Sanskrit Manuscripts : Pañcarakṣā

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Sanskrit Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'> The <i>Pañcarakṣā</i> corpus ("Five Protections") consists of the <i>Mahāpratisarā</i>, <i>Mahāmāyūrī</i>, <i>Mahāsāhasrapramardanī</i>, <i>Mahāmantrānusāriṇī</i>, and <i>Mahāśītavatī</i>. The earliest evidence for texts grouped together as the "Five Great Dhāraṇīs" comes from Tibetan catalogues around 800 CE, but this compendium is somewhat different from the surviving Sanskrit collection, which is preserved in manuscripts dating back to the eleventh century. These scriptures include spells, enumerations of benefits and ritual instructions for use. With the course of time all of them became deified and five related goddesses emerged. It is, however, important to note that the texts themselves do not have any references to these goddesses. This Bengalese manuscript, dated to the second half of the 11th century and commissioned by the queen Ḍaddākā (probably the same as the Lāḍākā mentioned in <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ADD-01464/1'>Add.1464</a>), is one of the oldest known examples of such a collection and is decorated with a series of thirty-six refined miniatures. </p>