Toh 586The Noble “Dhāraṇī to Uphold ‘The King of Samādhis Sūtra’ ”

Summary

This text consists of a short dhāraṇī said to encompass a famous sūtra in
the Kangyur, The King of Samādhis Sūtra (Toh 127),
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

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.

The Translation

The Noble

Dhāraṇī to Uphold “The King of Samādhis

Sūtra”

Homage to the Three Jewels.

namaḥ samantabuddhānām
apratihataśāsanānāṃ oṃ dhuna dhuna hūṃ hūṃ phaṭ phaṭ svāhā!

By upholding this, one will have upheld The
Noble King of Samādhis Sūtra. 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).

Notes

Bibliography

Tibetan Sources

Other Sources