Toh 587The Noble “Quintessence of ‘The Great Peahen’ ”

Summary

This text consists of a short dhāraṇī said to encompass a famous text for
protection in the Kangyur, The Great Peahen (Toh
559), and the benefit 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 for
protection in the Kangyur, The Queen of Incantations:
The Great Peahen, and the
benefit of its recitation.

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. We could
not find it transmitted in Sanskrit.

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.

The Translation

The Noble

Quintessence of “The Great Peahen”

Homage to the Three Jewels.

Homage to all buddhas whose teaching is unopposed. oṃ piśune

svāhā!

By upholding this, one will have upheld The Noble Great
Peahen. 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 noble “Quintessence of ‘The Great Peahen.’ ”

Notes

Bibliography

Tibetan Sources

Secondary Sources