Introduction

i.1The Dhāraṇī of Avalokiteśvara Siṃhanāda recounts the story of how Avalokiteśvara Siṃhanāda gained the power to tame nāgas and heal affliction, and how he came to take his present form. The text opens in Avalokiteśvara’s palace on Mount Potala where the Buddha Śākyamuni is surrounded by a retinue of bodhisattvas and śrāvakas. Mañjuśrī requests the Buddha to give a remedy for the many diseases that afflict a king named Lord of Light. The Buddha responds to this request with a story about the previous lives of Mañjuśrī and Avalokiteśvara Siṃhanāda, in which we learn how Siṃhanāda came to obtain his power to tame the nāgas and his curative powers. Śākyamuni then teaches Siṃhanāda’s dhāraṇī, along with the ritual instructions for using it to heal illness, stating that it can be used to heal King Lord of Light and bring him rebirth in Sukhāvatī. The Buddha goes on to teach a vidyāmantra for Siṃhanāda and several other mantras and dhāraṇīs for other forms of Avalokiteśvara, along with ritual instructions for using these to heal illnesses, especially those caused by nāgas and other malevolent beings. There are also remedies for other types of afflictions, including difficulties with rain, hail, and the like. Śākyamuni then teaches a praise to Avalokiteśvara, followed by short verses of praise to Tārā, Pāṇḍaravāsinī, Hayagrīva, and the bodhisattva nāga king Varuṇa. He explains that the praises and the mantras connected with them will heal and protect anyone who recites them from malevolent influence.

i.2Siṃhanāda, “Lion’s Roar,” also sometimes called Lokeśvara Siṃhanāda, is a form of the bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteśvara. There are nine Siṃhanāda sādhanas and several other Siṃhanāda praises and ritual texts preserved in the Tibetan Tengyur, attesting to his importance in India. Images of Siṃhanāda have been found at the Mahābodhi temple in Bodh Gaya prior to the temple’s nineteenth-century renovation, and in Sri Lanka where it seems Siṃhanāda was especially popular. The association of Siṃhanāda with curative properties that we find in the present text appears to be quite an old one. A tenth-century Nepalese miniature painting depicting Siṃhanāda, which is kept at Cambridge, includes a caption reading, “Lokeśvara of the hospital on the island of Siṃhala.” While Avalokiteśvara in general has a close iconographical association with the deity Śiva, this is even more clear in the case of Siṃhanāda. In The Dhāraṇī of Avalokiteśvara Siṃhanāda, Siṃhanāda‍—just like Śiva‍—holds a brahmin’s skull and a snake-wrapped trident, and wears a sacred thread made of a snake.

i.3Siṃhanāda’s iconography is generally consistent across textual and artistic sources, though many of the details are not clearly elaborated in this text. In the descriptions found in his many sādhanas and praises, Siṃhanāda is white in color, has two legs and two arms, is dressed as an ascetic (tapasvin, dka’ thub ldan pa), and sits on a lion. In most descriptions, a skull-adorned trident rests at his right side, but in some, he holds it in his right hand. This trident is also frequently depicted with a white snake coiled around the shaft. With his left hand, he holds the end of a lotus stalk that rises upwards and has a sword standing upon the open lotus blossom. Nearby and to the left sits what is variously described as a cup (karoṭaka), pot (bhājana, snod), or skull cup (kapāla, thod pa) filled with fragrant flowers. This vessel often sits on a lotus or water lily.

i.4The Siṃhanāda form of Avalokiteśvara continues to be practiced in contemporary Tibetan Buddhist traditions. Two arrangements of practices centered on Lokeśvara Siṃhanāda are found in the Compendium of Sādhanas (sgrub thabs kun btus) compiled by Jamyang Loter Wangpo, and the nineteenth-century scholar Mipham Gyatso wrote a short summary of the story of The Dhāraṇī of Avalokiteśvara Siṃhanāda.

i.5The Dhāraṇī of Avalokiteśvara Siṃhanāda does not appear to be extant in Sanskrit or Chinese translation and is not found at Dunhuang or listed in any of the imperial-period catalogs. However, the very concise Dhāraṇī of Siṃhanāda, (Toh 704/912/3156), which parallels a short section of The Dhāraṇī of Avalokiteśvara Siṃhanāda, is extant in Sanskrit in the Sādhanamālā and as part of the dhāraṇī collection published by Gergely Hidas.

i.6The colophon of the present text states that the Tibetan translation of this work was produced by “the noble Lady Vajrasattvī, who had attained accomplishment, and the translator Gar Sherab Jungne.” While we are unable to identify either of these figures, the translation of the shorter Dhāraṇī of Siṃhanāda, which parallels a portion of this text, was translated into Tibetan twice, both times by eleventh-century translators. This fact, along with the contents of the present text and its absence in imperial period catalogs or at Dunhuang, suggests that it was also very likely translated in the later translation period (phyi dar), after the tenth century. It is specifically notable that one of the translators of The Dhāraṇī of Avalokiteśvara Siṃhanāda is a woman. While many accomplished female practitioners from both India and Tibet are mentioned in histories of Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, and a smaller number of women have authored Buddhist texts, reference to women as translators of canonical texts is extremely uncommon. We are, at present, unaware of any other such reference. The name listed here, “the noble Lady Vajrasattvī,” is unambiguously feminine in all recensions of the text consulted, as it includes two feminine particles (rje btsun ma rdo rje sems ma). This Vajrasattvī, whose position in the colophon is where we would typically find the name of the male Indian scholar who supervised the translation, is usually referred to as a preceptor (mkhan po). Vajrasattvī is instead here described as someone “who had attained accomplishment” (dngos grub brnyed pa). This unique colophon also mentions that the translation, editing, and finalizing of the text took place at a caitya at a charnel ground in Kashmir.

i.7This English translation of The Dhāraṇī of Avalokiteśvara Siṃhanāda was made on the basis of the Degé Kangyur recension of this work, with additional reference to the notes from the Comparative Edition (dpe sdur ma) of the Kangyur, and the Stok Palace (stog pho brang) Kangyur and Phugdrak (phug brag) Kangyur recensions of the text. We also consulted the Sanskrit Siṃhanāda­dhāraṇī from the Sādhanamālā. The Dhāraṇī of Avalokiteśvara Siṃhanāda is stable across all recensions consulted, with only minor variants. We edited the dhāraṇī itself very slightly on the basis of the Sanskrit text from the Sādhanamālā and have noted all instances where this varies from the dhāraṇī as presented in the Degé recension.