the text (Toh 537 and Toh 870 ), with reference to the Stok Palace edition as well as the notes to
the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma). The
recensions consulted have no significant discrepancies. The dhāraṇī itself
has been transcribed exactly as it appears in Toh 537.

The Translation

Recollecting the Names of the Buddha

Ratnaśikhin

Homage to the Buddha Ratnaśikhin.

If someone remembers this at the moment of death, they will be freed
from the lower realms. When they do die and transmigrate, they will take
birth as a god in the Heaven of the Thirty-Three.

This completes “Recollecting the Names of
the Buddha Ratnaśikhin.”

Notes

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Secondary Sources