Toh 743The Noble Dhāraṇī “Purifying All Karmic Obscurations”

Summary

The Dhāraṇī “Purifying All Karmic Obscurations” is a
relatively brief text consisting of a short dhāraṇī and a passage about its applications
and benefits. Most applications have to do with death and funerary rituals, as the text
provides many methods to aid the departed toward a favorable rebirth.

Acknowledgements

This text was translated and introduced 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 Dawn Collins copyedited the text. Martina Cotter was in charge of the
digital publication process.

Introduction

The Dhāraṇī “Purifying All Karmic Obscurations” is
a short but important text providing many teachings to aid the dead toward a favorable
rebirth. The text provides glimpses into the types of practices Buddhist communities
in India and Tibet undertook for a situation that affects us all: the death of a loved
one. The most important canonical text in this regard is The
Tantra Purifying All Evil Destinies (Toh 483), and indeed, if the form of
the dhāraṇī is anything to go by, our text does seem to have some kind of connection
with that major scripture.

The evidence for the original Sanskrit is somewhat thin: a mere fragment of
two and a half lines in an Indian Compilation of
Dhāraṇīs. However, even from this small
fragment, which contains the full dhāraṇī and a passage from the applications, we can
surmise that the version transmitted in India was somewhat different. We also know of
an eponymous goddess who is clearly a personified dhāraṇī from the Indian tradition.
The distinguished and influential scholar Abhayākaragupta in his Niṣpannayogāvalī describes her as an inhabitant of the
Dharmadhātuvāgīśvara maṇḍala, green in color and holding a white lotus with a red tint
marked by a vajra scepter with three prongs.

The Tibetan translation is recorded in the imperial catalogs and there is at least one
Dunhuang witness available to us. Unfortunately, the identity of
the translators was not recorded, or if there was once a record, this has not
survived. This witness from the famous Dunhuang collection is, despite its age, not a
perfect copy. However, it provides some interesting variant readings, which we discuss
in the notes to the translation. This text is included in both the Action Tantra
section (Toh 743) and the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs section (Toh 1009) of the Degé
Kangyur and other Tshalpa-lineage Kangyurs that include such a separate section. As
far as we are aware, there is no extant Chinese translation.

This English 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) of the Degé Kangyur in consultation with the Stok Palace
Kangyur. We also compared these texts carefully against the Dunhuang witness, as will
be evident from the notes that mark all major discrepancies. Additionally, we
consulted the Sanskrit manuscript fragment, a transcript of which we include here in
an appendix.

The Translation

The Noble Dhāraṇī

Purifying All Karmic Obscurations

Obeisance to
the Blessed Akṣobhya!

The application of this dhāraṇī is as follows:

If one recites it constantly, the entire succession of karma will be purified
one by one.

If one recites it at the three junctures of the day, even the five sins of immediate retribution
will be purified.

If one recites it once, bad omens, bad dreams, and inauspicious events will
disappear.

If one holds it on one’s body or writes it into a booklet and wears it tied around one’s neck, one will never
experience any of the untimely deaths.

If one is overcome with compassion and recites it into the ears of a
moribund beast, bird, human, or nonhuman being, that being will not be reborn in the
unfavorable destinies.

Moreover, if somebody has died some time ago and one recites it one hundred,
one thousand, or one hundred thousand times, with friendly kindness and compassion, in
the name of the dead person, that sentient being will be liberated at that very moment, even
if they have already been born in the hells.

If one recites it over some earth, or sesame seeds, or mustard seeds, or water
and scatters that over the corpse, or washes the corpse, and
then has it cremated, or
places it for keeping in a caitya, or if one writes the spell and places it on their head, that person will
certainly be liberated in seven days, even if already born in an unfavorable destiny.
That person will be reborn in a favorable destiny, among the gods, or wherever the
aspirational prayer wished.

If one undergoes purification by ritually bathing throughout the waxing
fortnight of the moon, changes clothes three times a day, fasts or eats white meals,
and recites the spell one hundred thousand times in the name of a dead person, while circumambulating a caitya
containing a relic, that person will be liberated from the lower realms. That person
will then be reborn among the gods of the Pure Abodes and appear in front of the
practitioner, perform worship,
manifest his own appearance, congratulate the practitioner, circumambulate him three times, and then finally disappear.

If one writes down a dead person’s name, recites the spell, and creates one
hundred thousand caityas
worshiped with parasols, banners,
streamers, and so on, and casts them into the sea or a great
river, then that person will be liberated from the hells, and so on.

Alternatively, having performed worship in the same way, if at the end one
constructs a great caitya at a
crossroads, worships it with parasols, banners, streamers, and so on, and then offers
a meal and makes donations to the noble monastic community in worship —as well as proclaims, “May this become a root of merit for
so-and-so! Indeed, by this, may he attain a
favorable rebirth among the gods!”—that person will be reborn there, manifest his own
appearance, offer one congratulations, and then disappear.

Whether one has committed the five sins of
immediate retribution, or whether one is an apostate of the true Dharma, or whether
one has disrespected the noble ones, if one sees this dhāraṇī, say, written on a wall
at the time of death, all one’s karmic obscurations will cease, how much more so if
one chants and recites it! That very tathāgata shall come to one and say “Noble son!
Come to me!”

Here ends “The Noble Dhāraṇī ‘Purifying All Karmic
Obscurations’.”

Notes

Abbreviations

Bibliography

Source Texts

Other Sources

Appendix

This is a revised reading of the manuscript fragment Cambridge University
Library Ms. Add. 1680.8.3 (+ denotes a lost akṣara):

namo
bhagavate ’kṣobhyāya tathāgatāyārhate samyaksaṃbuddhāya | tadyathā oṃ hūṃ
kakani kakani | vākani vākani | rocani rocani | troṭani | troṭani |
saṃtrāsani | saṃtrāsani + + + 2 pratihana 2 sarvakarmaparamparāni me
svāhā | ya imāṃ dhāraṇīm antaśaḥ kuḍyalikhitām api paśyet tasya
pañcānantaryāṇi parikṣayaṃ
[explicit]

Abhayākaragupta
abhayākaragupta