Verses about Circumambulating Stūpas
In Sanskrit: Caitya Pradakṣiṇa Gātā
In Tibetan: Chörten Korwäi Tshigsu Cäpa
I prostrate to the Three Jewels!
After the wheel of dharma had been turned
In the world of those with intelligent minds,
The greatly wise Śariputa
Asked the Teacher,
“What karmic fruition will develop
As the result of circumambulating stūpas?
Perfect leader, supreme in this greatly fortunate world,
Explain that to me.”
The perfected buddha, supreme among bipeds,
The Teacher, answered him:
“I will teach just a mere portion of
The benefits of circumambulating stūpas.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
Devas, nagas, yakśas, gandharvas,
Asuras, garudas, kinnaras, and
Mahoragas will all make offerings.
“Having achieved that freedom which is difficult to attain,
As a result of circumambulating stūpas
For even the slightest second
You will eliminate the eight unfavorable conditions.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will be endowed with memory, intelligence,
And beautiful appearance, you will be learned, and
You will always receive offerings.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
Devas and, similarly, humans
Will achieve long lives, and also
They will achieve great renown.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will be born in a supreme lineage in Jambudvīpa,
In an absolutely pure family, and
You will be intelligent.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will achieve face that’s clear and also attractive,
An excellent color, you will be learned, and
Will abide in happiness.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will have a lot of wealth and jewels,
Be free of miserliness, endowed with magnanimity, and
Have joy in giving to others.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will be attractive and pleasant to look at.
It will be a joy to see your excellent face, and
You will enjoy a great many possessions.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will recognize all compounded phenomena as empty, and then
You will not become deluded regarding dharma, and
You will quickly accomplish joy.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will be born in the supreme Kṣatriya lineage.
You will always be surrounded by women, and
Have strength and perseverance.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will be born as a great and high Brāhmaṇ,
You will have morality and be studious, and
You will have secret-mantra knowledge.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will be born as a great and high householder.
You will have a lot of wealth and jewels, and
You will have riches and grains.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will be an excellent sovereign of Jambudvīpa,
A king endowed with dharma that
Rules over all the land.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will become a wheel-turning king
Who is endowed with the seven precious items1 and
Turns the wheel in accordance with the Dharma.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
Having passed away from this life you will go to a higher state,
Delight in the teachings of the Buddha, and
Have great yogic and miraculous powers.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
Having passed away from the pure deva realm. moreover,
You will be born among humans, and
Enter a womb without any delusion.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will not be sullied by the stains of the
Womb’s faults while in there, and
You will be like a pure jewel.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will abide blissfully in your mother’s stomach,
You will be born blissfully, and
You will drink milk blissfully.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will be raised by and reside with
Your father and also a great retinue of attendants, and
You will always be cared for by your mother.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
Once born you will be cherished by your relatives and
Especially loved by your father and mother, and
Your possessions will pile up.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
All piśācas and rākṣasas2
Will not harm you, and
You will enjoy pure possessions faultlessly.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
For even a hundred eons
You will be neither blind nor lame, and
Your body will also be completely pure.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
Your eyes, also, will be completely pure,
Broad, dark blue, and attractive, and
You will achieve the divine eye3.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will have a healthy body, a stable mind, and,
Similarly, a steadfast mind of perseverance, and
Your shoulders will be round and stable.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will be strong, and your marvelous face, body,
And limbs will all be excellently
Adorned with all of the marks.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will become sovereign of the Heaven of the Thirty-Three4,
Indra, with great miraculous powers,
The great ruler of the devas.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will become the king of the devas of the heaven Devoid of Combat, and
Similarly of the heavens Thoroughly Joyous,
Enjoying Emanations, and Controlling Others’ Emanations5.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will become the ruler of the Brahma-realm6,
Brahma himself, and
All of the devas, however many tens of millions there are, will make offerings to you.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
The wise will always make offerings to you
For ten thousand million eons, and
Even for hundreds of tens of billions of eons.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
For those ten thousand million eons
You will have a pristine body, and pristine garments, also, and
You will be endowed with the virtuous Dharma.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will achieve marvelous strength and perseverance,
You will be devoid of laziness, and will
Achieve the utmost of accomplishments.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will have steadfast perseverance, stable power, and
Stable capacity, also, and, not hindered in any way,
You will quickly achieve all of your aims.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will have a tone of voice both clear and also high, and
Your voice will be pleasant, and
You will be free from harm and disease.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will quickly go to that place
Where I, myself, have taught, and
You will achieve powerful births.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will achieve the power of the four close mental placements,
That of the four immeasurable minds,
And also that of the [four] miraculous feet7.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will actualize the four noble truths,
All of the powers and all of the strengths, and
The result of the limbs of enlightenment.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will achieve the six clairvoyances8, without contamination, and
Will become a great, miraculous arhat that
Abandons all afflictive emotions.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will abandon desire and anger, and
Achieve the state of a solitary-buddha
Who has abandoned all of saṃsāra.
“As a result of circumambulating stūpas
You will become one who has gone thus in the world,
Adorned with all of the marks and
Achieving a golden body.
“Circumambulating is an action of body,
Circumambulating is an action of speech,
Circumambulating is an action of mind, and
Circumambulating is also the expressing of prayer.
“Here, as a result of circumambulating,
The aims of all difficult and easy journeys will be accomplished.
Whatever the good qualities there are of circumambulating
The stūpa of the Protector of the World are,
They are not possible to be perfectly taught
With just a trifling amount of mere words.
“However, since Śāriputra, due to his compassion
For all sentient beings, has asked,
The Protector of the World will teach
The qualities of worshipping stūpas.
“One hundred horses, one hundred gold coins, and also
One hundred mule-drawn carts and
One hundred mare-drawn carts
All filled with various jewels,
Do not compare with the compare to even one-sixteenth
Of every single step of circumambulation.
One hundred Cambodian girls,
Dripping with gems, earrings, bracelets, and attendants,
Wearing golden armlets and
Perfectly adorned with golden necklaces
Do not compare to even one-sixteenth
Of every single step of circumambulation.
Hundreds of mountainous elephants,
Whose large bodies are immense,
With trunks, moreover, like plough-beams,
Who are also adorned with gold and gems
Do not compare to even one-sixteenth
Of every single step of circumambulation.
When a wise person, with a joyful mind,
Takes a single step at a stūpa of the Buddha,
A hundred thousand gold coins from the river Jambu
Are not equal to that.
When a wise person, with a joyful mind,
makes a single tsatsa offering at a stūpa of the Buddha,
A hundred thousand golden palaces from the river Jambu
Are not equal to that.
When a wise person, with a joyful mind,
Piles a heap of flower petals at a stūpa of the Buddha,
A hundred thousand golden vases put forth from the river Jambu
Are not equal to that.
When a wise person, with a joyful mind,
Strings a garland of flowers at a stūpa of the Buddha,
Twenty million bushels of gold from the river Jambu
Are not equal to that.
When a wise person, with a joyful mind,
Sprinkles scented water at a stūpa of the Buddha,
A hundred thousand heaps of gold from the river Jambu
Are not equal to that.
When a wise person, with a joyful mind,
Offers a butter lamp at a stūpa of the Buddha,
A hundred thousand times ten million gold coins from the river Jambu
Are not equal to that.
When a wise person, with a joyful mind,
Hangs a victory banner, with flowing ribbons, at a stūpa of the Buddha,
Even the measure of a hundred thousand golden Mt. Merus
Is not equal to that.
These are taught to be the benefits of offering
To limitless tathāgatas,
To an ocean of completed buddhas,
To the Unsurpassable Guide.
Whoever makes offerings while alive, and
Whoever makes offerings after nirvāṇa,
If their virtuous minds are the same
Then there is no difference in the merit.
Like that, the buddhas are inconceivable,
The buddhadharma, too, is inconceivable, and
All who have faith in this inconceivability
Will experience karmic results that are also inconceivable!
The Verses about Circumambulating Stūpas is completed.
Translator’s Colophon: This text was translated by Ven. Gyalten Lekden, at the request of Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche, in Sera Je Monastery during the concluding days of the 2019 rains retreat. I request forgiveness for any errors. May any merit from this translation be dedicated to the continued display of good health and long life on the part of all holy gurus who show the authentic path.
Notes
1. The seven precious items of a wheel-turning king are: precious wheel, precious jewel, precious queen, precious minister, precious elephant, precious and excellent horse, and precious general.
2. rākṣasas are two types of demons, or malevolent entities.
3. “The divine eye” is most likely referring to one of the “five eyes.” The terminology of “the five eyes” uses the honorific term for eye (Tib: cän; Wylie: spyan) whereas here the term mig is used, as it is throughout the verse. The five eyes are types of superknowledges or clairvoyant minds (not to be confused with the six clairvoyances, which are similar but distinct, the main difference between the group having to do with how they are developed). The other four are the fleshy eye, the dharma eye, the wisdom eye, and the buddha eye. The power of the divine eye is to see all conventional forms as far away as the limits of the realm of the sky.
4. There are six heavens, each with their own type of god or deva, within the Desire Realm, the lower two of which are terrestrial heavens and the latter four are celestial heavens. The Heaven of the Thirty-Three is the higher of the two terrestrial heavens.
5. These four heavens are the four celestial heavens (see previous footnote) in order from lowest to highest.
6. The Brahma-realm, or Brahmāloka, is taught in many sutras as the highest worldly realm, encompassing the Form and Formless Realms also, which is why the Buddha includes this verse as separate from the previous verses which were all related to the six heavens of the Form Realm. The Mahāyāna tradition holds this to be a provisional teaching, and, based on quotations from the Perfection of Wisdom literature, explains Brahmāloka to be the highest celestial abode of the Form Realm, only.
7. The four miraculous feet are called that because they are the bases or supports for miraculous powers. They are the concentration of aspiration (Tib: ‘dun pa’i ting nge ‘dzin), the concentration of mind (Tib: sems kyi ting nge ‘dzin), the concentration of effort (Tib: brtson ‘gros kyi ting nge ‘dzin), and the concentration of analysis (Tib: dpyod pa’i ting nge ‘dzin).
8. The six clairvoyances (Tib: ngönshe drug; Wylie: mngon shes drug) are six types of clairvoyant mind or superknowledge. They are the clairvoyance of the divine eye, the clairvoyance of the divine ear, the clairvoyance of knowing others’ minds, the clairvoyance of remembering past lives, the clairvoyance of performing miracles, and the clairvoyance of destroying defilements.