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.
A type of malevolent spirit that is understood to cause illness and harm by a sort of possession, through “grasping” or “taking hold of” the person that the spirit afflicts.
The term phra men ma is one of the two translations of the word ḍākinī found in canonical works. In this case—as in many of the cases where phra men ma rather than the other Tibetan translation of ḍākinī, mkha’ ’gro ma, is employed—it refers to a class of malevolent female spirits. The higher tantras of the Nyingma tradition feature phra men (ma) as a class of protective deities on the periphery of the maṇḍala of wrathful deities in the Shitro (zhi khro) maṇḍala of peaceful and wrathful deities. They have female bodies, animal heads, and often appear as a set of eight.
The Buddha, Dharma, and Saṅgha—the three objects of Buddhist refuge. In the Tibetan rendering, “the three rare and supreme ones.”
“The Youthful Vajra.” It is unclear who the referent of this name is in this text, but given the title of the work, it could perhaps be understood as an epithet of Vajrapāṇi, albeit not a common one. Vajrakumāra is also, at least in later Tibetan literature, quite commonly an epithet of Vajrakīlaya.
Vajrapāṇi means “Wielder of the Vajra.” In the Pali canon, he appears as a yakṣa guardian in the retinue of the Buddha. In the Mahāyāna scriptures he is a bodhisattva and one of the “eight close sons of the Buddha.” In the tantras, he is also regarded as an important Buddhist deity and instrumental in the transmission of tantric scriptures.
A type of mantra.
A class of nonhuman beings who inhabit forests, mountainous areas, and other natural spaces, or serve as guardians of villages and towns, and may be propitiated for health, wealth, protection, and other boons, or controlled through magic. According to tradition, their homeland is in the north, where they live under the rule of the Great King Vaiśravaṇa.
Several members of this class have been deified as gods of wealth (these include the just-mentioned Vaiśravaṇa) or as bodhisattva generals of yakṣa armies, and have entered the Buddhist pantheon in a variety of forms, including, in tantric Buddhism, those of wrathful deities.
phyag na rdo rje gnod sbyin gyi bdag po’i gzungs. Toh 953, Degé Kangyur, vol. 101 (gzungs ’dus, waṃ), folios 46.a–46.b.
phyag na rdo rje gnod sbyin gyi bdag po’i gzungs. ka’ ’gyur (dpe bsdur ma) [Comparative Edition of the Kangyur], krung go’i bod rig pa zhib ’jug ste gnas kyi bka’ bstan dpe sdur khang (The Tibetan Tripitaka Collation Bureau of the China Tibetology Research Center). 108 volumes. Beijing: krung go’i bod rig pa dpe skrun khang (China Tibetology Publishing House), 2006–9, vol. 98, pp. 130–33.
’phags pa lag na rdo rje dbang bskur ba’i rgyud chen po. Toh 496, Degé Kangyur, vol. 87 (rgyud, da), folios 1.b–156.b.
Dalton, Jacob P. “How Dhāraṇīs WERE Proto-Tantric: Liturgies, Ritual Manuals, and the Origins of the Tantras.” In Tantric Traditions in Transmission and Translation, edited by David Gray and Ryan Richard Overbey, 199–229. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Hidas, Gergely. Powers of Protection: The Buddhist Tradition of Spells in the Dhāraṇīsaṃgraha Collections. Boston: De Gruyter, 2021.
Stein, Rolf. A. Rolf Stein’s Tibetica Antiqua, with Additional Materials. Translated and edited by Arthur McKeown. Boston: Brill, 2010.
Orosz, Gergely. A Catalogue of the Tibetan Manuscripts and Block Prints in the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Budapest: Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 2010.