Toh 585The Noble “Quintessence of ‘The Stem Array’ ”

Summary

This text consists of a short dhāraṇī said to encompass a famous sūtra in
the Kangyur, The Stem Array (Toh 44–45), and the
benefits of its recitation.

Acknowledgements

The text was translated from Tibetan by the Buddhapīṭha Translation Group
(Gergely Hidas and Péter-Dániel Szántó).

The translation was completed under the patronage and supervision of
84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha. Andreas Doctor edited the
translation and the introduction, and Laura Goetz copyedited the text. Martina
Cotter was in charge of the digital publication process.

Introduction

This text consists of a short dhāraṇī said to encompass a famous
sūtra in the Kangyur, The Stem Array, also said to be the forty-fifth
and final chapter of the Avataṃsaka collection (here translated as Ornaments of the Buddhas), and the benefits of its
recitation. In other dhāraṇī texts, the reward typically includes some kind
of karmic purification, but here “tantric” fruits are foreshadowed, namely
becoming learned in both Buddhist and non-Buddhist esoteric systems.

Such short texts served a variety of purposes, the primary being
that by reciting them one could acquire the positive karmic benefits of
reciting an entire, sometimes extremely long, text. On a practical level,
the recitation of these short texts also served as equivalent to the
recitation of the parent text, should a prescribed ritual so require.

The text lacks both a Sanskrit title and a translator’s colophon. In
South Asia, the text was transmitted within collections such as the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs (Dhāraṇīsaṃgraha), but it is also embedded into some ritual manuals such as
the corpus of “rituals for beginners” (ādikarmika, las dang po pa) texts, in our case the Ādikarmāvatāra by Mañjukīrti, the Ādikarmavidhi by Tatakaragupta, and the *Bodhipaddhati
by Abhayākaragupta.

This translation was made principally on the basis of the Tibetan
translations of the text found in the Tantra Collection (rgyud ’bum) and the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs
(gzungs ’dus) in the Degé Kangyur in
consultation with the various Sanskrit sources mentioned above, especially
the text of Mañjukīrti, which is transmitted in a manuscript noted for its
scribal precision.

The Translation

The Noble

Quintessence of “The Stem Array”

Homage to the Three Jewels.

By upholding this, one will have read and recited the entire Noble Stem Array Sūtra in full. is more explicit when he replaces the verb with
kaṇṭhasthīkṛ (“to
place it in one’s throat”), which is the Sanskrit idiom for “to learn by
heart.” He also spells out the benefit as the “meritorious karmic fruit”
(puṇyaphala) of
memorizing the parent text. This sentence is then followed by a
fascinating short discussion, which merits to be quoted in full:
“Surely, this is an exaggeration! No, one should not say this. For
countless thus-gone ones have empowered this dhāraṇī to serve as a
method for gaining the equipment of merit for women, immature people,
and simpletons, as well as for learned people whose minds are confused,
just like the pole of a snake charmer[, which is preprepared by the
expert snake charmer to be effective even when he is no longer present,]
for removing poison; however, it is not a method for gaining the
knowledge conveyed by The [Perfection of Wisdom in] One Hundred Thousand Lines. This should be understood to
apply in other cases [i.e., where the text is abbreviated into a
dhāraṇī] as well” (nanv atyuktir
eveti. na caitad vaktavyam. yataḥ strībālamūrkhān paryākulitamatīn
paṇḍitān praty api puṇyasaṃbhārasādhanatvenāsaṃkhyeyatathāgatair
adhiṣṭhiteyaṃ dhāriṇī, yathā viṣaharatvena gāruḍikaṃ stambhaḥ; na tu
lakṣāpratipāditajñānasādhanatvena. evam anyatrāpi
boddhavyaḥ). In his note to this dhāraṇī, he reiterates
the point about “to uphold” meaning “to memorize” and promises as the
reward the fruit of reciting the text (pāṭhaphala).

Here ends “The Quintessence of ‘The Stem
Array.’ ”

Notes

Bibliography

Tibetan Sources

Other Sources