Introduction

i.1The Seven Buddhas opens with the Buddha residing in an alpine forest on Mount Kailāsa when he and the bodhisattva Ākāśagarbha, the central interlocutor of the text, notice that a monk in the forest has succumbed to some form of demonic possession. Ākāśagarbha supplicates Śākyamuni for a spell ( vidyāmantra ) to pacify illnesses and to exorcise possessing spirits. Śākyamuni then emanates six buddhas, with himself as the seventh. The seven buddhas, unlike more specific sets of buddhas figuring in some of the other short texts in this part of the Kangyur, are mentioned in a wide range of Buddhist literature as the “seven successive buddhas,” (see below), and are enumerated as follows:

1. Vipaśyin

2. Śikhin

3. Viśvabhū

4. Krakucchanda

5. Kanakamuni

6. Kāśyapa

7. Śākyamuni

i.3Each of these buddhas proceeds to transmit a mantra to Ākāśagarbha along with a number of ritual instructions for incanting protection cords and various medicines with the mantra to cure or ward off illness and possession. Thus, although it is classified variously as a sūtra, tantra, or dhāraṇī (or in its Chinese recensions as both a sūtra and a dhāraṇī), The Seven Buddhas is perhaps best understood as a Buddhist medical text that promotes the use of various spells (termed variously as dhāraṇīs , vidyāmantras , guhyamantras, or simply mantras) to treat a variety of wounds and illnesses. The text also promotes the use of its spells to treat disease conditions that are characterized by two of the most intractable etiologies in the South Asian medical world‍—disease brought on by karmic obscurations and disease brought on by interference from demonic spirits.

i.4The seven buddhas enumerated here are the set usually known in the commentarial literature as the “seven successive buddhas” (sangs rgyas rabs bdun), and less often (especially in Vinaya works) as the “seven heroic buddhas” (sangs rgyas dpa’ bo bdun), a grouping well known in many texts from a wide range of Buddhist traditions.

i.5The last four, starting with Krakucchanda, are the first four of the buddhas of the present bhadrakalpa or “fortunate eon,” and the first three, starting with Vipaśyin, are the last three buddhas of the preceding eon.

i.6Named buddhas of the past are a regular feature of the Jātaka literature, as well as of the episodes in many sūtras and vinaya texts in which the Buddha Śākyamuni recounts his own and others’ past lives. Explicit lists of such buddhas, often giving details of each, can be found in many works. For example, one of the several Bahubuddhaka (“many buddhas”) sūtras is represented among the first century ʙᴄᴇ Gandhāra scrolls, and lists fifteen; another version (incorporated in the Mahāvastu) mentions hundreds of millions; and the later Pali Buddhavaṃsa details twenty-five.

i.7Among these enumerations of past buddhas, the set of seven that figures in the present text is perhaps the most consistent, and may possibly be the earliest. Its classic presentation is in the various Pāli, Sanskrit, and Chinese recensions of the Mahā­vadāna­sūtra. Among early Indian artworks depicting the seven buddhas are a series of relief carvings on the outer circumambulatory railing at the Bharhut stūpa that represent them aniconically as the specific species of tree under which they are said to have attained enlightenment, accompanied by inscriptions in late second-century ʙᴄᴇ Brahmi script, and first century ʙᴄᴇ iconographic reliefs of them, accompanied by their trees and stūpas, on two architraves of the north gateway to the Sanchi stūpa. Other representations of the seven buddhas appear at some of the most important surviving Buddhist archeological sites of later centuries such as the Amarāvatī stūpa complex, the cave vihāra complexes of Ajanta, Ellora, and Kanheri, and as far to the northwest as the Swat Valley.

i.8While the names of these seven buddhas, both as a group and individually, are mentioned in a large number of Kangyur texts in all sections, there is only one other Kangyur work of which they are the main theme, The Auspicious Verses of the Seven Successive Buddhas, a prayer to them in which the caste, birthplace, and tree under which each attained awakening are all mentioned.

i.9In the present text, however, these seven buddhas are not invoked, prayed to, honored, or commemorated with any regard to the well defined role they play in other texts as the buddhas of the past; indeed the status of the first six as the Buddha Śākyamuni’s predecessors and teachers is not even once mentioned. Instead, they are called on for their healing power. As each in turn confers mantras, ritual details, botanical formulations, and other instructions for use against a range of illnesses, accidents, negative spirits, worldly problems, and spiritual obstacles, the perspective this text unfolds is on the therapeutic role of these seven familiar tathāghatas. This perspective is not an otherwise unknown one, for there are other works in which they have a similar function; nevertheless, the degree of detail here may well be unique.

i.10The Seven Buddhas was translated into Tibetan by the early ninth century, and the text is listed in both of the surviving imperial inventories: in the sūtra section of the Denkarma, and in the dhāraṇī section of the Phangthangma. None of the available recensions of the text include a colophon, so the precise identity of the translators is unknown.

i.11There is a substantial Tibetan commentary to the text written by the scholar Bodong Paṇchen Choklé Namgyal (bo dong paN chen phyogs las rnam rgyal, 1375/6–1451) entitled The General Sūtra Collection Ritual of the Seven Buddhas (sangs rgyas bdun pa’i mdo sde’i cho ga), which contains instructions for a ritual of the seven buddhas employing the mantras in this sūtra.

i.12The text was first translated into Chinese in the early half of the sixth century ᴄᴇ, and there are three Chinese translations that preserve separate titles for the text. The Liáng translation (Taishō 1333, c. 502–557 ᴄᴇ), whose translator is unknown, refers to the work as the *Ākāśa­garbha­paripṛcchā­sapta­buddha­dhāraṇī­sūtra (虛空藏菩薩問七佛陀羅尼咒經). The Jñānagupta translation (Taishō 1334, 587 ᴄᴇ) refers to the text as the *Tathāgata­upāya­kauśalya­mantra­sūtra (如來方便善巧咒經). And finally, the Fatian translation (Taishō 1147, 984 ᴄᴇ) refers to the work as the Āryākāśa­garbha­bodhisattva­dhāraṇī­sūtra (聖虛空藏菩薩陀羅尼經). As in the Tibetan imperial inventories of translated works, this text’s Chinese translations appear to have been classified variously as sūtra or dhāraṇī.

i.13This English translation is based on the three versions of text that are included in the General Sūtra Section (mdo sde), the Tantra Collection (rgyud ’bum), and the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs (gzungs ’dus) of the Degé Kangyur. The variants across these three versions of the text are relatively minor, but their consultation has been particularly helpful in identifying some of the medicinal plants and proper Sanskrit transliterations of the dhāraṇī-mantras in the text. The dhāraṇīs are rendered in Sanskrit transliteration based on the three versions in the Degé Kangyur with variants from the Stok Palace Kangyur and the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) noted where appropriate. Tentative English translations are provided for each dhāraṇī in a note whenever possible.