A Method for Enchanting Medicines from the Mahā Sāhasrapramardanī Sūtra
The Five Raksha goddesses depicted on a 16th-century Nepalese book cover, held at the Field Museum of Natural History - https://www.himalayanart.org/items/54481
Working on some research and translations this week, I stumbled upon a rather interesting little text from the Tibetan Kangyur (bKa' 'Gyur - the canonical teachings of the Buddha), used for the enchantment of medicinal substances. It’s one of hundreds of dhāranīs (gZungs) found within the Dhāranī Collection (gZungs 'Dus) of the Tibetan canon, of which over two dozen texts are explicitly related to medicine and treatment of disease.
Dhāranīs comprise a fascinating genre of Buddhist literature, straddling a blurry divide between sūtra and tantra, and blowing open quite a few misconceptions about ‘exoteric’ and ‘esoteric’ Buddhism. While the dhāranīs themselves often go back over a thousand years, the gZungs 'Dus collection was first compiled in the 17th century by Tāranātha, master of the Jonang tradition, as a kind of canonical grimoire of extant dhāranī materials in circulation at the time. It is difficult (and contentious) to attempt to pin dhāranīs down as any one thing, but for our purposes here, we can think of them as a kind of incantation or spell tied (sometimes anachronistically) with the sūtra materials. That being said, Tibetan redactors classified many dhāranī as krīyayoga texts, despite their lack of intense ritual complexity, empowerment procedures, and so on.
Many dhāranīs were translated into Tibetan during the imperial period, most famously by the prolific Yeshé Dé, Śīlendrabodhi, and others, though many texts took more circuitous routes to the Tibetan plateau. Some examples have been found among the Dunhuang manuscripts, offering a helpful guide for dating and tracking the developments of different texts. Dhāranīs can vary widely in length and content, though there are some general commonalities such as distinctive mantric formulas presented in Sanskrit, preceded by an homage to enlightened beings, and usually at least a little commentarial context for the use of the practice. Some provide elaborate sutric narratives for the dhāranī, sometimes described as “charter myths,” set both in historical worldly places and times as well as in more mythic tantric environments. Many texts possess a Sanskrit title, while others just offer a Tibetan title with a short mantra.
The “Mantra for Enchanting Medicines extracted from the Mahā Sāhasrapramardanī Sūtra” is itself a very short incantation in the collection, but it’s derived from a longer work belonging to a highly important collection of texts known as the Pañcarakṣā, or Five Rakṣās. These five dhāraṇīs, some of which predate even the beginning of the Māhayāna movement, are widely recognized throughout the Buddhist world both as texts and as protective goddesses. For those who can harness and summon their power, it’s believed that protection is afforded against a wide array of calamities including natural disasters, epidemic infections, violence, and the attacks of malicious spirits.
The medicine enchantment incantation described here comes specifically from the Mahā Sāhasrapramardanī (sTong Chen Mo Rab Tu ‘Joms Ma) sūtra. Literally meaning “Destroyer of the Trichiliocosm,” Tongchenmo the goddess is described in her Tengyur sadhana as being white in color, with one face and six arms. She youthful and beautiful, adorned with various ornaments and wielding weapons such as a sword, noose, bow & arrow, and axe. However, like all of the Pañcarakṣā goddesses, countless variations in iconography can be found across Asia, and even just within the Tibetan tradition.
In regards to its pragmatic applications, this sutra particularly addresses misfortunes and illnesses arising from spirits, variably defined as graha (Tib. gDon) and bhūta (Tib. 'Byung Po). In a Tibetan Medical context, gDon is a more generalized term broadly referring to many kinds of energetic “provocations” (or provocateurs, as it were), while 'Byung Po is specifically used to describe 18 classes of spirits derived from Ayurvedic literature (specifically the Ashtāngahridayasaṃhitā). The narrative at hand takes place in the wake of a series of epidemics and natural disasters plaguing the ancient city of Vaiśālī. The god Brahmā, accompanied by the guardian kings of the four directions, approaches the Buddha seeking relief for the inhabitants of this troubled region. The Buddha responds with a number of mantric antidotes for pacifying and averting attacks from the responsible spirits.
As an early example of canonical diagnosis and spiritual treatment for provocation, the text elucidates both some methods for identifying spirit affliction as well as mantric therapies for pacifying them, based on the testimonies of the great kings Vaiśravaṇa, Dhṛtarāṣṭra, Virūḍhaka, and Virūpākṣa. Each rises in the presence of the assembly and describes the signs of affliction caused by spirits in their entourage, as well as mantras for remedying their influence.
According to the four kings, the spirits in their retinues are rather similar to a cabal of troublemaking humans on a drunken night out. Vaiśravaṇa explains that, in their communities, rampant partying and intoxication leads the spirits to venture out into the human realm “in search of food and drink,” which results in them stealing the life force of adults, children, newborns, and animals out of greed. He then presents a simple ritual procedure by which humans can avert provocation from rowdy spirit gangs, including the creation of a shrine dedicated to the relevant king, proclaiming his name and offering fragrant scents, flower petals, butterlamps, and burnt offerings.
Further demonstrating its particular affinity with healing and medicine, a large portion of the Mahā Sāhasrapramardanī Sūtra is dedicated to the empowerment of medicines and eradication of disease, even offering methods for liberating an entire region from the grasp of epidemics, violence, and other disturbances. One of the mantras, along with a short excerpt from a beautiful set of verses in the sūtra, is the source of our special method for enchanting medicines below. The extended verses in the sūtra serve as an “invocation of truth,” a form of ritual command intended to assert the dominion of the Buddha’s doctrine over worldly phenomena, which is used in this context to transform medicinal substances into elixir. Following a slightly modified mantra, the short enchantment text includes a brief Tibetan phrase requesting the pacification of illnesses related to rLung (Skt. vāta), mKhris Pa (Skt. pitta), and Bad Kan (Skt. kapha), as well as their pathological combinations. To seal this aspiration within the overall mantric formula, it finishes with svāhā, “so be it.”
It’s said that if one commits a dhāranī to memory, then this is known as “holding” (literally gZungs) the mantra, and even if one takes rebirth in the lower realms, the power of the mantra cannot be lost. This is described as being a contrast to the path of meditative concentration, which can deteriorate even after a short lapse in regular practice. This concept is one of the key ideological foundations for the development of the mantric vehicle of Buddhism.
This enchantment dhāranī can be used to empower any kind of medicine, though based on the overall focus on the source text, it’s inferred that it’s most specifically recommended for enchanting medicines designed to treat provocation, mental illness, viral infections, and other such diseases. According to the Mahā Sāhasrapramardanī Sūtra, the patient should hold the medicine in the palm of their hand while facing east and recite the incantation as many times as possible (up until svāhā). Despite the varied classifications of dhāranīs as both sūtra and tantra, it’s common to utilize their power even without initiation or transmission. However, it is always beneficial to receive lung (reading transmission) when possible, in order to properly enter into the stream of the lineage masters.
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སྟོང་ཆེན་མོ་ནས་ཕྱུང་བ་སྨན་ལ་སྔགས་ཀྱིས་གདབ་པ།
Medicine Enchantment Mantra extracted from the Mahā Sāhasrapramardanī (Toh 1059)
དཀོན་མཆོག་གསུམ་ལ་ཕྱག་འཚལ་ལོ།།
Könchok sum la chaktsel-lo
I prostrate to the Three Jewels!
Derge: སྱཱད་ཡ་ཐེ་དན། །ཁ་ཊེ་ཁ་ཊེ། །ཁ་ཊ་བི་ཁ་ཊེ། ཙ་ལེ་བི་ཙ་ལེ། བི་ལམྦེ་བ་ལེ་པ་ལ་བ་ཏེ། ཙནྡྲེ་ཙ་ར་ཎེ་ཨ་མྲི་ཏ་ནི་རྒྷོ་ཥེ།
Lhasa: སྱཱད་ཡ་ཐེ་དན། །ཁ་ཊེ་ཁ་ཊེ། །ཁ་ཊ་བི་ཁ་ཊེ། ཙ་ལེ་བི་ཙ་ལེ། བི་ལམ་བི་བ་ལེ་བ་ལ་པ་ཏེ། ཙན་དྲེ་ཙ་ར་ཎེ། ཨ་མྲྀ་ཏ་ནི་ར་གྷོ་ཥེ།
SYĀD YA TE DEN | KHATÉ KHATÉ | KHATA BIKHATÉ | TSALÉ BITSALÉ | BILAMBÉ BALAPATÉ | TSENDRÉ TSARANÉ | AMRITA NIRGHOSHÉ
(syād yathedam khaṭe khaṭe khaṭevikhaṭi vimale vilambe bale balavati candre caraṇe amṛta nirghoṣe svāhā)
རླུང་མཁྲིས་བད་ཀན་འདུས་བ་ཞི་བར་གྱུར་ཅིག་སྭཱཧཱ།
Lung tri péken düwa zhiwar gyur chik SWĀHĀ
May disorders of rLung, Tripa, Pekén, and combinations of the three be pacified - svāhā!
ནད་པའི་སྨན་ལ་གདབ་བོ། སྟོང་ཆེན་མོ་ནས་ཕྱུང་བ་སྨན་ལ་སྔགས་ཀྱིས་གདབ་པ་རྫོགས་སོ།།
(Thus) patient’s medicine is enchanted. The Enchantment of Medicines extracted from the Mahā Sāhasrapramardanī is completed.
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If you’d like to read a full translation of the Mahā Sāhasrapramardanī Sūtra, you can do so over at 84,000, an incredible non-profit initiative bringing translators across the world together to translate the words of the Buddha. With a relative abundance of Tibetan translators out there, it’s a bit surprising to find that only around 5% of the canon has been translated into English. If you’d like to support the activities of 84,000, which I highly recommend, you can do so here.
May we all attain radiant health and may all of our medicines be transformed into wisdom elixir!
A 19th century Tibetan thangka depicting the Five Raksha goddesses https://www.himalayanart.org/items/8961