Derge Kangyur/Tengyur e-text, Esukhia/Barom edition — public domain (mechanical reproduction)
This text is a devotional hymn addressed to Mañjuśrī, specifically focusing on the deity's compassion. The work is structured as a plea from a practitioner who identifies as a sinner, contrasting the deity's known capacity to rescue beings from the lowest realms, such as hell, with the practitioner's own perceived lack of spiritual affection or progress. The author employs a rhetorical strategy of lamentation, questioning the deity's perceived procrastination in granting aid. However, this vulnerability serves as a catalyst for a merit-generating act; the author posits that the act of praising Mañjuśrī's qualities, even through expressions of grief, creates the karmic merit necessary for universal benefit. The text commits the reader to a path of surrender and aspiration, concluding with the goal of transforming the practitioner's own form into that of the deity's youthful body to serve as a source of abundance for all beings.
Provenance
About this text
A praise of the compassion of the Noble Mañjuśrī, the Āryamañjuśrībhaṭṭārakakaruṇāstotra is a work attributed to the Indian author Nāgārjuna. It entered the Tibetan tradition through the efforts of the translators Tilakakalaśa of Kaśmīr and pa tshab lo tsa ba nyi ma grags pa. The work is preserved in the Tengyur, volume ཀ, where it spans three pages and is categorized within the Eulogy collection of the classical Tibetan period. The text enacts a devotional plea, wherein a practitioner identifying as a sinner contrasts Mañjuśrī's capacity to rescue beings from hell with their own perceived suffering. Through a rhetorical strategy of lamentation and questioning the deity's procrastination, the author argues that the act of expressing the deity's qualities generates the merit necessary for universal benefit. The practitioner ultimately aspires to transform their own form into that of the deity's youthful body to serve as a wish-fulfilling jewel or tree at the feet of the form body. Scholars and serious readers consult this text to examine the intersection of merit-generation and devotional surrender, specifically how the expression of grief and vulnerability is utilized as a catalyst for spiritual aspiration and the attainment of the deity's youthful form.
Sanskrit title
Āryamañjuśrībhaṭṭārakakaruṇāstotra
Indian author
Nāgārjuna
Tibetan translators
Tilakakalaśa (Kaśmīr), pa tshab lo tsa ba nyi ma grags pa
Cite thisAnuvāda, “Praise of the Compassion of the Noble and Venerable Mañjuśrī” (Toh 1132), machine draft, 2026.https://naxiai.com/tibetan/works/toh1132
Summary & commentary
Significance
The work illustrates the intersection of the 'youthful' aspect of Mañjuśrī with the quality of compassion, which is more typically associated with Avalokiteśvara. It demonstrates the Tibetan Buddhist practice of using praise and lamentation as a method for accumulating merit and achieving spiritual transformation.
Structure
Passages
Section
Description
1
Invocation and Praise
Initial homage and acknowledgment of Mañjuśrī's purity and fame.
2-3
Lamentation and Plea
A request for compassion based on the deity's history of aiding the lowly, followed by a prayer for the merit of all beings.
Themes
Compassion for the Lowly (2)
Merit through Praise (3)
Spiritual Transformation (3)
Summary, significance and provenance note generated by gemma4:31b from the translation and the catalogue record.
AnuvādaPraise of the Compassion of the Noble and Venerable Mañjuśrī·
In the language of India: Āryamañjuśrīkumārakaruṇāstotra. In the language of Tibet: rje btsun ’phags pa ’jam dpal gyi snying rje la bstod pa (Praise of the Compassion of the Noble Mañjuśrī). Homage to Mañjuśrī Kumārabhūta!
You who have utterly cleared away every fault without exception,
Whose fame as a Sage pervades all beings without exception,
Possessing a glorious and most stable body—
To you, the glorious one, I perpetually pay homage.
Calling out and calling out to all beings without exception,
You protect them from all these miseries.
Though I have fallen into suffering, you are base;
For what reason, then, do you not surely dispel it?
O Bhagavan, if you are always renowned
As one who grants everything to everyone in every way,
Yet you have not granted me even a mere glance,
Therefore, I am one of extremely low fortune.
Endowed with qualities and dispelling faults,
The wise one who strives to protect all beings—
Even though my mind is fixed upon you,
Why do I remain tormented by misery?
You, whose very nature is compassion,
With your two pure eyes like lotuses,
Though you act for the benefit of beings,
That you do not see my suffering—alas, what misery!
Though you perpetually extend your lotus-like hands
To grant relief to those with fearful minds,
Due to the heat of my own misfortune,
Even that remains far away and invisible.
Though I cry out in distress before you,
Tormented by suffering in my body,
With your two unimpaired and pure ears,
Why do you not hear my lowly plea?
Since you, led by compassion in every way, bring happiness to the classes of beings who have gone to hell, why has the Blessed One’s compassion toward me, a sinner, become devoid of affection?
If you, who act for the benefit of the lowly in the world, possess such youthful playfulness, then though I am here tormented by suffering, you do not protect me; this is the fault of my own sinful disposition.
"Who here is suffering?" "Who is whose excellence exhausted?"—wandering thus and acting as a protector, you do not see my destitution; alas, how wondrous!
"To whom shall I give a word? To whom shall I grant vast and immediate excellence?"—with such diligence, why does your wisdom not protect me? Who would not be happy in faith toward you? There is no one inferior to you in merit.
I have faith in you, yet I am in suffering; why has this become so? Such wonder has arisen. If you, the Great Physician who cuts through suffering, also abandon me, then to whom else, my merit destroyed, shall I go for refuge? You must tell me.
You who possess a heart of love that always regards all beings as an only child, and who act to liberate them—if even you do not dispel my harm, then I am truly protectorless and ruined.
Blessed One, if by the mere recollection of you, you bestow all peerless fruits upon beings, then even though I am performing service, why do you not turn toward me?
Why do you always act with procrastination?
Through the merit I have gathered by thus expressing
Even a mere fraction of your qualities with these words of lamentation,
May all beings come to possess merit,
And may I become your youthful body—
Like a wish-fulfilling jar of naturally accomplished excellence,
Like a wish-fulfilling jewel, and like a wish-granting tree
At the feet of your form body—
And may I become your sovereign in all births.
The Praise to the Compassion of the Venerable Ārya Mañjuśrī, composed by the master Ārya Nāgārjuna, is complete.