Buddhist Dharani

This dissertation deals with the Buddhist dhāraṇī, mainly understood as the term selected by Indian Buddhism to assimilate the non-Buddhist notion of mantra. In the Introduction the two major categories of dhāraṇīs are defined, i.e., the ‘formulaic’
and ‘syllabic’ dhāraṇīs. In Chapter 1 the two sources for the emergence of dhāraṇīs are studied: the non-Buddhist source being focused on the non-Vedic, Vedic and Śaiva Tantric factors, and the Buddhist one being focused on several mainstream Buddhist and Mahāyāna factors. It continues with a study on the Dhāraṇī Scriptures’ emergence and their inclusion within Vajrayāna Tantras. Chapter 2 provides a detailed summary
on the traditional definitions of the dhāraṇī term, its synonyms, compound terms, and its pairing with other Dharma qualities. It is followed by a survey on how the dhāraṇī term is defined and classified according to key Indian Mahāyāna Sūtras and Śāstras,
and the Indo-Tibetan and East Asian Vajrayāna traditions. Chapter 3 is focused on the dhāraṇī practice, first dealing with its ethical basis, its non-ritual and ritual approaches, and its mundane and supramundane accomplishments, and then the main dhāraṇī practices are analysed intended for worldly and soteriological purposes. The dissertation closes with five Appendices including a study on a set of early Vedic mantras appearing within the Buddhist dhāraṇīs, an analysis of the ‘formulaic’ and ‘syllabic’ dhāraṇīs, a survey on mantras/dhāraṇīs accepted by several mainstream Buddhist schools, and another one on mantras/dhāraṇīs within Mahāyāna Scriptures,
and finally, a ‘References’ list providing a comprehensive and updated bibliography in several Western languages mainly focused on Buddhist mantras/dhāraṇīs.

The previous studies on Amoghavajra’s Chinese transliteration focused only on the dhāraṇī, but did not discuss any transliterated words in the text. This paper examines some remarkable phonetic phenomena reflected in the transliterated words in Amoghavajra’s version of Ārya-Mahā-Māyūrī-Vidyā-Rājñī by comparing them with the transliteration in Yijing’s version of the same text.

This essay is an investigation of the uses of dhāraṇī and mantra in contemporary Buddhism in South Korea by examining literature and materials intended for lay Buddhists. Popular interest in dhāraṇīs has been increasing steadily since the turn of the twenty-first century, in conjunction with the return to popularity of apatropaic charms and talismans. Lay people utilize dhāraṇī in essentially five ways: (1) in personal devotionals; (2) as sūtra-material copied for merit; (3) as talismans and in household or business rituals supplicating for this-worldly benefits; (4) for exorcisms and death rituals; and (5) as materials enshrined in the chest cavities of Buddha images and in pagodas.  The most popular dhāraṇī seems to be the Dhāraṇī of Spiritually Sublime Phrases (Sinmyo changgu taedarani), a variant of the Nīlakaṇṭha-dhāraṇī from the Korean Thousand Hands Sūtra (Ch’ŏnsu kyŏng).

This thesis introduces and translates "The Jewel's Radiance, A Commentary on Vajravidāraṇa-nāma-dhāraṇī" (Rdo rje rnam par 'joms pa'i gzungs kyi 'grel pa rin po che gsal ba, Tōh. 2680), attributed to Buddhagupta (Sangs rgyas gsang ba, ca. 8th century CE). This expansive commentary, which relates to practices of forms of the bodhisattva Vajrapāṇi, is curious in terms of its provenance and translation, and presents a range of peculiar themes and interpretive stances.

[Feel free to message for corrigenda and evolving reflections on the subject matter.]

"This is a landmark study that greatly advances our understanding of the history of Buddhist ritual practice in both India and East Asia. Scholars currently at work on Esoteric Buddhism and on the broader history of related practices can now gratefully build on the new foundation Shinohara has made."

Provisional English translations of minor Chinese Buddhist texts in the Taishō canon that are unlikely to be published elsewhere (primarily from vols. 18–21) will be uploaded here from time to time. Any and all feedback welcome. Note that in the Sanskrit reconstructions of transliterated passages (mantras, dhāraṇīs, etc.) grammatical aberrancies and the like have as a rule not been corrected, but errors in the indication of vowel length have generally been silently emended.

The article concludes the publication of woodcuts containing a “reconstruction” of Sanskrit Dhāraṇīs made from a Chinese phonetic transcription in hieroglyphics. The “reconstruction” is in the Siddhaṃ Script. The woodcuts were discovered in Khara-Khoto during the Mongol-Sichuan expedition (1907–1909) under the leadership of Piotr Kozlov. There is a classification of Buddhist Dhāraṇī texts in this article; it provides a rationale for the definition of this dhāraṇīs’ collection in SI 6564 as a Dhāraṇīsamuccaya.

The article presents the first part of results of the study of a xylograph from Khara-Khoto found by Pyotr Kozlov during the Mongol-Sichuan Expedition (1907—1909). A palaeographical description and approximate dating of the xylograph are given in this article. The author shows that the Sanskrit text of dhāraṇīs written in Siddhaṃ script is a backward reconstruction made from Chinese Buddhist incantations written by Chinese characters. The article points out commonly occurring errors in this reconstruction. The transliteration of the dhāraṇīs text is given.

The author points out the three stages of Dhāraṇī Studies since the beginning of 19th c. up to the present day. Thus, the first stage (the beginning of 19th c. — the first third of the 20th c.) is characterized by the fact that the study of dhāraṇīs’ texts occurs within the framework of Buddhist written sources publication in general. The article emphasizes the significant contribution of Acad. V. P. Vasiliev in Dhāraṇī Studies: ideas on the study of Buddhist sacral invocations formulated by Vasiliev, defined the main vectors of Dhāraṇī Studies. The second stage of these Studies (the first third — the end of 20th c.) is marked by a specification — the emphasis of researchers’ attention directly on Buddhist written sources containing dhāraṇīs. Analyzing the second period’s researchings devoted to Dhāraṇī Studies, the author singled out four main streams: ‘Historical’ (the dhāraṇīs’ functioning in a certain historical period); ‘Cultic’ (praxeological aspect of Buddhist dhāraṇīs); ‘Iconographic’ (studies of artifacts connecting with dhāraṇī tradition); ‘Conceptual’ (analysis of terminology and concepts associated with the practice of reciting dhāraṇī). The article points out the prospects of using the interdisciplinary method, which allows to use the results of not only adjacent oriental disciplines (Indology — Jan Gonda, Tatiana Elizarenkova), but also to involve methods used in Slavic/Indo-European spells Studies (Vladimir Toporov, Svetlana Tolstaia, Aleksey Iudin).

Buddhism was a vehicle, which connected many states that thrived on the Chinese continent and the Korean peninsula in the tenth and eleventh centuries. A short text, entitled Sūtra of the Dhāraṇī of the Precious Casket Seal of the Concealed Complete-body Relics of the Essence of All Tathāgatas, provides us a window to look into the material and devotional culture of Buddhism developed into diverse forms across East Asian continent. It was transmitted from South Asia to China and translated into Chinese by the Indian monk Amoghavajra in the early eighth century. It was circulated and put into practice in Chang’an and in the region of Mount Wutai where Amoghvajra was active but it seems not to have been known in the Jiangnan region until the beginning of the tenth century. It gained wide popularity in the Jiangnan region only after the last king of Wuyue Kingdom reproduced it three times on a massive scale in the late tenth century. The printing project and dissemination of the xylograph copies spurred a widespread circulation of the text and renewed interest in the cult of textual relics across the Chinese continent and Korean peninsula beyond political borders in the tenth and eleventh centuries. This study re-examines historical implications of the Wuyue “re-discovery” of this text, while closely looking at material forms of this text from Wuyue, Northern Song, Koryŏ, and Khitan that constituted a multi-centered yet closely connected Buddhist cultural sphere in this time. For example, although the patron of the earliest Koryŏ edition of the sūtra dated it by using the Khitan reign name, the overall composition of the xylograph including the frontispiece points to the first Wuyue edition of the text as its prototype. This alone is enough to show the multivalence of cultural exchanges apart from the tributary system or official envoys.

The Mahāśītavatī-sādhana in the Sādhanamālā [in English]

・This is an English translation of a peer-reviewed Japanese article published in 2017 in the Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies (vol. 66, no. 1, p. 371-368).
→ https://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/130007556197/en

・English translation by Editage, Cactus Communications.

・This work (English translation) was supported by JSPS KAKENHI JP19K12950.

・Thank you for your consideration.

Last update: June the 12th, 2019

The article gives classifications of sacred formulas — dhāraṇī, contained in the Buddhist canonical and post-canonical texts. It is pointed out that the leading principle in all classifications is the functional aspect that proves the inseparable connection between the dhāraṇī reciting practice and religious ritual. The emphasis is placed on the fact that dhāraṇī in Buddhist post-canonical texts are regarded as a special states of consciousness achieved through a certain «meditative-mnemotechnical» practice and called to keep in memory all nuances of Buddhist religious doctrine.

Ponente del tema El Sūtra de la Mahāmāyūrī: síntesis y creatividad en las tradiciones apotropaicas budistas, en el marco de las Primeras Jornadas de Indología, celebradas en el Salón de Actos de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la UNAM bajo la coordinación del Dr. Óscar Figueroa.

"The Composition of the Pañcarakṣā五護陀羅尼" (Presentation Abstract)
SONODA, Sayaka(園田沙弥佳)

the 71th Conference of the Japanese Association of Indian and Buddhist Studies
/ Date: Saturday, July 5, 2020
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP19K12950(Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists)

The Pañcarakṣā (PR) comprises five dhāraṇī, early Buddhist Tantric texts. Of these texts, those entitled Mahāśītavatī (ŚV) and Mahāmantrānusāriṇī in the Tibetan translation differ in content from those in the Sanskrit text and Chinese translation. While Mahāśītavatī in the Sanskrit text is rendered as dàhán lín shèng nán ná tuóluóní jīng 大寒林聖難拏陀羅尼経 in the Chinese translation, in the Tibetan translation, it has been given the name 'phags pa be con chen po zhes bya ba'i gzungs 聖持大杖陀羅尼 (Ārya-mahādaṇḍa-nāma-dhāraṇī). Despite the variation in these three ŚV titles, their content is roughly the same (hereinafter ŚV-A). However, the text entitled ŚV in the Tibetan lineage is bSil ba'i tshal chen po'i mdo, with content differing substantially from ŚV-A (hereinafter, ŚV-B.) This indicates that ŚV is an important sutra for purposes of differentiating between the two PR lineages. This presentation addresses issues related to the composition of PR and the naming of its texts, covering the annotated edition of ŚV written by Karmavajra, the Mahāśītavatīvidyārājñī-sūtra-śatasahasraṭīkā-nāma 明呪大妃大寒林経十萬註 (ŚVŚS). Although, as noted above, there are two separately collected dhāraṇīs recognized as ŚV, in ŚVŚS they were found to have been annotated together. As demonstrated by Sonoda (2016), I have revealed that the relationship between ŚV-A and ŚV-B is not one between the full and abridged versions of the same text because of the major differences in the composition found through a comparative analysis of their content. It remains unknown as to why ŚV-A and ŚV-B were both recorded as ŚV in the Tibetan translation. However, at least in Karmavajra's Tibetan annotated edition from the early 11th century, both dhāraṇīs are considered ŚV, and the annotation of the content of ŚV-A expresses the core meaning of ŚV-B. Consequently, two theories have been proposed to explain the inclusion of these two dhāraṇīs in the annotated edition of ŚV. On the one hand, the author may have combined two texts that were both considered ŚV at the given time. On the other hand, the author might have used a text in which ŚV-A and ŚV-B were not originally separated. The latter would suggest that a third ŚV text existed in addition to ŚV-A and ŚV-B, which is an area of future research that I would like to further investigate. (This research was supported by JSPS KAKEN HI Grant-in-Aid Number JP19K12950.) *This presentation is planned for submission to Volume 69 of JIBS (Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies, Indogaku Bukkyōgaku kenkyū). Currently under review as of 7/21.

The article continues to acquaint readers with results of the study of a xylograph from Khara-Khoto found by Pyotr Kozlov during the Mongol-Sichuan Expedition (1907 - 1909). The author analyzes short dhāraṇīs and mantras included in the xylograph SI 6563 and points out commonly occuring errors in this reconstruction. The transliteration of the dhāraṇīs text is given.

[https://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110009899985/en/]

    The Sādhanamālā (SM) is one of the texts related to the visualization of images of Buddhist deities, compiled by Abhayākaragupta in the eleventh or twelfth century. It contains nine kinds of sādhana of the goddess Pañcarakṣā.
    Among these, no. 206 describes the sādhana of the Pañcarakṣā maṇḍala in detail. In this sādhana, the ascetic meditates on the Pañcarakṣā maṇḍala and unites himself with it in the first half of the text. Afterwards, the ascetic draws a maṇḍala for the benefit of all living beings.
    No. 15 of SM describes both meditation and the drawing of the maṇḍala. However, in no. 15, after meditating the ascetic uses the visualization of the deities to draw the maṇḍala.
    In the Sarvavajrodaya, after meditation the ascetic draws a maṇḍala for consecration(abhiṣeka). This differs from no. 206, in which the mandala, as noted above, is drawn only for the benefit of living beings.
    The point of this paper will therefore be to look at the characteristics of sādhana no. 206.