Derge Kangyur/Tengyur e-text, Esukhia/Barom edition — public domain (mechanical reproduction)
This text is a devotional praise addressed to the deity Ārya Tārā, structured as a series of petitions and offerings intended to secure liberation from saṃsāra. The work employs a combination of narrative vignettes and philosophical aspirations to illustrate Tārā's capacity for compassion and healing. It begins with an invocation of Tārā's role as a deliverer from suffering, moves through anecdotal evidence of her intervention in human distress—such as curing illness and alleviating poverty—and concludes with a request for the manifestation of the nirmāṇakāya for the benefit of all beings. By framing the request within the context of the practitioner's own lack of merit and the inherent nature of phenomena, the text commits the reader to a posture of humility and reliance on external divine grace to clear the web of ignorant delusion and navigate the ocean of existence.
Provenance
About this text
A eulogy addressed to the goddess Tārā, the Mother of the Sugatas, the Āryatārāstotra is a work of the Indo-Tibetan tradition. The text is attributed to the Indian author Sūryagupta. It was translated into the Tibetan language by Sādhukīrti and bod kyi lo tsa ba ldan ma tshul khrims seng ge, and is preserved in the Tengyur, volume ཤ, where it occupies four pages. Within the canonical structure, it is situated among the Other Wisdom Tantras. The work enacts a devotional appeal for liberation from the infinite ocean of saṃsāra, utilizing narrative vignettes of healing and rescue to illustrate Tārā's compassion. It argues for the necessity of divine intervention to clear the web of ignorant delusion and overcome the demon of self-grasping, particularly for those obscured by non-virtue and lacking in merit. A scholar or serious reader consults this classical Tibetan translation today to examine the intersection of philosophical aspirations and devotional practice, observing how the practitioner adopts a posture of humility and reliance on a skillful spiritual friend to navigate the nature of phenomena and escape the sufferings of existence.
Sanskrit title
Āryatārāstotra
Indian author
Sūryagupta
Tibetan translators
Sādhukīrti, bod kyi lo tsa ba ldan ma tshul khrims seng ge
The work is significant as it exemplifies the integration of Madhyamaka philosophy, evidenced by the reference to Nāgārjuna, with the ritual practice of deity yoga. It demonstrates how Tibetan Buddhist praxis blends abstract ontological views on the nature of phenomena with concrete requests for worldly and spiritual aid.
Structure
Passages
Section
Description
1
Invocation and Attributes
Homage to Mañjughoṣa and an address to Tārā as the deliverer from saṃsāra.
2
Narratives of Compassion
Illustrations of Tārā's intervention in cases of illness and poverty.
3
Petition for Clarity
A prayer to remove ignorant delusion for those lacking merit and virtue.
4
Aspiration for Manifestation
A request for the nirmāṇakāya to act for the benefit of beings, referencing Sūryagupta and Nāgārjuna.
Themes
Compassion and Deliverance (1-2)
Ignorance and Merit (3)
The Nirmāṇakāya (4)
Summary, significance and provenance note generated by gemma4:31b from the translation and the catalogue record.
In the language of India: Āryatārāstotra. In the language of Tibet: ’Phags ma sgrol ma la bstod pa (Praise to the Noble Tārā). Homage to the Blessed One Mañjughoṣa.
To the one who delivers from the infinite ocean of saṃsāra,
Who delivers from suffering with the wide eyes of compassion,
To the goddess Tārā, the Mother of the Sugatas,
I prostrate with devotion of body, speech, and mind.
No one dares to describe in their entirety
The vast extent of your enlightened activities;
Yet, through a rough and general summary,
I have heard these accounts of your many wondrous and virtuous deeds.
Treasure of an ocean of most marvelous qualities,
Island of the precious jewels of the collection of merit,
Fragrant grove of various lotuses—
Please accept this offering of the beautiful flowers of these words.
A fortunate person of noble lineage,
Lost on a path without a guide, was pursued by the king of beasts.
The person, possessing the freedoms and endowments, took refuge in the Three Jewels.
Tārā took him under her care, and the lion prostrated with devotion.
For a guest seeking his goal, a red-faced man with the hue of a snow mountain,
With sweat dripping, extremely enraged, frowning and baring his fangs—
Through the power of the ultimate blessing of the dhāraṇī-mantra and the praise,
He was immediately protected from the fear of the elephant.
Having placed a lifespan of a hundred years upon a throne of dry wood,
A king of wrong views was worshipping the sage Agni.
The Omniscient One held a garland of flowers,
Manifested his face, and let fall a continuous rain of nectar.
A wealthy merchant set out on a long journey;
On a terrifying plain, wild men and bandits appeared.
The yidam goddess brought him to a place of fearless safety.
Do not forget the kindness; present offerings to the supports. A beautiful maiden went to the forest beyond; the breath of a venomous snake gathered like clouds. In the cool shade of a fruit-bearing tree, she placed her hand upon his head, and he was freed from a terrible illness. A thief, impoverished and devoid of the fruits of generosity, took the treasury and was cast into the prison walls. When a faithful disciple invoked the sacred bond of the heart, the hand of compassion untied the knots of the iron shackles. The supreme layman and noble Ārya Candragomin was cast into the waters of the Gaṅgā by the king’s decree. With respectful salutations and poetic composition, the virtuous woman with a smiling face established him on the island of Siṅghala. When the royal lineage, having lost its way, wandered into the charnel grounds and was seized by the graha-spirits of misleading elemental beings, the King of Knowledge recited the ten vidyā-mantras, and he was victorious over the hosts of obstructing Māras.
Lions, elephants, fire, robbers, venomous snakes, prisons, water, and elemental grahas—this ocean of conditioned existence has the law of cause and effect as its shore. The Bodhisattva, the Lord of Nāgas, has the two truths as the crest-jewel; adorned with the precious ornaments of the six pāramitās, he possesses the majesty of the spontaneously accomplished fifty activities. Tārā liberates from the eight fears and, furthermore, having destroyed the mountains of evil tenets and wrong views of outsiders with the vajra weapon of scripture and reasoning, she establishes body, speech, and mind as the three kāyas and the Three Jewels. If one does not realize the view free from the extremes of reality, one will not realize the meaning through the pride of mere words.
Within the nature of phenomena, the fundamental mode of sentient beings, like space, I pray that the web of ignorant delusion be cleared away. For those with little merit who lack a virtuous mind, obscured by the darkness of non-virtue and failing to find the authentic path, who wander in this ocean of existence through the demon of self-grasping—may the skillful spiritual friend, acting as a captain with a vessel, lead all beings to the delightful Potala, the great sacred site of supreme bliss, the celestial palace of the deities. There, may all beings engage in the Dharma practice of the seven limbs, and having been granted the eight transmissions of essential requisites, may the Goddess of Enlightened Activity not forget her promise. For those who have met with the demon of evil spiritual friends, whose lives of leisure and endowment are wasted in emptiness, and whose food and wealth are lost in meaningless pursuits—may you teach the pure triad of hearing, contemplation, and meditation to all sentient beings whose minds are deluded by afflictions and who are tossed by the waves of physical and mental suffering, and to us, your lowliest subjects. Having taught the pure triad of hearing, contemplation, and meditation, may the virtue of benefit and happiness be dedicated to supreme awakening. May your enlightened activity, the orb of the sun, never be obscured by the shadows of the clouds of attachment, aversion, and delusion. O glorious Noble One, may your body remain upon the peak of the great mountain of the clouds of accumulated virtue; like the king of the seven-horsed sun atop the mountain peaks, may there be the auspiciousness of your radiant and vivid clarity. May the dharmakāya be attained—pure, self, blissful, and permanent, free from birth, aging, sickness, and death, spontaneously present and unconditioned, transcending the sphere of thought and expression.
Like the moon in water or a rainbow in the sky, I offer this aspiration for the nirmāṇakāya to act for the benefit of beings. From the stamen of the lotus of Nāgārjuna, the sun-concealer Sūryagupta, like a bee, has excellently gathered the nectar; through this feast of ambrosia, may the bodies of the disciple-bees flourish. This concludes the praise to the venerable Tārā by the Kashmiri master Sūryagupta. It was translated by the Indian paṇḍita Sādhukīrti and the Tibetan translator Denma Tsültrim Senge, and later corrected at the glorious Sakya monastery.