Toh 673aTâm Yếu Aparimitāyus (Toh 673a)

Summary

This extremely brief text provides a mantra of the Buddha Aparimitāyus, thus seeming to confirm its existence as a mantra on its own as well
as being part of the dhāraṇī contained in the most widely used version of The Aparimitāyurjñāna Sūtra.

Acknowledgements

This text was translated from the Tibetan by Peter Alan Roberts. Tulku Yeshi of the Sakya Monastery, Seattle, was the consulting lama who
reviewed the translation, the project manager and editor was Emily Bower, and the proofreader was Ben Gleason. The introduction was compiled
by the 84000 editorial team.

The translation was completed under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.

Introduction

This is one of the shortest texts in the Kangyur. It has no introductory passage, conclusion, or colophon, and in the Kangyur source
texts it does not even have a title; the title we have given it here is the one that appears in the catalog
(dkar chag) of the Degé and other Kangyurs, and is drawn from the prose sentence that opens the text after the
initial salutation mantra. The text is not identified or numbered in the Tōhoku catalog of the Degé Kangyur, but
appears in the Degé, Lhasa, Stok Palace, Shelkar, and Urga Kangyurs.

From the fact that this text is placed in the Kangyur directly before The Aparamitāyurjñāna Sūtra (1), Toh
674, and from the mantras it contains, the Tibetan tshe dpag med must be
presumed to be translating Aparimitāyus rather than Amitāyus, which is also tshe dpag med in
Tibetan, and to refer to the Buddha Aparamitāyurjñāna residing toward the zenith and associated with longevity, rather than to the
Buddha Amitābha residing in his buddhafield of Sukhāvatī in the western direction. The conflation of these names and the buddhas they
denote—they are thought to have originally been distinct but were later conflated not only in Tibetan but also in East Asian
traditions—is discussed in more detail in the introduction to The Aparamitāyurjñāna Sūtra (1), Toh
674.

The text begins with a salutation, in the form of a brief mantra, to Aparimitāyus under the name Vajra-āyuṣa (Vajra Life).

This is followed by one prose sentence and a mantra of Aparimitāyus. The prose sentence is not ascribed to any speaker, and could be
taken either as a pronouncement by the Buddha, or as a practice instruction of the kind that one might expect to be included in a
Tengyur text.

The mantra, oṁ puṇye puṇye mahāpuṇye aparimitāyuḥ-puṇya-jñāna-saṃbharopacite svāhā, appears to have
its most immediate origin in the longer Aparimitāyurjñāna Sūtra (1), Toh 674.
The dhāraṇī of that text (repeated twenty-nine times within it) contains this mantra as its central portion, roughly one third of the
dhāraṇī. The dhāraṇī in the other version of the sūtra, however, The
Aparimitāyurjñāna Sūtra (2), Toh 675, differs from the dhāraṇī of Toh 674 only in not
containing this mantra—and indeed this difference of dhāraṇīs is the only really substantial difference between the two versions of the
sūtra as a whole. It is also the reason why some catalogs and commentaries distinguish the two versions of the text as the “three
oṁ” and “two oṁ” versions,
respectively, and the Degé karchak goes further in referring to the shorter one (Toh 675) as the
“two oṁ, no puṇye” version. As
explained more fully in the introductions to The Aparimitāyurjñāna Sūtra (1) and (2), Toh 674 and 675 respectively, it is likely that the latter represents a version translated in the early,
imperial translation period of the late eighth or early ninth century, while the former is the version introduced to Tibet some three
centuries later.

The existence of this text, containing the very dhāraṇī phrase that differentiates the two versions of the sūtra as a standalone mantra,
is therefore intriguing, even if from the Kangyurs and their catalogs themselves we can glean no clearer explanation for its existence
than the notion that it is simply one of several mantras or dhāraṇīs of Aparimitāyus which, as we can observe, is also found
incorporated in longer alternatives.

Nevertheless, the mantra featured in this text is also to be found in one other place in the Kangyur, in the Sarvadurgatipariśodhana, a tantra of the Yoga class that is widely used in rituals for the dead. The
tantra features a number of secondary maṇḍalas for specific purposes, and among these is one presided over by Aparimitāyus. There are
two versions of the tantra in the Kangyur, Toh 483 and 485, translated (from
slightly different Sanskrit manuscripts) in the eighth and thirteenth centuries, respectively. The mantra of the present text is found
in the early translation version exactly as it is here, and in the later version with the addition of one word, karaṇi, before the final svāhā. In both texts, the mantra is described
as the “essence” or “heart-mantra” (hṛdaya, snying po), just as it is in the brief introductory sentence of the present text. In the Sarvadurgatipariśodhana it is introduced as the essence of all tathāgatas, but in the context of being the principal mantra
of others accompanying it and clearly corresponding to the maṇḍala of Aparimitāyus, while here it is simply said to be the essence of
Aparimitāyus.

The Translation

The Essence of Aparimitāyus

Oṁ vajra-āyuṣe hūṃ a.

If someone continually repeats this essence of Ārya Aparimitāyus, or is empowered with water blessed by its mantra, their lifespan will be lengthened:

oṁ puṇye puṇye mahāpuṇye aparimitāyuḥ-puṇya -jñāna-saṃbharopacite svāhā.

Notes

Bibliography

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