Derge Kangyur/Tengyur e-text, Esukhia/Barom edition — public domain (mechanical reproduction)
This short liturgical text, titled The Extraction from Hell, functions as a prayer for protection and liberation from the lower realms of existence. The author employs a structure of confession and supplication, addressing the Tathāgata as a protector. The text argues that the practitioner is trapped in the cycle of saṃsāra due to total ignorance, poverty, and the commission of violence against sentient beings. By framing human existence as precarious—comparing life to a kāśī flower tossed by the wind—the work emphasizes the instability of worldly happiness and the binding nature of karma. The reader is committed to a position of spiritual vulnerability and dependence on the Buddha's intervention to be extricated from the suffering of the hells and the causal chains of karmic retribution.
Provenance
About this text
A prayer for protection and liberation from the lower realms of existence, the Narakoddhāra (Tibetan: dmyal ba nas 'don pa) belongs to the classical Tibetan tradition. The work is attributed to the Indian author Nāgārjuna. It was translated into Tibetan by Tilakakalaśa of Kaśmīr and pa tshab lo tsa ba nyi ma grags pa, and is preserved in the Tengyur, volume ཀ, where it is situated within the Eulogy collection and spans two pages. The work enacts a process of confession and supplication, addressing the Tathāgata as a protector. It argues that the practitioner is trapped in the cycle of saṃsāra due to total ignorance, poverty, and the commission of violence against sentient beings. By framing human existence as precarious—comparing life to a kāśī flower tossed by the wind—the text emphasizes the instability of worldly happiness and the binding nature of karma. A scholar or serious reader consults this work to examine a position of spiritual vulnerability and the dependence on the Buddha's intervention to be extricated from the suffering of the hells and the causal chains of karmic retribution.
Sanskrit title
Narakoddhāra
Indian author
Nāgārjuna
Tibetan translators
Tilakakalaśa (Kaśmīr), pa tshab lo tsa ba nyi ma grags pa
Cite thisAnuvāda, “Praise of the One who Extricates Beings from the Hells” (Toh 1137), machine draft, 2026.https://naxiai.com/tibetan/works/toh1137
Summary & commentary
Significance
The work is significant as an example of the devotional and soteriological practices aimed at avoiding the lower realms in the Indo-Tibetan tradition. It illustrates the intersection of karmic theory and the practice of seeking refuge from the consequences of negative actions.
Structure
Passages
Section
Description
1-2
Invocation and Supplication
The text opens with titles in Sanskrit and Tibetan, followed by a plea for protection based on the practitioner's ignorance and harmful actions.
Themes
Saṃsāra and Karma (1-2)
Impermanence (2)
Supplication for Protection (1-2)
Summary, significance and provenance note generated by gemma4:31b from the translation and the catalogue record.
AnuvādaPraise of the One who Extricates Beings from the Hells·
In the language of India: Naraka-uddhāri-nāma. In the language of Tibet: Dmyal ba nas 'don pa zhes bya ba (The Extraction from Hell). Homage to the Protector of the World!
Sinking into the mud of poverty within the great ocean of saṃsāra, I have generated total ignorance. O Tathāgata, protect me!
I have entered a house of cataracts and experience the suffering of being without a protector. I have been abandoned by my circle of kinsmen. O Tathāgata, protect me!
Father, mother, sister, son, wife, and friends—I have perceived them as being like a magical illusion. O Tathāgata, protect me!
For the sake of my retinue here, whatever good or evil actions I have committed, by those [actions] I have become all alone. O Tathāgata, protect me!
In great, unbearable, and ancient wells, and in bottomless oceans, O Protector, since we have become blind, O Tathāgata, protect me!
Just as one who has boarded a dilapidated boat to cross the great ocean, I too perceive the crossing as difficult. O Tathāgata, protect me!
Not knowing what is Dharma and what is not Dharma, and not perceiving what is difficult to traverse and what is not, I am like an insentient tree. O Tathāgata, protect me!
I have killed my father and killed my mother; I have committed the five crimes of immediate retribution. I perceive a terrible, blinding darkness. O Tathāgata, protect me!
I have destroyed stūpas and plundered the property of the Saṅgha.
I have committed violence against sentient beings; O Tathāgata, protect me! In this world there is no happiness, and the world beyond is not understood. Bound by the cord of karma, O Tathāgata, protect me! His life is like this: like a kāśī flower in the sky, tossed and wandering in the wind, O Tathāgata, protect me! In a desolate wilderness, amidst many thorny trees without support, I saw no path there; O Tathāgata, protect me! Because I killed many innocent livestock and wild animals with arrows, I then presumed to be a king; O Tathāgata, protect me! When one is being boiled in the hells, there is no protector at all. To whom shall I go for refuge? Who will become my protector? O King of Physicians, the physician of physicians, who heals all diseases, the Protector of the World who protects all that moves and does not move in the three realms—[to you I go].
The Extraction from Hell, composed by the great master Nāgārjuna, is complete.