Introduction

i.1The Sūtra of Mahāśrī is a short sūtra revealed to Avalokiteśvara in the pure land of Sukhāvatī. In essence, it is a dhāraṇī centered on twelve epithets of the goddess of wealth and a short ritual instruction concerning its recitation. Lists of the epithets of a deity are a common type of dhāraṇī, and such texts can sometimes be very long (for example, Reciting the Names of Mañjuśrī). This text can be said to be an alternative version of The Twelve Names of the Goddess Śrī, from which it differs in only minor details. One significant difference, however, is that in that text the ritual instruction is not provided.

i.2Mahāśrī, or simply Śrī, or commonly Lakṣmī, is a goddess who is perhaps more prevalent in the brahmanical tradition, where she is said to be the great god Viṣṇu’s consort. She is associated with well-being and prosperity. Here her names constitute the inner core of the dhāraṇī, which is then accompanied by a short ritual instruction about how to recite it. The spell is promised to provide protection, wealth, and good social standing.

i.3The text is not present under this title in the imperial-period catalogs, but its sibling text is. The colophon of the Tibetan translation of this text attributes it to the famous translator-duo Jinamitra and Yeshé Dé, dating it to sometime in the early ninth century. While the two texts are nearly identical, we may observe that name-epithets in particular were translated somewhat differently.

i.4This translation was made principally on the basis of the Tibetan translations of the text found in the Tantra Collection (rgyud ’bum) and the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs (gzungs ’dus) in the Degé Kangyur in consultation with the Stok Palace Kangyur and the various witnesses of the sibling text, The Twelve Names of the Goddess Śrī.