Introduction

i.1The Dhāraṇī “The Mother of the Grahas” records a teaching by Śākyamuni Buddha on a dhāraṇī recitation practice and maṇḍala instruction for making offerings to the nine celestial grahas. The aim of this practice is to win the grahas’ favor and be protected from harmful influences and beings. The introduction tells us that the Buddha taught this dhāraṇī in the city of the yakṣa lord Aṭavika, where he was surrounded by a host of bodhisattvas and a large gathering of supernatural beings. Seated among them are the nine celestial grahas‍—Sūrya, Candra, Aṅgāraka, Budha, Bṛhaspati, Śukra, Śani, Rāhu, and Ketu‍—who have joined this assembly to praise the Buddha and listen to his teaching.

i.2As the Buddha concludes his teaching, the bodhisattva Vajrapāṇi approaches the Buddha to ask him to teach a Dharma discourse that will pacify both the celestial and harmful grahas. The Buddha then begins teaching on The Dhāraṇī “The Mother of the Grahas” with a description of the maṇḍala for the rite, followed by the various bali offerings that one should prepare for each of the maṇḍala deities. The Buddha then recites The Dhāraṇī “The Mother of Grahas” itself, followed by a set of ritual instructions to accompany the recitation of this dhāraṇī.

i.3There is no known Sanskrit witness of The Dhāraṇī “The Mother of the Grahas.” The text appears in both the Denkarma and Phangthangma imperial Tibetan catalogs of translated works. The Tibetan translators’ colophon notes that it was first translated during the lifetimes of “the king, the minister, and the bodhisattva” (rgyal blon byang chub sems dpa’), which suggests that it was translated during the period when the Indian preceptor Śāntarakṣita or “the bodhisattva” (byang chub sems dpa’) and the “minister” (blon) Ba Selnang (sba gsal snang; dba’ gsal snang) were both present in the court of “the king” (rgyal), Tibetan Emperor Tri Songdetsen (Khri srong lde btsan, r. 755–797/804). The translators’ colophon adds that the Imperial Era Tibetan translation was later corrected by the Sakya patriarch Drakpa Gyaltsen (1147–1216) based on an Indian manuscript that was housed at Sakya.

i.4There are two Chinese translations of this text preserved in the Taishō canon. One version, Taishō 1302, was translated by Facheng, alias Gö Chödrup (ca. 755–849), who was a prolific Sino-Tibetan translator active in the Dunhuang region during the ninth century. This Chinese version is related to the present text (Toh 660/997), though it more closely matches another Tibetan version, The Dhāraṇī “The Mother of the Grahas” (Toh 661/998). Indeed, many lines in Taishō 1302 and Toh 661/998 match each other word-for-word, and the overall structure of these two texts is identical. It is possible, then, that Toh 661/998 was the source for Taishō 1302, or that Gö Chödrup produced both Toh 661/998 and Taishō 1302 based on a third source. Furthermore, given the parallels between Toh 660/997 and Toh 661/998, and given that the colophon of Toh 660/997 indicates that Drakpa Gyaltsen edited it based on an Indian manuscript, it is possible that the differences and additional material we find in Toh 660/997 are the result of Drakpa Gyaltsen’s editorial interventions. In other words, he may have been working from Toh 661/998 to begin with but later made changes based on a Sanskrit source text. A closer examination of these texts with reference to the Dunhuang manuscripts will shed further light on the connections between these sources. The other canonical Chinese translation, Taishō 1303, was translated by Fatian in the thirteenth century. This text noticeably differs from Toh 660/997 and Toh 661/998 in its structure and contents.

i.5This English translation was prepared based on the witnesses for The Dhāraṇī “The Mother of the Grahas” in the Tantra Collection (rgyud ’bum) and the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs (gzungs ’dus) in the Degé Kangyur in consultation with the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) of the Degé Kangyur. A version of this text preserved in the Stok Palace Kangyur was also consulted, but this witness is only a partial match for the witnesses in the Degé Kangyur. An additional early Tibetan witness is preserved among the collection of Tibetan manuscripts from Dunhuang presently housed in the Indian Office Library in London, but this witness has not yet been digitized and was unfortunately not available to us at the time that this translation was prepared.