The Threefold Ritual

The Threefold Ritual contains a short liturgy for invoking the pantheon of worldly deities, inviting these beings to seize the rare opportunity to listen to the Dharma, and proclaiming the aspiration that all the worldly beings that have gathered to hear the Dharma receive their share of the merit one has generated.

This text does not appear in either the Denkarma or Phangthangma royal Tibetan catalogs of translated works, and it also does not appear to have been translated into Chinese at any point. Combined with the fact that the title information for the text lacks a Sanskrit or otherwise Indic title as well as a colophon listing any Indic or Tibetan translator, it is possible that this work may in fact be Tibetan in origin.

This translation is based on the version of The Threefold Ritual found at the opening of the Compendium of Dhāraṇīs (gzungs ’dus) section in the Degé Kangyur in consultation with the text as it appears in the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) of the Kangyur. This text does not appear as an independent work in the Tohoku catalog, where it is listed under the number Toh 8461 and combined with the text The Threefold Invocation Ritual (spyan ’dren rgyud gsum pa) that immediately precedes it. It has been translated here as an independent work under the modified Tohoku number Toh 846a. The decision to present this text as an independent work is supported by the Degé Kangyur, where it appears with its own title and colophon, and by the Dunhuang manuscript witnesses to the text presented in Marcelle Lalou’s 1938 study, edition, and French translation. Lalou’s work shows that the Dunhuang witnesses to the two works cataloged under Toh 846 bear the individual titles The Threefold Ritual (rgyud gsum pa) and An Invocation of the Great Deities and Nāgas (lha klu chen po rnams spyan dran pa). In the Degé Kangyur, the latter of these two corresponds to the present work and bears the title The Threefold Ritual (rgyud gsum pa). Both works are found in other Kangyurs of predominantly Tshalpa lineage, but in those without a separate section of dhāraṇī they are placed in the tantra sections. Kangyurs that reflect the Thempangma tradition do not include either work.