Notes

n.1lha mo chen mo re ma ti’i gzungs.

n.2See the introduction to Praising the Lady Who Rules Disease (Toh 1090), i.­6–i.­10, for more on disambiguating Revatī (nam gru) and Rematī (re ma ti).

n.3The Great Tantra of Supreme Knowledge, folio 93.a.

n.4The following is a summary of The Great Tantra of Supreme Knowledge, folios 91.b–94.a.

n.5In fact, only the first part of the vidyāmantra or dhāraṇī (these texts use both words to describe it) from In Praise of the Goddess Revatī is found in The Great Tantra of Supreme Knowledge. The second part is not found in the tantra. We have indicated the section that is unique to the present text in n.­19 to the translation.

n.6Dalton and van Schaik eds. 2006, in their catalog entry on The Dhāraṇī of the Goddess Revatī from Dunhuang, write that “LVP [= de la Vallée Poussin] notes that a text bearing a similar title (Lha mo chen mo re ma ti’i gzungs) does appear in Beckh 1914: 147, a catalogue of the Berlin manuscript edition of the Bka’ ’gyur, which is an early (1680) version of the Peking edition. However, in the same position in the present-day Peking edition, we find another work (Q.712) with the title Lha mo nam gru la bstod pa, and a quick comparison shows that this is not the same as the present work, though the two are clearly related.” (Dalton and van Schaik eds. 2006, p. 188). Q 712 is precisely the present work, In Praise of the Goddess Revatī. As noted above, while the present text does, in all its Kangyur editions, bear this title in its incipit, the explicit of all recensions we have consulted bears instead the title noted by de la Vallée Poussin: lha mo chen mo re ma ti’i gzungs. Therefore, despite what Dalton and van Schaik have noted above regarding de la Vallée Poussin’s observations, it appears likely that the present text is the Revatī praise and dhāraṇī included in the Kangyurs, and that the Dunhuang work, The Dhāraṇī of the Goddess Revatī, was never brought into the canonical collections.

n.7As mentioned in n.­5, the dhāraṇī in this shortest recension has been slightly augmented. We have indicated the section that is unique to the present text in n.­19 to the translation.

n.8It is included only in Kangyurs from the Tshalpa lineage.

n.9See The Great Tantra of Supreme Knowledge, folio 32.b, in reference to Revatī harming children, and folio 92.a in reference to her killing children.

n.10See Srinivasan 2020.

n.11Denkarma, folio 304.a.4. See also Herrmann-Pfandt 2008, p. 265, no. 463.

n.12Toh 746 also appears in both the Phangthangma and Denkarma imperial catalogs. Denkarma, folio 301.a.7. See also Herrmann-Pfandt 2008, p. 172, no. 317.

n.13An explicitly named Compendium of Dhāraṇīs section is found in the Degé and Urga Kangyurs as well as in the peripheral Kangyurs of the Tshalpa lineage (Dodedrak, Phajoding, and Ragya). In contrast, the Berlin, Choné, Lithang, and Peking Qianlong Kangyurs include the same collection of dhāraṇīs but in a separate part of their Tantra sections, which has no distinct label. With or without the label, these collections of dhāraṇīs contain many duplicates of texts also found in the general sūtra or tantra sections. Therefore, in the latter group of Kangyurs, many dhāraṇī texts appear twice in different parts of the Tantra section.

n.14The Qianlong, Choné, and Lithang Kangyurs contain two recensions of this text, with identical titles, both included in the Tantra (rgyud) section of these Kangyurs. The two recensions in the Qianlong Kangyur (Q 268 and Q 684) are identical apart from two minor orthographic differences in the mantra. Presumably the same is the case with the recensions in the Choné and Lithang Kangyurs, but we have not verified this.

n.15The opening lines of the table of contents (dkar chag) of an independent dhāraṇī collection printed in Beijing in 1731, found in the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest and transcribed by Orosz, identify the source of all such dhāraṇī collections as the extracanonical collection edited by Tāranātha (Orosz 2010, p. 67 and p. 100). This mention is also noted by Hidas 2021, p. 7, n. 56.

n.16See J. Dalton 2016 and J. Dalton and van Schaik eds. 2006 on the dhāraṇī­saṃgraha collections preserved at Dunhuang, which, like the canonical collection, contain praises and prayers as well as dhāraṇīs. See Hidas 2021 for the catalogs of eighteen dhāraṇī­saṃgraha collections surviving in Sanskrit.

n.17The goddess’s name is here transliterated in Tibetan as Rematī (re ma ti), a name that occurs in several Tibetan canonical and noncanonical works. However, the only attested version of the present goddess’s name in Sanskrit sources is Revatī. As discussed in the introduction to this translation, the goddess Rematī mentioned in a number of canonical and noncanonical Tibetan works appears to be distinct from the goddess or graha Revatī. Although we believe the use of the name Rematī here is in error and should be Revatī, we retained Rematī in the English translation to accurately reflect the Tibetan source text. For more information on Rematī, see the introduction to Praising the Lady Who Rules Disease (Toh 1090).

n.18In Tibetan the name Revatī is followed by a plural particle (dag), which we have chosen not to translate. A similar passage in Toh 746 reads “Revatī, your family…” (nam gru khyod kyi cho ’grang) as Vajrapāṇi is addressing Revatī directly.

n.19The dhāraṇī or vidyāmantra up to this point is found in both The Great Tantra of Supreme Knowledge (Toh 746) and The Dhāraṇī of the Goddess Revatī (IOL Tib J 442/2). The remainder of the dhāraṇī is not found in either work.

n.20Here, as in the homage, the Tibetan text reads Rematī (re ma ti), though as reflected in the text’s title, and explained in introduction, it should read Revatī.

n.21These same epithets are used to describe Rematī (not Revatī) in Toh 670, 671, 672, 840, 842, and Toh 1090/1777. We presume that the redactors who conflated the names Revatī and Rematī here also included these epithets in the colophon.