Toh 576The Noble “Dhāraṇī of ‘The Perfection of Wisdom in One Hundred Thousand Lines’ ”

Summary

This text consists of a short dhāraṇī said to encompass the longest sūtra
in the Kangyur, The Perfection of Wisdom in One Hundred
Thousand Lines (Toh 8), 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 the longest
sūtra in the Kangyur, The Perfection of Wisdom in One
Hundred Thousand Lines, and the benefits of its recitation.

Such short texts served a variety of purposes, the primary one 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 an 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 in 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 Dhāraṇī of “The Perfection of Wisdom in One

Hundred Thousand Lines”

Homage to the Blessed Lady, the Mother Perfection of Wisdom.

oṃ prajñe
śrutismṛtivijaye dhīdhāraṇīye svāhā!

oṃ prajñāpāramitābala
svāhā!

By upholding this, one will have upheld The
Perfection of Wisdom in One Hundred Thousand Lines.

If one recites it continuously, the mind will become heedful. All
karmic obscurations will be purified.

Notes

Bibliography

Tibetan Sources

Other Sources