Toh 588The Dhāraṇī to Uphold “The Noble Great Amulet”

Summary

This text consists of a short dhāraṇī said to encompass a famous text for
protection in the Kangyur, The Great Amulet (Toh
561), 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 text
for protection in the Kangyur, The Great
Amulet, and the benefit of its
recitation. In fact, the dhāraṇī here is also revealed in the parent text,
where it is called “the supremely secret essence mantra.” This incantation does not seem to have been
included among the four original mantras of the parent text. It is
remarkable, however, that it is this additional fifth mantra that has become
the most emblematic of The Great Amulet
tradition, and it is found most commonly in various other Buddhist texts,
and even in a late Hindu tantric anthology, the Tantrasāra, with variants in the Mantramahodadhi and the Śrīvidyārṇavatantra. Note also that this mantra is one of those
recited during the Gurumaṇḍala-pūjā performed at the beginning of Vajrayāna rituals in
Nepal.

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 Dhāraṇī to Uphold “The Noble Great

Amulet”

Homage to the Three Jewels!

By upholding this, one will have upheld The
Noble Queen of Incantations: The Great Amulet.

Here ends “The Dhāraṇī to Uphold ‘The
Noble Great Amulet.’ ”

Notes

Bibliography

Tibetan sources

Other Sources