佛說阿彌陀經 卷末附文

The last sentence of the preceding passage is “paid homage and departed.” The assembly dispersed; the Dharma gathering was over. Then comes the end-of-fascicle sūtra title.

A sūtra is finished at that point.

But the fascicle is not finished. After the title come seventeen more lines of text: a dhāraṇī, a passage on the merit of reciting it, a record of Nāgārjuna’s dream, an account of transmission and of the method of practice.

This passage is not the scriptural text translated by Kumārajīva.

Four Proofs, All on the Table

Four pieces of evidence, all of them there to be seen.

The structure of the Taishō itself divides it from the scriptural text into two regions; the Tang line-by-line commentary in three fascicles explains the sūtra sentence by sentence and at this passage explains not one word; the Tang hymn-text that sets the whole sūtra into a rite and recites it likewise stops at the scriptural text; and Xuanzang’s translation does not have this dhāraṇī at all.

For those of the seventh century who read this sūtra, who annotated this sūtra, and who recited this sūtra, the sūtra in their hands ended at the transmission part.

Then Why Is It Still Copied Out

Because it is on the fascicle.

The first rule of a translated and annotated edition is to set down what is there, not one character added, not one taken away — and so it is received; but to set it down and say nothing will not do either, for once the boundary blurs a reader will suppose that the Buddha spoke one more dhāraṇī at the end of the sūtra — and so it is marked for what it is.

To receive it is not to grant that it is scripture; and not to receive it would not make it cease to exist.

And in fact the passage makes no pretence of being scripture. One sentence in it is perfectly candid: “No scriptural text for it has come from abroad.” — this dhāraṇī has no scriptural text come from abroad; it was handed down by word of mouth.

The Blanks Are Syllables, Not Layout

The dhāraṇī runs like this: 南無阿彌多婆夜　哆他伽哆夜　哆地夜他……

Those blank spaces between the characters are not the blank space of the page layout; they are the separation of the syllables — telling the one who recites where to break, and which characters are to be carried in one breath.

Levelled away, it becomes a long stretch of sound with no way of knowing where to draw breath. What a dhāraṇī hangs upon is precisely its sound, and what its sound hangs upon is where it breaks; so here these blank spaces are content, and not one of them may be lost.

In the same line there is also a small note, 「〔上聲〕」, marking the tone of the last character of 「阿彌唎」 — someone copying a sūtra more than a thousand years ago left a reminder about pronunciation for those who would recite it later.

The Expounding of Dharma, and a Daily Office

Also worth looking at is the literary form of this appended text.

Six periods of day and night, twenty-one recitations at each. Morning and evening rinse the mouth and chew a willow twig, light incense, kneel before the image, join the palms, recite twenty-one times. Every day the same.

There is no sequence of visualization here, no work upon the ground of the mind — only times, counts, postures, and implements.

This is altogether unlike the ten passages before it. The scriptural text speaks of how adorned that land is, how weighty that name is, how hard that matter is to believe; this passage speaks of what hour to do it at, how many times to do it, and brushing the teeth before doing it.

Both kinds of writing remain on one and the same fascicle. At the one end, the expounding of Dharma; at the other, a daily office.

And what they point to is one and the same thing.

Kumārajīva’s translation, T12n0366, at the end of the fascicle, from “The Buddha of Measureless Life spoke the Dhāraṇī for Birth in the Pure Land” to “The Sūtra Spoken by the Buddha on Amitābha, fascicle one.” This passage is not the scriptural text translated by Kumārajīva itself — the Taishō sets up a separate region for it here, and the Tang commentators do not explain it either. The bracketed figures at the head of each segment give the Taishō page, register, and line.

〔1 · The dhāraṇī’s title and the dhāraṇī〕（0348b02）「無量壽佛　說往生淨土呪：」— The Buddha of Measureless Life spoke the Dhāraṇī for Birth in the Pure Land:

南無阿彌多婆夜　哆他伽哆夜　哆地夜他　阿彌唎〔上聲〕都婆毘　阿彌唎哆　悉耽婆毘　阿彌唎哆　毘迦蘭哆　伽彌膩　伽伽那　抧多迦隸　莎婆訶

(The dhāraṇī is not translated — words of secret speech are kept character by character; the blank spaces between the syllables follow the form of the base text, they are not run together, and no Chinese sense is devised for them. 「〔上聲〕」 is an inline note present in the base text, marking the tone in which that character is read.)

〔2 · The benefit of reciting the dhāraṇī〕（0348b07）For one who recites this dhāraṇī, Amitābha Buddha dwells constantly above his crown, and after the end of his life he comes to birth in that land as a matter of course.

〔3 · Nāgārjuna’s dream〕（0348b09）The bodhisattva Nāgārjuna vowed to be born in Anyang (another name for the land of Ultimate Bliss), and in a dream he received this dhāraṇī.

〔4 · Transmission and the method of practice〕（0348b10）Tripiṭaka master Yeshe recited this dhāraṇī, and Dharma master Xiu of Tianping Monastery received this dhāraṇī orally from Tripiṭaka master Yeshe. That man said: “No scriptural text for it has come from abroad. The method for upholding this dhāraṇī is this: at each of the six periods of day and night, recite it twenty-one times; morning and evening rinse the mouth and chew a willow twig (an implement for cleaning the teeth in former times, and part of a monk’s daily use), light incense, kneel before the image, join the palms, and recite twenty-one times. Do so every day, and the four grave offences, the five heinous acts, and the ten evils will be extinguished, and the offence of slandering the Vaipulya scriptures will all be extinguished as well. In the present life one will not be harassed by any evil ghosts or spirits, and after the end of life one will come to birth in Amitābha’s land as a matter of course. How much more inconceivable, then, is the merit of upholding and reciting it day and night!”

〔5 · The end-of-fascicle title〕（0348b18）The Sūtra Spoken by the Buddha on Amitābha, fascicle one.

The last sentence of the preceding passage is “paid homage and departed.” The assembly dispersed; the Dharma gathering was over. Then comes the end-of-fascicle sūtra title: The Sūtra Spoken by the Buddha on Amitābha.

A sūtra is finished at that point.

But the fascicle is not finished. After the title come seventeen more lines of text: a dhāraṇī, a passage on the merit of reciting it, a record of Nāgārjuna’s dream, an account of transmission and of the method of practice, and only then “The Sūtra Spoken by the Buddha on Amitābha, fascicle one.”

This passage is not the scriptural text translated by Kumārajīva.

On What Grounds Is That Said

Four pieces of evidence, all of them on the fascicle itself.

First, the division made in the canon. The Taishō sets up a separate region here, of a different class from the ten passages of scripture before it; the dhāraṇī section is further marked as a dhāraṇī. The editors have already used structure to set it apart from the scriptural text.

Second, the Tang line-by-line commentary does not explain it. That commentary in three fascicles explains this sūtra sentence by sentence, from the title all the way to “this is exceedingly difficult” and the transmission part. At this passage — not one word.

Third, the Tang liturgical hymns do not recite it either. That hymn-text, which sets the whole sūtra into the rite of turning the sūtra and walking the path and recites it word for word, likewise stops at the scriptural text.

Fourth, Xuanzang’s translation does not have this dhāraṇī. The Sūtra on Praising the Pure Land and the Buddha’s Embrace does not have it anywhere.

Put the four together and the sense is plain: for those of the seventh century who read this sūtra, who annotated this sūtra, and who recited this sūtra, the sūtra in their hands ended at the transmission part.

Then Why Copy It Out at All

Because it is on the fascicle.

The first rule of a translated and annotated edition is to set down what is there — whatever is on the fascicle is what gets recorded, not one character added, not one taken away. If a passage were cut because it had been judged not to be scripture, what the reader received would no longer be that fascicle, but someone’s idea of that fascicle.

Yet to set it down and say nothing about it will not do either. Seventeen lines follow immediately upon the scriptural text; let the boundary blur, and a reader will suppose that the Buddha spoke one more dhāraṇī at the end of the sūtra.

To set it down, and to mark what it is — the two can be done at once. Not one character of the scriptural layer is touched; what this is, and on what grounds it is said to be that, are accounted for elsewhere.

And in fact the passage makes no pretence of being scripture. One sentence in it is perfectly candid: “No scriptural text for it has come from abroad.” — this dhāraṇī has no scriptural text come from abroad; it was handed down by word of mouth.

A stretch of writing that admits it has no scriptural text of its own, honestly copied at the end of a sūtra fascicle and honestly marked for what it is. In all of this no one is deceiving anyone.

The Blank Spaces in the Dhāraṇī

The dhāraṇī runs like this:

南無阿彌多婆夜　哆他伽哆夜　哆地夜他　阿彌唎〔上聲〕都婆毘……

Those blank spaces between the characters are worth attention. They are not the blank space of the page layout; they are the separation of the syllables — telling the one who recites where to break, and which characters are to be carried in one breath.

Level them away, and 「南無阿彌多婆夜　哆他伽哆夜」 becomes a long stretch of sound with no way of knowing where to draw breath. What a dhāraṇī hangs upon is precisely its sound, and what its sound hangs upon is where it breaks. So here these blank spaces are content and not layout; not one of them may be lost.

In the same line there is also a small note: 「〔上聲〕」. What it marks is the tone of the last character of 「阿彌唎」 — someone copying a sūtra more than a thousand years ago left a reminder about pronunciation for those who would recite it later.

Words of secret speech are kept character by character and are not smoothed out. These blank spaces and this small note fall within that rule as well.

A Dhāraṇī’s Daily Round

What most deserves looking at is how concrete the method of practice recorded in this appended text is.

Six periods of day and night, twenty-one recitations at each. Morning and evening rinse the mouth and chew a willow twig, light incense, kneel before the image, join the palms, recite twenty-one times. Every day the same.

There is no sequence of visualization here, no work upon the ground of the mind — only times, counts, postures, and implements.

This is altogether unlike the literary form of the ten passages before it. The scriptural text speaks of how adorned that land is, how weighty that name is, how hard that matter is to believe; this passage speaks of what hour to do it at, how many times to do it, and cleaning the teeth before doing it.

Both kinds of writing remain on one and the same fascicle. At the one end, the expounding of Dharma; at the other, a daily office.

And what they point to is one and the same thing: birth in Amitābha’s land after the end of life.

Three Names

For this dhāraṇī the appended text leaves three names, and the three are of quite different kinds.

Nāgārjuna — “The bodhisattva Nāgārjuna vowed to be born in Anyang, and in a dream he received this dhāraṇī.” He vowed to be born there, and received it in a dream. This is the dhāraṇī’s provenance, and the provenance is a dream.

Tripiṭaka master Yeshe — the one who recited this dhāraṇī.

Dharma master Xiu of Tianping Monastery — the one who received it orally from Tripiṭaka master Yeshe.

A dream, one who upheld the recitation, one who received the teaching. The three names join into a line, and on that line there is no scriptural text at all — as the appended text says of itself: “No scriptural text for it has come from abroad.”

What deserves notice is that it does not cover this over. If one wished to make a dhāraṇī look reliable, the easiest course would be to furnish it with a Sanskrit original; the appended text does not do so. It writes plainly instead that there is no scriptural text, and then gives only the path of oral reception.

A stretch of writing that frankly says of itself that it has no scriptural text is far more trustworthy than one that invents a provenance for itself.

Why the Dhāraṇī Is Not Translated

That not one character of the dhāraṇī has been translated is itself a thing to account for.

It is not translated — not because it could not be, and not because it is too mysterious. It is because the convention for words of secret speech has always been not to translate them: the tradition of translating scripture leaves writing of the class of spells and dhāraṇīs upon its sound, and does not turn it into sense.

The reason is quite practical. The working of writing of this class hangs upon sound. Once it is turned into Chinese sense, what the reciter recites is no longer that same string of sounds. A name can be translated (Amitābha is Measureless Life, Measureless Light); a dhāraṇī cannot.

There is a further restraint here. Since this dhāraṇī states of itself that no scriptural text for it has come from abroad, there is no Sanskrit original to go upon; and since there is no transcription transmitted by the ancient masters either, no Chinese sense is devised for it in their stead, and no Sanskrit form is restored. What is not known is said to be not known — the same principle by which the name Qiantuohedi was handled earlier.

An Appended Text That Lights Up How a Sūtra Was Read

Looking back from these seventeen lines to the ten passages before them, something of interest comes into view.

The scriptural text itself teaches no daily office at all. It speaks of the look of that land, the weight of that buddha’s name, holding fast to the name for seven days single-minded and undisturbed, the buddhas of the six directions bearing witness, and at the last it says that this matter is hard to believe. From beginning to end it gives a direction and a gate of practice; it does not give a timetable.

And one who reads a sūtra needs a timetable.

So someone appended a dhāraṇī at the end of the fascicle and wrote down: at each of the six periods of day and night recite twenty-one times; morning and evening clean the teeth, light incense, kneel and recite. Of these details the scriptural text says not a word — yet they are exactly what someone who really means to keep it up daily is bound to ask.

The same need has left its traces elsewhere. That Tang hymn-text which sets the whole sūtra into the rite of turning the sūtra and walking the path is doing the very same thing — laying out an order for those who recite the sūtra, and giving them their places in the chant. The one appends a dhāraṇī at the end of a fascicle, the other arranges a rite for a Dharma gathering; neither is scripture, and both exist so that a sūtra may go on being used day after day.

So what these seventeen lines light up is not only their own provenance. They light up how many people, in the space between a sūtra’s being read and its being used, laid a road for those who came after.

The Weight of Seventeen Lines

A last word on where this passage stands within the fascicle as a whole.

It is very short, only seventeen lines; it is not scripture, and neither the Tang commentator nor the Tang reciter touched it; it admits of itself that it has no scriptural text.

But it has been copied there for more than a thousand years.

The fascicle of a sūtra often carries, besides the scriptural text, some other things as well: dhāraṇīs, hymns, dedications of merit, colophons, methods of practice. They are not scripture, yet they are the traces of a sūtra’s being used. Someone read this sūtra and felt that something to do every day was still wanted, and so this dhāraṇī was appended; someone else felt that its provenance ought to be explained, and so Nāgārjuna’s dream and the oral reception from Tripiṭaka master Yeshe were set down.

These traces are themselves a kind of evidence. They tell those who come after: this sūtra was not only read, it was used.

So it stays here, preserved word for word, its status marked — neither raised to the rank of scripture, nor wiped off the fascicle.

Carrying Forward — Neither of the Two Eyes Came to Rest Here

Above is the meaning of these seventeen lines themselves. What follows is a related matter: of the two Tang eyes, neither came to rest upon this passage.

The commentary of the Cien line stops at the scriptural text; the hymns of the Shandao line stop at the scriptural text. This is the one place in this edition that neither of the two mirrors reaches.

And this is no oversight; it is a boundary. They knew where the sūtra ends.

That is followed here: the passage is received, its status marked, nothing devised in its stead; its standing is not raised because it stands on the fascicle, nor is it cut because it is not the scriptural text.

As for the account that Nāgārjuna received this dhāraṇī in a dream, and the matter of the oral reception between Tripiṭaka master Yeshe and Dharma master Xiu of Tianping Monastery — they are set down word for word, and whether they are credible is not investigated. Inquiry of that kind belongs to the study of the scriptural catalogues; a translated and annotated edition transmits the text and does not undertake to expose forgeries. Recorded, not adjudicated.

A sūtra recited comes to its end at “paid homage and departed.” And the fascicle goes on for seventeen lines more — lines that hold no word of the Buddha’s, but hold what those who read this sūtra, over more than a thousand years, added to it themselves.