Notes

n.1An elaborate version of the story is told in the Pravrajyāvastu, the first chapter of the Vinayavastu (Toh 1-1). For an English translation, see The Chapter on Going Forth, Toh 1-1, translated by Robert Miller and team (online publication, 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, 2018), 1.277. For a translation of the ye dharma formula itself as it appears there, see The Chapter on Going Forth (2018), 1.292.

n.2The Pali version of the formula reads: ye dhammā hetuppabhavā tesaṃ hetuṃ tathāgato āha tesañ ca yo nirodho evaṃvādī mahāsamaṇo (Mahāvagga, p. 40; Vin I 40, 28–29).

n.3See The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī , Toh 138, translated by the Dharmachakra Translation Committee (2020), 1.6–1.7. This long version of ye dharma formula seems only to occur in one additional canonical source, namely, as a maṅgalam-verse called “verse of the sage” (gtsug lag gi tshigs su bcad pa) at the end of the Amarakoṣa­ṭīkākāmadhenu­nāma .

n.4See Skilling 2003, pp. 273–74. For some examples of the extent of this practice in Buddhist Asia and further references, see The Sūtra on Dependent Arising, Toh 212, translated by the Buddhavacana Translation Group (online publication, 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, 2016), i.3. For canonical sources in which the formula also occurs, see also The Sūtra on Dependent Arising (2016), 1.5, and an expanded Tibetan version in The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī (2022), 1.7. For an alternative translation of the Sanskrit, see Distinctly Ascertaining the Meanings (2021), n.­141.

n.5On more instances of the verse, see Dietz and Eimer, 2019.

n.6Note that there is a discrepancy among various databases for cataloging the Toh 981 version of this text within vol. 101 or 102 of the Degé Kangyur. See Toh 981, n.­6, for details.

n.7See Resources for Kanjur & Tenjur Studies: http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=520&typ=1. Among Kangyurs of the Tshalpa line, this text is not found in the Lithang Kangyur.

n.8The 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, identify the source of all such dhāraṇī collections as an extracanonical collection edited by Tāranātha (Orosz 2010, pp. 67 and 100). This mention is also noted by Hidas 2021, p. 7, n. 56.

n.9See Skilling 2021, pp. 247, and 273.

n.10Two 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 (Toh 508, byang chub snying po’i rgyan ’bum gyi gzungs), 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.

n.11Toh 981 does not give the title of this dhāraṇī in Tibetan and Sanskrit, as is common at the beginning of texts in the Kangyur.

n.12The Nartang Kangyur reads: de skad gsungs pa dge sbyong che.

n.13Tib. dngos po gang la dmigs te. The verb dmigs means to take something as an object of thought or perception, so this could be a physical object or an imagined one.