Toh 3156Toh 3156 — Dhāraṇī của Siṃhanāda (Tiếng Rống Sư Tử)

Summary

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

The Dhāraṇī of Siṃhanāda is a short
dhāraṇī text that includes the dhāraṇī formula for the Siṃhanāda form of
Avalokiteśvara and a brief instruction for a ritual that employs the dhāraṇī
to cure illness. Its contents closely parallel a section from the longer
Dhāraṇī of Avalokiteśvara Siṃhanāda (Toh
703),

The
Dhāraṇī of Avalokiteśvara Siṃhanāda
(translated
2024). where the dhāraṇī and ritual content of The Dhāraṇī of Siṃhanāda—along with several other
dhāraṇīs, mantras, and rituals—is incorporated into a narrative framework
that describes how Siṃhanāda acquired his curative powers. The concise
Dhāraṇī of Siṃhanāda, in contrast, opens
directly with the dhāraṇī proper, followed by instructions for making eight
maṇḍalas with cow dung, and how to incant and smear the dung on a sick
person to cure their illness. In the end, Avalokiteśvara states that if a
curative result were not achieved through the practice, it would be as if
he, the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, had performed the five deeds of
immediate retribution. This set of acts includes patricide, matricide,
killing an arhat, causing a rift in the saṅgha, and drawing the blood of a
tathāgata with malicious intent. This forceful statement implies that it is
as impossible for the ritual not to take effect as it would be for
Avalokiteśvara—the very embodiment of compassion—to perform any of these
heinous acts. In the longer Dhāraṇī of Avalokiteśvara
Siṃhanāda from which the content of this shorter text appears to
be extracted, this promise is made even more explicit, with Śākyamuni
telling Mañjuśrī, “Mañjuśrī, this is the Great Compassionate One’s own
promise.” See The Dhāraṇī of Avalokiteśvara Siṃhanāda (Toh
703,

).
This sentence from the longer dhāraṇī text provides the context for
the title of one recension of the shorter work: The
Dhāraṇī of Siṃhanāda’s Promise (Toh 704/912).

Siṃhanāda, “Lion’s Roar,” also sometimes called Lokeśvara Siṃhanāda,
is a form of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara. There are nine Siṃhanāda
sādhanas and several other Siṃhanāda praises and ritual texts preserved in
the Tibetan Kangyur, attesting to his importance in India. Images of
Siṃhanāda have been found at the Mahābodhi temple in Bodh Gaya prior to that
temple’s nineteenth-century renovation, Losty 2021, p. 17. and in Sri Lanka,
where it seems Siṃhanāda was especially popular. Holt 1991, p. 41. The association of
Siṃhanāda with curative properties that we find in the present text appears
to be quite an old one, as a tenth-century Nepalese miniature painting kept
at Cambridge depicts Siṃhanāda and includes a caption reading, “Lokeśvara of
the hospital on the island of Siṃhala.” Holt 1991, p. 79. While
Avalokiteśvara in general has a close iconographical association with the
deity Śiva, this is even more clear in the case of Siṃhanāda. In the Dhāraṇī of Avalokiteśvara Siṃhanāda (Toh 703),
Siṃhanāda—just like Śiva—holds a brahmin’s skull and a snake-wrapped
trident, and wears a sacred thread made of a snake.

Although it is not described in this text, Siṃhanāda’s iconography
is generally consistent across textual and artistic sources. In the
descriptions found in his many sādhanas and praises, Siṃhanāda is white in
color, has two legs and two arms, is dressed as an ascetic (tapasvin, dka’ thub ldan pa), and sits on
a lion. In most descriptions, a skull-adorned trident rests at his right
side, but in some, he holds it in his right hand. This trident is also
frequently depicted with a white snake coiled around the shaft. With his
left hand, he holds the end of a lotus stalk that rises upwards, with a
sword standing on the open lotus blossom. Nearby and to the left, sits what
is variously described as a cup (karoṭaka), pot (bhājana, snod), or skull cup (kapāla, thod
pa) filled with fragrant flowers. This vessel often sits on a
lotus or water lily. The
iconographic details of Siṃhanāda are described with some variation and
differing degrees of detail in Toh 2858, 2859, 3155, 3157, 3329, 3414,
3417, 3418, 3419, and 3650. Descriptions in Sanskrit can be found in
sādhana nos. 17, 20, 22, and 25 in volume one of the Sādhanamālā. For a survey of Indo-Tibetan
artistic depictions of Siṃhanāda, see the deity’s main page at Himalayan
Art Resources: https://www.himalayanart.org/search/set.cfm?setID=472&page=1.

The Siṃhanāda form of Avalokiteśvara continues to be practiced in
contemporary Tibetan Buddhist traditions. Two arrangements of practices
centered on Lokeśvara Siṃhanāda are found in the Compendium of Sādhanas
(sgrub thabs kun btus) compiled by
Jamyang Loter Wangpo, See
sgrub thabs kun btus vol. 6, folios
252.a–297.b. and the nineteenth-century scholar Mipham Gyatso
wrote a short summary of the story of The Dhāraṇī of
Avalokiteśvara Siṃhanāda. See seng ge sgra’i
gzungs kyi lo rgyus.

The Dhāraṇī of Siṃhanāda is extant in
Sanskrit, as text number twenty-one in the Sādhanamālā,
Bhattacharyya 1925 vol. 1, p. 52. and as part of the dhāraṇī
collection published by Gergely Hidas. Hidas 2021, p. 138. It does not
appear to be extant in Chinese translation. Despite the fact that The Dhāraṇī of Siṃhanāda is preserved in the
Tengyur, there is no attribution of authorship or other information to
contextualize the transmission of the text in India. A different translation
of The Dhāraṇī of Siṃhanāda is also found in
the Kangyur, where it is included in both the Tantra section (Toh 704) and
the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs section (Toh 912) of the Degé collection. The two versions of this text
preserved in the Kangyur are identical in content but have different
titles. Toh 704 is titled
The
Dhāraṇī of Siṃhanāda
(seng ge sgra’i gzungs), while Toh 912 is titled
The
Dhāraṇī of Siṃhanāda’s Promise
(seng ge sgras dam bcas pa’i gzungs).
The Kangyur and Tengyur recensions of the work have several minor
variants that suggest that, in addition to being translated by different
translators, they were also based on different Sanskrit recensions of the
text. Although the differences are minor, the Tengyur recension stands
closer to the extant Sanskrit text as preserved in the Sādhanamālā than the Kangyur recension.

The Tengyur version of The Dhāraṇī of
Siṃhanāda translated here was produced in the eleventh or
twelfth century by Patshab Lotsawa Tsultrim Gyaltsen, and is part of the
collection called “The ‘Hundred’ Sādhanas translated by Patshab” (pa tshab kyi bsgyur ba’i sgrub thabs rgya
rtsa) in the Tantra section of the Tengyur. It is one of only two
dhāraṇīs in that collection of one hundred and sixty-three texts, the
majority of which are indeed sādhanas. The version transmitted in the
Kangyur was translated into Tibetan by the Indian master Vāgīśvara and the
Tibetan translator Lokya Sherab Tsek, who were active in the eleventh
century.

This English translation of The Dhāraṇī of
Siṃhanāda was made on the basis of the Degé Tengyur recension of
this work, with additional reference to the notes from the Comparative
Edition (dpe sdur ma) of the Tengyur, both
recensions of the text from the Degé Kangyur (Toh 704 and 912), the single
Stok Palace Kangyur recension, the parallel passage in the longer Dhāraṇī of Avalokiteśvara Siṃhanāda (Toh 703), as
well as the Sanskrit versions of the Siṃhanādadhāraṇī from the Sādhanamālā, and Hidas 2021. The Dhāraṇī
of Siṃhanāda is generally stable across all recensions
consulted, including the Sanskrit, with only minor variants. We edited the
dhāraṇī itself very slightly on the basis of the Sanskrit text from the
Sādhanamālā and have noted those
emendations.

The Translation

The Dhāraṇī of Siṃhanāda

namo ratnatrayāya | nama
āryāvalokiteśvarāya bodhisattvāya mahāsattvāya mahākāruṇikāya |
tadyathā | oṁ akaṭe vikaṭe nikaṭe kaṭaṃkaṭe karoṭe karoṭavīrye Here we follow the Kangxi
and Narthang versions by adding karoṭa (ka ro Ta), which is absent in the Degé
but attested in the Sanskrit text from the Sādhanamālā and in Hidas 2021.
svāhā ||

In the early morning, in front of the blessed, noble Lokeśvara, make
eight maṇḍalas out of cow dung that has not fallen to the ground. Recite
this thirteen Here we follow
the Kangxi and Narthang Kangyurs, which read bcu gsum, “thirteen,” rather than the Degé,
which reads gsum,
“three,” as this is in accordance with the reading in the parallel text
Toh 704/912, as well as in Toh 703, which seems to be the source text
from which this work was extracted. times at each maṇḍala, then
incant the resulting
lhag ma. The parallel
passage from The Dhāraṇī of Avalokiteśvara
Siṃhanāda (Toh 703) includes an instruction to gather the
incanted dung on which the maṇḍalas were previously inscribed and then
to incant the “resulting dung” (Toh 703,

). This also seems to be
indicated in the version of the dhāraṇī published by Hidas (2021, p.
138); there this cow dung is described as pratimaṇḍalalekhitaśeṣagomaya, which could be
interpreted to mean “the cow dung that remains after inscribing the
individual maṇḍalas.” The implication of the Tibetan and Sanskrit seems
to be that this “remaining” dung is the same dung that was first
inscribed with maṇḍalas and incanted before being collected together,
incanted a second time, and applied to the patient. This would make
logical sense insofar as this process would infuse the dung with healing
potency. This interpretation is nonetheless tentative. dung with
the mantra seven times. Smear it on the sick person and all of their
illnesses will be cured.

If this is not successful after seven, thirteen, or twenty-one days,
even if performed by someone who has carried out the five deeds of immediate
retribution, then I In the
section of the Dhāraṇī of Avalokiteśvara
Siṃhanāda (Toh 703), which closely parallels this text, it
is made clear that this is Avalokiteśvara Siṃhanāda’s promise. However,
in that text, it is Śākyamuni who articulates Siṃhanāda’s promise to
Mañjuśrī. myself will have carried out the five deeds of
immediate retribution, and I will have deceived the blessed buddhas.

This completes “The Dhāraṇī of
Siṃhanāda.”

Colophon

This was translated by the monk Tsultrim Gyaltsen.

Notes

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Secondary Sources

Literally, “The Lion’s Roar.” The name of a
form of Avalokiteśvara.

An Indian master active in the eleventh
century. This may be a shortened name of Vāgīśvarakīrti, a
renowned master of the Cakrasaṃvara who was a gate keeper at
Vikramaśīla before spending the latter part of his life in the
Kathmandu Valley.

An eleventh-century Tibetan master and
translator who is specifically known for his Cakrasaṃvara
lineage, which he received from teachers in the Kathmandu
Valley.

A Tibetan translator who lived in the
eleventh to twelfth century. He translated the collection of
sādhanas referred to as “The ‘Hundred’ Sādhanas translated by
Patshab” (pa tshab kyis bsgyur ba’i
sgrub thabs rgya rtsa), a collection of one hundred
and sixty-three sādhanas. He mostly translated these in the
presence of the paṇḍita Abhayākaragupta, who was a Bengali
scholar and the abbot of Vikramaśīla. Patshab’s collection is
included in the Tantra section of the Degé Tengyur.

1847-1914. A master of the Sakya
tradition.