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Interestingly, the catalog of the Narthang Kangyur records the tradition that The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī was first translated into Tibetan by Tönmi Sambhoṭa (thon mi sam+b+ho Ta), the legendary seventh century minister and scholar credited with the development of the Tibetan alphabet during the reign of King Songtsen Gampo (ca. 617–650). See Narthang Catalog, folio 14.a.1, and Skilling 1997, p. 89.
This information is based on a private communiqué from Peter Skilling, who does not recall seeing the feminine form vyākaraṇī in any other sūtra.
Toh 1-1, 1.233 et seq.; see translation in Miller et al. (2018). The Chapter on Going Forth contains a much longer and more detailed account of the story of Upatiṣya and Kaulita (Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana), but the culmination of their story in their encounter with Aśvajit and meeting with the Buddha is related in the present text with a little more detail, including some verses of which the Vinayavastu account has much briefer equivalents. The main additional element in the story in the present version—the advent of Māra following that meeting with Aśvajit—is of course the narrative theme that ties together all the component parts of The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī.
Because of their magical character, uncertain readings, and the extent of corruption, the Sanskrit dhāraṇī formulae in this text would be impossible to translate in full. Although some individual words and phrases are intelligible, it would be risky to attempt a coherent translation—the alliterations (which possibly are part of the magic), for example, would be impossible to replicate in English. These dhāraṇīs have therefore been quoted throughout the translation in the original Sanskrit, with some editorial emendments that affect mainly word divisions and orthography. These emendments by no means make the Sanskrit text correct or even consistent, and have not been reported in the critical apparatus.
The Buddha and his hearer disciples are often compared to elephants or “great elephants” (mahānāga).
Tib. kun tu rgyu ba (Skt. parivrājaka). “Wandering mendicants” is a generic designation for the flourishing communities of mendicants of various religious outlooks who lived as wandering spiritual seekers (śramaṇa) in India during the time of the Buddha. Often, these wandering practitioners of various religious paths would interact with one another and exchange views and practices, such as what we hear about in this scripture.
This is an expanded version of the well-known and widely quoted stanza, sometimes called “the essence of dependent arising” (rten ’brel snying po), which, in Sanskrit, reads, ye dharmā hetuprabhavā hetuṃ teṣāṃ tathāgato hy avadat | teṣāṃ ca yo nirodha evaṃvādī mahāśramaṇaḥ. One source of this stanza is found in a parallel version of the present narrative in the Chapter on Going Forth (Pravrajyāvastu) chapter of the Vinayavastu, Toh 1-1, folios 33.a–b (see Miller 1.236). The formula in Sanskrit and Pali has acquired the status of a dhāraṇī and is ubiquitous in Buddhist Asia as a seal at the end of texts, rolled into scrolls in stūpas, or used in rituals (sometimes with oṁ at the beginning and svāhā at the end). See also The Sūtra on Dependent Arising (Toh 212), in which the Buddha explains and recommends its use in the construction of stūpas. It should be noted that there are several quite significantly different renderings of the verse in Tibetan—compare, for example, the version in the present text and the one in Toh 1-1. Unfortunately, this stanza is missing in the available Sanskrit portions of The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī (including the Gilgit manuscript which begins from folio 4.a).
The thousand monks who used to have matted hair is a reference to the one thousand non-Buddhist mendicants who are said to have converted en masse to the Buddha’s teaching and who, at this early point, made up the Buddha’s entire saṅgha. The thousandfold congregation comprised the five hundred followers of Urubilvā-Kāśyapa and the five hundred followers of his two brothers (who each had 250 followers), all practicing beforehand at different points along the River Nairañjana. This is recounted in the Saṅghabhedavastu chapter of the Vinayavastu (Toh 1-17, folio 56.a et seq.; 84000 translation currently in progress). The implication here is that the Buddha had only recently arrived in Rājagṛha for the first time, at Bimbisāra’s invitation.
“The view of the evil one” has been supplied from the Tib. (Skt. lacuna). Incidentally, it seems a little odd that Māra refers to himself as the “evil one.”
The Tib. reads, “Knowing the supreme teachings that captivate the minds of the wise and terminate the three sufferings, / No one anywhere could shake us from this knowledge.”
Instead of “owing to the Thus-Gone One… the wandering mendicant’s life,” the Tib. has “the wandering mendicant’s life of the Thus-Gone One.”
Here, the Tib. renders the Skt. viśārada, defined in Edgerton’s dictionary as “fearlessness,” as “fearless insight,” which could be more correct.
The most complete story of Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana going forth can be found in the Pravrajyāvastu.
The phrase “who convey,” which fills the lacuna in the Skt. text, has been partially reconstructed from the Tib., which, however, is not very clear (gang dag bstan bcos don spyod mkhas pa rig pa’i pha rol song).
The phrase “and clear” has been supplied from the Tib., filling in the lacuna in the Skt. text.
The Tib. has, “Your path brings beings to the lower realms and causes them to discover an ocean of suffering.”
The Tib. has, “What more can you say, O garrulous, reckless liar with the voice of a jackal?”
“Why won’t you have fun?” has been supplied from the Tib., filling in the lacuna in the Skt. text.
Tib. “He has the lassos of generosity, yogic discipline, contemplation, aspiration, and compassion. / He brandishes the supreme bow and arrow of emptiness and signlessness. / In accordance with the path to absolute peace and escape from saṃsāra, / He is the teacher of how to repel saṃsāra entirely.”
The Tib. adds at this point (after a comma) “applying themselves according to the precepts” (cho ga bzhin du zhugs nas).
The phrase “and were overjoyed” has been supplied from the Tib., filling in the lacuna in the Skt. text.
The Tibetan of this half-stanza is unclear. It seems to be “The single eye for beings that dries up all rivers of craving, / Seeing the whole world that lacks eye[sight]…”
“Became even more enraged” has been supplied from the Chinese (Skt. lacuna; cf. K, p. 14, n. 1).
The reading “scorched by fire with flaming tongues” follows the Tibetan. Skt. has only aṅgāreṇa vayaṃ (lacuna), “by embers, we…”
The reading “taken refuge” (supported by the Tib.) has been obtained by emending śaramaṃ in Kurumiya’s edition to śaraṇaṃ.
“After being entrusted to me” has been supplied from the Tib. (Skt. lacuna); this is a tentative translation of nga la dpang btsugs nas, assuming that dpang is a misspelling of pang.
Tib. “Then, 1.2 quintillion of Māra’s attendants rose up, stretching upward for 84,000 leagues. They manifested violent magical displays of power and dominion, filling the entire space above the four continents with black clouds, violent black winds, and meteors. They slammed the king of mountains, Sumeru, with their hands, making all four continents shake violently.”
The Tib. has, “They also conjured up and released a great rain of swords, clubs, stones, lances, javelins, razors, blades similar to razors, axes, blades similar to axe blades, axe blades, (unclear), and terribly (unclear)—a rain of solid, hard, rough, and sharp objects.”
The Tib. has “turned into a rain of celestial flowers [such as] blue, pink, and red varieties of lotus, māndārava, and great māndārava.”
The Tib. adds here, “The land of Aṅga-Magadha was not struck by any of the falling meteors; rather, through his blessings a rain fell.”
The passage has been abbreviated here by the Skt. scribe. The source passage has not been located.
Literally, “endowed with a cranial protuberance (uṣṇīṣa) that cannot be [fully] seen when looked at.” This alludes to the belief in the wide-ranging powers of the Buddha’s uṣṇīṣa. Since it extends all the way to the realm of gods, thereby enabling the Buddha to control all the realms with his body, its full extent cannot be seen from earth. The Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa elaborates on the powers of the Buddha’s uṣṇīṣa at considerable length. See Dharmachakra Translation Committee, trans., The Noble Root Manual of the Rites of Mañjuśrī, Toh 543 (84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, 2020), 14.2–3 et passim.
The part about causes and results is unclear in both the Skt. and the Tib. The Tib. seems to be saying “cause and result from accumulation.”
In the Tib., these three verses are,“You destroy, O protector of worlds, the disease of ignorance / Wherein one is caught by the sense objects in existence, / Which are like an illusion, a mirage, or the moon reflected in water.”
In the Tib., this verse is “May the flowers we tossed in all directions / Become parasols / Eternally providing happiness, / Floating above the crown of the best of bipeds.”
The Tib. is somewhat different; it interprets the Skt. svaramaṇḍala (“lute”) literally as the “maṇḍala of sound,” which gives in translation, “They also heard the speech of the blessed buddhas’ melodious maṇḍalas.”
In this address, the Tib. explicitly includes women; the Skt. just has “noble sons.” The same applies to the next four occurrences of “noble son(s).”
The Tib. says, “They must not grasp, give up, accept, dwell upon, appropriate, conceive of, or conceptualize any phenomenon, so that when they are training in the perfection of generosity, they do not give up, grasp, accept, appropriate, dwell upon, conceive of, or conceptualize the fruits of generosity.”
The passage has been abbreviated here by the Skt. scribe. The last clause, starting from “when they are training,” should be repeated for all the remaining perfections, up to and including the perfection of insight.
The Skt. words used here for being, the vital principle, and individual soul or personhood (sattva, jīva, poṣa, and puḍgala respectively) are near synonyms. They denote or imply an individual being or individual existence.
The passage has been abbreviated here by the Skt. scribe. The omitted part is to be supplied from the corresponding passage above.
The passage has been abbreviated here by the Skt. scribe. The omitted part is to be supplied from the corresponding passage above.
The passage has been abbreviated here by the Skt. scribe. The omitted part is to be supplied from the corresponding passage above.
The Tib. has “conceptualize the occurring, remaining, or arising of the causes, conditions, reference points, or the ripening of the fruits of the threefold universe, three times, aggregates, elements, or sense bases.”
“Void” reflects the Tib. reading; the Skt. has, depending on how the sandhi is resolved, either “separate” or “not separate.”
For “neither friendly nor hostile” (which as a translation may be problematic), the Tib. has “not directional, not antidotes.”
“Appropriation, becoming, and birth” are the ninth through eleventh links in the chain of dependent origination. The Tib., however, has the “birth, craving, and appropriation of beings.”
“This shore and the other” refers to saṃsāra and nirvāṇa, i.e., conditioned existence and liberation.
Instead of “rocks,” the Tib. has “charnel ground,” reflecting the reading śmaśānaṃ rather than śmānaṃ.
The reading “without darkness” (atamas) is supported by the Chinese translation; the Tib., however, reads “indescribable.”
The Tibetan nyams par yang mi bgyid pa (“not subject to deterioration”) makes better sense in the present context than the Skt. na sāmīcīkaroti (“one does not pay respect”).
The “students and the adepts” (śaikṣa and aśaikṣa, literally “training” and “no more training”) could be referring to the five Mahāyāna paths.
The reading “one does not analyze” has been obtained by emending Kurumiya’s vivekanayena to vivekanaye na. The Tib. has “one does not analyze or cling.”
The celestial realm of the tathāgata Akṣobhya in the east.
In a general sense, samādhi can describe a number of different meditative states. In the Mahāyāna literature, in particular in the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras, we find extensive lists of different samādhis, numbering over one hundred.
In a more restricted sense, and when understood as a mental state, samādhi is defined as the one-pointedness of the mind (cittaikāgratā), the ability to remain on the same object over long periods of time. The Drajor Bamponyipa (sgra sbyor bam po gnyis pa) commentary on the Mahāvyutpatti explains the term samādhi as referring to the instrument through which mind and mental states “get collected,” i.e., it is by the force of samādhi that the continuum of mind and mental states becomes collected on a single point of reference without getting distracted.
Intellectual and spiritual readiness to accept certain tenets, such as the nonarising of phenomena or the law of karma. Also translated here as “patience.”
Third of the six perfections. Also translated here as “acceptance.”
A bodhisattva in the retinue of the Buddha.
The means of winning over beings; traditionally there are four of them—generosity, kind talk, meaningful action, and impartiality.
Mental and emotional traits that bind one to saṃsāra; the fundamental three are ignorance, desire, and anger. When the term refers to the fundamental three, it tends to be translated as “the afflictions.”
One of the māras.
See “five aggregates.”
The elephant of Indra.
One of the gods’ realms.
A bodhisattva in the retinue of the Buddha.
In the Ratnaketudhāraṇī, he is one of the six “directional” tathāgatas.
In the Ratnaketudhāraṇī, he is one of the six “directional” tathāgatas.
At the time of the Buddha, the countries of Aṅga and Magadha were referred to as a single entity.
The name of a lunar asterism. Its chief star is known as Delta Scorpii in the occidental tradition.
See “correct applications of mindfulness.”
The name of a lunar asterism. Its chief star is known as Alpha Orionis in the occidental tradition.
A bodhisattva in the retinue of the Buddha.
The name of a lunar asterism. Its chief star is known as Alpha Hydrae in the occidental tradition.
A class of titans or demigods.
One of the five ascetics, the companions of the Buddha during his early practice of austerities.
The name of a lunar asterism. Its chief star is known as Beta Arietis in the occidental tradition.
One of the five yakṣa generals.
I.e., awakening to the reality of phenomena (inner and outer) as they actually are.
A mythical horse.
See “four bases of supernatural power.”
One of the twelve links of dependent origination.
The name of a lunar asterism. Its chief star is known as 35 Arietis in the occidental tradition.
One of the five yakṣa generals.
One of the great brahmās.
The army, divisions, or factions of Māra, the deity who personifies spiritual death; from Māra’s point of view, this is the “white faction.” Also refers to the dark fortnight of the lunar month.
In Buddhist literature, this is an epithet applied to buddhas, most often to Śākyamuni. The Sanskrit term generally means “possessing fortune,” but in specifically Buddhist contexts it implies that a buddha is in possession of six auspicious qualities (bhaga) associated with complete awakening. The Tibetan term—where bcom is said to refer to “subduing” the four māras, ldan to “possessing” the great qualities of buddhahood, and ’das to “going beyond” saṃsāra and nirvāṇa—possibly reflects the commentarial tradition where the Sanskrit bhagavat is interpreted, in addition, as “one who destroys the four māras.” This is achieved either by reading bhagavat as bhagnavat (“one who broke”), or by tracing the word bhaga to the root √bhañj (“to break”).
A buddha field in the future where the bodhisattva Saffron Color attains buddhahood as Precious Light.
One of the māras.
A being who is dedicated to the cultivation and fulfilment of the altruistic intention to attain perfect buddhahood, traversing the ten bodhisattva levels (daśabhūmi, sa bcu). Bodhisattvas purposely opt to remain within cyclic existence in order to liberate all sentient beings, instead of simply seeking personal freedom from suffering. In terms of the view, they realize both the selflessness of persons and the selflessness of phenomena.
One of the trinity of Hindu gods, a protagonist and ally of the Buddha; when spelled with the lower case, it denotes any god from the multiple worlds of Brahmā.
A high-ranking deity presiding over a divine world; he is also considered to be the lord of the Sahā world (our universe). Though not considered a creator god in Buddhism, Brahmā occupies an important place as one of two gods (the other being Indra/Śakra) said to have first exhorted the Buddha Śākyamuni to teach the Dharma. The particular heavens found in the form realm over which Brahmā rules are often some of the most sought-after realms of higher rebirth in Buddhist literature. Since there are many universes or world systems, there are also multiple Brahmās presiding over them. His most frequent epithets are “Lord of the Sahā World” (sahāṃpati) and Great Brahmā (mahābrahman).
One of the trinity of Hindu gods, a protagonist and ally of the Buddha; when spelled with the lower case, it denotes any god from the multiple worlds of Brahmā.
A high-ranking deity presiding over a divine world; he is also considered to be the lord of the Sahā world (our universe). Though not considered a creator god in Buddhism, Brahmā occupies an important place as one of two gods (the other being Indra/Śakra) said to have first exhorted the Buddha Śākyamuni to teach the Dharma. The particular heavens found in the form realm over which Brahmā rules are often some of the most sought-after realms of higher rebirth in Buddhist literature. Since there are many universes or world systems, there are also multiple Brahmās presiding over them. His most frequent epithets are “Lord of the Sahā World” (sahāṃpati) and Great Brahmā (mahābrahman).
Traditionally, there are eighteen branches of knowledge; they include the great philosophical systems of India (Sāṅkhya, Yoga, etc.) as well as ordinary sciences and arts, such as arithmetic, medicine, astrology, music, archery, etc.
A fully awakened being; when spelled with a capital letter it refers to the Buddha Śākyamuni, one of the Three Jewels.
The Tibetan translates both stūpa and caitya with the same word, mchod rten, meaning “basis” or “recipient” of “offerings” or “veneration.” Pali: cetiya.
A caitya, although often synonymous with stūpa, can also refer to any site, sanctuary or shrine that is made for veneration, and may or may not contain relics.
A stūpa, literally “heap” or “mound,” is a mounded or circular structure usually containing relics of the Buddha or the masters of the past. It is considered to be a sacred object representing the awakened mind of a buddha, but the symbolism of the stūpa is complex, and its design varies throughout the Buddhist world. Stūpas continue to be erected today as objects of veneration and merit making.
The name of a mountain range.
The moon personified as a god.
A nobleman in the retinue of the Buddha. Also the name of a prophesied buddha.
An advanced state of meditation corresponding to the ninth anupūrvavihārasamāpatti (the attainment of (nine) successive stages); the state of the eighth vimokṣa (liberation).
One of the five yakṣa generals.
The name of a lunar asterism. Its chief star is known as Spica (alpha Virginis) in the occidental tradition.
Dhyāna is defined as one-pointed abiding in an undistracted state of mind, free from afflicted mental states. Four states of dhyāna are identified as being conducive to birth within the form realm. In the context of the Mahāyāna, it is the fifth of the six perfections. It is commonly translated as “concentration,” “meditative concentration,” and so on.
Fifth of the five aggregates.
In the Buddhist context, the ritual of consecration usually involves an initiation or empowerment.
This refers to the four types of mindfulness: the mindfulness of the body, sensations, thought, and phenomena.
Dutt, Nalinaksha, ed. Gilgit Manuscripts. Vols. 1–4. Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1984.
Kurumiya, Yenshu, ed. Ratnaketuparivarta: Sanskrit Text. Kyoto: Heirakuji-shoten, 1978.
Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī—the Gilgit manuscript. National Archives of India, New Delhi.
’phags pa ’dus pa rin po che tog gi gzungs shes bya ba theg pa chen po’i mdo. Toh 138, Degé Kangyur vol. 56 (mdo sde, na), folios 187.b–277.b.
’phags pa ’dus pa rin po che tog gi gzungs shes bya ba theg pa chen po’i mdo. bka’ ’gyur (dpe bsdur ma) [Comparative Edition of the Kangyur], krung go’i bod rig pa zhib ’jug ste gnas kyi bka’ bstan dpe sdur khang (The Tibetan Tripitaka Collation Bureau of the China Tibetology Research Center). 108 volumes. Beijing: krung go’i bod rig pa dpe skrun khang (China Tibetology Publishing House), 2006–9, vol. 56, pp. 509–734.
Kurumiya, Yenshu, ed. ’Dus Pa Chen Po Rin Po Che Tog Gi Gzungs, ’Dus Pa Chen Po Dkon Mchog Dbal Zes Bya Ba’i Gzungs: being the Tibetan translation of the Ratnaketu Parivarta. Kyoto: Heirakuji-shoten, 1979.
Denkarma (pho brang stod thang ldan[/lhan] dkar gyi chos ’gyur ro cog gi dkar chag). Degé Tengyur vol. 206 (sna tshogs, jo), folios 294.b–310.a.
Narthang Catalog (bka’ ’gyur dkar chag ngo mtshar bkod pa rgya mtsho’i lde mig). Narthang Kangyur vol. 102 (dkar chag), folios 1.a–124.a.
Phangthangma (dkar chag ’phang thang ma). Beijing: mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2003.
Braarvig, Jens (1993). Akṣayamatinirdeśasūtra. Vol. 2, The Tradition of Imperishability in Buddhist Thought. Oslo: Solum Verlag, 1993.
Braarvig, Jens (1985). “Dhāraṇī and Pratibhāna: Memory and Eloquence of the Bodhisattvas.” The Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 8, no. 1: 17–29. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1985.
Herrmann-Pfandt, Adelheid. Die lHan kar ma: ein früher Katalog der ins Tibetische übersetzten buddhistischen Texte. Vienna: Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2008.
Lamotte, Étienne. The Treatise of the Great Virtue of Wisdom of Nāgārjuna (Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra). Translated from the French by Karma Migme Chodron, 2001.
Mak, Bill M. “Ratnaketu-parivarta, Sūryagarbha-parivarta, and Candragarbha-parivarta of Mahāsannipātasūtra (MSN): Indian Jyotiṣa through the lens of Chinese Buddhist Canon.” Paper presented at the World Sanskrit Conference, New Delhi, January 8, 2012.
Miller, Adam T. “To Feel Like We Feel: Reading the Precious Banner Sūtra as Affective Regime.” PhD dissertation. University of Chicago, 2022.
Miller, Adam T. (2013). “The Buddha Said That Buddha Said So: A Translation and Analysis of ‘Pūrvayogaparivarta’ from the Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī Sūtra.” MA thesis. University of Missouri-Columbia, 2013.
Miller, Robert, et al., trans. The Chapter on Going Forth (Pravrajyāvastu, Toh 1-1). 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, 2018.
Negi, J. S. Bod skad daṅ Legs-sbyar gyi tshig mdzod chen mo. Tibetan-Sanskrit Dictionary. Sarnath: Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, 1993.
Skilling, Peter. “From bKa’ bstan bcos to bKa’ ’gyur and bsTan ’gyur.” In Transmission of the Tibetan Canon: Papers Presented at a Panel of the 7th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Graz 1995, edited by Helmut Eimer, 87–111. Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1997.
Ui, Hakuju. A catalogue-index of the Tibetan Buddhist canons (Bkaḥ-ḥgyur and Bstan-ḥgyur). Sendai: Tōhoku Imperial University, 1934.
D Tibetan Degé edition
G Gilgit manuscript
K Kurumiya 1978 (page numbers entered in braces, e.g. {K26} denotes page 26)
TK Kurumiya 1979 (page numbers entered in braces, e.g. {TK26} denotes page 26)
The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī is one of the core texts of the Mahāsannipāta collection of Mahāyāna sūtras that dates back to the formative period of Mahāyāna Buddhism, from the first to the third century
This translation was produced by the Dharmachakra Translation Committee under the supervision of Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche. Wiesiek Mical translated the extant parts from the Sanskrit and wrote the introduction. Timothy Hinkle compared the translation from the Sanskrit against the Tibetan translation and translated from the Tibetan the parts that are lost in the original Sanskrit.
The translation was completed under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.
The generous sponsorship of Twenty and family, which helped make the work on this translation possible, is gratefully acknowledged. They would like to dedicate their sponsorship to Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche.
The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī presents the dramatic events in the life of the Buddha when Māra attempts to destroy the Buddha, break up the Saṅgha, and annihilate the Dharma, a struggle from which the Buddha eventually emerges victorious. This epic confrontation is told with tremendous verve and poignancy, and features characters, dialogue, and plot twists that rank among the best in Buddhist literature. The narrative starts with its own version of the well-known story of the conversion of two of the Buddha’s most prominent early disciples, Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana, and is soon embellished with quaint stories from the past lives of some of the characters, ranging from well-known buddha figures down to (at one time) ordinary human and nonhuman beings. The parts of the narrative that unfold on earth are centered around the city of Rājagṛha, the capital of Magadha. They provide some interesting insight into the everyday life of India at the time, with its division into secular and religious members of society, and vividly capture the experiences that Buddhist monks might have had when going on their daily alms-rounds in the city streets. This is interspersed with lively dialogue that is at once didactic and aesthetically captivating. Especially moving is the conversation that Māra has with his children, when the daughters try to console their distraught father, who bitterly despairs over the impending loss of his realm and the humiliation of seeing his minions, even his own children, desert him, with all the pathos of a broken old man and all the obduracy of a petulant child.
The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī is part of a large body of Mahāyāna sūtras called the Great Collection (Mahāsannipāta). Mahāsannipāta can be translated either as “Great Collection” or “Great Assembly,” a semantic ambivalence that may have been intentional given the predilection for punning among the Sanskrit literati. The latter connotation reflects a feature shared by the sūtras in this collection, namely, that the discourse contained in each of them is always delivered to a “great assembly” of infinite numbers of beings who have congregated to hear the teaching, and typically begins, “Blessed Śākyamuni, at that time, directed his gaze at the great assembly.” According to Jens Braarvig, the Mahāsannipāta was compiled in the first centuries of the common era during the formative period of the Mahāyāna canon. The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī, being part of the original core of this collection, must therefore have already existed by then.
The text of The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī extant today is available in the original Sanskrit, which is incomplete, and in the Tibetan canonical translation. The English translation presented here has been prepared from the incomplete Sanskrit text as critically edited by Kurumiya. Lacunae and missing sections were supplied from the Degé (sde dge) edition of the Tibetan translation. These lacunae vary in length from individual syllables to several lines of text, while folios are missing in blocks, from a single folio to a few, in various parts of the text. The parts translated from the Sanskrit—about two thirds of the text—were subsequently checked against and edited based on the Degé and other Tibetan Kangyur editions. The beginning and end of each section were translated entirely from the Tibetan, as indicated in the notes.
The colophon to the Tibetan translation, which is found in all major recensions of the Kangyur, states that it was produced by the Indian preceptor Śīlendrabodhi and the Tibetan translator Yeshé Dé. The text is also recorded in the Denkarma and Phangthangma inventories of Tibetan imperial translations, so we can establish that it was first translated from Sanskrit into Tibetan no later than the early ninth century, as the Denkarma is dated to 812
The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī shares much of its character and some of its themes with other sūtras and, like most sūtras of the Mahāsannipāta, has left a rich legacy in the subsequent Buddhist literature. It is quoted or referred to in a number of texts, either as a whole text or as its eponymous dhāraṇī, not least because of its salient theme of changing the female gender into male by means of the dhāraṇī. One such text is the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa, which recommends, in one of its rituals, the recitation of the text. One of the important mantras there is the heart essence of the buddha Ratnaketu (who seems to be an emanation of Mañjuśrī). This buddha is also part of the maṇḍala retinue of Mañjuśrī. He and the dhāraṇī goddess called Ratnaketu are also members of the large audience attending the original delivery of the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa.
The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī represents a mixture of genres. In the most general classification, it is a Mahāyāna sūtra, a discourse traditionally attributed to the Buddha that elaborates, through narratives and teachings, the basic Mahāyāna themes of altruism, morality, emptiness, selflessness, and the bodhisattva path to awakening. The term sūtra may be applied to individual sūtras, to some sūtra collections such as the Mahāsannipāta, and to the totality of sūtra literature. The more specific genres that The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī exemplifies, such as incantation (dhāraṇī) and exposition (vyākaraṇa), are subdivisions of the sūtra genre.
It is worth noting some of the salient features of these two genres as they are reflected in this text. The dhāraṇī genre, found in both the sūtra and tantra literature, is characterized by the presence of magical formulae that are held to play a critical role in promoting and preserving the Buddhist teachings. The word dhāraṇī derives from the root √dhṛ (to “hold,” “support,” “contain,” “retain,” or “remember”). The sense of containing could be applied to both the formula, which magically “contains” a certain quality or qualities, and also the person who has obtained this dhāraṇī formula or seal. Once they have obtained it, they become “sealed” or “stamped” with whatever quality the dhāraṇī contains, and they subsequently have the power to activate this quality or invoke the corresponding buddha activity. One thing a dhāraṇī is always a vehicle for—whether this is implied by the literal meaning of the term or not—is the blessing of the buddhas and the magical power sealed therein. Although the sūtras and commentaries like to dwell on the dhāraṇī-powers of retaining things in memory (probably to account for the literal meaning of “containing”), dhāraṇīs can open the door to innumerable other qualities, such as loving kindness, compassion, and so forth, and invoke any kind of activity. The main function of the Ratnaketu dhāraṇī, for example, is to purify the karma of being reborn as a woman and ensure a male birth; the power of this dhāraṇī is so great that it can even cause the instant transformation of a female body into a male one. The function of the second most important dhāraṇī in the Ratnaketu, the samucchrayavidhvaṃsanī (“terminator of birth”), is to terminate embodied rebirth in saṃsāra.
The term dhāraṇī is frequently paired in the sūtra literature with other terms, such as “door” (praveśa or mukha) or “seal” (mudrā). As a magical formula, a dhāraṇī constitutes the door to the infinite qualities of buddhahood, buddhahood itself, or the different types of buddha activity. Just as such qualities are innumerable, so are the dhāraṇī-doors. The Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra explains what a dhāraṇī-door is by bringing out the difference between “dhāraṇī-door” and “samādhi-door.” Just as a samādhi-door may allow access to any desired quality or magical power, so too can a dhāraṇī-door. The difference is that while the meditative absorption (samādhi) comes and goes, the incantation (dhāraṇī) never leaves those who have “obtained” it, following them like a shadow from life to life. This is because, when realizing or “obtaining” (pratilābha) a dhāraṇī, one becomes “sealed” or “stamped” with it—hence a dhāraṇī is also called a “dhāraṇī-seal.”
The term vyākaraṇa (from vi+ā+√kṛ) implies taking something apart and means a clear analysis or detailed presentation, and it has been translated throughout this text as “exposition.” The term also denotes a prophecy by the Buddha of a particular person or being attaining buddhahood, and, by extension, also a text containing such prophecies. In The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī, this term is probably used with both meanings (“exposition” and “text containing prophecies”) at once. What is unique to The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī is the feminine form—vyākaraṇī—of the term vyākaraṇa.
The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī also contains another important feature characteristic of its particular blend of genres, namely the stories of the former lives (pūrvayoga) of the Buddha and his disciples. This element is pervasive in Mahāyāna sūtras and also developed into a distinct genre, the jātaka stories, which are entirely dedicated to recounting the former lives of the Buddha as exemplary models of Buddhist morality.
Just as The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī is part of a larger sūtra (the Mahāsannipāta), the text itself consists of sections that may have originally been at least two separate sūtras. The first one, The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī proper, is centered around its eponymous dhāraṇī. It has its own consistent narrative with the same characters appearing throughout. It may be noted that portions of this section find parallels in other canonical texts. For instance, the account of the meeting between the two mendicants Aśvajit and Upatiṣya, wherein the latter learns of the former’s conversion to Buddhism, is to be found in the Pravrajyāvastu chapter of the Vinayavastu. This section extends as far as the latter part of chapter 5, at which point another dhāraṇī, the samucchrayavidhvaṃsanī (“terminator of birth”), becomes the main focus of the text. The latter dhāraṇī also has a large section devoted to it. Within this section, the whole text is consistently referred to by the name of the dhāraṇī, the Samucchrayavidhvaṃsanī, thus raising the possibility that this section once formed an independent work. This hypothesis is further supported by the fact that the name Ratnaketu is never used after the end of the first four and a half chapters, except in chapter colophons and the final dedication of merit. Furthermore, the Samucchrayavidhvaṃsanī section marks a change in the narrative, introducing new characters and stories, and it also introduces new terminology unique to this section. The continuing use of the name Ratnaketu in the chapter colophons might have been an attempt on the part of the redactors to give compositional integrity to the two (or three) texts presented as one.
After the Samucchrayavidhvaṃsanī section comes the story of the yakṣa general Āṭavaka, who recites to the audience his own dhāraṇīs. This story has an entire chapter (chapter 12) dedicated to it that constitutes a third main section of the work and may have been at some point an independent text.
The final chapter (chapter 13) dwells at length on the merits of the entire “Dharma discourse” and includes pledges from various gods and protectors to care for those who “in the future will uphold and preserve” it. In this chapter no distinction between, or references to, the two main sections or their eponymous dhāraṇīs are made, suggesting, again, that the redactors might have compiled the final chapter to bring the previous parts together in a single “Dharma discourse.”
Notwithstanding the evidence of it being a compilation, the Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī is unified by certain thematic elements that bridge its three main sections. We can identify three main elements that feature in each of its sections: (1) the narrative, (2) the Dharma instructions, which include both philosophy and practice, and (3) the magic. Magic figures prominently in each of the narratives, as when Śākyamuni or other buddhas or mythical beings, malign or beneficent, perform their supernatural deeds. Magic is also “sealed” in the magical formulae of the dhāraṇīs. Ultimately, though, there can be no distinction between these two types of magic, as the miraculous feats and the awesome power of the dhāraṇīs are inextricably linked—the feats are the buddha activity manifesting itself, and the dhāraṇīs are the Dharma methods that empower such activities. The unlocking of the magical power in a dhāraṇī may be effected only by someone who has “obtained” this dhāraṇī.
Despite its composite nature, The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī reflects a consistent soteriological aim. Through its varied narratives and teachings, the text explains and illustrates how to apply the Buddha’s teachings in order to attain final liberation and offers special Dharma methods—notably the dhāraṇīs—expressly for this purpose. It repeatedly affirms that such methods will ensure that Dharma will not perish in times to come but will resurface in times of need, such as the present dark age.
[B1] Homage to the thus-gone Splendorous with the Gentle Glow of Light and Fragrance!
Homage to the one with the melodious voice of Mahābrahmā!
Having paid homage to him, one should employ the dhāraṇī called unharmed by the assemblies of Māra. May I accomplish the following mantra:
Avāme avāme amvare amvare {TK4} parikuñja naṭa naṭa puṣkaravaha jalukha khama khaya ili mili kili mili kīrtipara mudre mudramukhe svāhā! {TK5}
Thus did I hear at one time. The Blessed One was dwelling in Veṇuvana, at the Kalandakanivāpa, near the city of Rājagṛha, with a great saṅgha of a thousand monks, all of whom were noble ones. They had all exhausted defilements, were free from the afflictions, were powerful, had liberated minds, had liberated insight, were of noble birth, were great elephants, had done what needed to be done, had completed their mission, had cast off the burden, had achieved their own welfare, had severed the bonds that tied them to existence, had liberated their minds with genuine knowledge, and had perfected all mental powers. There was also a great saṅgha of ten thousand bodhisattvas, including {TK6} the princely youth Holder of Meru’s Peak, the princely youth Varuṇamati, the princely youth Sumati, the princely youth Jayamati, the princely youth Jinamati, the princely youth Intelligent Light, the princely youth Intelligent Sky, the princely youth Intelligent Lightning, the princely youth Mañjuśrī, the princely youth Durdharṣa, the princely youth Varuṇa, the princely youth Vimala, the bodhisattva great being Maitreya, and others. Each of these ten thousand bodhisattvas had achieved acceptance, retention, and absorption. {TK7} Each possessed the wisdom that is unobscured by any phenomenon, had equal concern for all beings, had transcended all the domains of Māra, and had entered the domain of all the thus-gone ones. Each was knowledgeable, possessed great love and compassion, and was skilled in means.
At the same time, there were two wandering mendicants in the city of Rājagṛha who were learned, lucid, and intelligent, had perfected the eighteen branches of knowledge, and had five hundred servants. One was named Upatiṣya and the other Kaulita. These two were heads of their retinues and leaders of pupils. They made each other the promise that “whoever first attains the nectar shall let the other know.” {TK8}
Early the next morning, Venerable Aśvajit donned his lower and upper Dharma robes. Carrying his alms bowl, he went to the city of Rājagṛha to collect alms. The wandering mendicant Upatiṣya happened to come across Venerable Aśvajit and saw that he had entered the city of Rājagṛha to collect alms. He thought, “How is it that I have never before seen such beautiful deportment in any other mendicant, brahmin, or person as in this mendicant? I shall go before him and ask, ‘Venerable One, who is your teacher? With whom did you go forth? Whose doctrine are you devoted to?’”
So the wandering mendicant Upatiṣya went to where Venerable Aśvajit was and engaged in a good deal of friendly conversation. They then sat down to one side. Sitting there, the wandering mendicant Upatiṣya asked Venerable Aśvajit, “Venerable One, who is your teacher? With whom did you go forth? Whose doctrine are you devoted to?”
Then Venerable Aśvajit answered the wandering mendicant Upatiṣya: {TK9}
“What does your teacher preach? What does he teach?” asked Upatiṣya.
Venerable Aśvajit responded, “I will answer you. Venerable, listen well and bear what I say in mind. I will answer you.
When the wandering mendicant Upatiṣya heard this teaching, he purified the stainless and immaculate Dharma eye that sees phenomena. A state free from the afflictions arose, and he attained the fruit of stream entry. He then said:
The wandering mendicant Upatiṣya then asked Venerable Aśvajit, “Venerable, where is the thus-gone, worthy, perfect Buddha right now?”
Venerable Aśvajit answered, {TK11} “Venerable, the Blessed One is now staying in Veṇuvana, at the Kalandakanivāpa, near Rājagṛha. He is residing there with the great monastic saṅgha of one thousand monks who have gone forth and who used to have matted hair.”
Upatiṣya said, “Once I have seen my best friend and disciples, I will vow to go forth before the Blessed One.”
The wandering mendicant Upatiṣya then bowed his head to the feet of Venerable Aśvajit and circumambulated him three times. He once again departed and went to meet the wandering mendicant Kaulita. The wandering mendicant Kaulita saw the wandering mendicant Upatiṣya coming from far off and exclaimed, “Venerable, given that your faculties look so clear, that your facial complexion looks so pure, and that the tone of your skin looks so light—Venerable, you must have found the nectar!”
“So it is, Venerable One!” Upatiṣya responded. “I have found the nectar! Therefore, Venerable, listen well and bear what I say in mind. I will tell you of what I have found.”
The wandering mendicant Kaulita then rose from his seat, draped his shawl over one shoulder, and knelt on his right knee. With palms together he bowed toward Upatiṣya and said: {TK12}
The wandering mendicant Upatiṣya then said:
Kaulita responded:
Upatiṣya said:
The wandering mendicant Kaulita then purified the stainless and immaculate Dharma eye that sees phenomena. As he was thus purified and his afflictions were eliminated, he attained the fruit of stream entry. Then he proclaimed:
Kaulita asked, “Where is the thus-gone, worthy, perfect Buddha right now?”
“Venerable,” Upatiṣya answered, “I have heard that the Blessed One is now staying in Veṇuvana, at the Kalandakanivāpa, near Rājagṛha, with a great saṅgha of monks and a great saṅgha of bodhisattvas. {TK14} What if we go forth in the presence of the Blessed One?”
“Venerable One,” replied Kaulita, “we should do so. With our followers in mind, let us go forth.”
The wandering mendicants Upatiṣya and Kaulita then went to their followers.
Just then in the land of Aṅga-Magadha, Māra the evil one heard that the learned, well-spoken, eloquent, and renowned good men Upatiṣya and Kaulita, along with their followers, were on their way to take ordination under the teachings of the monk Gautama. He thought, “Alas! If those two become students of the monk Gautama, they will empty my māra realm. So I must go there and dissuade those two good men from going forth. {K1} I must make them embrace the view of the evil one.”
At the same moment, Māra, the evil one, disappeared from his abode and took on the apparel, attributes, and behavior of Venerable Aśvajit. He stood in the road before the two good men, and declared:
Upatiṣya and Kaulita then thought, “It must be Māra, the evil one, who has approached us in order to dissuade us from entering the religious life.”
Upatiṣya turned around and addressed his followers. “Listen, my pupils, and remember the shortcomings of saṃsāra:
Kaulita, for his part, spoke to Māra:
Those gods who were able to behold truth hovered in the sky and {K3} applauded these two good men: “Good, good it is, O good men! This path whereby one leaves home to embrace the life of a wandering mendicant is eminent throughout the entire world. It quells all suffering. It is the path leading into the domain of all the thus-gone ones. {TK16} It has been explained and praised by all the blessed buddhas as the path that leads from home to the life of a wandering mendicant.”
Māra, the evil one, unhappy, dejected, and sullen, disappeared then from that very spot.
The two wandering mendicants, Upatiṣya and Kaulita, directed their gaze at their followers and said, “You ought to know, pupils, that owing to the Thus-Gone One the two of us are setting forth into the wandering mendicant’s life in order to reach the far shore of the ocean of aging, sickness, and death. Any of you who do not wish to go forth in line with the teachings of the Blessed One should turn back here and now.”
Then the five hundred pupils all said, “Whatever we know is through your authority. If the two of you are embracing the wandering mendicant’s life on account of someone great, we too shall become wandering mendicants on account of the same person.”
The two wandering mendicants Upatiṣya and Kaulita, together with their retinue of five hundred, then set out to go forth under the Blessed One. Māra, the evil one, knew this, and so he conjured up a huge chasm outside of the great city of Rājagṛha one hundred leagues deep {K4} so that the two would be unable to go before Gautama the monk. The Blessed One, however, performed a miraculous feat whereby the wandering mendicants Upatiṣya and Kaulita did not see that great chasm and could travel by the most direct route.
Māra, the evil one, further conjured a mountain range in front of them—stable, solid, unbreakable, without valleys, singularly thick, hard, and one thousand leagues tall. {TK17} In addition, he conjured one thousand fierce lions, vicious and terrible, making a great din. But the two good men, thanks to the force of the Blessed One’s splendor and miraculous powers, did not see that mountain. Nor did they see the lions or hear their roaring. Instead, they arrived where the Blessed One was by the straightest possible route.
The Blessed One, attended upon by a congregation of many hundreds of thousands of followers, was expounding the Dharma. “Look, O monks, at these two good men, surrounded by followers, who are the heads of their assembly!”
“We see them, O Blessed One,” they replied.
The Blessed One foresaw, “Of these two good men who are here, along with their retinues, to enter the wandering mendicant’s life by my side, one will become the best of those endowed with insight among all the hearers, {K5} and the other will become the best of those endowed with miraculous powers.”
One of the monks recited on that occasion the following stanza:
The monk then got up from his seat and, together with many other monks, householders, and wandering mendicants, welcomed the two good men and honored them. The two men, for their part, moved near to the Blessed One, bowed their heads to his feet, circumambulated him clockwise three times, and, standing before him, said, “Please allow us to go forth and bestow the monk’s ordination upon us. Close to you, {TK18} let us practice celibacy.”
“What are your names, O noble sons?” asked the Blessed One.
Upatiṣya replied, “I am the son of the brahmin Tiṣya, and so I am called Upatiṣya. My mother’s name is Śārikā. As I was born of her, my given name is Śāriputra. {K6} I already have my parents’ permission to go forth.”
Kaulita replied, “My father’s name is Kauṇḍinya, and so I am called Kaulita. My mother’s name is Mudgalā, so the common name given to me is Maudgalyāyana. Some people know me as Kaulita, while others as Maudgalyāyana. I already have my parents’ permission to go forth.”
“Śāriputra, Maudgalyāyana, and your retinues, you may live the holy life by my side,” said the Blessed One.
This is how they went forth and received their ordination as monks.
Not long after Śāriputra, Maudgalyāyana, and their retinues had gone forth, Māra, the evil one, assuming the form of Maheśvara, stood in front of the Blessed One and said:
The Blessed One replied: {K7}
Māra, the evil one, then disappeared in his form of Maheśvara, and again reappeared in front of the Blessed One in the guise of Brahmā, saying:
The Blessed One replied:
Māra, the evil one, again became unhappy, dejected, and sullen. He vanished on the spot and went back to his abode. He sat there, sinking into despondency. Immediately, all the beings who inhabited Māra’s abode started asking one another, “What could be the reason that our great king just sits there, sinking into despondency? Nobody knows why.”
Then the five hundred daughters of Māra, wearing clothes and adornments most pleasing to the mind, brought flower garlands and unguents capable of giving supreme pleasure. They played celestial instruments with the most captivating sounds that totally thrill the mind, danced, and sang songs. With sounds of a great celestial orchestra composed of five types of instruments that amuse and delight, they stood in front of the evil Māra. But he, the evil one, stretched forth his arms and cried out, “Stop this noise! Stop this noise!”
At these words, the celestial nymphs fell silent for a moment, but then broke into song again, striking and strumming their instruments. At that, Māra, the evil one, once again threw up his arms and began to bellow. Seven times the nymphs began to sing, dance, and play instruments, in ways bound to give pleasure, and seven times Māra, the evil one, threw {K9} his arms in the air and hollered, “Stop this noise! Stop this noise!” Thus commanded, the nymphs fell silent. However, one nymph called Vidyudvalgusvarā bowed in the direction of the evil Māra and asked:
Māra replied:
The nymphs inquired:
Māra replied:
Having heard this description of the Blessed One’s virtues from the evil Māra, all of his five hundred daughters attained the bodhisattva absorption formless bolt of lightning. {K11} To offer worship to the Blessed One, they cast in his direction items such as celestial instruments, flowers, perfume, garlands, fragrant oils, adornments, and jewelry. They cast them in the direction of the Blessed One, by whose magical power these instruments and so forth rained down onto Veṇuvana, and the daughters themselves, along with their retinues, could see it raining. Seeing that such rain was falling upon Veṇuvana, they were delighted and delighted even more.
The monks, however, became suspicious and asked the Blessed One, “How is it, O Blessed One, that such a marvelous and extraordinary rain, never seen or heard before, is showering upon Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana along with their retinues? What could be the cause of it? What is the occasion?”
The Blessed One replied, “It is not by the will of these two noble sons that this great rain of flowers and so forth is falling. Rather, it was released from the abode of the evil Māra by his five hundred daughters along with their retinues, {TK23} in order to worship me. Soon they will come here and receive from me the prophecy regarding their attainment of the unsurpassed and perfect awakening.” {K12}
The five hundred daughters of Māra, the evil one, heard the Blessed One’s discourse from his own mouth and were overjoyed. Through faith and intense joy, which they developed in his presence, they attained the absorption not losing the mind of awakening. Subsequently, right there in Māra’s abode, they each donned a robe of a single piece of material, and they placed their right knees on the ground, folded their hands, and, looking in the direction where the Blessed One was seated, said:
The daughters then rose from their seats and, in one voice, said this to Māra, the evil one: {TK24}
But the evil Māra, his mind absolutely corrupted, thought this: “I must now think of such force, within the power of Māra, that these five hundred along with their retinues will each be snared and bound with five fetters and turned back at this very point, not being able to proceed any further.”
However, Māra was unable to bind them. Why was that? Because these five hundred with their retinues had been blessed by the Thus-Gone One. He was unable to stop them, and the five hundred, along with their retinues, went before Māra, the evil one, {K14} who became even more enraged. He thought, “I must now think of such force, within the power of Māra, {TK25} that this entire area becomes covered in thick black clouds and pummeled by violent gusts of wind, so that they get lost wandering in all directions with their retinues and, unable to see the monk Gautama, will return to my abode.”
However, because of the power of the Buddha’s blessing, he was unable to raise sufficient wind to stir even a single hair tip, not to mention anything more. The evil Māra then became even more unhappy, dejected, and sullen. Crying, he bellowed in a forceful voice to the hosts of his sons along with their retinues, engulfing the entire abode of Māra with these words:
At these words, all of Māra’s daughters and servant girls, as well as all {K15} his sons with their retinues, {TK26} making haste, swiftly approached and stood in front of Māra, the evil one. There was in that gathering a son by the name Jayamati. With folded hands he inquired:
Māra replied:
All the sons of Māra with their numerous retinues folded their hands and promised, “We will do it. What we can do is put on a display of our magical powers, strength, dominion, authority, and miracles. If we are able to turn the son of the Śākyas to ashes, that’s good. If we are unable to, we shall take refuge in him. You yourself, O Father, have witnessed that we, surrounded by our huge army, have previously been defeated by the son of the Śākyas acting alone, without a companion, using merely his magical powers. What then can we expect if he is surrounded by his followers?”
Māra, the evil one, replied, “You should go anyway, my good sons! If you manage to kill that monk Gautama, come back again. If you can’t manage this, you should still return, as we will have to defend our abode.” {TK28}
Then Māra’s twelve trillion attendants, {K17} in a formation stretching upward for more than three hundred and twenty leagues and spreading over an area of thousands of leagues, displayed the magical power and speed of Māra’s army. They filled the entire space over the four continents with thick black clouds and struck the king of mountains, Sumeru, with their hands, releasing black tornadoes and lightning bolts and making all the four continents shake violently. They uttered the most terrifying cries. Subsequently, the nāgas, great nāgas, yakṣas, and great yakṣas assembled in the sky when they witnessed that the entire great earth with its rocks, mountains, and mountain ranges—including even Sumeru, the king of mountains—was quaking, and that the lakes, great lakes, rivers great and small, and the great oceans were churning. The great assembly of Māra’s followers stood on top of Mount Sumeru, conjured up rain pellets one league in size, and released them onto the country of Aṅga-Magadha. They also conjured up and released a great rain of swords, clubs, stones, lances, javelins, razor blades, razors mounted on objects, razor-like objects, adzes mounted on objects, adze blades, and terrible wheels armed with teeth—a downpour of solid, hard, rough objects.
At this time, the Blessed One entered the absorption grinding the hosts of Māra. Through its blessing power the whole rain of stones and weapons {TK29} turned into a rain of celestial flowers, such as lotuses and water lilies in white, red, and blue varieties and flowers of the coral tree and the great coral tree.{K18} He also transformed through his blessing all the different yells and noises into melodious sounds, the sounds of the Buddha, the Dharma, the Saṅgha, the perfections, the superknowledges, the state of not turning back, consecration, victory over the four māras, going to the seat of awakening,… the state of clinging to existence, and the state without clinging. All the wind, darkness, and dust settled down. All the grasses, bushes, herbs, trees, soil, rocks, and mountains—whatever there were in the four continents—turned into the seven precious gems by the power of his blessing.
The Blessed One, endowed with an uṣṇīṣa that is not fully visible, extended his control by means of his body as far as the realm of Brahmā. From each of the Blessed One’s major marks a light issued forth of such a kind that the world spheres of the great trichiliocosm became clearly and distinctly visible, illuminated by their great radiance. And whatever gods, nāgas, yakṣas, gandharvas, asuras, garuḍas, kinnaras, mahoragas, pretas, piśācas, kumbhāṇḍas, humans, nonhuman beings, animals, {TK30} and denizens of the hells and the realms of Yama there were in the great trichiliocosm, all were able to see the Blessed One. Many hundreds of thousands of gods, nāgas, yakṣas, and human and nonhuman beings arrayed in the sky threw flowers, circumambulated the Blessed One clockwise, praised him, and bowed to him. Many hundreds of thousands of millions of hell beings, animals, and denizens of Yama’s realms attained recollection. Recollecting the roots of virtue planted in former lives, they chanted, “Homage to the Buddha!” {K19} Having died and transmigrated from the lower realms, they were reborn as gods.
Twenty-two hundred thousand of the soldiers of Māra, along with their numerous retinues, witnessed this display of miracles by the Blessed One and developed deep faith in his presence. They approached him accompanied by the five hundred daughters of Māra. Together they bowed their heads to the Blessed One’s feet and with folded hands uttered these stanzas for him:
All the sons and daughters of Māra, together with their numerous retinues, then sprinkled flowers over the Blessed One. Through the Blessed One’s magical power, however, the scattered flowers turned into many thousands of millions of billions of flower parasols, exceeding in number even the sand grains in the Gaṅgā. The flower parasols remained in midair above the crowns of the heads of all the living buddhas in the ten directions.
The daughters of Māra with their retinues beheld {K22} these flower parasols positioned above the crowns of the heads of the living blessed buddhas, who were expounding the Dharma, surrounded by their followers, in innumerable and infinitely vast buddha fields in every direction. They were all sitting down, resplendent with light. They all had the same color, attributes, form, and appearance. {TK33} The only differences that the daughters could see were among the individual lion thrones of these blessed buddhas, their retinues, and the marvelous characteristics of their individual buddha fields. They also heard the stanzas recited by the blessed buddhas to the sound of lutes.
And so this retinue of Māra, having seen such a miraculous display through the power of the Blessed One, developed strong faith. They bowed their heads to his feet and sat down in front of him to listen to the Dharma.
However, from among Māra’s sons, along with their retinues, ten trillion returned back to Māra’s abode and relayed to Māra, the evil one, this detailed account: “We weren’t able to harm even a single pore of the skin of that monk Gautama, let alone kill him. And furthermore, twenty thousand of your children have taken refuge with him and are now sitting in front of him to hear the Dharma.”
The evil Māra, enraged, unhappy, dejected, and even more sullen, lamented:
Then Māra, the evil one, sat down, sinking into despondency.
Here ends the first chapter, “The Intimidation of Māra,” from the Mahāyāna sūtra [called] “Ratnaketu.” {K24} {TK34} [B2]
The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī is one of the core texts of the Mahāsannipāta collection of Mahāyāna sūtras that dates back to the formative period of Mahāyāna Buddhism, from the first to the third century
This translation was produced by the Dharmachakra Translation Committee under the supervision of Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche. Wiesiek Mical translated the extant parts from the Sanskrit and wrote the introduction. Timothy Hinkle compared the translation from the Sanskrit against the Tibetan translation and translated from the Tibetan the parts that are lost in the original Sanskrit.
The translation was completed under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.
The generous sponsorship of Twenty and family, which helped make the work on this translation possible, is gratefully acknowledged. They would like to dedicate their sponsorship to Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche.
The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī presents the dramatic events in the life of the Buddha when Māra attempts to destroy the Buddha, break up the Saṅgha, and annihilate the Dharma, a struggle from which the Buddha eventually emerges victorious. This epic confrontation is told with tremendous verve and poignancy, and features characters, dialogue, and plot twists that rank among the best in Buddhist literature. The narrative starts with its own version of the well-known story of the conversion of two of the Buddha’s most prominent early disciples, Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana, and is soon embellished with quaint stories from the past lives of some of the characters, ranging from well-known buddha figures down to (at one time) ordinary human and nonhuman beings. The parts of the narrative that unfold on earth are centered around the city of Rājagṛha, the capital of Magadha. They provide some interesting insight into the everyday life of India at the time, with its division into secular and religious members of society, and vividly capture the experiences that Buddhist monks might have had when going on their daily alms-rounds in the city streets. This is interspersed with lively dialogue that is at once didactic and aesthetically captivating. Especially moving is the conversation that Māra has with his children, when the daughters try to console their distraught father, who bitterly despairs over the impending loss of his realm and the humiliation of seeing his minions, even his own children, desert him, with all the pathos of a broken old man and all the obduracy of a petulant child.
The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī is part of a large body of Mahāyāna sūtras called the Great Collection (Mahāsannipāta). Mahāsannipāta can be translated either as “Great Collection” or “Great Assembly,” a semantic ambivalence that may have been intentional given the predilection for punning among the Sanskrit literati. The latter connotation reflects a feature shared by the sūtras in this collection, namely, that the discourse contained in each of them is always delivered to a “great assembly” of infinite numbers of beings who have congregated to hear the teaching, and typically begins, “Blessed Śākyamuni, at that time, directed his gaze at the great assembly.” According to Jens Braarvig, the Mahāsannipāta was compiled in the first centuries of the common era during the formative period of the Mahāyāna canon. The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī, being part of the original core of this collection, must therefore have already existed by then.
The text of The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī extant today is available in the original Sanskrit, which is incomplete, and in the Tibetan canonical translation. The English translation presented here has been prepared from the incomplete Sanskrit text as critically edited by Kurumiya. Lacunae and missing sections were supplied from the Degé (sde dge) edition of the Tibetan translation. These lacunae vary in length from individual syllables to several lines of text, while folios are missing in blocks, from a single folio to a few, in various parts of the text. The parts translated from the Sanskrit—about two thirds of the text—were subsequently checked against and edited based on the Degé and other Tibetan Kangyur editions. The beginning and end of each section were translated entirely from the Tibetan, as indicated in the notes.
The colophon to the Tibetan translation, which is found in all major recensions of the Kangyur, states that it was produced by the Indian preceptor Śīlendrabodhi and the Tibetan translator Yeshé Dé. The text is also recorded in the Denkarma and Phangthangma inventories of Tibetan imperial translations, so we can establish that it was first translated from Sanskrit into Tibetan no later than the early ninth century, as the Denkarma is dated to 812
The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī shares much of its character and some of its themes with other sūtras and, like most sūtras of the Mahāsannipāta, has left a rich legacy in the subsequent Buddhist literature. It is quoted or referred to in a number of texts, either as a whole text or as its eponymous dhāraṇī, not least because of its salient theme of changing the female gender into male by means of the dhāraṇī. One such text is the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa, which recommends, in one of its rituals, the recitation of the text. One of the important mantras there is the heart essence of the buddha Ratnaketu (who seems to be an emanation of Mañjuśrī). This buddha is also part of the maṇḍala retinue of Mañjuśrī. He and the dhāraṇī goddess called Ratnaketu are also members of the large audience attending the original delivery of the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa.
The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī represents a mixture of genres. In the most general classification, it is a Mahāyāna sūtra, a discourse traditionally attributed to the Buddha that elaborates, through narratives and teachings, the basic Mahāyāna themes of altruism, morality, emptiness, selflessness, and the bodhisattva path to awakening. The term sūtra may be applied to individual sūtras, to some sūtra collections such as the Mahāsannipāta, and to the totality of sūtra literature. The more specific genres that The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī exemplifies, such as incantation (dhāraṇī) and exposition (vyākaraṇa), are subdivisions of the sūtra genre.
It is worth noting some of the salient features of these two genres as they are reflected in this text. The dhāraṇī genre, found in both the sūtra and tantra literature, is characterized by the presence of magical formulae that are held to play a critical role in promoting and preserving the Buddhist teachings. The word dhāraṇī derives from the root √dhṛ (to “hold,” “support,” “contain,” “retain,” or “remember”). The sense of containing could be applied to both the formula, which magically “contains” a certain quality or qualities, and also the person who has obtained this dhāraṇī formula or seal. Once they have obtained it, they become “sealed” or “stamped” with whatever quality the dhāraṇī contains, and they subsequently have the power to activate this quality or invoke the corresponding buddha activity. One thing a dhāraṇī is always a vehicle for—whether this is implied by the literal meaning of the term or not—is the blessing of the buddhas and the magical power sealed therein. Although the sūtras and commentaries like to dwell on the dhāraṇī-powers of retaining things in memory (probably to account for the literal meaning of “containing”), dhāraṇīs can open the door to innumerable other qualities, such as loving kindness, compassion, and so forth, and invoke any kind of activity. The main function of the Ratnaketu dhāraṇī, for example, is to purify the karma of being reborn as a woman and ensure a male birth; the power of this dhāraṇī is so great that it can even cause the instant transformation of a female body into a male one. The function of the second most important dhāraṇī in the Ratnaketu, the samucchrayavidhvaṃsanī (“terminator of birth”), is to terminate embodied rebirth in saṃsāra.
The term dhāraṇī is frequently paired in the sūtra literature with other terms, such as “door” (praveśa or mukha) or “seal” (mudrā). As a magical formula, a dhāraṇī constitutes the door to the infinite qualities of buddhahood, buddhahood itself, or the different types of buddha activity. Just as such qualities are innumerable, so are the dhāraṇī-doors. The Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra explains what a dhāraṇī-door is by bringing out the difference between “dhāraṇī-door” and “samādhi-door.” Just as a samādhi-door may allow access to any desired quality or magical power, so too can a dhāraṇī-door. The difference is that while the meditative absorption (samādhi) comes and goes, the incantation (dhāraṇī) never leaves those who have “obtained” it, following them like a shadow from life to life. This is because, when realizing or “obtaining” (pratilābha) a dhāraṇī, one becomes “sealed” or “stamped” with it—hence a dhāraṇī is also called a “dhāraṇī-seal.”
The term vyākaraṇa (from vi+ā+√kṛ) implies taking something apart and means a clear analysis or detailed presentation, and it has been translated throughout this text as “exposition.” The term also denotes a prophecy by the Buddha of a particular person or being attaining buddhahood, and, by extension, also a text containing such prophecies. In The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī, this term is probably used with both meanings (“exposition” and “text containing prophecies”) at once. What is unique to The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī is the feminine form—vyākaraṇī—of the term vyākaraṇa.
The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī also contains another important feature characteristic of its particular blend of genres, namely the stories of the former lives (pūrvayoga) of the Buddha and his disciples. This element is pervasive in Mahāyāna sūtras and also developed into a distinct genre, the jātaka stories, which are entirely dedicated to recounting the former lives of the Buddha as exemplary models of Buddhist morality.
Just as The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī is part of a larger sūtra (the Mahāsannipāta), the text itself consists of sections that may have originally been at least two separate sūtras. The first one, The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī proper, is centered around its eponymous dhāraṇī. It has its own consistent narrative with the same characters appearing throughout. It may be noted that portions of this section find parallels in other canonical texts. For instance, the account of the meeting between the two mendicants Aśvajit and Upatiṣya, wherein the latter learns of the former’s conversion to Buddhism, is to be found in the Pravrajyāvastu chapter of the Vinayavastu. This section extends as far as the latter part of chapter 5, at which point another dhāraṇī, the samucchrayavidhvaṃsanī (“terminator of birth”), becomes the main focus of the text. The latter dhāraṇī also has a large section devoted to it. Within this section, the whole text is consistently referred to by the name of the dhāraṇī, the Samucchrayavidhvaṃsanī, thus raising the possibility that this section once formed an independent work. This hypothesis is further supported by the fact that the name Ratnaketu is never used after the end of the first four and a half chapters, except in chapter colophons and the final dedication of merit. Furthermore, the Samucchrayavidhvaṃsanī section marks a change in the narrative, introducing new characters and stories, and it also introduces new terminology unique to this section. The continuing use of the name Ratnaketu in the chapter colophons might have been an attempt on the part of the redactors to give compositional integrity to the two (or three) texts presented as one.
After the Samucchrayavidhvaṃsanī section comes the story of the yakṣa general Āṭavaka, who recites to the audience his own dhāraṇīs. This story has an entire chapter (chapter 12) dedicated to it that constitutes a third main section of the work and may have been at some point an independent text.
The final chapter (chapter 13) dwells at length on the merits of the entire “Dharma discourse” and includes pledges from various gods and protectors to care for those who “in the future will uphold and preserve” it. In this chapter no distinction between, or references to, the two main sections or their eponymous dhāraṇīs are made, suggesting, again, that the redactors might have compiled the final chapter to bring the previous parts together in a single “Dharma discourse.”
Notwithstanding the evidence of it being a compilation, the Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī is unified by certain thematic elements that bridge its three main sections. We can identify three main elements that feature in each of its sections: (1) the narrative, (2) the Dharma instructions, which include both philosophy and practice, and (3) the magic. Magic figures prominently in each of the narratives, as when Śākyamuni or other buddhas or mythical beings, malign or beneficent, perform their supernatural deeds. Magic is also “sealed” in the magical formulae of the dhāraṇīs. Ultimately, though, there can be no distinction between these two types of magic, as the miraculous feats and the awesome power of the dhāraṇīs are inextricably linked—the feats are the buddha activity manifesting itself, and the dhāraṇīs are the Dharma methods that empower such activities. The unlocking of the magical power in a dhāraṇī may be effected only by someone who has “obtained” this dhāraṇī.
Despite its composite nature, The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī reflects a consistent soteriological aim. Through its varied narratives and teachings, the text explains and illustrates how to apply the Buddha’s teachings in order to attain final liberation and offers special Dharma methods—notably the dhāraṇīs—expressly for this purpose. It repeatedly affirms that such methods will ensure that Dharma will not perish in times to come but will resurface in times of need, such as the present dark age.
[B1] Homage to the thus-gone Splendorous with the Gentle Glow of Light and Fragrance!
Homage to the one with the melodious voice of Mahābrahmā!
Having paid homage to him, one should employ the dhāraṇī called unharmed by the assemblies of Māra. May I accomplish the following mantra:
Avāme avāme amvare amvare {TK4} parikuñja naṭa naṭa puṣkaravaha jalukha khama khaya ili mili kili mili kīrtipara mudre mudramukhe svāhā! {TK5}
Thus did I hear at one time. The Blessed One was dwelling in Veṇuvana, at the Kalandakanivāpa, near the city of Rājagṛha, with a great saṅgha of a thousand monks, all of whom were noble ones. They had all exhausted defilements, were free from the afflictions, were powerful, had liberated minds, had liberated insight, were of noble birth, were great elephants, had done what needed to be done, had completed their mission, had cast off the burden, had achieved their own welfare, had severed the bonds that tied them to existence, had liberated their minds with genuine knowledge, and had perfected all mental powers. There was also a great saṅgha of ten thousand bodhisattvas, including {TK6} the princely youth Holder of Meru’s Peak, the princely youth Varuṇamati, the princely youth Sumati, the princely youth Jayamati, the princely youth Jinamati, the princely youth Intelligent Light, the princely youth Intelligent Sky, the princely youth Intelligent Lightning, the princely youth Mañjuśrī, the princely youth Durdharṣa, the princely youth Varuṇa, the princely youth Vimala, the bodhisattva great being Maitreya, and others. Each of these ten thousand bodhisattvas had achieved acceptance, retention, and absorption. {TK7} Each possessed the wisdom that is unobscured by any phenomenon, had equal concern for all beings, had transcended all the domains of Māra, and had entered the domain of all the thus-gone ones. Each was knowledgeable, possessed great love and compassion, and was skilled in means.
At the same time, there were two wandering mendicants in the city of Rājagṛha who were learned, lucid, and intelligent, had perfected the eighteen branches of knowledge, and had five hundred servants. One was named Upatiṣya and the other Kaulita. These two were heads of their retinues and leaders of pupils. They made each other the promise that “whoever first attains the nectar shall let the other know.” {TK8}
Early the next morning, Venerable Aśvajit donned his lower and upper Dharma robes. Carrying his alms bowl, he went to the city of Rājagṛha to collect alms. The wandering mendicant Upatiṣya happened to come across Venerable Aśvajit and saw that he had entered the city of Rājagṛha to collect alms. He thought, “How is it that I have never before seen such beautiful deportment in any other mendicant, brahmin, or person as in this mendicant? I shall go before him and ask, ‘Venerable One, who is your teacher? With whom did you go forth? Whose doctrine are you devoted to?’”
So the wandering mendicant Upatiṣya went to where Venerable Aśvajit was and engaged in a good deal of friendly conversation. They then sat down to one side. Sitting there, the wandering mendicant Upatiṣya asked Venerable Aśvajit, “Venerable One, who is your teacher? With whom did you go forth? Whose doctrine are you devoted to?”
Then Venerable Aśvajit answered the wandering mendicant Upatiṣya: {TK9}
“What does your teacher preach? What does he teach?” asked Upatiṣya.
Venerable Aśvajit responded, “I will answer you. Venerable, listen well and bear what I say in mind. I will answer you.
When the wandering mendicant Upatiṣya heard this teaching, he purified the stainless and immaculate Dharma eye that sees phenomena. A state free from the afflictions arose, and he attained the fruit of stream entry. He then said:
The wandering mendicant Upatiṣya then asked Venerable Aśvajit, “Venerable, where is the thus-gone, worthy, perfect Buddha right now?”
Venerable Aśvajit answered, {TK11} “Venerable, the Blessed One is now staying in Veṇuvana, at the Kalandakanivāpa, near Rājagṛha. He is residing there with the great monastic saṅgha of one thousand monks who have gone forth and who used to have matted hair.”
Upatiṣya said, “Once I have seen my best friend and disciples, I will vow to go forth before the Blessed One.”
The wandering mendicant Upatiṣya then bowed his head to the feet of Venerable Aśvajit and circumambulated him three times. He once again departed and went to meet the wandering mendicant Kaulita. The wandering mendicant Kaulita saw the wandering mendicant Upatiṣya coming from far off and exclaimed, “Venerable, given that your faculties look so clear, that your facial complexion looks so pure, and that the tone of your skin looks so light—Venerable, you must have found the nectar!”
“So it is, Venerable One!” Upatiṣya responded. “I have found the nectar! Therefore, Venerable, listen well and bear what I say in mind. I will tell you of what I have found.”
The wandering mendicant Kaulita then rose from his seat, draped his shawl over one shoulder, and knelt on his right knee. With palms together he bowed toward Upatiṣya and said: {TK12}
The wandering mendicant Upatiṣya then said:
Kaulita responded:
Upatiṣya said:
The wandering mendicant Kaulita then purified the stainless and immaculate Dharma eye that sees phenomena. As he was thus purified and his afflictions were eliminated, he attained the fruit of stream entry. Then he proclaimed:
Kaulita asked, “Where is the thus-gone, worthy, perfect Buddha right now?”
“Venerable,” Upatiṣya answered, “I have heard that the Blessed One is now staying in Veṇuvana, at the Kalandakanivāpa, near Rājagṛha, with a great saṅgha of monks and a great saṅgha of bodhisattvas. {TK14} What if we go forth in the presence of the Blessed One?”
“Venerable One,” replied Kaulita, “we should do so. With our followers in mind, let us go forth.”
The wandering mendicants Upatiṣya and Kaulita then went to their followers.
Just then in the land of Aṅga-Magadha, Māra the evil one heard that the learned, well-spoken, eloquent, and renowned good men Upatiṣya and Kaulita, along with their followers, were on their way to take ordination under the teachings of the monk Gautama. He thought, “Alas! If those two become students of the monk Gautama, they will empty my māra realm. So I must go there and dissuade those two good men from going forth. {K1} I must make them embrace the view of the evil one.”
At the same moment, Māra, the evil one, disappeared from his abode and took on the apparel, attributes, and behavior of Venerable Aśvajit. He stood in the road before the two good men, and declared:
Upatiṣya and Kaulita then thought, “It must be Māra, the evil one, who has approached us in order to dissuade us from entering the religious life.”
Upatiṣya turned around and addressed his followers. “Listen, my pupils, and remember the shortcomings of saṃsāra:
Kaulita, for his part, spoke to Māra:
Those gods who were able to behold truth hovered in the sky and {K3} applauded these two good men: “Good, good it is, O good men! This path whereby one leaves home to embrace the life of a wandering mendicant is eminent throughout the entire world. It quells all suffering. It is the path leading into the domain of all the thus-gone ones. {TK16} It has been explained and praised by all the blessed buddhas as the path that leads from home to the life of a wandering mendicant.”
Māra, the evil one, unhappy, dejected, and sullen, disappeared then from that very spot.
The two wandering mendicants, Upatiṣya and Kaulita, directed their gaze at their followers and said, “You ought to know, pupils, that owing to the Thus-Gone One the two of us are setting forth into the wandering mendicant’s life in order to reach the far shore of the ocean of aging, sickness, and death. Any of you who do not wish to go forth in line with the teachings of the Blessed One should turn back here and now.”
Then the five hundred pupils all said, “Whatever we know is through your authority. If the two of you are embracing the wandering mendicant’s life on account of someone great, we too shall become wandering mendicants on account of the same person.”
The two wandering mendicants Upatiṣya and Kaulita, together with their retinue of five hundred, then set out to go forth under the Blessed One. Māra, the evil one, knew this, and so he conjured up a huge chasm outside of the great city of Rājagṛha one hundred leagues deep {K4} so that the two would be unable to go before Gautama the monk. The Blessed One, however, performed a miraculous feat whereby the wandering mendicants Upatiṣya and Kaulita did not see that great chasm and could travel by the most direct route.
Māra, the evil one, further conjured a mountain range in front of them—stable, solid, unbreakable, without valleys, singularly thick, hard, and one thousand leagues tall. {TK17} In addition, he conjured one thousand fierce lions, vicious and terrible, making a great din. But the two good men, thanks to the force of the Blessed One’s splendor and miraculous powers, did not see that mountain. Nor did they see the lions or hear their roaring. Instead, they arrived where the Blessed One was by the straightest possible route.
The Blessed One, attended upon by a congregation of many hundreds of thousands of followers, was expounding the Dharma. “Look, O monks, at these two good men, surrounded by followers, who are the heads of their assembly!”
“We see them, O Blessed One,” they replied.
The Blessed One foresaw, “Of these two good men who are here, along with their retinues, to enter the wandering mendicant’s life by my side, one will become the best of those endowed with insight among all the hearers, {K5} and the other will become the best of those endowed with miraculous powers.”
One of the monks recited on that occasion the following stanza:
The monk then got up from his seat and, together with many other monks, householders, and wandering mendicants, welcomed the two good men and honored them. The two men, for their part, moved near to the Blessed One, bowed their heads to his feet, circumambulated him clockwise three times, and, standing before him, said, “Please allow us to go forth and bestow the monk’s ordination upon us. Close to you, {TK18} let us practice celibacy.”
“What are your names, O noble sons?” asked the Blessed One.
Upatiṣya replied, “I am the son of the brahmin Tiṣya, and so I am called Upatiṣya. My mother’s name is Śārikā. As I was born of her, my given name is Śāriputra. {K6} I already have my parents’ permission to go forth.”
Kaulita replied, “My father’s name is Kauṇḍinya, and so I am called Kaulita. My mother’s name is Mudgalā, so the common name given to me is Maudgalyāyana. Some people know me as Kaulita, while others as Maudgalyāyana. I already have my parents’ permission to go forth.”
“Śāriputra, Maudgalyāyana, and your retinues, you may live the holy life by my side,” said the Blessed One.
This is how they went forth and received their ordination as monks.
Not long after Śāriputra, Maudgalyāyana, and their retinues had gone forth, Māra, the evil one, assuming the form of Maheśvara, stood in front of the Blessed One and said:
The Blessed One replied: {K7}
Māra, the evil one, then disappeared in his form of Maheśvara, and again reappeared in front of the Blessed One in the guise of Brahmā, saying:
The Blessed One replied:
Māra, the evil one, again became unhappy, dejected, and sullen. He vanished on the spot and went back to his abode. He sat there, sinking into despondency. Immediately, all the beings who inhabited Māra’s abode started asking one another, “What could be the reason that our great king just sits there, sinking into despondency? Nobody knows why.”
Then the five hundred daughters of Māra, wearing clothes and adornments most pleasing to the mind, brought flower garlands and unguents capable of giving supreme pleasure. They played celestial instruments with the most captivating sounds that totally thrill the mind, danced, and sang songs. With sounds of a great celestial orchestra composed of five types of instruments that amuse and delight, they stood in front of the evil Māra. But he, the evil one, stretched forth his arms and cried out, “Stop this noise! Stop this noise!”
At these words, the celestial nymphs fell silent for a moment, but then broke into song again, striking and strumming their instruments. At that, Māra, the evil one, once again threw up his arms and began to bellow. Seven times the nymphs began to sing, dance, and play instruments, in ways bound to give pleasure, and seven times Māra, the evil one, threw {K9} his arms in the air and hollered, “Stop this noise! Stop this noise!” Thus commanded, the nymphs fell silent. However, one nymph called Vidyudvalgusvarā bowed in the direction of the evil Māra and asked:
Māra replied:
The nymphs inquired:
Māra replied:
Having heard this description of the Blessed One’s virtues from the evil Māra, all of his five hundred daughters attained the bodhisattva absorption formless bolt of lightning. {K11} To offer worship to the Blessed One, they cast in his direction items such as celestial instruments, flowers, perfume, garlands, fragrant oils, adornments, and jewelry. They cast them in the direction of the Blessed One, by whose magical power these instruments and so forth rained down onto Veṇuvana, and the daughters themselves, along with their retinues, could see it raining. Seeing that such rain was falling upon Veṇuvana, they were delighted and delighted even more.
The monks, however, became suspicious and asked the Blessed One, “How is it, O Blessed One, that such a marvelous and extraordinary rain, never seen or heard before, is showering upon Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana along with their retinues? What could be the cause of it? What is the occasion?”
The Blessed One replied, “It is not by the will of these two noble sons that this great rain of flowers and so forth is falling. Rather, it was released from the abode of the evil Māra by his five hundred daughters along with their retinues, {TK23} in order to worship me. Soon they will come here and receive from me the prophecy regarding their attainment of the unsurpassed and perfect awakening.” {K12}
The five hundred daughters of Māra, the evil one, heard the Blessed One’s discourse from his own mouth and were overjoyed. Through faith and intense joy, which they developed in his presence, they attained the absorption not losing the mind of awakening. Subsequently, right there in Māra’s abode, they each donned a robe of a single piece of material, and they placed their right knees on the ground, folded their hands, and, looking in the direction where the Blessed One was seated, said:
The daughters then rose from their seats and, in one voice, said this to Māra, the evil one: {TK24}
But the evil Māra, his mind absolutely corrupted, thought this: “I must now think of such force, within the power of Māra, that these five hundred along with their retinues will each be snared and bound with five fetters and turned back at this very point, not being able to proceed any further.”
However, Māra was unable to bind them. Why was that? Because these five hundred with their retinues had been blessed by the Thus-Gone One. He was unable to stop them, and the five hundred, along with their retinues, went before Māra, the evil one, {K14} who became even more enraged. He thought, “I must now think of such force, within the power of Māra, {TK25} that this entire area becomes covered in thick black clouds and pummeled by violent gusts of wind, so that they get lost wandering in all directions with their retinues and, unable to see the monk Gautama, will return to my abode.”
However, because of the power of the Buddha’s blessing, he was unable to raise sufficient wind to stir even a single hair tip, not to mention anything more. The evil Māra then became even more unhappy, dejected, and sullen. Crying, he bellowed in a forceful voice to the hosts of his sons along with their retinues, engulfing the entire abode of Māra with these words:
At these words, all of Māra’s daughters and servant girls, as well as all {K15} his sons with their retinues, {TK26} making haste, swiftly approached and stood in front of Māra, the evil one. There was in that gathering a son by the name Jayamati. With folded hands he inquired:
Māra replied:
All the sons of Māra with their numerous retinues folded their hands and promised, “We will do it. What we can do is put on a display of our magical powers, strength, dominion, authority, and miracles. If we are able to turn the son of the Śākyas to ashes, that’s good. If we are unable to, we shall take refuge in him. You yourself, O Father, have witnessed that we, surrounded by our huge army, have previously been defeated by the son of the Śākyas acting alone, without a companion, using merely his magical powers. What then can we expect if he is surrounded by his followers?”
Māra, the evil one, replied, “You should go anyway, my good sons! If you manage to kill that monk Gautama, come back again. If you can’t manage this, you should still return, as we will have to defend our abode.” {TK28}
Then Māra’s twelve trillion attendants, {K17} in a formation stretching upward for more than three hundred and twenty leagues and spreading over an area of thousands of leagues, displayed the magical power and speed of Māra’s army. They filled the entire space over the four continents with thick black clouds and struck the king of mountains, Sumeru, with their hands, releasing black tornadoes and lightning bolts and making all the four continents shake violently. They uttered the most terrifying cries. Subsequently, the nāgas, great nāgas, yakṣas, and great yakṣas assembled in the sky when they witnessed that the entire great earth with its rocks, mountains, and mountain ranges—including even Sumeru, the king of mountains—was quaking, and that the lakes, great lakes, rivers great and small, and the great oceans were churning. The great assembly of Māra’s followers stood on top of Mount Sumeru, conjured up rain pellets one league in size, and released them onto the country of Aṅga-Magadha. They also conjured up and released a great rain of swords, clubs, stones, lances, javelins, razor blades, razors mounted on objects, razor-like objects, adzes mounted on objects, adze blades, and terrible wheels armed with teeth—a downpour of solid, hard, rough objects.
At this time, the Blessed One entered the absorption grinding the hosts of Māra. Through its blessing power the whole rain of stones and weapons {TK29} turned into a rain of celestial flowers, such as lotuses and water lilies in white, red, and blue varieties and flowers of the coral tree and the great coral tree.{K18} He also transformed through his blessing all the different yells and noises into melodious sounds, the sounds of the Buddha, the Dharma, the Saṅgha, the perfections, the superknowledges, the state of not turning back, consecration, victory over the four māras, going to the seat of awakening,… the state of clinging to existence, and the state without clinging. All the wind, darkness, and dust settled down. All the grasses, bushes, herbs, trees, soil, rocks, and mountains—whatever there were in the four continents—turned into the seven precious gems by the power of his blessing.
The Blessed One, endowed with an uṣṇīṣa that is not fully visible, extended his control by means of his body as far as the realm of Brahmā. From each of the Blessed One’s major marks a light issued forth of such a kind that the world spheres of the great trichiliocosm became clearly and distinctly visible, illuminated by their great radiance. And whatever gods, nāgas, yakṣas, gandharvas, asuras, garuḍas, kinnaras, mahoragas, pretas, piśācas, kumbhāṇḍas, humans, nonhuman beings, animals, {TK30} and denizens of the hells and the realms of Yama there were in the great trichiliocosm, all were able to see the Blessed One. Many hundreds of thousands of gods, nāgas, yakṣas, and human and nonhuman beings arrayed in the sky threw flowers, circumambulated the Blessed One clockwise, praised him, and bowed to him. Many hundreds of thousands of millions of hell beings, animals, and denizens of Yama’s realms attained recollection. Recollecting the roots of virtue planted in former lives, they chanted, “Homage to the Buddha!” {K19} Having died and transmigrated from the lower realms, they were reborn as gods.
Twenty-two hundred thousand of the soldiers of Māra, along with their numerous retinues, witnessed this display of miracles by the Blessed One and developed deep faith in his presence. They approached him accompanied by the five hundred daughters of Māra. Together they bowed their heads to the Blessed One’s feet and with folded hands uttered these stanzas for him:
All the sons and daughters of Māra, together with their numerous retinues, then sprinkled flowers over the Blessed One. Through the Blessed One’s magical power, however, the scattered flowers turned into many thousands of millions of billions of flower parasols, exceeding in number even the sand grains in the Gaṅgā. The flower parasols remained in midair above the crowns of the heads of all the living buddhas in the ten directions.
The daughters of Māra with their retinues beheld {K22} these flower parasols positioned above the crowns of the heads of the living blessed buddhas, who were expounding the Dharma, surrounded by their followers, in innumerable and infinitely vast buddha fields in every direction. They were all sitting down, resplendent with light. They all had the same color, attributes, form, and appearance. {TK33} The only differences that the daughters could see were among the individual lion thrones of these blessed buddhas, their retinues, and the marvelous characteristics of their individual buddha fields. They also heard the stanzas recited by the blessed buddhas to the sound of lutes.
And so this retinue of Māra, having seen such a miraculous display through the power of the Blessed One, developed strong faith. They bowed their heads to his feet and sat down in front of him to listen to the Dharma.
However, from among Māra’s sons, along with their retinues, ten trillion returned back to Māra’s abode and relayed to Māra, the evil one, this detailed account: “We weren’t able to harm even a single pore of the skin of that monk Gautama, let alone kill him. And furthermore, twenty thousand of your children have taken refuge with him and are now sitting in front of him to hear the Dharma.”
The evil Māra, enraged, unhappy, dejected, and even more sullen, lamented:
Then Māra, the evil one, sat down, sinking into despondency.
Here ends the first chapter, “The Intimidation of Māra,” from the Mahāyāna sūtra [called] “Ratnaketu.” {K24} {TK34} [B2]