The ''Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra'' (Tibetan: phags paza ma tog bkod pa zhes bya ba theg pa chen po'i mdo; zh, t=佛說大乘莊嚴寶王經, p=Fó shuō dàchéng zhuāngyán bǎo wáng jīng, Vietnamese: Phật Thuyết Đại Thừa Trang Nghiêm Bảo Vương Kinh,

Taishō Tripiṭaka The Taishō Tripiṭaka (; Japanese: ''Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō''; “ Taishō Revised Tripiṭaka”) is a definitive edition of the Chinese Buddhist canon and its Japanese commentaries used by scholars in the 20th century. It was edited by ...

1050) is a Mantrayāna

sūtra ''Sutra'' ( sa, सूत्र, translit=sūtra, translit-std=IAST, translation=string, thread)Monier Williams, ''Sanskrit English Dictionary'', Oxford University Press, Entry fo''sutra'' page 1241 in Indian literary traditions refers to an ap ...

which extols the virtues and powers of

Avalokiteśvara In Buddhism, Avalokiteśvara (Sanskrit: अवलोकितेश्वर, IPA: ) is a bodhisattva who embodies the compassion of all Buddhas. He has 108 avatars, one notable avatar being Padmapāṇi (lotus bearer). He is variably depicted, ...

, and is particularly notable for introducing the

mantra A mantra (Pali: ''manta'') or mantram (मन्त्रम्) is a sacred utterance, a numinous sound, a syllable, word or phonemes, or group of words in Sanskrit, Pali and other languages believed by practitioners to have religious, ma ...

Om mani padme hum ' ( sa, ॐ मणि पद्मे हूँ, ) is the six-syllabled Sanskrit mantra particularly associated with the four-armed Shadakshari form of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. It first appeared in the Mahayana ''Kāraṇ ...

into the sutra tradition.

General features

The ''Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra'' is a Mantrayāna sutra that was compiled at the end of the 4th century or beginning of the 5th century CE. According to the ''Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra'', the

Hindu deities Hindu deities are the gods and goddesses in Hinduism. The terms and epithets for deities within the diverse traditions of Hinduism vary, and include Deva, Devi, Ishvara, Ishvari, Bhagavān and Bhagavati. The deities of Hinduism have evolve ...

born from Avalokiteśvara bodhisattva's body, the

Surya Surya (; sa, सूर्य, ) is the sun as well as the solar deity in Hinduism. He is traditionally one of the major five deities in the Smarta tradition, all of whom are considered as equivalent deities in the Panchayatana puja and a m ...

(Sun) and

Chandra Chandra ( sa, चन्द्र, Candra, shining' or 'moon), also known as Soma ( sa, सोम), is the Hindu god of the Moon, and is associated with the night, plants and vegetation. He is one of the Navagraha (nine planets of Hinduism) an ...

(Moon) are said to be born from Avalokiteśvara's eyes, Maheśvara from his brow,

Brahma Brahma ( sa, ब्रह्मा, Brahmā) is a Hindu god, referred to as "the Creator" within the Trimurti, the trinity of supreme divinity that includes Vishnu, and Shiva.Jan Gonda (1969)The Hindu Trinity Anthropos, Bd 63/64, H 1/2, pp. 21 ...

from his shoulders,

Narayana Narayana (Sanskrit: नारायण, IAST: ''Nārāyaṇa'') is one of the forms and names of Vishnu, who is in yogic slumber under the celestial waters, referring to the masculine principle. He is also known as Purushottama, and is cons ...

from his heart,

Saraswati Saraswati ( sa, सरस्वती, ) is the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music, art, speech, wisdom, and learning. She is one of the Tridevi, along with the goddesses Lakshmi and Parvati. The earliest known mention of Saraswati as a go ...

from his teeth, the

Vayu Vayu (, sa, वायु, ), also known as Vata and Pavana, is the Hindu god of the winds as well as the divine massenger of the gods. In the '' Vedic scriptures'', Vayu is an important deity and is closely associated with Indra, the king of ...

(Wind) from his mouth, the

Varuna Varuna (; sa, वरुण, , Malay: ''Baruna'') is a Vedic deity associated initially with the sky, later also with the seas as well as Ṛta (justice) and Satya (truth). He is found in the oldest layer of Vedic literature of Hinduism, such ...

(Water) from his stomach and

Bhudevi Bhumi ( sa, भूमि, Bhūmi), also known as Bhudevi and Vasundhara, is a Hindu goddess who is the personification of the Earth. She is a consort of the god Vishnu. According to Vaishnava tradition, she is the second aspect of Vishnu's consor ...

(Earth) from his feet. The sutra introduces the Buddhist

, Om Manipadme Hum, which it states can lead to liberation (''moksha'') and eventual

Buddhahood In Buddhism, Buddha (; Pali, Sanskrit: 𑀩𑀼𑀤𑁆𑀥, बुद्ध), "awakened one", is a title for those who are awake, and have attained nirvana and Buddhahood through their own efforts and insight, without a teacher to point o ...

. A. Studholme sees this famous mantra as being a declarative aspiration, possibly meaning 'I in the jewel-lotus', with the jewel-lotus being a reference to birth in the lotus made of jewels in the Buddhist Eternal Paradise or Pure land '

Sukhavati Sukhavati (IAST: ''Sukhāvatī''; "Blissful") is a pure land of Amitābha in Mahayana Buddhism. It is also called the Land of Bliss or Western Pure Land, and is the most well-known of Buddhist pure lands, due to the popularity of Pure Land Budd ...

' of Buddha Amitabha. The mantra is the very heart of

(the supreme

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in Lu ...

of Compassion) and can usher in Awakening. A. Studholme writes: 'Om Manipadme Hum, then, is both the ''paramahrdaya'', or 'innermost heart', of Avalokiteśvara ... It is also ... a ''mahavidya'', a mantra capable of bringing about the 'great knowledge' of enlightenment itself ...' Avalokiteśvara himself is linked in the versified version of the sutra to the first Buddha, the

Adi-Buddha In Vajrayana Buddhism, the Ādi-Buddha () is the "First Buddha" or the "Primordial Buddha". Another common term for this figure is Dharmakāya Buddha. The term emerges in tantric Buddhist literature, most prominently in the Kalachakra.Buswell, ...

, who is 'svayambhu' (self-existent, not born from anything or anyone). Studholme comments: 'Avalokitesvara himself, the verse sutra adds, is an emanation of the ''Adibuddha'', or 'primordial Buddha', a term that is explicitly said to be synonymous with ''Svayambhu'' and ''Adinatha'', 'primordial lord'.' According to a Tibetan legendary tradition, the text of ''Kāraṇḍavyūhasūtra'' arrived in a casket from the sky unto the roof of the palace of the 28th king of Tibet, Lha

Thothori Nyantsen Lha Thothori gNyan bTsan (, ) was the 28th King of Tibet according to the Tibetan legendary tradition. ''Lha'' "divine, pertaining to the gods of the sky" is an honorary title and not a part of his proper name. He belonged to the Yarlung dynasty co ...

who died in the fifth century C.E., in southern Tibet. This coincides with one version of dating of the ''Kāraṇḍavyūhasūtra'', somewhere in the 4th or perhaps early 5th century, however it seems more likely that the ''sutra'' has originated in

Kashmir Kashmir () is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompass ...

, due to closeness to characteristics to Kasmiri tantric traditions of the time and to ''Avataṁsakasūtra'' earlier associated with the Central Asian regions.

Translations

*''Tibetan.'' The ''Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra'' was first translated into Tibetan as the ''Za ma tog bkod pa'' in the 8th century CE by

Jinamitra Jinamitra was an Indian pandita who travelled to Samye in the Tibetan Empire to engage in translation, at the time of Trisong Detsen, in the eighth century CE. Jinamitra worked with Jñānagarbha and Devacandra to translate the ''Mahāyāna Mahā ...

, Yeshe De (or

Jnanasutra There appear to be two Jnanasutras, with different Tibetan orthographies for their names. The first, , flourished from the 5th-6th centuries. According to Dzogchen legends, he was an early Dzogchen practitioner of Vajrayāna Buddhism and a disci ...

) and others. *''Chinese''. The text was translated by T'ien-hsi-tsai into Chinese in 983 CE. *''English.'' The Sutra has been translated from the Tibetan into English by Peter Alan Roberts with the help of Tulku Yeshi , in 2013.Link to the scanned version

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

: . After the translated text is a "Glossary", which contains the definitions of 195 words, given in

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the la ...

IAST The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) is a transliteration scheme that allows the lossless romanisation of Indic scripts as employed by Sanskrit and related Indic languages. It is based on a scheme that emerged during ...

and

Tibetan script The Tibetan script is a segmental writing system ('' abugida'') of Indic origin used to write certain Tibetic languages, including Tibetan, Dzongkha, Sikkimese, Ladakhi, Jirel and Balti. It has also been used for some non-Tibetic langua ...

.
Note: The "pdf" version is also available via the link indicated in the ''External links'' section.

References

Bibliography

* {{cite book, editor1-last=Buswell, editor1-first=Robert Jr, editor2-last=Lopez, editor2-first=Donald S. Jr., editor1-link=Robert Buswell Jr., editor2-link=Donald S. Lopez, Jr., title=Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism., date=2013, pages=418–419, publisher=Princeton University Press, location=Princeton, NJ, isbn=9780691157863 * Roberts, Peter Alan (2012)
Translating Translation: An Encounter with the Ninth-Century Tibetan Version of the Kārandavyūha-sūtra
''Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies'' 3, 224-242

External links

English translation of Karandavyuha
The Noble Mahāyāna Sūtra “The Basket’s Display”, translated from Tibetan by Peter Alan Roberts with Tulku Yeshi (CC-BY-NC-ND)
Mahayana sutras Avalokiteśvara

General features

Translations

See also

References

Bibliography

External links