The Dhāraṇī “One Hundred Thousand Ornaments of the Essence of Awakening”
Summary
Toh 509
Degé Kangyur, vol. 88 (rgyud ’bum, na), folios 24.b–25.b (in par phud printings), 41.b–42.b (in later printings)
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Table of Contents
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.1 Instead, the text begins abruptly with a presentation of the mantras, including a long root mantra (rtsa ba’i sngags; mūlamantra),2 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),3 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.4 As such, the longer version is not found in any Kangyurs of the Tshalpa recensional lineage that were produced before the Degé, which 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).5 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 (H478). 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.6 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.7
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.8 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.9
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.10
This English translation was prepared based on the two Degé witnesses of the text (Toh 509 and Toh 920),11 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.
Text Body
The Translation
Homage to all buddhas and bodhisattvas.
The root mantra:13
oṁ namo bhagavate vipulavadanakāñcanotkṣiptaprabhāsaketumūrdhane tathāgatāya arhate samyaksaṃbuddhāya | namo bhagavate śākyamunaye tathāgatāya samyaksaṃbuddhāya |
tadyathā | bodhi bodhi | bodhani bodhani | [F.25.a] [F.42.a] 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:14
oṁ sarvatathāgatavyavalokite | jaya jaya svāhā ||15
oṁ hulu hulu jayamukhe svāhā ||17
And:
oṁ vajrāyuṣe svāhā ||18
“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,19 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,20 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. [F.25.b] [F.42.b]
The Dhāraṇī “One Hundred Thousand,” an extract from the One Hundred Thousand Ornaments of the Essence of Awakening, is complete.
Notes
Note that there is a discrepancy among various databases for cataloging the Toh 920 version of this text within vol. 100 or 101 of the Degé Kangyur. See Toh 920, n.11, for details.
Two sets of folio references have been included in this translation due to a discrepancy in volume 88 (rgyud ’bum, na) of the Degé Kangyur between the 1737 par phud printings and the late (post par phud) printings. In the latter case, an extra work, Bodhimaṇḍasyālaṃkāralakṣadhāraṇī (byang chub snying po’i rgyan ’bum gyi gzungs, Toh 508), was added as the second text in the volume, thereby displacing the pagination of all the following texts in the same volume by 17 folios. Since the eKangyur follows the later printing, both references have been provided, with the highlighted one linking to the eKangyur viewer.
Bibliography
Tibetan Sources
byang chub kyi snying po’i rgyan ’bum kyi gzungs (Bodhigarbhālaṅkāralakṣadhāraṇī). Toh 509, Degé Kangyur vol. 88 (rgyud, na), folios 24.b–25.b.
byang chub kyi snying po’i rgyan ’bum kyi gzungs (Bodhigarbhālaṅkāralakṣadhāraṇī). Toh 920, Degé Kangyur vol.101 (gzungs, e), folios 264.a–264.b.
byang chub kyi snying po’i rgyan ’bum kyi gzungs. bka’ ’gyur (dpe bsdur ma) [Comparative Edition of the Kangyur], krung go’i bod rig pa zhib ’jug ste gnas kyi bka’ bstan dpe sdur khang (The Tibetan Tripitaka Collation Bureau of the China Tibetology Research Center). 108 volumes. Beijing: krung go’i bod rig pa dpe skrun khang (China Tibetology Publishing House), 2006–9, vol. 88, pp. 67–69.
byang chub kyi snying po’i rgyan ’bum kyi gzungs. bka’ ’gyur (dpe bsdur ma) [Comparative Edition of the Kangyur], krung go’i bod rig pa zhib ’jug ste gnas kyi bka’ bstan dpe sdur khang (The Tibetan Tripitaka Collation Bureau of the China Tibetology Research Center). 108 volumes. Beijing: krung go’i bod rig pa dpe skrun khang (China Tibetology Publishing House), 2006–9, vol. 97, pp. 792–794.
byang chub kyi snying po’i rgyan ’bum kyi gzungs. Stok Palace Kangyur vol. 102 (rgyud, da), folios 10.a–11.a.
Pelliot tibétain 555. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. Accessed through Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Butön Rinchen Drup (bu ston rin chen grub). rgyud ’bum dkar chag. In The Collected Works of Bu-Ston, vol. 26 (la), pp. 365–99. New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture, 1965–71. BDRC W22106.
Modern Sources
84000. The Stem Array (Gaṇḍavyūha, sdong pos brgyan pa, Toh 44-45). Translated by Peter Alan Roberts. Online publication, 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, 2021.
Ghosh, A. “A Buddhist Tract in a Stone Inscription in the Cuttack Museum.” Epigraphia Indica 26 (1941): 171–74.
He Mufei (Helena). “Gonbujab.” Accessed through The Treasury of Lives.
Herrmann-Pfandt, Adelheid. Die lHan kar ma: ein früher Katalog der ins Tibetische übersetzten buddhistischen Texte. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2008.
Schopen, Gregory. “The Bodhigarbhālaṅkāralakṣa and Vimaloṣṇīṣa Dhāraṇīs in Indian Inscriptions: Two Sources for the Practice of Buddhism in Medieval India.” In Figments and Fragments of Mahāyāna Buddhism in India, pp. 314–44. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005.
Strauch, Ingo. “Two Stamps with the Bodhigarbhālaṃkāralakṣa Dhāraṇī from Afghanistan and Some Further Remarks on the Classification of Objects with the ye dharmā Formula.” In Prajñādhara: Essays on Asian Art History Epigraphy and Culture in Honour of Gouriswar Bhattacharya, edited by G. Bhattacharya, Gerd J. R. Mevissen, and Arundhati Banerji, 37–58. New Delhi: Kaveri Books, 2009.
Glossary
Types of attestation for names and terms of the corresponding source language
Attested in source text
This term is attested in a manuscript used as a source for this translation.
Attested in other text
This term is attested in other manuscripts with a parallel or similar context.
Attested in dictionary
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Approximate attestation
The attestation of this name is approximate. It is based on other names where the relationship between the Tibetan and source language is attested in dictionaries or other manuscripts.
Reconstruction from Tibetan phonetic rendering
This term is a reconstruction based on the Tibetan phonetic rendering of the term.
Reconstruction from Tibetan semantic rendering
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actions that bring immediate retribution
- mtshams med pa byed pa
- མཚམས་མེད་པ་བྱེད་པ།
- ānantarya AD
Butön Rinchen Drup
- bu ston rin chen grub
- བུ་སྟོན་རིན་ཆེན་གྲུབ།
- —
Khedrub Jé
- mkhas grub rje
- མཁས་གྲུབ་རྗེ།
- —
root mantra
- rtsa ba’i sngags
- རྩ་བའི་སྔགས།
- mūlamantra