Introduction

i.1The Chapter Teaching the Purification of Boundless Gateways is the second scripture among the forty-nine sūtras included in the Heap of Jewels (Ratnakūṭa) collection in the Degé Kangyur.

i.2The sūtra takes the form of a conversation between the Buddha and the bodhisattva Anantavyūha. The teaching itself commences when Anantavyūha requests from the Buddha a dhāraṇī gateway . This is an important concept common to many Great Vehicle sūtras. As a magical formula, a dhāraṇī constitutes a gateway to the infinite qualities of awakening, the awakened state itself, and the various forms of buddha activity. Just as those qualities are innumerable, so are the dhāraṇī gateways. The Mahā­prajñā­pāramitā­śāstra explains the term by comparing a dhāraṇī gateway to a samādhi gateway. Just as a samādhi gateway allows access to any desired quality or magical power, so too can a dhāraṇī gateway. The difference is that while the samādhi comes and goes, the dhāraṇī never leaves those who have “obtained” it, following them like a shadow from life to life. This is because, when realizing or “obtaining” a dhāraṇī, one becomes “sealed” by it. Hence a dhāraṇī is often also called a dhāraṇī seal.

i.3The word dhāraṇī derives from the Sanskrit verbal root √dhṛ (“to hold,” “support,” “contain,” “retain,” or “remember”). The sense of containing could be applied to both the formula, which magically “contains” certain qualities, and the person who has obtained this dhāraṇī formula or seal. Once it has been obtained, that person becomes “sealed” or “stamped” with whatever quality the dhāraṇī contains and subsequently has the power to activate this quality or invoke the corresponding buddha activity. Though not explicit in the literal meaning of the term, a dhāraṇī is always a vehicle for the blessing of the buddhas and the magical power sealed therein. The sūtras and commentaries often describe the dhāraṇī power of retaining things in memory, but dhāraṇīs can also function as the gateway to innumerable other qualities, such as loving kindness, compassion, and so forth, and invoke any kind of awakened activity. As for the dhāraṇī formula itself, being a supplication or a command with a message, a dhāraṇī tends to be longer than the average mantra. It may also, and often does, include words devoid of lexical meaning. Perhaps the dhāraṇīs, with their tendency to include vernacular forms and seemingly alliterative derivations, were intended to resonate with the native speakers of the language, directly impacting their minds and feelings. Thus, the alliterative forms in the dhāraṇīs that seem unintelligible to us might have been intelligible to the native speakers of the period, or at least conjured up the meanings and feelings evoked by similar-sounding words known to them.

i.4A dhāraṇī cannot be reduced to a simple spell, however. Anantavyūha remarks, “this dhāraṇī gateway is as wide as the sky; it is a peerless great gateway. For that reason, it is described with words such as immeasurable and limitless.” This is not to say that the conversation does not focus on the unique efficacy of the actual dhāraṇī syllables. The Buddha explains that “dhāraṇīs are the condensation, the inclusion, the main essence, and the heart of every explanation, praise, utterance, declaration, and illustration.” Accordingly, dhāraṇīs are first and foremost potent, condensed speech. To penetrate them necessitates that one engages deeply with language and internalizes an understanding of the Sanskrit alphabet in particular. According to the sūtra, dhāraṇīs are not fanciful magic, for part of their efficacy hinges on the inseparable connection that exists between language and the phenomenal world.

i.5Like most Great Vehicle sūtras, this text reinforces the need for its own preservation via a discussion of why it is vital that all bodhisattvas take up the practice of this dhāraṇī. This spurs in turn a discussion of the benefits of having excelled in the dhāraṇī: nothing less than the achievement of the ten powers of a buddha, the factors of awakening, and the four types of fearlessness. Each of these traditional Buddhist lists is given its own unique treatment. Several dhāraṇīs are presented, including a series of spells that enable the practitioner to subdue Māra and to invoke and summon a variety of different gods of different locales, including Śakra, Brahmā, and the four great kings along with their retinues. Each of the latter will in turn bestow on the practitioner a variety of powers. The audience is finally urged to uphold and practice the sūtra’s instructions in a series of exhortations that encapsulate many of the sūtra’s central themes in an extended set of verses.

i.6Only a few of the texts contained in the Heap of Jewels are extant in Sanskrit, and this scripture is not one of them. The Tibetan translation, which we have rendered into English here, was completed in the early translation period and is listed in the early-ninth-century Denkarma catalogue. According to the colophon to the Tibetan translation, the sūtra was translated into Tibetan by the translator Kawa Paltsek (under the name Paltsek Rakṣita) and the Indian preceptor Surendrabodhi, who both participated in numerous translation projects in Tibet during the early translation period. The Chinese canon also contains a translation of this sūtra (T. 310–2), which was produced during the early eighth century by Bodhiruci (d. 727), a renowned translator who originally hailed from South India. This Bodhiruci is responsible for translating much of the Heap of Jewels collection, among other texts, into Chinese. This English translation was based primarily on the Tibetan Degé edition, with consultation of the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma).