When chanted

Chanted for someone troubled by omens or bad dreams, and in the paritta service in its place as the eleventh.

A note on this chant. The book prints this chant in Pali only, with no Thai translation. The English here is a working translation prepared for this edition — it is not the book's own, and has not yet been checked by a teacher.

Historical background

Twelve lines, which are really four lines said three times over, changing only the last word: by the power of the Buddha, then of the Dhamma, then of the Sangha.

อะภะยะ means without fear, and the chant is named for what it is meant to produce rather than for its subject.

Meaning and purpose

The four things named are worth listing exactly, because together they describe a particular kind of distress: whatever ill omen there is, whatever is inauspicious, whatever cry of a bird is unwelcome, an evil planet, an unpleasant bad dream.

None of these is a real danger. They are signs — a bird calling at the wrong moment, a dream that will not leave, a planet in the wrong house — and what they do is frighten. The chant is aimed at the fear rather than at anything the fear is about.

That is why the request is worded as it is: may they come to nothing. Not may they be false, and not may they not happen. The omens are not argued with. They are asked to lose their force, which is a more exact description of what actually helps somebody who cannot stop thinking about a dream.

The chant

As the book prints it: page 98 →

page 98 page 98 page 98 page 98 page 98 page 98 page 98 page 98 page 98 page 98 page 98 page 98