One prefatory verse introducing two parittas together, on warding off venom and every remaining danger.
- When chanted
- Chanted immediately before the Khandha and Chaddanta parittas, which it introduces as a pair.
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
Alone among the prefatory verses in this section, this one introduces two chants rather than one — and the book later closes both with a single colophon, so the pairing is the book's, not this edition's.
The two it introduces are quite unlike each other: one is a declaration of loving-kindness towards snakes, the other a story about an elephant. What they share is that both concern an animal and a danger.
Meaning and purpose
The image it opens with is medical rather than magical: like a divine spell and antidote against all kinds of venomous creatures. Both halves of that are offered at once — the spell and the remedy — without any attempt to choose between them.
What it claims is then made deliberately total: it destroys dreadful poison and every remaining danger too; everywhere within its domain, at all times, for all breathing beings, it wards off everything.
อาณักเขตตัมหิ — within its domain — is the one word that keeps the claim honest. The protection is said to hold within a range rather than everywhere without qualification, which is a more careful thing to say than the sentence around it first appears to.
The chant
As the book prints it: page 87 →
page 87สัพพาสีวิสะชาตีนัง ทิพพะมันตาคะทัง วิยะ,
Sabbāsīvisajātīnaṃ dibbamantāgadaṃ viya,
Like a divine spell and antidote against all kinds of venomous creatures,
ยันนาเสติ วิสัง โฆรัง เสสัญจาปิ ปะริสสะยัง,
Yannāseti visaṃ ghoraṃ sesañcāpi parissayaṃ,
which destroys dreadful poison and every remaining danger too;
อาณักเขตตัมหิ สัพพัตถะ สัพพะทา สัพพะปาณินัง,
Āṇākkhettamhi sabbattha sabbadā sabbapāṇinaṃ,
everywhere within its domain, at all times, for all breathing beings,
สัพพะโสปิ นิวาเรติ ปะริตตันตัมภะณามะ เห.
Sabbasopi nivāreti parittantambhaṇāma he.
it wards off everything: that paritta let us now recite.