Great Dharani Resources

Here is a collection of resources that will hopefully be helpful to anyone who wants to know more about “The Great Dharani”.

Lokesh Chandra

•  Lokesh Chandra’s book-length study of the Great Dharani: “Thousand-armed Avalokitesvara”:
https://www.namsebangdzo.com/Thousand-Armed-Avalokitesvara-p/12549.htm
•  Lokesh Chandra’s paper: “Origin of Avalokitesvara of Potala”:
http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/kailash/pdf/kailash_07_01_01.pdf
•  Another Lokesh Chandra paper: “Origin of Avalokita-svara/Avalokite-svara”:
http://www.asiainstitutetorino.it/Indologica/volumes/vol13/vol13_art13_CHANDRA.pdf

Great Compassion Repentance

•  Chün-fang Yü’s “Kuan-yin : the Chinese transformation of Avalokitesìvara”, especially Chapter 7: “The Ritual of Great Compassion Repentance”.
http://cup.columbia.edu/book/kuan-yin/9780231120296
•  “Great Compassion Repentance Service” in pdf format (with Chinese characters, transliteration, and English translation:
https://www.dallasibps.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/The-Great-Compassion-Repentance-Service.pdf
•  Great Compassion Repentance 大悲懺 – Guan Yin Session (City of Ten Thousand Buddhas):

The Great Compassion Dharani Sutra

•  The Great Compassion Dharani Sutra (English translation):
http://www.buddhism.org/Sutras/2/Sutras17.htm
•  A pdf version of an English translation: https://huntingtonarchive.org/resources/downloads/sutras/05bodhisattvaYana/Great%20Compassion%20Dharani%20Sutra.doc.pdf
•  “The Sutra on the Dharani of the Vast, Complete, and Unobstructed Great Compassion of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara with a Thousand Hands and a Thousand Eyes” by William J. Giddings (Chapter 26 in “Buddhism and Medicine : An Anthology of Premodern Sources“, ed. C. Pierce Salguero, Columbia University Press, 2017)
•  The full Chinese text of the Sutra at CBETA (Taishō Tripiṭaka 1060):
https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/zh/T1060

Commentaries / Translations

•  An abridged and edited version of Hsuan Hua’s commentary on the Great Dharani:
https://260xy0310yvi2ta4q62x2os9-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Great-Compassion-Mantra-Meaning-Edited-by-K-T-6.12.20.pdf
• “The Litany of the Great Compassionate One” Rev. Master Koten Benson
https://columbiazen.org/wp-content/nl//compassionateone.pdf

Miscellaneous

•  A series of talks given by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, in Seoul in July 2017, on “Compassion, Avalokiteshvara and the Thousand Hands Sutra 悲心、觀音與《千手經》”:

•  This site has the Korean version of the Great Dharani with both Hanja and Hangul and the “Sanksrit”:
http://www.siddham.org/yuan_english/mantra/emantra_84s_s.pdf
•  The wikipedia page for the Great Dharani is actually quite good!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nīlakaṇṭha_Dhāraṇī
•  Note that this other wikipedia page on “The Great Dharani Sutra” is actually about another Dharani (the Uṣṇīṣa Vijaya Dhāraṇī):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Dharani_Sutra

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