The Amitabha Root Dharani

The Amida Nyorai Konpon Dharani (阿弥陀如来根本陀羅尼) or “Amitabha Root Dharani” is a dharani used in some Japanese Buddhist sects, typically only on the Segaki ritual used to feed the hungry ghosts in Buddhism, or possibly funerals and other similar services. It is typically only found in esoteric rituals in Shingon and Tendai Buddhism, but can be found in Jodo Shu and Zen as well. The dharani is typically of very, very limited use, and not part of normal liturgy.

This page is intended to post the dharani for reference purposes only. Esoteric practices such as mantras and dharani should only be used as recommended by one’s teacher, under a guided training program. I found reference material on this dharani to be almost non-existent in English, hence my decision to post it here.

This page will provide both the Sino-Japanese reading follow by the Sanskrit reading. There are multiple versions of the dharani in Japanese, so pronunciation may vary slightly between them, so for this reason the Sanskrit is provided as well. No translation will be provided as this is part of the esoteric training one should undergo when learning the dharani. Any translation you see online of this, or any mantra/dharani, should be treated as suspect.

Can’t read the characters?

If you’re having trouble reading the Kanji characters, you might have one or two problems with your computer:

Your computer may not have Asian fonts installed. In Windows you have to enable UTF8 and East Asian fonts under the Control Panel. Modern Mac computers are fully compatible already.
Your browser may be assuming the wrong character set. If you use a relatively modern browser and use UTF8 as character set, you should be able to read fine. IE, Firefox and Safari all read this fine as far as I can tell.

Even if not, then you can still use the romanized characters, and the (terrible) English translation.

Disclaimer and Legal Info

I hereby release this into the public domain. Please use it as you see fit, but if you attribute it to this site, greatly appreciated. Also, please bear in mind this is an amateur work, and should not be taken too seriously.

Dedication

I dedicate this effort to all sentient beings everywhere. May all beings be well, and may they all attain perfect peace.

Namu Amida Butsu