The Dhāraṇī “Purifying All Karmic Obscurations” is a relatively brief text consisting of a short dhāraṇī and a passage about its applications and benefits. Most applications have to do with death and funerary rituals, as the text provides many methods to aid the departed toward a favorable rebirth.
The Translation
Obeisance to the Blessed Akṣobhya!
namo ratnatrayāya | oṃ kaṅkani kaṅkani rocani rocani troṭani troṭani trāsani trāsani pratihana pratihana sarvakarmaparamparāṇi me svāhā |5
The application of this dhāraṇī is as follows:
If one recites it constantly,6 the entire succession of karma will be purified one by one.
If one recites it at the three junctures of the day,7 even the five sins of immediate retribution will be purified.
If one recites it once, bad omens, bad dreams, and inauspicious events will disappear.
If one holds it on one’s body or writes it into a booklet and8 wears it tied around one’s neck, one will never experience any of the untimely deaths.
If one is overcome with compassion and recites it into the ears of a moribund9 beast, bird, human, or nonhuman being, that being will not be reborn in the unfavorable destinies.
Moreover, if somebody has died some time ago and one recites it one hundred, one thousand, or one hundred thousand times, with friendly kindness and compassion, in the name of the dead person,10 that sentient being will be liberated at that very moment, even if they have already been born in the hells.
If one recites it over some earth, or sesame seeds, or mustard seeds, or water and scatters that over the corpse, or washes the corpse,11 and then has it cremated,12 or places it for keeping in a caitya,13 or if one writes the spell [F.236.b] and places it on their head, that person will certainly be liberated in seven days, even if already born in an unfavorable destiny. That person will be reborn in a favorable destiny, among the gods, or wherever the aspirational prayer wished.
If one undergoes purification by ritually bathing throughout the waxing fortnight of the moon, changes clothes three times a day, fasts or eats white meals, and recites the spell one hundred thousand times in the name of a dead person,14 while circumambulating a caitya containing a relic, that person will be liberated from the lower realms. That person will then be reborn among the gods of the Pure Abodes and appear in front of the practitioner,15 perform worship, manifest his own appearance,16 congratulate the practitioner,17 circumambulate him three times, and then finally disappear.
If one writes down a dead person’s name, recites the spell, and creates one hundred thousand caityas18 worshiped with parasols, banners, streamers,19 and so on, and casts them into the sea or a great river, then that person will be liberated from the hells, and so on.20
Alternatively, having performed worship in the same way, if at the end one constructs a great caitya at a crossroads, worships it with parasols, banners, streamers, and so on, and then offers a meal and makes donations to the noble monastic community in worship21—as well as proclaims, “May this become a root of merit for so-and-so!22 Indeed, by this,23 may he attain a favorable rebirth among the gods!”—that person will be reborn there, manifest his own appearance, offer one congratulations,24 and then disappear.
25Whether one has committed the five sins of immediate retribution, or whether one is an apostate of the true Dharma, or whether one has disrespected the noble ones, if one sees this dhāraṇī, say, written on a wall at the time of death, all one’s karmic obscurations will cease, how much more so if one chants and recites it! That very tathāgata shall come to one and say “Noble son! Come to me!”26
Here ends “The Noble Dhāraṇī ‘Purifying All Karmic Obscurations’.”