Toh 862The Essence Dhāraṇī of the Tathāgata Bhaiṣajya­guru

Summary

This very short text gives the Essence Dhāraṇī of the Medicine Buddha,
Bhaiṣajyaguruvaiḍūryaprabharāja.

Acknowledgements

This publication was completed under the patronage and supervision of
84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.

The text was translated, edited, and introduced by the 84000 translation
team. Catherine Dalton produced the translation and wrote the introduction. Ryan
Damron edited the translation and the introduction, and Dawn Collins copyedited
the text. Martina Cotter was in charge of the digital publication process.

Introduction

This very short dhāraṇī text contains only an homage to the Medicine
Buddha Bhaiṣajyaguruvaiḍūryaprabha followed by his essence dhāraṇī (snying po’i gzungs). The dhāraṇī
taught here is nearly identical to a section of the longer Bhaiṣajyaguru
dhāraṇī taught in The Dhāraṇī of Vaiḍūryaprabha
(Toh 505).

The Essence Dhāraṇī of the Tathāgata
Bhaiṣajyaguru does not appear to be extant in Sanskrit or to
have been translated into Chinese. The Tibetan translation lacks a colophon
that could inform us of its translation team and the approximate date of its
translation. However, The Dhāraṇī of
Vaiḍūryaprabha, to which the short dhāraṇī in this text is
closely related, was translated during the imperial period by the Tibetan
translator Bandé Yeshé Dé and the Indian masters Jinamitra, Dānaśīla, and
Śilendrabodhi, and was later revised by Atīśa Dīpaṅkaraśrījñāna and Tsultrim
Gyalwa (tshul khrims rgya
ba, c. eleventh century).

The text is included in the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs section of the
Degé Kangyur and other Tshalpa lineage Kangyurs that include a separate
Dhāraṇī section.
In Tshalpa lineage Kangyurs that lack a section so named, the text is only
found in the equivalent but unnamed dhāraṇī collection comprising part of
the Tantra section. It is not included in any Thempangma lineage Kangyurs.

Notably, the dhāraṇī is one of only twelve works in the Compendium
of Dhāraṇīs section that are not duplicated in other sections of the
Kangyur. Therefore, it appears that these twelve texts found their way into
the Tshalpa lineage Kangyurs specifically because of being part of the
Compendium of Dhāraṇīs, which most likely was compiled based on earlier
collections of dhāraṇīs and associated ritual texts.
These collections, known in Sanskrit as dhāraṇīsaṃgrahas, circulated throughout South
Asia and Tibet—including at Dunhuang—as extracanonical dhāraṇī
collections.

The Translation

The Essence Dhāraṇī of the Tathāgata

Bhaiṣajyaguru

##

oṃ bhaiṣajye bhaiṣajye
mahābhaiṣajye bhaiṣajyarājasamudgate svāhā

This completes “The Essence Dhāraṇī of
the Tathāgata Bhaiṣajyaguru.”

Notes

Bibliography

Tibetan Sources

Secondary Sources

Atīśa Dīpaṅkaraśrījñāna

atīśa
dīpaṅkaraśrījñāna