This article examines the possibility that Padmasambhava (ca. 8c) cites a dhāraṇī from the Aparimitāyuḥsūtra (無量壽宗要經) in one of his longevity practices titled Tshe sgrub lcags kyi sdong po. The majority of the extant sources of the Aparimitāyuḥsūtra is known by a plethora of Tibetan and Chinese manuscripts from the caves of Dunhuang. Besides this vast production of the Tibetan imperial manuscript project, recent research has shown that a Sanskrit fragment found at Gilgit can be identified as the Aparimitāyuḥsūtra. The route connecting Gilgit and Uḍḍiyāna, known as Padmasambhava's birthplace, has been historically traced as a path walked by Buddhist pilgrims. Furthermore, the eras of the two are not so far apart. The present paper argues that the Tshe sgrub lcags kyi sdong po, a gter ma text revealed by Rig-'dzin rGod-ldem-can (1337−1408?), could belong to the oldest stratum of the tshe sgrub text which propagated the famous dhāraṇī. It was well known among his contemporaneous scholar-monks that there were two recensions of the Aparimitāyuḥsūtra, namely one with “oۦ gsum ma” and another with “oۦ gnyis ma” in its dhāraṇī. Nonetheless, the dhāraṇī lore that flowed into the gter ma literature had little to do with this lively academic milieu. As gTer-stons did not so much concern themselves with scholastic matters such as cataloguing and scriptural exegesis, it seems more probable that the dhāraṇī spell was held (√dhự) in the real practice and was passed along from one generation to another through mnemonic chants. As a hypothesis, the present paper attempts to trace the oral transmission back to Uḍḍiyāna, the land of the Magi and dhāraṇī.
目次
1. Aparimitāyuḥsūtra (無量壽宗要經) A General Background for the Present Study 158 1.1. Similarity of GBM#3366 to the Aparimitāyuḥsūtra 159 1.2. The Relationship Between Uḍḍiyāna and Dhāraṇī 161 2. Popularity of the Dhāraṇī in the 14–15th Centuries Tibet 165 2.1. Some Remarks about the Dhāraṇī among the 14–15th Centuries Scholar-monks 167 2.2. Other gTer mas Which Contain the Dhāraṇī 169 2.3. Internalising Dhāraṇī A Product of the Transition from bKa’ ma to gTer ma 173 3. Other Similarities 178 3.1. Two Merits (yon tans) 178 3.2. Aparimitāyurjñāna (Tshe-dang-ye-shes-dpag-tu-med-pa) 181 4. Concluding Remarks 183 Abbreviations and Bibliography 185 Primary Sources 187 Secondary Sources 192
