Toh 509Dhāraṇī "Một Trăm Ngàn Trang Nghiêm Tinh Túy Bồ-đề"

Summary

This short text presents a set of mantras that, when placed inside a
stūpa, multiply the merit of having built one stūpa by one hundred thousand.
These dhāraṇīs are specifically said to be of benefit to future generations
whose merit will be weak.

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. Bruno Galasek-Hul produced the translation and wrote the introduction.
Ryan Damron edited the translation and the introduction, and Ven. Konchog Norbu
copyedited the text. Martina Cotter was in charge of the digital publication
process.

Introduction

The Dhāraṇī “One Hundred Thousand Ornaments of
the Essence of Awakening” presents a series of mantras and an
explanation of their benefits, presumably taught by the Buddha Śākyamuni,
though he is never explicitly named.
Instead, the text begins abruptly with a presentation of the mantras,
including a long root mantra (rtsa
ba’i sngags; mūlamantra), a shorter essence mantra (snying po; hṛdaya), an ancillary essence
mantra (nye ba’i snying po;
upahṛdaya), and an
additional undesignated mantra. A short prose section follows that explains
the special function of these: anyone who writes them down and puts them
inside a stūpa will see the effects of that deed multiply so that it will be
as if they built one hundred thousand stūpas instead of just one. Making
extensive offerings to that stūpa is likewise said to be tantamount to
making offerings to the Three Jewels. The Buddha next addresses Nanda to
explain that this teaching will be of specific benefit to beings in the
future who will have little merit, weak faith, and bad karma because they
have failed to read the sūtra and make extensive offerings. However, by
simply relying on this dhāraṇī, the Buddha assures Nanda, “one will have
made eighty-four thousand offerings adorned with the Dharma” and their merit
will become inexhaustible. At the end it is stated that this dhāraṇī has the
same effect as reading and reciting The Stem
Array (Gaṇḍavyūha, Toh
44-45), the final chapter
of the monumental Avataṃsaka Sūtra.

The text’s colophon identifies it as an extraction (btus pa) of a longer dhāraṇī text with the
identical title: The Dhāraṇī “One Hundred Thousand
Ornaments of the Essence of Awakening” (byang chub snying po’i rgyan ’bum zhes bya ba’i gzungs.) This
refers to the text that immediately precedes this one in most prints of the
Degé Kangyur (Toh 508). For a long time this longer version was considered
lost, as stated by Butön Rinchen Drup in the early fourteenth century. The
longer version is not found in any Kangyurs of the Tshalpa recensional
lineage that were produced before the Degé; they include only the short
version translated here. Nor was the longer version included in the first
printing of the Degé Kangyur itself, the so-called par phud (first printed in 1737), or in the
Choné Kangyur which was based on the Degé.  Rather, as stated in its lengthy
colophon, Toh 508 was only translated into Tibetan as late as 1743, when a
translation from Chinese was made by the great Qing dynasty Mongolian
scholar and translator Gönpo Kyab (mgon po
skyabs).  This was then included in later prints of the Degé
Kangyur from the 1762 print onwards and in this way is also found in more
recent Kangyurs such as the Lhasa (H 478). It was included in order to
replace the text that Butön had considered to be lost, which was listed in
the Denkarma imperial-period catalog from the early ninth century. Some
scholars believe, however, that the version contained in the Phukdrak
Kangyur (F 550) and other regional Kangyurs may preserve that earlier
translation, for which there is also a Dunhuang manuscript witness.

The colophon of the shorter version translated below does not
include any information about its translation or compilation, making it
challenging to determine precisely when and under what circumstances it was
produced.

A complete Sanskrit witness of the short version of the One Hundred Thousand Ornaments of the Essence of
Awakening is not presently available. A Sanskrit inscription of
a text that corresponds to this text was identified on a stone slab held by
the Provincial Museum of Orissa, Cuttack. The inscription, published by A.
Ghosh (1941), can be dated to approximately the tenth century. Other witnesses of the root mantra,
essence mantra, and ancillary essence mantra have been found among
terracotta tablets dating from the sixth to the ninth century that were
discovered at the site of Nālanda in northern India. The contemporary
Tibetan tradition counts the One Hundred Thousand
Ornaments of the Essence of Awakening among the “the five great
dhāraṇīs” (gzungs chen sde lnga) that
are placed inside newly consecrated stūpas.

Gregory Schopen has published the most detailed study to date of the
Tibetan and Sanskrit witnesses of the One Hundred
Thousand Ornaments of the Essence of Awakening. Part III of his
study contains a critical edition and an English translation of the Tibetan
text, with references to the fragmentary Sanskrit texts on the Cuttack slab
and the Nālanda tablets.

This English translation was prepared based on the two Degé
witnesses of the text (Toh 509 and Toh 920), in comparison with the Stok Palace Manuscript Kangyur. The dhāraṇīs
and mantras are given as they appear in Toh 509, with minor emendations made
to clarify the Sanskrit readings. No attempt was made to edit them based on
other Tibetan witnesses.

The Translation

Homage to all buddhas and bodhisattvas.

The root mantra:

oṁ namo bhagavate
vipulavadanakāñcanotkṣiptaprabhāsaketumūrdhane tathāgatāya arhate
samyaksaṃbuddhāya | namo bhagavate śākyamunaye tathāgatāya arhate samyaksaṃbuddhāya |

tadyathā | bodhi bodhi |
bodhani bodhani |
sarvatathāgata
sarvatathāgatagocari | dhara dhara | hara hara | prahara prahara |
mahābodhicittadhāre | culu culu | śataraśmisañcodite |
sarvatathāgatābhiṣikte | guṇiguṇapate | sarvabuddhaguṇāvabhāse |
mili mili | gaganatale | sarvatathāgatādhiṣṭhite | nabhasthale | śame
śame | praśame praśame | sarvapāpam praśame | sarvapāpaṃ viśodhane |
hulu hulu | mahābodhimārgasampratiṣṭhite |
sarvatathāgatasupratiṣṭhite śuddhe svāhā ||

The essence mantra:

oṁ
sarvatathāgatavyavalokite | jaya jaya svāhā ||

The ancillary essence mantra:

oṁ hulu hulu jayamukhe
svāhā ||

And:

oṁ vajrāyuṣe
svāhā ||

“When a bhikṣu, bhikṣuṇī, upāsaka, or upāsikā, or any other
son of good family or daughter of good family, writes this dhāraṇī down,
builds a stūpa, and places it in that stūpa, the building of that single
stūpa will equal the building of one hundred thousand stūpas. When offering
exquisite flowers, fragrance, garlands, ointments, powders, garments,
parasols, banners, pennants, and so forth, one will not just have made
offerings to the stūpa alone, but will have offered these articles to the
jewel of the Buddha, the jewel of the Dharma, and the jewel of the
Saṅgha.

“Nanda, I have taught this sūtra, this dhāraṇī, to benefit beings such as
those whose merit is weak, who have no faith, who harbor wrong views, who
are consumed with doubt, who have committed actions that bring immediate
retribution, whose lifespan is short, and who are to be immediately reborn
in the hell realms, in animal realms, or in Yama’s realm.

“Nanda, it is said that in the future, at a later time, the majority
of householders and monks will neither read this dhāraṇī nor make offerings,
and renunciants and householders alike will suffer. This being the case,
when one builds a stūpa after making offerings to the Buddha and hearing
this dhāraṇī, one will have made eighty-four thousand offerings
adorned with the Dharma. Moreover, one’s accumulation of merit will be
inexhaustible, and it will be as if one had read and recited The Stem Array. One will enter the mundane and
transcendent maṇḍalas.

Notes

Bibliography

Tibetan Sources

Modern Sources