Notes

n.1This text does not contain a title either in the incipit or the explicit, nor does it contain a translator’s colophon. The Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) lists this text under the title The Dhāraṇī for Seeing Amitābha (’od dpag med mthong bar ’gyur ba’i gzungs) by drawing on a line from the middle of the text. However, seeing Amitābha is only one of the benefits mentioned in the text. For ease of identification, in this English translation we have given the text the title [Untitled Dhāraṇī of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas].

n.2An explicitly named Compendium of Dhāraṇīs section is found in the Degé and Urga Kangyurs as well as in the peripheral Kangyurs of the Tshalpa lineage (Dodedrak, Phajoding, and Ragya). In contrast, the Berlin, Choné, Lithang, and Peking Qianlong Kangyurs include the same collection of dhāraṇīs in a separate part of their Tantra sections that has no distinct label. With or without the label, these collections of dhāraṇīs contain many duplicates of texts also found in the general sūtra or tantra sections, and in the latter group of Kangyurs many dhāraṇī texts therefore appear twice in different parts of the Tantra section.

n.3The Qianlong, Choné, and Lithang Kangyurs contain two recensions of this text, with identical titles, both included in the tantra (rgyud) section of these Kangyurs. The two recensions in the Qianlong Kangyur (Q 268 and Q 684) are identical apart from two minor orthographic differences in the mantra. Presumably the same is the case with the recensions in the Choné and Lithang Kangyurs, but we have not verified this.

n.4The 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 and transcribed by Orosz, identify the source of all such dhāraṇī collections as the extracanonical collection edited by Tāranātha (Orosz 2010, pp. 67 and 100). This mention is also noted by Hidas 2021, p. 7, n. 56.

n.5See J. Dalton 2016, and J. Dalton and S. van Schaik 2006, on the dhāraṇī­saṃgraha collections preserved at Dunhuang. Like the canonical collection, these contain praises and prayers as well as dhāraṇīs. See Hidas 2021 for the catalogs of eighteen dhāraṇī­saṃgraha collections surviving in Sanskrit.

n.6This text, Toh 865, and all those contained in this same volume (gzungs ’dus, e), are listed as being located in volume 100 of the Degé Kangyur by the Buddhist Digital Resource Center (BDRC). However, several other Kangyur databases‍—including the eKangyur that supplies the digital input version displayed by the 84000 Reading Room‍—list this work as being located in volume 101. This discrepancy is partly due to the fact that the two volumes of the gzungs ’dus section are an added supplement not mentioned in the original catalog, and also hinges on the fact that the compilers of the Tōhoku catalog placed another text‍—which forms a whole, very large volume‍—the Vimala­prabhā­nāma­kālacakra­tantra­ṭīkā (dus ’khor ’grel bshad dri med ’od, Toh 845), before the volume 100 of the Degé Kangyur, numbering it as vol. 100, although it is almost certainly intended to come right at the end of the Degé Kangyur texts as volume 102; indeed its final fifth chapter is often carried over and wrapped in the same volume as the Kangyur dkar chags (catalog). Please note this discrepancy when using the eKangyur viewer in this translation.

n.7This alternative recension, however, was important in solving a textual problem in the homage of the text. See n.­8.

n.8Here we follow the reading in the recension of this dhāraṇī found in the Sūtra section of the Namgyal Collection (see bibliography for details), which reads rnam par snang mdzad rgyal po. The Degé reads rnam par snang mdzad kyi rgyal po. The recension of the text in the Sūtra section of the Namgyal Collection differs in several places from the more commonly circulated recension found the Degé and other Kangyurs, to which a second recension in the Namgyal Collection (in the Dhāraṇī section) also belongs. We presume that an error was introduced into the more commonly circulating recension, which was then replicated throughout the Kangyurs in which it was included, and that this alternative version preserved in the Namgyal Collection contains the better, more coherent reading.