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The five dhāraṇīs presented here, which are to be recited in Sanskrit, are used to worship the buddhas and bodhisattvas, a common practice found throughout Mahāyāna Buddhism. The sequence of worship includes paying homage, offering praise, blessing the offerings, presenting clouds of limitless offerings, and worshiping the buddhas’ feet with the crown of one’s head.
This publication was completed under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.
The text was translated, edited, and introduced by the 84000 translation team. Dylan Esler produced the translation and wrote the introduction. Laura Goetz edited the translation and the introduction, and Dawn Collins copyedited the text. Martina Cotter was in charge of the digital publication process.
The five dhāraṇīs presented here are used to worship the buddhas and bodhisattvas, a common practice found throughout Mahāyāna Buddhist traditions. The five dhāraṇīs are often considered to be a single text, and hence they are presented together here. The order in which they appear provides an outline of the steps involved in the ritual worship of buddhas and bodhisattvas: the practitioner first pays homage and then offers praise, and then moves on to bless and then present the offerings before the buddhas and bodhisattvas, with the offerings imagined to be like clouds filling the immensity of space. The final dhāraṇī seems to be intended as an all-encompassing form of worship that concludes the set. While the five dhāraṇīs can constitute an essential form of ritual worship in their own right, they can also be integrated within wider ritual structures, and it is clear that several of them found their way, independently, into other Kangyur texts, as will be seen below.
There is unfortunately little historical information available about the genesis of these dhāraṇīs. Nonetheless, we can assume that they circulated widely and were practiced in India, probably as independent texts, and that this justified their eventual inclusion within the Kangyur. In the Degé Kangyur, the five dhāraṇīs are found within both the Action Tantra section (Toh 539 and Toh 539a–d) and the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs section (Toh 1069–1073).11 The five dhāraṇīs are presented here in phonetically transcribed Sanskrit, as is common for dhāraṇīs in general. There is no accompanying text other than brief instructions on the function of each dhāraṇī and the number of times it should be recited. The dhāraṇīs lack both a title and a colophon, thus there is no information therein on how they were transmitted to Tibet. The titles used in the present translation have been drawn from the descriptions of the functions of the various dhāraṇīs, as has indeed been done in the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) of the Action Tantra section, which follows the fourth chapter of the Degé Kangyur Catalog.2
The five dhāraṇīs are not found in all editions of the Kangyur. For instance, they are absent from the Lhasa Kangyur, as well as from the Kangyurs deriving from the Thempangma line, such as the Stok Palace Kangyur. Furthermore, they are not listed in the ninth-century catalogs of imperially sanctioned translations, the Denkarma and Phangthangma, which suggests that their transmission to Tibet, at least as a codified set, occurred at a later date. They are also not found among the dhāraṇīs reproduced in the Dunhuang manuscripts.
It will be noted that the penultimate dhāraṇī, The Dhāraṇī for the Arising of Clouds of Offerings (Toh 539c/1072), has a similar title to a dhāraṇī that is listed in the imperial catalogs3 and found among the Dunhuang manuscripts,4 The Dhāraṇī That Is a Cloud of Offerings (Pūjameghanāmadhāraṇī, Toh 538/1068), but it is not identical. In several of the Kangyurs of the Tshalpa line, including the Degé, Urga, Qianlong, Choné, and Lithang Kangyurs, the five dhāraṇīs are placed immediately after The Dhāraṇī That Is a Cloud of Offerings. In the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs section of the Comparative Edition, the five dhāraṇīs are even presented as if they were an appendage of The Dhāraṇī That Is a Cloud of Offerings, giving the mistaken impression that they are part of the same text.
The first dhāraṇī, The Dhāraṇī for Homage (Toh 539/1069), has the same title as Toh 779/1049, although both texts are in fact distinct. Moreover, the dhāraṇī is found in identical form as the text of another dhāraṇī, The Dhāraṇī for Circumambulation (Toh 775/1075).5 There it is found together with an introductory Tibetan translation of the first part of the dhāraṇī (up to samyaksaṃbuddhāya) and is recited, as the dhāraṇī’s name suggests, while circumambulating stūpas or sacred sites.
The second dhāraṇī, The Dhāraṇī for Praise (Toh 539a/1070), is mentioned on several occasions in The Sovereign Tantra That Lays Out the Three Pledges (Toh 502). The tantra specifies the same number of repetitions (i.e., eight) as given in the present text.6 The last three dhāraṇīs do not appear to be present in other Kangyur texts.
Several of the dhāraṇīs are also mentioned in Indian treatises preserved in the Tengyur, an indication of their popularity in India, although some of these Indian treatises themselves are fairly late. Thus, The Dhāraṇī for Homage is mentioned in A [Stūpa] Rite Illuminating the Body of Reality by Kālacakrapāda (ca. eleventh century),7 and in A Ritual for Stamping Clay Images by Ajitamitragupta the dhāraṇī is incorporated within a larger mantra used to stamp clay images.8 Likewise, The Dhāraṇī for Praise is mentioned in The Compendium of Evocations by Kumudākaramati9 and Entering into the Maṇḍala of the Noble Tārā by Bhavabhaṭṭa (early tenth century).10 The Dhāraṇī for Blessing the Offerings is given in a slightly expanded form (with the addition of samanta svāhā at the end) in The Seminal Nucleus of the Actual Realization of the Glorious Hevajra by Śākyarakṣita.11 It is also mentioned in Sahajalalita’s A Hālāhala Evocation, which exists in two translations in the Tengyur,12 and, with an additional phaṭ syllable at the end, in the anonymous Offering Rite of the Noble Arapacana Mantra.13
All five dhāraṇīs are discussed in The Main Path to Enlightenment by Abhayākaragupta (d. 1125), who picks up and, in some cases, slightly expands on the instructions regarding their various functions.14 For example, he explains that The Dhāraṇī for Homage should be recited when paying homage to a stūpa,15 and he specifies that when pronouncing The Dhāraṇī for the Arising of Clouds of Offerings one should imagine that clouds of offerings spread before the buddhas and bodhisattvas (which is indeed the meaning of the dhāraṇī’s words).16
The five dhāraṇīs are also mentioned in Collected Dhāraṇīs from the Four Sections of the Secret Mantrayāna by Butön Rinchen Drup (bu ston rin chen grub, 1290–1364), the great Tibetan scholar who played an important role in the compilation of the Kangyur and Tengyur. In his text they are called mantras. However, the names (and hence, functions) assigned to them are not quite the same as those that we have in the Kangyur: while the first dhāraṇī is called The Mantra for Homage, the second, third, and fourth dhāraṇīs are all grouped together as a single Mantra for Praise, and the fifth dhāraṇī is called The Mantra for the Arising of Clouds of Offerings,17 which in the Kangyur is the function assigned instead to the fourth dhāraṇī.
This translation is based on the dhāraṇīs as preserved in the Action Tantra section and the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs section of the Degé Kangyur, the text being very close in both cases. Reference has also been made to the variants reported in the Comparative Edition, although the differences were found to be negligible. In the case of the fifth dhāraṇī, a reading from Butön’s Collected Dhāraṇīs was found to be preferable. The dhāraṇīs are given in transliterated Sanskrit, with a tentative translation being provided in the notes.
1818oṁ namo bhagavate ratnaketurājāya | tathāgatāya | arhate samyaksaṃbuddhāya | tadyathā | oṁ ratne ratne mahāratne ratnavijaye19 svāhā ||20
Pronouncing this eight times, one should pay homage.
namaḥ sarvabuddhabodhisatvānām | sarvatra saṃkusumita21 abhijñā rāśini22 namostute svāhā ||23
Pronouncing this eight times, one should praise.
oṁ sarvatathāgata pūjamegha prasara samūhe24 spharaṇa imaṃ gaganakaṃ hūṁ ||25
Thus should the offerings be blessed.
namaḥ sarvabuddhabodhisatvānām | sarvathā udgate spharaṇa imaṃ gaganakaṃ samanta svāhā ||26
If one pronounces this eight times, clouds of offerings will arise.
namaḥ sarvabuddhabodhisatvebhyaḥ | sarvavīta pūra pūra |27 āvarta abhaye28 svāhā ||29
Pronouncing this, one worships and attends to the thus-gone ones, paying homage to their feet with the crown of one’s head.
The five dhāraṇīs presented here, which are to be recited in Sanskrit, are used to worship the buddhas and bodhisattvas, a common practice found throughout Mahāyāna Buddhism. The sequence of worship includes paying homage, offering praise, blessing the offerings, presenting clouds of limitless offerings, and worshiping the buddhas’ feet with the crown of one’s head.
This publication was completed under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.
The text was translated, edited, and introduced by the 84000 translation team. Dylan Esler produced the translation and wrote the introduction. Laura Goetz edited the translation and the introduction, and Dawn Collins copyedited the text. Martina Cotter was in charge of the digital publication process.
The five dhāraṇīs presented here are used to worship the buddhas and bodhisattvas, a common practice found throughout Mahāyāna Buddhist traditions. The five dhāraṇīs are often considered to be a single text, and hence they are presented together here. The order in which they appear provides an outline of the steps involved in the ritual worship of buddhas and bodhisattvas: the practitioner first pays homage and then offers praise, and then moves on to bless and then present the offerings before the buddhas and bodhisattvas, with the offerings imagined to be like clouds filling the immensity of space. The final dhāraṇī seems to be intended as an all-encompassing form of worship that concludes the set. While the five dhāraṇīs can constitute an essential form of ritual worship in their own right, they can also be integrated within wider ritual structures, and it is clear that several of them found their way, independently, into other Kangyur texts, as will be seen below.
There is unfortunately little historical information available about the genesis of these dhāraṇīs. Nonetheless, we can assume that they circulated widely and were practiced in India, probably as independent texts, and that this justified their eventual inclusion within the Kangyur. In the Degé Kangyur, the five dhāraṇīs are found within both the Action Tantra section (Toh 539 and Toh 539a–d) and the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs section (Toh 1069–1073).11 The five dhāraṇīs are presented here in phonetically transcribed Sanskrit, as is common for dhāraṇīs in general. There is no accompanying text other than brief instructions on the function of each dhāraṇī and the number of times it should be recited. The dhāraṇīs lack both a title and a colophon, thus there is no information therein on how they were transmitted to Tibet. The titles used in the present translation have been drawn from the descriptions of the functions of the various dhāraṇīs, as has indeed been done in the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) of the Action Tantra section, which follows the fourth chapter of the Degé Kangyur Catalog.2
The five dhāraṇīs are not found in all editions of the Kangyur. For instance, they are absent from the Lhasa Kangyur, as well as from the Kangyurs deriving from the Thempangma line, such as the Stok Palace Kangyur. Furthermore, they are not listed in the ninth-century catalogs of imperially sanctioned translations, the Denkarma and Phangthangma, which suggests that their transmission to Tibet, at least as a codified set, occurred at a later date. They are also not found among the dhāraṇīs reproduced in the Dunhuang manuscripts.
It will be noted that the penultimate dhāraṇī, The Dhāraṇī for the Arising of Clouds of Offerings (Toh 539c/1072), has a similar title to a dhāraṇī that is listed in the imperial catalogs3 and found among the Dunhuang manuscripts,4 The Dhāraṇī That Is a Cloud of Offerings (Pūjameghanāmadhāraṇī, Toh 538/1068), but it is not identical. In several of the Kangyurs of the Tshalpa line, including the Degé, Urga, Qianlong, Choné, and Lithang Kangyurs, the five dhāraṇīs are placed immediately after The Dhāraṇī That Is a Cloud of Offerings. In the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs section of the Comparative Edition, the five dhāraṇīs are even presented as if they were an appendage of The Dhāraṇī That Is a Cloud of Offerings, giving the mistaken impression that they are part of the same text.
The first dhāraṇī, The Dhāraṇī for Homage (Toh 539/1069), has the same title as Toh 779/1049, although both texts are in fact distinct. Moreover, the dhāraṇī is found in identical form as the text of another dhāraṇī, The Dhāraṇī for Circumambulation (Toh 775/1075).5 There it is found together with an introductory Tibetan translation of the first part of the dhāraṇī (up to samyaksaṃbuddhāya) and is recited, as the dhāraṇī’s name suggests, while circumambulating stūpas or sacred sites.
The second dhāraṇī, The Dhāraṇī for Praise (Toh 539a/1070), is mentioned on several occasions in The Sovereign Tantra That Lays Out the Three Pledges (Toh 502). The tantra specifies the same number of repetitions (i.e., eight) as given in the present text.6 The last three dhāraṇīs do not appear to be present in other Kangyur texts.
Several of the dhāraṇīs are also mentioned in Indian treatises preserved in the Tengyur, an indication of their popularity in India, although some of these Indian treatises themselves are fairly late. Thus, The Dhāraṇī for Homage is mentioned in A [Stūpa] Rite Illuminating the Body of Reality by Kālacakrapāda (ca. eleventh century),7 and in A Ritual for Stamping Clay Images by Ajitamitragupta the dhāraṇī is incorporated within a larger mantra used to stamp clay images.8 Likewise, The Dhāraṇī for Praise is mentioned in The Compendium of Evocations by Kumudākaramati9 and Entering into the Maṇḍala of the Noble Tārā by Bhavabhaṭṭa (early tenth century).10 The Dhāraṇī for Blessing the Offerings is given in a slightly expanded form (with the addition of samanta svāhā at the end) in The Seminal Nucleus of the Actual Realization of the Glorious Hevajra by Śākyarakṣita.11 It is also mentioned in Sahajalalita’s A Hālāhala Evocation, which exists in two translations in the Tengyur,12 and, with an additional phaṭ syllable at the end, in the anonymous Offering Rite of the Noble Arapacana Mantra.13
All five dhāraṇīs are discussed in The Main Path to Enlightenment by Abhayākaragupta (d. 1125), who picks up and, in some cases, slightly expands on the instructions regarding their various functions.14 For example, he explains that The Dhāraṇī for Homage should be recited when paying homage to a stūpa,15 and he specifies that when pronouncing The Dhāraṇī for the Arising of Clouds of Offerings one should imagine that clouds of offerings spread before the buddhas and bodhisattvas (which is indeed the meaning of the dhāraṇī’s words).16
The five dhāraṇīs are also mentioned in Collected Dhāraṇīs from the Four Sections of the Secret Mantrayāna by Butön Rinchen Drup (bu ston rin chen grub, 1290–1364), the great Tibetan scholar who played an important role in the compilation of the Kangyur and Tengyur. In his text they are called mantras. However, the names (and hence, functions) assigned to them are not quite the same as those that we have in the Kangyur: while the first dhāraṇī is called The Mantra for Homage, the second, third, and fourth dhāraṇīs are all grouped together as a single Mantra for Praise, and the fifth dhāraṇī is called The Mantra for the Arising of Clouds of Offerings,17 which in the Kangyur is the function assigned instead to the fourth dhāraṇī.
This translation is based on the dhāraṇīs as preserved in the Action Tantra section and the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs section of the Degé Kangyur, the text being very close in both cases. Reference has also been made to the variants reported in the Comparative Edition, although the differences were found to be negligible. In the case of the fifth dhāraṇī, a reading from Butön’s Collected Dhāraṇīs was found to be preferable. The dhāraṇīs are given in transliterated Sanskrit, with a tentative translation being provided in the notes.
1818oṁ namo bhagavate ratnaketurājāya | tathāgatāya | arhate samyaksaṃbuddhāya | tadyathā | oṁ ratne ratne mahāratne ratnavijaye19 svāhā ||20
Pronouncing this eight times, one should pay homage.
namaḥ sarvabuddhabodhisatvānām | sarvatra saṃkusumita21 abhijñā rāśini22 namostute svāhā ||23
Pronouncing this eight times, one should praise.
oṁ sarvatathāgata pūjamegha prasara samūhe24 spharaṇa imaṃ gaganakaṃ hūṁ ||25
Thus should the offerings be blessed.
namaḥ sarvabuddhabodhisatvānām | sarvathā udgate spharaṇa imaṃ gaganakaṃ samanta svāhā ||26
If one pronounces this eight times, clouds of offerings will arise.
namaḥ sarvabuddhabodhisatvebhyaḥ | sarvavīta pūra pūra |27 āvarta abhaye28 svāhā ||29
Pronouncing this, one worships and attends to the thus-gone ones, paying homage to their feet with the crown of one’s head.
This set of texts, Toh 1069–1073, and all those contained in this same volume (gzungs ’dus, waM), are listed as being located in volume 101 of the Degé Kangyur by the Buddhist Digital Resource Center (BDRC). However, several other Kangyur databases—including the eKangyur that supplies the digital input version displayed by the 84000 Reading Room—list this work as being located in volume 102. This discrepancy is partly due to the fact that the two volumes of the gzungs ’dus section are an added supplement not mentioned in the original catalog, and also hinges on the fact that the compilers of the Tōhoku catalog placed another text—which forms a whole, very large volume—the Vimalaprabhānāmakālacakratantraṭīkā (dus ’khor ’grel bshad dri med ’od, Toh 845), before the volume 100 of the Degé Kangyur, numbering it as vol. 100, although it is almost certainly intended to come right at the end of the Degé Kangyur texts as volume 102; indeed its final fifth chapter is often carried over and wrapped in the same volume as the Kangyur dkar chags (catalog). Please note this discrepancy when using the eKangyur viewer in this translation.
Toh 4568-4. The Degé Kangyur Catalog, written by the Eighth Tai Situ, Chökyi Jungné (1700–1774
The Pūjameghanāmadhāraṇī is found among the following Dunhuang manuscripts: IOL Tib J 140/2, IOL Tib J 141/2, IOL Tib J 366/2, IOL Tib J 369/2, Pelliot tibétain 23/2, Pelliot tibétain 24/2, Pelliot tibétain 27/2, Pelliot tibétain 78, and Pelliot tibétain 427. See Dalton and van Schaik 2006, pp. 20–22, p. 98, p. 102.
The Sovereign Tantra That Lays Out the Three Pledges (Trisamayavyūhatantra, Toh 502 ). A variant of the dhāraṇī, which instead of saṃkusumita abhijñā rāśini reads saṃkusumitī rāśini, is also found on folio 229.b.
Kālacakrapāda, A [Stūpa] Rite Illuminating the Body of Reality (Dharmakāyadīpavidhi, Toh 1953).
Ajitamitragupta, A Ritual for Stamping Clay Images (tsha tsha ’debs pa’i cho ga, Toh 2846). The larger mantra involves the addition of the following syllables at the end: oṁ aḥ hrīḥ hūṁ phaṭ svāhā.
Bhavabhaṭṭa, Entering into the Maṇḍala of the Noble Tārā (Āryatārāmaṇḍalāvatārakrityā, Toh 3675).
Śākyarakṣita, The Seminal Nucleus of the Actual Realization of the Glorious Hevajra (Śrīhevajrābhisamayatilaka, Toh 1277).
Abhayākaragupta, The Main Path to Enlightenment (Bodhipaddhati, Toh 3766): The Dhāraṇī for Homage occurs at folio 120.a, The Dhāraṇī for Praise at 123.b, The Dhāraṇī for Blessing the Offerings and The Dhāraṇī for the Arising of Clouds of Offerings at 122.b, and The Dhāraṇī with Which the Thus-Gone Ones are Worshiped and Attended to and with Which Homage Is Paid to Their Feet with the Crown of One’s Head at 124.b.
Butön Rinchen Drup, Collected Dhāraṇīs from the Four Sections of the Secret Mantrayāna, folio 258.a.5–7.
The folio references of the Degé Kangyur appearing in the Tibetan source and compare view of this publication (or which are shown inline in the PDF and ePub versions) refer to the post par phud printing of the Degé. Note that, as described in the bibliographical reference on the title page, there is a 17-page discrepancy in volume 88 (rgyud ’bum, na) of the Degé Kangyur between the 1737 par phud printings and the late (post par phud) printings. This is due to an extra work, Bodhimaṇḍasyālaṃkāralakṣadhāraṇī (Toh 508, byang chub snying po’i rgyan ’bum gyi gzungs), being added as the second text in the volume.
In the Toh 539 version of the text there is a slight discrepancy in the folio numbering between the 1737 par phud printings and the late (post par phud) printings of the Degé Kangyur. Although the discrepancy is irrelevant here, further details concerning this may be found in n.18 of the Toh 539 version of this text.
Following Degé (Action Tantra section) ratnavijaye. Yongle and Kangxi (Action Tantra section) read ratne vijaye.
“Oṁ. Homage to the Blessed One, the king among bejewelled banners, the thus-gone, worthy, fully and perfectly awakened Buddha. It is thus: Oṁ. O you who are a jewel, a jewel, a great jewel, the victory of the jewel, svāhā.” Here, the recurrent ending in e for ratna and vijaya has been taken to indicate a vocative, singular, masculine—a form that is peculiar to Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit. See Edgerton 1953, vol. 1, p. 51, § 8.28.
Following Degé (Compendium of Dhāraṇīs section) saṃkusumita. Degé (Action Tantra section) reads saṃkusumida.
Following the reading of The Sovereign Tantra That Lays Out the Three Pledges (Toh 502, folio 191.b). The Degé and the other Kangyur versions reported in the Comparative Edition have rāsini. The term rāśini, while irregular, would seem to be the locative, singular, masculine declension of rāśin, itself derived from rāśi (“multitude”) and thus meaning “having multitudes.”
“Homage to all the buddhas and bodhisattvas. Praise to you, who are everywhere blossoming and who possess a multitude of supercognitions.”
Following Degé samūhe (“profusion”). The version of the dhāraṇī given in Abhayākaragupta’s Main Path to Enlightenment (Toh 3766, folio 122.b) has samudra (“ocean”).
“Oṁ. The sky throbs with a profusion of proliferating offering clouds for all the thus-gone ones, hūṁ.”
“Homage to all the buddhas and bodhisattvas. The whole sky throbs with the arising [of offerings] everywhere, svāhā.”
Abhayākaragupta’s Main Path to Enlightenment (Toh 3766, folio 124.b) here adds sūra sūra (“sun, sun”).
Emending to āvarta abhaye, following Butön Rinchen Drup’s Collected Dhāraṇīs from the Four Sections of the Secret Mantrayāna (folio 258.a.7). Once again, the e-ending for abhaya is probably to be taken as a Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit vocative, singular, masculine. Degé (Action Tantra section) reads avartā abhaye. Degé (Compendium of Dhāraṇīs section) reads vartā abhaye. Note that Abhayākaragupta’s Main Path to Enlightenment (Toh 3766, folio 124.b) has āvartāya-āvartāya (dative, singular, masculine of āvarta, “whirl”).
“Homage to all the buddhas and bodhisattvas. You who are full, absolutely full, of all that is desired, who are whirling, and who are fearless, svāhā.”
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 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.
The term dhāraṇī has the sense of something that “holds” or “retains,” and so it can refer to the special capacity of practitioners to memorize and recall detailed teachings. It can also refer to a verbal expression of the teachings—an incantation, spell, or mnemonic formula—that distills and “holds” essential points of the Dharma and is used by practitioners to attain mundane and supramundane goals. The same term is also used to denote texts that contain such formulas.
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.
Supernatural cognitions, of which five or six are usually counted.
A frequently used synonym for buddha. According to different explanations, it can be read as tathā-gata, literally meaning “one who has thus gone,” or as tathā-āgata, “one who has thus come.” Gata, though literally meaning “gone,” is a past passive participle used to describe a state or condition of existence. Tatha(tā), often rendered as “suchness” or “thusness,” is the quality or condition of things as they really are, which cannot be conveyed in conceptual, dualistic terms. Therefore, this epithet is interpreted in different ways, but in general it implies one who has departed in the wake of the buddhas of the past, or one who has manifested the supreme awakening dependent on the reality that does not abide in the two extremes of existence and quiescence. It is also often used as a specific epithet of the Buddha Śākyamuni.
Bhavabhaṭṭa.
Kālacakrapāda.
Kumudākaramati.
Śākyarakṣita.
Sahajalalita.
Butön Rinchen Drup (bu ston rin chen grub).
Denkarma (
Phangthangma (
Dalton, Jacob, and Sam van Schaik.
Edgerton, Franklin.
Herrmann-Pfandt, Adelheid.
Kawagoe, Eishin.