Talk:Dharani

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A fact from Dharani appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 13 December 2018 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the world's oldest known printed texts are 8th-century Buddhist charms called dharani preserved in Korean and Japanese temples?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2018/December. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Dhāraṇī.

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Pali Canon[edit]

I've deleted the reference to verse summaries in the Pali Canon, as these are generally acknowledged to be later additions.

Is it correct to talk of dharanis in early Buddhism? A later date is given inPrebish & Keown, Introducing Buddhism, page 89. Peter jackson (talk) 11:57, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Prebish & Keown write in the 2009 2nd edition, "dharani texts were in use [in Buddhism] before the first century CE" (p. 92,, ISBN 978-0415550017). Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 23:12, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sanskrit and Chinese/Japanese dharani scrolls[edit]

@JimRenge: Thanks for this, but it indeed is Sanskrit written in transliterated Chinese script, just like this Sanskrit (see GRETIL after UTF-8 notes on that page) is in IAST-English! We do need to clarify this because it does look like Chinese, not an Indic script, as you note. I will do so. I am also trying to locate and upload some audio files of dharani and mantra chants for the interested reader if she/he wants to listen to a dharani chant, if they are curious about how it sounds. We need a proper creative commons release for any audio upload, of course. I hope to hear back by Monday about relevant scholarly resources to look into. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 23:12, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for clarifying this. Some audio examples would be nice, adding these in the EL section might be a simple solution although I foresee adherents understanding this as an invitation to add an endless stream of EL´s. JimRenge (talk) 23:33, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Dharani seems to be a common term in Mahayana including esoteric Buddhism/Vajrayana. The lede states "Dharani are found in the ancient texts of all major traditions of Buddhism. They are a major part of the Pali canon preserved by the Theravada tradition ..." However Braavig [1], p.21, tells us that "Though the words dharani or dharanimantra do not appear in the Pali canon, summaries of doctrine to help the bhikkhu remember were not unusual in earlier phases of Buddhism ..." As a test of the relevance of the term dharani in modern Theravada, I searched Access to insight, and found Lake Dharani, nothing else [2]. JimRenge (talk) 02:26, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Singular or plural?[edit]

There is inconsistency in the article as to what the plural of "Dharani" is. Sometimes "Dharani" is used and sometimes "Dharanis". Cwmhiraeth (talk) 07:31, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Etymology[edit]

Quote: "Sanskrit root √dhṛ" ... but what is the square root sign doing? Is this part of the transcription (despite being outside the italics) or does it mean "root" (despite following the word "root")? Is this a convention from Sanskritology? It was added by the editor @Ogress: who added the current version with the subdotted r, so I assume not a joke; but unless this is in line with WP conventions I think it should be removed. (I am a beginner at this particular branch of mumbo-jumbo.) Imaginatorium (talk) 05:59, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

the square root sign indicates it's a root from whence other words are expanded. (that's not supposed to sound snarky.) The root sign is used by linguists in certain fields; it's most common in Afroasiatic and Indoeuropean studies. Sanskrit, like many IE languages, has an elaborate system of ablaut and affixes. You can see some detail at vṛddhi of how this system works. Ogress 14:24, 27 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]