Clicking on the link for each mantra below will take you to a page where you can read about that mantra, see the figure associated with the mantra (where applicable), and listen to an audio version of the mantra.
You can chant along to the mantra until you’re confident that you have it fully memorized. There are ten repetitions of each mantra (more or less) to help give you time to learn the mantra and chant along. You can replay the mantra until you think you’ve got it.
Please note that the mantras as written on this site lack some of the diacritic marks that allow for an accurate representation of the pronunciation.
(Diacritics, or accents, are little marks that indicate how a letter should be pronounced. Pali and Sanskrit have many more letters than the Roman alphabet, and these marks allow us to extend the number of characters available to us. Diacritics include the macron — a bar over a vowel that lengthens the vowel sound — overdots, underdots, and tildes. Unfortunately not all fonts possess those diacritic marks, and although some fonts do have the full range of accents not all computers have those fonts installed. There’s therefore no reliable way to represent diacritics on the web. You therefore may sometimes see strange characters or question marks in words.)
It’s best to listen to the audio files in order to get a better appreciation of how they are pronounced (taking into account the fact that I have a Scottish accent). In the heading of each page I’ve represented long vowels with a double vowel (eg. aa) or, where it’s possible to reproduce these in html, with a letter and diacritic mark (e.g. ?).
Note: Tibetans typically pronounce some Sanskrit sounds in a non-Indian way. For example they’ll tend to pronounce “padme” (pa-dmé) as peh-mé, and “svaha” as soha. Those who are familiar with the Tibetan pronunciation will therefore notice differences such as these.
Sabbe satta sukhi hontu
Om shanti shanti shanti
Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha
Avalokitesvara: Om Mani Padme Hum
Manjushri/Manjughosa: Om A Ra Pa Ca Na Dhih
Vajrapani: Om Vajrapani Hum
Green Tara: Om Tare Tuttare Ture Svaha
Amitabha: Om Amideva Hrih
White Tara: Om Tare Tuttare Ture Mama Ayuh Punya Jnana Pushtim Kuru Svaha
Shakyamuni: Om Muni Muni Mahamuni Shakyamuni Svaha
Padmasambhava: Om Ah Hum Vajra Guru Padma Siddhi Hum
Bhaisajyaguru (Medicine Buddha): Om Bhaishajye Bhaishajye Mahabhaishajye Bhaishajyaraje Samudgate Svaha
Vajrasattva: 100-Syllable Mantra.
By following the links you can find out the meanings, pronunciations, and benefits of the Buddhist mantras listed above.
View Comments
my wife is a nurse and she wanted to know if ther were and healing mantras or a mantra related to her feild of work.
The White Tara mantra is said to promote long life, so that's one candidate. The other, though, is a mantra that we don't yet have on this site, and it's the Medicine Buddha (Bhaishajyaguru) mantra. If you Google it you're bound to turn something up.
I attend the Five Buddha Shrine in LAs Vegas, I know that they would be more than happy to help you out with healing mantras such as one for diabetes and for the kidneys. They're amazing people & have helped me tremendously. Here is their info. Dari Rulai Lohan Temple - Five Buddha Shrine Vajrayana Buddhism 3043 Garnet Court Las Vegas, NV 89121 (702) 641-0522 Ask for Paul, JEN T, or David or find them on the web. Hope that helps.
By the way - This is my favorite informative/spiritual site - currently on the web- Thank you.
Is there a way to download the fonts needed to see the diacritic marks?
Hi Laura,
Good to hear from you. To see the diacritics you'd need (1) to have a Unicode font installed on your computer. And (2) your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc) will need to be set up to actually use that font. Unicode is not itself a font -- it's a type of font that, to the best of my understanding, includes a wide range of characters that are non-standard in English, as well as the usual characters you're used to. "Arial Unicode MS", for example, is a commonly used Unicode font.
There are some instructions here that explain how to get a Unicode font onto your computer and (lower down the page) how to get your browser to use that font.
I hope that's helpful. This is all a bit technical and out of my area of expertise.
All the best,
Bodhipaksa
I would say the best mantra to be used in the health field is that of the blue buddha know simply as Medicine Buddha. His Mantra is...
Teyata, Om Bekanze Bekanze, Maha Bekanze, Randza Samudgate Soha
Hi Paul,
We still don't have a page on the Medicine Buddha mantra, but we do plan to add one.
You might be interested to know that the correct Sanskrit form of the short mantra is (tadyathā) oṃ bhaiśajye bhaiśajye mahābhaiśajye bhaiśajye rāja samudgate svāhā (although your version has one bhaiśajye fewer and may be an alternative short version).
This mantra seems more than most to be mangled in Tibetan pronunciation. This doesn't mean the Tibetan mantra is wrong. Tibetans have been doing it that way for a long time, of course, so they way you've rendered the mantra is therefore the proper way to pronounce the mantra in the Tibetan tradition, and if you're part of that Tradition then you really have to chant it that way or you won't be able to join in with their rituals, but I think it's also good to know what the original Sanskrit is.
This is perhaps especially important since the English rendering is itself an approximation of the Tibetan approximation of how the Sanskrit would be pronounced. Thus you also find the Tibetan rendered in roman characters as:
Tadyatha Om Bhekhaze Bhekhaze Maha Bhekhaze Raza Samungate Svaha
and
Tadyatha Om bekaja bekaja Maha bekaja bekaja raja samudgate ya Svaha.
You can't really make sense of all this variation without looking at the Sanskrit.
All the best,
Bodhipaksa
Please will someone record the 100-syllable Vajrasattva mantra (and then the 500-syllable mantra). The only recording I can find is by Tibetan monks; it sounds indescribably beautiful but Sanskrit with a Tibetan accent is SO difficult to follow.
Thank you.
Hi Angela,
It's on my famously long list of things to do -- but I do promise I'll get that done.
All the best,
Bodhipaksa
Actually i really am hurt and sad for i losed my love. We are depart forever but still i love him and i want to get him back. We have a daughter to but coz of his family he hate me now. We are at the moment of last justice in court so please let me know the mantras to get him back and give me the remedies too. I will be really greatful to you and will never forget it at all. But please send me the reply as soon as possible. With many love and thanx (Pema.)