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Dharani (Skt. dhāraṇī; Tib. གཟུངས་, zung, Wyl. gzungs) — long mantras, which are placed inside sacred statues and stupas. Dharanis are seen as goddesses in themselves.

Gergely Hidas gives the following definition, in his excellent overview of dharanis: :Dhāraṇī is an exclusively Buddhist term, the primary literary meaning of which is not completely clear. In the extended sense, dhāraṇī has most often been interpreted as “spell.” However, its semantic range is wider than the sphere of incantations, with a further principal interpretation as “memory” or “mnemonic device.” Especially in earlier sources, dhāraṇī was a mnemonics-related term in most cases, a use that appears to have faded away with the course of time. At least synchronically speaking, dhāraṇī is decidedly polysemic and context sensitive. In the present literary context, the “spell” interpretation of dhāraṇī as used here describes a reasonably distinct scriptural body. However, dhāraṇī is often appositional or interchangeable with two other closely related words – mantra and vidyā, which also refer to a spell.<ref>Gergely Hidas, “Dhāraṇī Sūtras,” in J. Silk, O. von Hinüber, V. Eltschinger (eds.) ‘’Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism. Vol. I. Literature and Languages,’’ (Brill, Leiden, 2015), 129.</ref>

The Difference between a Mantra and a Dharani

All dharanis are mantras, but not all mantras are dharanis. Often dharanis consists of a homage or invocation of the deity, followed by a request to act. Therefore, a dharani is usually longer than a mantra. Dharanis usually contain imperatives such as bandha, bandha, bind, bind: these words express the request to act. Mantras on the other hand just consist of mantric syllables and possibly the name of the deity, without words of homage or a request to act.

Structure of Dharanis

Example

Aparimitāyurjñānadhāraṇī:<ref> A Sanskrit version of the Aparimitāyurjñānadhāraṇī is partly found in the Sarvadurgatiparisodhana Tantra: http://gretil.sub.uni-goettingen.de/gretil/1_sanskr/4_rellit/buddh/sdurst_u.htm And a full, but slightly different version is found in: Hoernlé, Rudolf. Manuscript remains of Buddhist literature found in Eastern Turkestan. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1916: 300 – 301. Available on: https://archive.org/details/cu31924023185584</ref>

om̐ namo bhagavate aparimitāyurjñānasuviniścitatejorājāya tathāgatāya arhate samyak saṃbuddhāya ]] | tadyathā | om̐ puṇye puṇye mahāpuṇye 'parimitapuṇye 'parimitapuṇyajñānasaṃbhāropacite | om̐ sarvasaṃskārapariśuddhe dharmate gaganasamudgate svabhāvaviśuddhe mahānayaparivāre svāhā | om̐ merit merit, great merit, boundless merit, you (who) perfected the accumulation of boundless merit and wisdom! om̐ you who have purified all compounded phenomena, you the dharmatā, you have risen into the sky, you (who) are pure by nature, (you) together with the retinue of [the followers of] the great vehicle, svāhā! [[Asanga describes four types of dharani:—

  1. Dharma dharanis (Skt. dharmadhāraṇī; Tib. ཆོས་ཀྱི་གཟུངས , Wyl. chos kyi gzungs), enable one to retain knowledge of words, that is, Dharma teachings, that have been heard.
  2. Meaning dharanis (Skt. arthadhāraṇī; Tib. དོན་གྱི་གཟུངས།, Wyl. don gyi gzungs),
  3. Mantra dharanis (Skt. mantradhāraṇī; Tib. གསང་ངགས་ཀྱི་གཟུངས།, Wyl. gsang sngags kyi gzungs), and
  4. Bodhisattva forbearance dharanis (Skt. bodhisattvakṣāntilābhāyadhāraṇī; Tib. བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ་བཟོད་པ་འཐོབ་པར་བྱེད་པའི་གཟུངས།, Wyl. byang chub sems dpa’ bzod pa ’thob par byed pa’i gzungs) <ref>84000 Glossary of Terms.</ref>

References

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Further Reading

In Tibetan

In English

Notes

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Category of Dharanis | dharani Category of Mantras Category of Sanskrit Terms