Toh 597Thánh Đà-la-ni Uṣṇīṣavijayā Tịnh Hóa Tất Cả Đường Ác (Sarvadurgatipariśodhana)

Summary

The Noble Uṣṇīṣavijayā Dhāraṇī That
Purifies All Lower Rebirths opens with an
account of the god Supratiṣṭhita, who seeks the god Śakra’s
advice after learning of his own impending death and rebirth
in the lower realms. Realizing that the Tathāgata is the
only true refuge from lower rebirth, Śakra goes to the
Buddha, who explains to him the benefits of the Uṣṇīṣavijayā Dhāraṇī and a
number of rituals related to it that can liberate
Supratiṣṭhita and all beings from rebirth in the lower
realms.

Acknowledgements

The text was translated from Tibetan by Patrick Lambelet
and from Sanskrit by Caley Smith. Thanks to Catherine Dalton
for her helpful suggestions regarding further bibliographic
sources.

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

The generous sponsorship of May, George, Likai, and
Lillian Gu, which helped make the work on this translation
possible, is most gratefully acknowledged.

Introduction

The Noble Uṣṇīṣavijayā
Dhāraṇī That Purifies All Lower Rebirths
opens in the Heaven of the Thirty-Three, where the
god Supratiṣṭhita’s enjoyment of divine pleasures is
interrupted by a voice warning him that he will die
within a week, experience seven rebirths in
Jambudvīpa, and then be born as a hell being.
Supratiṣṭhita rushes in panic to Śakra, Lord of the
Gods, seeking his help. Śakra, shocked by this news,
sees that Supratiṣṭhita will be born in the lower
realms as various types of animals for seven
rebirths. Realizing that only the Buddha can offer
refuge for beings facing such low rebirths, he seeks
the Buddha’s counsel.

When Śakra tells the Buddha of the god
Supratiṣṭhita’s impending death and rebirth, light
rays emerge from the Buddha’s uṣṇīṣa, illuminating
all the worldly realms before returning to his
mouth. The Buddha then explains the qualities of the
uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī, which include
destroying the obscurations, purifying lower
rebirths, attaining rebirth as a god, attaining a
long life, and attaining rebirth in buddha fields,
divine abodes, and the abodes of bodhisattvas. The
Buddha bestows the dhāraṇī and again enumerates its
benefits. He then requests Śakra to proclaim the
dhāraṇī to Supratiṣṭhita so that Supratiṣṭhita will
avoid unfortunate future rebirths and be born into
the bodhisattva lineage. The Buddha adds that
Supratiṣṭhita should contemplate, meditate upon, and
recall the dhāraṇī in order to benefit beings in the
god realms and all the beings in Jambudvīpa.

The Buddha then explains that the dhāraṇī should
be written down and installed in a high place, such
as the top of a flagpole or caitya, and that the
beings who do this and all beings who see it
displayed will be liberated from lower rebirths. He
also notes that a person who makes offerings to or
venerates the dhāraṇī is to be known as a great
being and a child of the tathāgatas.

Following this, Yama, the Lord of Death, goes to
the Buddha, praises the benefits of the dhāraṇī, and
vows to protect all beings. The Four Great Kings
then ask the Buddha to explain the rite related to
the dhāraṇī and the technique for performing it. The
Buddha explains that beings who recite it will be
liberated from the lower realms as well as from all
forms of illness, eventually taking their last
rebirth in Sukhāvatī.

The Buddha explains a dhāraṇī rite for those who
have died in which one should scatter sesame seeds
incanted with the dhāraṇī over the bones of the
deceased. This will liberate them from lower realms
and lead to rebirth in the god realms. He also
explains that daily recitation of the dhāraṇī will
lead to rebirth in Sukhāvatī, liberation, and
protection by the tathāgatas.

Upon hearing these explanations from the Buddha,
Śakra returns to Supratiṣṭhita and provides him with
the dhāraṇī and the instructions he has received.
After practicing it for a week, the dhāraṇī grants
Supratiṣṭhita’s every wish—he obtains freedom from
lower rebirths, is established on the path to higher
rebirth, and is set on the path to his own eventual
awakening.

This work is one among a group of texts found
clustered together in the Kriyātantra section of the
Tibetan Kangyurs that contain the uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī and its related
rituals. Unlike the other texts in this group, the
title of the present work does not explicitly refer
to the rituals connected with the dhāraṇī, though it
does in fact include a few of the same ritual
instructions found in the remaining four texts in
the group. The group of four more
specifically ritual texts all share a similar
narrative opening (nidāna) that differs from
the introductory narrative in the present text. The
dhāraṇī itself and several further passages,
however, are shared between the present text and other works in this group. For example,
after the supporting narrative for the Buddha’s
recitation of the uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī, the
dhāraṇī itself and nearly all the material that
follows it can be found in various sections of Toh
594.

Several ritual manuals for recitation of the
uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī were translated
into Chinese. The present work was significant
in East Asia, and one scholar has even identified it
as the most important esoteric Buddhist scripture
translated into Chinese in the seventh century. Practices connected with the
uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī were important in
China, in particular in conjunction with funerary
rites, where the dhāraṇī was written on pillars near
tombs, especially from the mid-Tang to Ming
dynasties (ca. 800–1600 ce). In addition to its ritual uses, in
China this dhāraṇī receives mention in poems and
tales of miracles and is analyzed in philosophical
commentaries.

In Nepal, uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī rituals continue
to be performed as part of modern Newar Buddhist
practice, where their practice is sometimes
prescribed for Wednesdays in particular. Practices
connected to the uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī
likewise continue in modern Tibetan Buddhism. The
so-called Tongchö (stong
mchod)—the thousandfold offering
practice of Uṣṇīṣavijayā—is currently performed in
Tibetan monasteries, sometimes using a ritual manual
composed by the nineteenth-century polymath Jamyang
Khyentsé Wangpo. Other notable Tibetan works on the
uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī and its associated
practices include commentaries by the great Sakya
lama Butön (bu ston rin chen grub, 1290–1364) and
the fourth Panchen Lama, Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen (blo
bzang chos kyi rgyal mtshan, 1570–1662).

The question of what, or who,
exactly, Uṣṇīṣavijayā is is a complex one that
cannot be clearly answered here. In short, like a
number of uṣṇīṣa deities, she is sometimes
identified as a protective deity, in this case a
goddess, emanated from the Buddha’s uṣṇīṣa. Indeed,
Uṣṇīṣavijayā is clearly depicted as a goddess in a number of short sādhanas
included in Indian anthologies such as the Sādhanamāla,
compiled from the works of many authors probably during the period of the
Pāla kings (eighth to twelfth century).
Three closely similar sādhanas of a three-faced, eight armed form of the goddess are included in the
Tengyur, one in each of the three related anthologies translated from the Indian collections into Tibetan in the eleventh to fourteenth centuries
respectively.
A variety of other forms are depicted or described in Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, Mongolian, and Kashmiri sources.
In the later Tibetan tradition Uṣṇīṣavijayā can even appear as
one of a group of three long-life deities along with
the Buddha Amitāyus and White Tārā. Here in the Kangyur, however, in all
but one (Toh 598) of the uṣṇīṣavijayā works in this
section, while the dhāraṇī itself uses the feminine vocative form throughout,
the name uṣṇīṣavijayā is not rendered in
Tibetan in the feminine, and the word uṣṇīṣavijayā is not used to refer to
anything apart from the name of the dhāraṇī—the
dhāraṇī of the crown victory.

The range of possible answers to the question of what the name Uṣṇīṣavijayā refers to is enlarged even further by
the existence of a group of related texts widely used in Southeast Asia, sharing the Pali
title Uṇhissa-vijaya-sutta (or in some cases
simply Uṇhissa-vijaya) but found in a
number of different forms, some in Pali but others in Siamese, Lao, Yuon, and Khmer.
Some refer at least briefly to the story of the
god Supratiṣṭhita (Pali Supatiṭṭhita), but instead of the dhāraṇī of the Sanskrit
and Tibetan texts they contain a set of verses (gāthā)
to be recited whose content is unrelated to that of the Sanskrit dhāraṇī. The
gāthā are also found alone in several
ritual compilations. Even in the vernacular versions,
the verses are written in Pali. In these texts, in their own opening lines, it seems to be the verses themselves that
are referred to as the Uṇhissa-vijaya.

The present text was translated into Tibetan by
the Indian paṇḍitas Jinamitra and Surendrabodhi and
the Tibetan translator Bandé Yeshé Dé, thus placing
the translation sometime in the ninth century ce.

This 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) sections in the Degé Kangyur in consultation with the Stok Palace Kangyur
and the Comparative Edition of the Kangyur (dpe bsdur ma). We also
consulted Toshiya Unebe’s 2015 transliteration of
the Sanskrit text, the Sanskrit from Schopen’s
transcription of the “Los Angeles Manuscript” of
this text, and Hidas’ edition and translation of the
surviving Sanskrit Uṣṇīṣavijayā-dhāraṇī ritual for the
passages that are parallel with the present text.

The dhāraṇī proper—as is not unusual in the canonical texts where multiple versions have survived—is not identical
in every detail even across the five different versions in the Degé Kangyur (Toh 594–598), and the existence of further variations across different Kangyurs
and versions in extra-canonical collections further complicates the picture. Reference to Hidas’ edition of the Sanskrit yields useful orthographic confirmation but may be misleading as a model given that
the ten different Nepalese Sanskrit manuscripts on which it is based are of much later date than any of the present Tibetan witnesses. Here and in the other works in the group, we
have therefore chosen to transcribe the dhāraṇī as it appears in the Degé version of each text, making only minor choices of orthography and adding annotations to point out the
most significant discrepancies.

While most differences are minor, one particular phrase in this version of the dhāraṇī appears displaced by comparison with the dhāraṇī in the other
works. The apparent displacement is not
seen in all Kangyurs but is nevertheless not unique to the Degé xylograph alone. Moreover, in the two supposedly duplicate versions of this text, Toh 597 and Toh 984 (in the Tantra and
Dhāraṇī sections respectively), that same phrase is by no means identical.

One noticeable difference across both Tibetan and Sanskrit versions of the dhāraṇī is the presence or absence of the syllable oṁ at the
beginning of certain phrases. In the present work and Toh 594, 595, and 596 there are only three such oṁ syllables, while in Toh 598
oṁ appears no less than nine times, as it does in Hidas’ edition from Sanskrit sources and in some of the extra-canonical liturgies.
Toh 598 is a translation made at a significantly later date than the other works of the group, and may possibly signal a change in usage that is also reflected in the Nepalese Sanskrit
texts of even later date. This is corroborated by the absence of extra oṁs in the Dunhuang manuscripts. The colophon of the
equivalent of the present text in the Phukdrak (phug brag) Kangyur includes a note to the effect that
the texts with only three oṁs are to be considered more correct; that although there may have been Sanskrit source texts with as many as nine, Sumpa Lotsāwa
(twelfth century) reported that all the
Sanskrit texts he had seen contained only three; and that of the Sanskrit texts held at Sakya monastery none had more than that. Sumpa Lotsāwa’s remark regarding this aspect of the Sanskrit manuscripts he had seen,
presumably including those then available in Nepal, where he studied and lived, thus contrast with what we know of later manuscript traditions of the dhāraṇī in Nepal, in which the inclusion of
nine oṁs seems to have been the norm.

Over the centuries, the textual transmission of the dhāraṇī has preserved the major portion of it with remarkable fidelity. Nevertheless,
the few anomalies to be seen across all these closely related texts are a reminder that here, as with other dhāraṇī works, some variations over time and place are only to be expected.

The Translation

The Noble Uṣṇīṣavijayā Dhāraṇī That

Purifies All Lower Rebirths

##

Homage to all
buddhas and bodhisattvas.

There was a god called Supratiṣṭhita, seated in the divine
assembly hall, Sudharmā, among the gods of the
Heaven of the Thirty-Three; he lived in a great palace, where
he was surrounded by the finest divine pleasures and
a great harem of divine maidens playing and singing
songs.

That night, after he had indulged in those
divine pleasures, he heard a voice say, “God
Supratiṣṭhita, your death will occur in one week.
After you die, you will be born in Jambudvīpa, where
you will undergo seven rebirths. After undergoing
the seventh rebirth, you will be born as a hell
being. When you are eventually born as a human, you
will be poor and blind.”

When the god heard that voice, he became
terrified and anguished, and his hairs stood on end.
In great haste, he went to Śakra, Lord of the Gods,
and prostrated at his feet. He wailed miserably,
sobbed, and addressed Śakra, Lord of the Gods,
saying, “Lord of the Gods, please listen. Today,
Lord of the Gods, I was surrounded by my harem of
divine maidens, and after we had enjoyed divine
pleasures, played, and indulged in bliss, I heard a
voice saying, ‘God Supratiṣṭhita, your death will
occur in one week. After you die, you will be born
in Jambudvīpa, where you will undergo seven
rebirths. After undergoing the seventh rebirth, you
will be born as a hell being. When you are
eventually born as a human, you will be poor
and blind.’ Lord of the Gods, what am I to do?”

When he heard what the god Supratiṣṭhita said,
Śakra, Lord of the Gods, was astonished. He
thought about the seven rebirths that this god was
going to experience and sat there in silence. He saw
those seven rebirths—birth as a pig, a dog, a fox, a
monkey, a venomous snake, a vulture, and a crow—and
saw the filthy things he would consume. When Śakra,
Lord of the Gods, saw those seven births, he
thought, “Alas, if this god is going to experience
this unbearable, great suffering, who but the
thus-gone, worthy, perfectly awakened Buddha will be
his refuge, support, and last resort?”

As soon as Śakra, Lord of the Gods, had told the
Blessed One about those seven rebirths, brilliant
rays of light emerged from the Blessed One’s uṣṇīṣa,
illuminated every place throughout the ten
directions where there was a world system, returned,
and entered the Blessed One’s mouth. Then the Blessed One smiled at Śakra, Lord
of the Gods, and spoke these words:

“Lord of the Gods, as soon as the
crown victory dhāraṇī that purifies all
lower rebirths is heard, it destroys the many
different types of suffering related to the
obscurations. One will obtain a stream of completely
pure births, and in each of those lifetimes one will
remember one’s previous lives. One will go from one
buddha land to another and one god realm to another
until one reaches the thirty-second god realm.

“Lord of the Gods, as soon as that dhāraṇī is
uttered, any god whose lifespan has been exhausted
will have their lifespan extended; the
perfectly pure bodily, verbal, and mental karma they
have accumulated by maintaining contact with the
higher realms will allow
them to remain, and the tathāgatas will watch over
them and
constantly protect, guard, and preserve them. All
the bodhisattvas will think about them as well.

“Just reciting it will lead all the hell realms,
the animal realm, the Realm of the Lord of Death,
and the preta realm to dry up, disintegrate, and be
scattered, cleared, and emptied. The doors to all
the buddha fields, god realms, and realms of the
bodhisattvas will be opened for them, and they can
enter whichever they wish.”

At that point Śakra, Lord of the Gods, addressed
the Blessed One, saying, “Blessed One, please
proclaim that dhāraṇī and explain its benefits for
the life force of beings.”

“namo
ratna trayāya |

“Lord of the Gods, the crown victory
dhāraṇī that completely purifies all
lower rebirths completely purifies all bad deeds,
actions, and obscurations. It leads to the path of
higher rebirth and utterly destroys all lower
rebirths. As many buddhas as there are grains of
sand in eighty-eight trillion Gaṅgā Rivers have
taught, blessed, and rejoiced in this dhāraṇī, and
it is sealed by the wisdom mudrā of all the
tathāgatas. It was taught in order to place all
beings on the path that leads to higher rebirths, to
bring back those who have fallen into lower
rebirths, and to liberate all those in painful and
frightening existences: hell beings, those born into
the animal realm, those in the Realm of the Lord of
Death, and all others who have plunged into the
ocean of suffering.

“Lord of the Gods, you should take this dhāraṇī
and proclaim it to the god Supratiṣṭhita. After you
proclaim it, you should urge him to chant it, recite
it, contemplate it, meditate upon it, and recollect
it, and to worship, uphold, and master it.

“Thus, for the benefit, assistance, and
happiness of the gods residing in all the god realms
and the beings of
Jambudvīpa, I entrust to you the mudrās and mantras
related to this dhāraṇī. Lord of the Gods, you must
keep it well!

“Lord of the Gods, as soon as this dhāraṇī is
heard, the karmic obstructions one has amassed over
one hundred thousand eons will be utterly
purified. Know that
one will no longer take any of the various births in
the hell realms, the animal realm, the Realm of the
Lord of Death, the realm of the pretas, and the
realm of the asuras. Likewise, one will not be born
into the class of creatures such as yakṣas,
rākṣasas, bhūtas, piśācas, pūtanas, kaṭapūtanas,
apasmāras, dogs, tortoises, snakes, fierce wild
animals, birds, bees, flies, reptiles, and ants.

“Instead, one will meet with the tathāgatas, be
born into the family of the bodhisattvas, or be born
into a prominent family such as a brahmin family
that is like a great sāl tree, a kṣatriya family
that is like a great sāl tree, a householder family
that is like a great sāl tree, or a merchant family
that is like a great sāl tree.

“Lord of the Gods, consider the utterly
stainless precious jewel that is the heart of the
sun, completely pure like space, luminous, and
blazing with light. This
dhāraṇī will render beings devoid of stains just
like that jewel. Consider also the perfectly
stainless gold from the Jambu River that is pure,
perfectly resplendent, and utterly lovely.
Lord of the Gods, great beings such as those are as
utterly and completely pure as that gold, and they
will continue to be reborn like that from one
lifetime to the next.

“Lord of the Gods, this dhāraṇī should be
written down and hung from the top of a flagstaff.
It should be placed on a high mountain, on top of a
tall building, or on top of the life pillar of a
caitya. Śakra, should any monk or nun,
layman or laywoman, or any other son or daughter of
noble family see it, live near it, pass under its
shadow, or be touched by a breeze carrying a
particle of dust from this dhāraṇī when it is hung
from the top of a flagstaff, all of that being’s
evil deeds will be purified, Śakra, and they will no
longer have any fear of going to the lower realms.
They will not be born as a hell being, they will not
be born in the animal realm, they will not be born
in the Realm of the Lord of Death, they will not be
born as a preta, and they will not be born among the
asuras. Lord of the Gods, know that such a being has
been prophesied by all the tathāgatas and will never
turn back from unsurpassed, complete, perfect
awakening.

“Lord of the Gods, a being who worships and
honors it, who
adorns it with flowers, incense, perfumes, flower
garlands, scented salves, parasols, banners,
pendants, and ornaments—not to mention builds a
caitya at a crossroads, places this dhāraṇī there,
and joins their palms together or prostrates or
circumambulates it—you should know, Śakra, that this
being is indeed a great being! Know them to be a
child of the tathāgatas. Know them to be an abode of
the Dharma. Know them to be a caitya of the
tathāgatas.”

Then, as that evening passed and dawn began to
break, Dharmarāja Yama arose, went before the
Blessed One, worshiped the Blessed One with divine
flowers, cloth,
ornaments, and other things, and respectfully
circumambulated the Blessed One seven times. Then he
touched the Blessed One’s feet and said, “Blessed
One, this dhāraṇī is very powerful. It is very
beneficial. Blessed One, I will also continually
pursue the benefit of those beings, and I will
always remain here to protect and defend them. I
will turn those beings away from all hell realms.
Blessed One, I will do what I know is right, and I
will not do what I know is not right.”

“To help a being with a short lifespan, a son or
daughter of noble family should bathe on the
full moon day and recite the dhāraṇī 1,008 times.
The depleted lifespan of that being will be
restored. They will become free from illness, all
their obscurations will be purified, and they will
be completely freed from all lower rebirths, such as
that of a hell being.

“One can even recite this dhāraṇī in the ear of
any bird or living being that has taken an animal
birth and know that this will be their very last
lower rebirth.

“If one does the same thing for someone who is
extremely ill, even when the doctors have determined
that things have taken a turn for the worse, they
will be completely freed from their illness and be
cut off from all lower rebirths. When they die, they
will be born in the realm of Sukhāvatī. Know that
this very life is their last birth from a womb. From
one lifetime to the next, they will only take
miraculous birth from the center of a lotus, and
they will always remember the succession of their
past lives.

“For any being who has committed negative deeds
and has died, recite the dhāraṇī over white mustard
seeds twenty-one times and scatter these over their
bones. Even if they have been born as a hell being,
in the animal realm, in the Realm of the Lord of
Death, as a preta, or in some other lower rebirth,
the power of this dhāraṇī will free them from those
lower rebirths, and they will be reborn as a god.

“Whoever recites this dhāraṇī completely
twenty-one times each day will become worthy to
receive offerings from great worldly beings. Their
lifespan will increase, they will be free from
illness, they will be happy, they will always be
joyful, and they will attain the great nirvāṇa. From there they
will travel to many different buddha fields and meet
the tathāgatas in each one. Those tathāgatas will
reassure them and issue prophecies of their
awakening. In each of those buddha fields, they will
illuminate the entire world.

“Lord of the Gods, this method will
liberate all beings from all rebirths as hell beings
and so forth. It will completely purify their lower
rebirths, and they will have long lives.

Śakra, Lord of the Gods, took this teaching from
the Tathāgata, went to Supratiṣṭhita’s abode, and gave this
dhāraṇī to the god Supratiṣṭhita. That god
diligently practiced this dhāraṇī for six days and
six nights, and on the seventh day all his wishes
were fulfilled. He was liberated from the lower
realms, he was established on the path to the higher
realms, and he obtained a long life. Then he
proclaimed the following meaningful statement: “How
wonderful is the Buddha! How wonderful is the
Dharma! How wonderful is it that a dhāraṇī such as
this exists in the world! I have been liberated from
the great fear!”

Colophon

Notes

Bibliography

Tibetan Sources

Sanskrit Sources

Secondary Sources

birth from a womb

mngal gyi gnas
མངལ་གྱི་གནས།