The ''Pratītyasamutpāda-gāthā'', also referred to as the ''Pratītyasamutpāda-dhāraṇī'' (dependent origination incantation) or ''ye dharmā hetu'', is a verse (

gāthā ''Gāthā'' is a Sanskrit term for 'song' or 'verse', especially referring to any poetic metre which is used in legends or folklores, and is not part of the Vedas but peculiar to either Epic Sanskrit or to Prakrit. The word is originally derived ...

) and a

dhāraṇī Dharanis (IAST: ), also known as (Skt.) ''vidyās'' and ''paritas'' or (Pal.) ''parittas'', are lengthier Buddhism, Buddhist mantras functioning as mnemonic codes, incantations, or recitations, and almost exclusively written originally in Sanskri ...

widely used by Buddhists in ancient times which was held to have the function of a

mantra A mantra ( ; Pali: ''mantra'') or mantram (Devanagari: मन्त्रम्) is a sacred utterance, a numinous sound, a syllable, word or phonemes, or group of words (most often in an Indo-Iranian language like Sanskrit or Avestan) belie ...

or sacred spell.Gergely Hidas (2014)
Two dhāranī prints in the Stein Collection at the British Museum. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
77, pp 105-117 doi:10.1017/ S0041977X13001341 It was often found carved on

chaitya A chaitya, chaitya hall, chaitya-griha, (Sanskrit:''Caitya''; Pāli: ''Cetiya'') refers to a shrine, sanctuary, temple or prayer hall in Indian religions. The term is most common in Buddhism, where it refers to a space with a stupa and a rounded ...

stupas In Buddhism, a stupa (, ) is a domed hemispherical structure containing several types of sacred relics, including images, statues, metals, and '' śarīra''—the remains of Buddhist monks or nuns. It is used as a place of pilgrimage and m ...

, images, or placed within chaityas. ''The Pratītyasamutpāda-gāthā'' is used in

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

as well as

Pali Pāli (, IAST: pāl̤i) is a Classical languages of India, classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages, Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pali Canon, Pāli Can ...

. It is found in ''

Mahavagga Khandhaka is the second book of the Theravadin ''Vinaya Pitaka'' and includes the following two volumes: * Mahāvagga: includes accounts of Gautama Buddha's and the ten principal disciples' awakenings, as well as rules for uposatha days and monast ...

'' section of

Vinaya Pitaka The Vinaya (Pali and Sanskrit: विनय) refers to numerous monastic rules and ethical precepts for fully ordained monks and nuns of Buddhist Sanghas (community of like-minded ''sramanas''). These sets of ethical rules and guidelines devel ...

of the

Pali Canon The Pāḷi Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhism, Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the most complete extant Early Buddhist texts, early Buddhist canon. It derives mainly from t ...

. The mantra has been widely used. It has been used at

Sarnath Sarnath (also known as Deer Park, ''Sarangnath'', ''Isipatana Deer Park'', ''Rishipattana'', ''Migadaya'', or ''Mrigadava'')Gabe Hiemstra, "Buddha Chronicle 24: Kassapa Buddhavaṃsa". ''Wisdom Library'', 14 September 2019. is a town nort ...

Tirhut Mithila (), also known as Tirhut, Tirabhukti and Mithilanchal, is a geographical and cultural region of the Indian subcontinent bounded by the Mahananda River in the east, the Ganges in the south, the Gandaki River in the west and by the foothi ...

, Kanari Copperplate, Tagoung, Sherghatti, near Gaya, Allahabad column,

Sanchi Sanchi Stupa is a Buddhist art, Buddhist complex, famous for its Great Stupa, on a hilltop at Sanchi Town in Raisen District of the States and territories of India, State of Madhya Pradesh, India. It is located, about 23 kilometers from Raisen ...

etc. According to Buddhist scriptural sources, these words were used by the

Arahat In Buddhism, an ''Arhat'' () or ''Arahant'' (, 𑀅𑀭𑀳𑀦𑁆𑀢𑁆) is one who has gained insight into the true nature of existence and has achieved ''Nirvana (Buddhism), Nirvana'' and has been liberated from the Rebirth (Buddhism ...

Assaji (Skt: Aśvajit) when asked about the teaching of the Buddha. On the spot, Sariputta (Skt: Śāriputra) attained the stage of stream entry and later shared the verses with his friend

Moggallāna Maudgalyāyana (), also known as Mahāmaudgalyāyana or by his birth name Kolita, was one of Gautama Buddha, the Buddha's closest disciples. Described as a contemporary of disciples such as Subhuti, Śāriputra ('), and Mahākāśyapa (), he i ...

(Skt: Maudgalyayana) who also attained stream entry. They then went to the Buddha, along with 500 of their disciples, and asked to become his disciples.

Original text

Sanskrit

The

in Sanskrit is as follows:

ये धर्मा हेतुप्रभवा हेतुं तेषां तथागतो ह्यवदत् ।
तेषां च यो निरोध एवंवादी महाश्रमणः ॥

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

transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → and → the digraph , Cyrillic → , Armenian → or L ...

ye dharmā hetuprabhavā hetuṃ teṣāṃ tathāgato hyavadat
teṣāṃ ca yo nirodha evaṃvādī mahāśramaṇaḥ.

Pali

( Sinhala Script), the text reads:

‘යේ ධම්මා හේතුප්පභවා
තේසං හේතුං තථාගතෝ ආහ .
තේසඤ්ච යෝ නිරෝධෝ
ඒවං වාදී මහාසමණෝ ..”

Transliteration into

Latin script The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...

ye dhammā hetuppabhavā tesaṃ hetuṃ tathāgato āha .
tesañca yo nirodho evaṃ vādī mahāsamaṇo ..

English

Daniel Boucher translates as follows:

Those
dharmas The Abhidharma are a collection of Buddhist texts dating from the 3rd century BCE onwards, which contain detailed scholastic presentations of doctrinal material appearing in the canonical Buddhist scriptures and commentaries. It also refers to ...
which arise from a cause, the
Tathāgata Tathāgata () is a Pali and Sanskrit word used in ancient India for a person who has attained the highest religious goal. Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, used it when referring to himself or other past Buddhas in the Pāli Canon. Like ...
has declared their cause, and that which is the cessation of them. Thus the great renunciant (
śramaṇa A ''śramaṇa''; ; ; ; ) is a person "who labours, toils, or exerts themselves for some higher or religious purpose" or "seeker, or ascetic, one who performs acts of austerity".Monier Monier-Williams, श्रमण śramaṇa, Sanskrit-Eng ...
) has taught.

The Pāḷi commentaries take the first line as pointing to suffering ( dukkha), the second to its cause (

samudaya In Buddhism, the Four Noble Truths (; ; "The Four arya satya") are "the truths of the noble one ( the Buddha)," a statement of how things really are ( the three marks of existence) when they are seen correctly ( right view). The four truths ...

) and the third to its cessation (

nirodha In Buddhism, nirodha, "cessation," "extinction," refers to the cessation or renouncing of craving and desire which arise with unguarded perception and cognition. It is the third of the Four Noble Truths, stating that '' dukkha'' ('suffering', th ...

Tibetan

In Tibetan:

ཆོས་གང་རྒྱུ་བྱུང་དེ་དག་གི། །རྒྱུ་དང་དེ་འགོག་གང་ཡིན་པའང་། །དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པས་བཀའ་སྩལ་ཏེ། །དགེ་སློང་ཆེན་པོས་དེ་སྐད་གསུངས།། or ཆོས་རྣམས་ཐམས་ཅད་རྒྱུ་ལས་བྱུང་། །དེ་རྒྱུ་དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པས་གསུངས། །རྒྱུ་ལ་འགོག་པ་གང་ཡིན་པ། །དགེ་སྦྱོང་ཆེན་པོས་འདི་སྐད་གསུངས།

The

Wylie transliteration Wylie transliteration is a method for Transliteration, transliterating Tibetan script using only the letters available on a typical English-language typewriter. The system is named for the American scholar Turrell V. Wylie, who created the system ...

is:

chos gang rgyu byung de dag gi/ rgyu dang de 'gog gang yin pa'ng de bzhin gshegs pas bka' stsal te/ dge slong chen po de skad gsungs // chos rnams thams cad rgyu las byung/ de rgyu de bzhin gshegs pas gsungs/ rgyu la 'gog pa gang yin pa/ dge sbyong chen pos 'di skad gsungs //

Usage

Copper plate in the Schøyen Collection

A copper place from the Gandhara region (probably

Bamiyan Bamyan (), also spelled Bamian or Bamiyan, is the capital of Bamyan Province in central Afghanistan. Its population of approximately 100,000 people makes it the largest city in Hazarajat. Bamyan is at an altitude of about above sea level. The ...

), dated to about 5th century AD has a variation of the

. It appears to have some mistakes, for example it uses taṭhāgata instead of tathāgata. It is now in the

Schøyen Collection __NOTOC__ The Schøyen Collection is one of the largest private manuscript collections in the world, mostly located in Oslo and London. Formed in the 20th century by the father of current owner Martin Schøyen, it comprises manuscripts of global ...

On Buddha images

The

was often also carved below the images of the Buddha. A Buddhist screen (parikara) and accompanying Buddha image is now preserved at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. While the objects were found in South India, the mantra is given in north Indian 8-9th century script, perhaps originating from the Pala region.

Malaysia inscriptions

The Bukit Meriam Sanskrit inscription from

Kedah Kedah (), also known by its honorific Darul Aman (Islam), Aman (دار الأمان; Arabic for 'The Safe Abode') and historically as Queda, is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia, located in the northwestern part of ...

includes two additional lines. The inscription is now in the Indian Museum, Calcutta. Other similar inscriptions were found in the Kedah region. Here several minor orthographic peculiarities (i.e. misspellings) have been standardized. The lines can be translated as:

Those dharmas which arise from a cause, the Tathāgata has declared their cause, and that which is the cessation of them; thus the great renunciant has taught. Through ignorance, karma is accumulated; karma is the cause of birth. Through knowledge, karma is not accumulated; through absence of karma, one is not (re)born.

Inscriptions in Pallava scripts found in Thailand

''Ye dharma hetu'' is also found in Thailand including the stupa peak found in 1927 from Nakhon Pathom along with a wall of Phra Pathom Chedi and a shrine in Phra Pathom chedi found in 1963, a brick found in 1963 from Chorakhesamphan township, U Thong district of Suphanburi, stone inscriptions found in 1964 and the stone inscription found in 1980 from Srithep Archeological site. All of them have been inscribed in Pallava scripts of Pali language dated 12th Buddhist century (the 7th Century in common era). Furthermore, there are Sanskrit version of ''ye dharma hetu'' inscribed in Pallava scripts in clay amulets found in 1989 from an archaeological site in Yarang district of Pattani dated to the 7th century CE.

References

External links

Ye dharmā hetuprabhava - Causation
{{Buddhism topics Buddhist mantras Sanskrit words and phrases