Introduction

i.1Recollecting the Name of Moonlight is a short dhāraṇī preserved in the Degé Kangyur in two nearly identical versions, one in the Tantra section and the other in the Dhāraṇī section.

i.1《憶念月光之名》是一部保存於德格版大藏經中的短篇陀羅尼，在該版大藏經中有兩個幾乎相同的版本，一個收錄在密續部，另一個收錄在陀羅尼部。

i.2Recollecting the Name of Moonlight opens with a brief homage to the buddha named Moonlight. It lacks the customary title (in Sanskrit and Tibetan) at the beginning and has no narrative frame or interlocutors. The dhāraṇī concludes with an enumeration of the benefits that accrue from reciting the dhāraṇī: a son or a daughter of good family who recites this invocation of the Buddha Moonlight every morning after rising will remember all their past lives during forty thousand kalpas. Furthermore, they will not fall into the lower realms after death and will attain the attributes of awakening.

i.2《月光名號念誦》以簡短的禮敬開始，禮敬一位名叫月光的佛陀。這部陀羅尼缺少開頭通常有的標題（梵文和藏文版本），也沒有敘述框架或對話者。陀羅尼最後列舉了誦持陀羅尼所產生的功德：善男子或善女人如果每天早上起床後都誦持對月光佛陀的這一祈禱文，將能憶起四萬劫以來的所有過去世。此外，他們死後不會墮入三惡道，並將獲得覺悟的功德。

i.3Recollecting the Name of Moonlight also lacks a translators’ colophon. Therefore, we do not know who the translators were or when it was translated. To our knowledge, no Sanskrit text of this dhāṛaṇī is extant and it does not appear to have been translated into Chinese. The catalogs of the early imperial translations, the Denkarma and Phangthangma, do not list it, but it is listed under the title zla ’od kyi mtshan rjes su dran pa in the catalog of translated works in the Kangyur that is included in Butön’s monumental fourteenth-century History of Buddhism. This gives us a very wide time frame for a possible date of its translation, namely, sometime between the ninth century and the first quarter of the fourteenth century.

i.3《憶念月光名號》也缺少譯者的跋文。因此，我們不知道譯者是誰，也不知道它是何時被翻譯的。據我們所知，該陀羅尼的梵文文本已不存在，且似乎從未被翻譯成中文。早期帝國翻譯的目錄《丹噶目錄》和《彭唐目錄》都沒有列載它，但在布敦十四世紀編著的宏大著作《佛教史》中收錄的大藏經譯文目錄裡，它被列為藏文標題「zla 'od kyi mtshan rjes su dran pa」。這為其翻譯的可能年代提供了一個相當寬泛的時間範圍，即九世紀到十四世紀第一季度之間的某個時期。

i.4Texts like Recollecting the Name of Moonlight can be understood in the context of the Mahāyāna doctrine of the parallel existence of countless buddhas in different universes, and the idea that hearing, remembering, and reciting the names of these buddhas can become a condition for attaining awakening. A buddha named Candraprabha (“Moonlight”) is mentioned in several important Mahāyāna sūtras, and that might be the figure intended here.

i.4像《憶念月光之名》這樣的經典，可以在大乘「無數佛陀並存於不同宇宙」的教義脈絡中加以理解，同時也涉及「聽聞、憶念和誦持這些佛陀之名號可以成為證得覺悟的條件」這一思想。在幾部重要的大乘經典中都提到了一位名叫月光菩薩（「月光」）的佛陀，那可能就是這部經文所指涉的對象。

i.5This English translation was prepared based on the two witnesses in the Degé Kangyur (Toh 535 and Toh 868), in consultation with the versions in the Narthang Kangyur, the Stok Palace Kangyur, and the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) of the Kangyur.

i.5本英文翻譯是根據德格版大藏經中的兩個版本（Toh 535和Toh 868）編製而成，並參考了納塘版大藏經、斯托克宮殿版大藏經和大藏經校訂本（dpe bsdur ma）中的相應版本。