Tayata Om Bekandze Bekandze Maha Bekandze Radza Samudgate Soha is the mantra of the Medicine Buddha (Sangye Menla in Tibetan), drawn from the Medicine Buddha Sutra and central to the Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhist traditions. It is chanted to remove suffering at physical, mental, and karmic levels and to invoke the healing presence of the lapis-blue Medicine Buddha.
What is the Medicine Buddha Mantra?
The Medicine Buddha (Sanskrit: Bhaisajyaguru; Tibetan: Sangye Menla) is a Mahayana Buddhist deity who made twelve vows before attaining Buddhahood, all centred on healing, healing illness, poverty, ignorance, and the fundamental suffering of cyclic existence. He is depicted as deep blue (the colour of lapis lazuli), seated in meditation posture, holding a myrobalan plant in his right hand and a lapis bowl in his left. The lapis colour connects him to the vast, open sky of wisdom, the medicine he offers is ultimately the medicine of awakening.
The Medicine Buddha Sutra, translated into Chinese in 615 CE by the pilgrim-monk Xuanzang, describes the twelve vows of the Medicine Buddha and prescribes the recitation of his mantra as a means of healing illness, extending life, and ultimately attaining enlightenment. The Sutra has been one of the most widely recited texts in East Asian Buddhism, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese, for over 1,400 years. In the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition, Medicine Buddha practice is considered among the most powerful practices for healing and for accumulating merit towards one's own awakening.
The word bekandze is a transliteration of the Sanskrit Vaidurya (lapis lazuli) or of the Tibetan Menla (medicine), the healing is presented as multi-dimensional: removing the suffering of disease (the first bekandze), removing the deeper suffering of karma (the second bekandze), and transcending even that in the maha (great) bekandze. The mantra thus addresses healing at every level of existence simultaneously.
Word-by-Word Meaning
The mantra (in its full form with Tayata) breaks into meaningful components:
- Tayata (དེ་ཡ་ཐཱ།): "it is like this"; a prefatory phrase introducing the mantra; sometimes rendered "thus goes the mantra"
- Om (ༀ): the body, speech, and mind of all Buddhas; the primordial sound
- Bekandze (བེ་ཀན་ཛེ): "eliminating pain/sickness"; the healing activity; connected to vaidurya (lapis)
- Bekandze (repeated): eliminating the greater pain of karma and negative conditions
- Maha Bekandze (མ་ཧཱ་བེ་ཀན་ཛེ): "great elimination of pain"; the ultimate transcendence of all suffering
- Radza (རཱ་ཛ): king; the supreme; Medicine Buddha as the king of medicine and healing
- Samudgate (སཱ་མུདྒ་ཏེ): "arise"; "fully come forth"; the awakened state arising completely
- Soha (སྭཱ་ཧཱ): "so be it"; sealing the mantra; may this be established
"Thus: Om, eliminating pain, eliminating pain, greatly eliminating pain, the Supreme, fully arisen one, so be it!", an invocation of the Medicine Buddha's complete healing presence.
How to Pronounce the Medicine Buddha Mantra
The full mantra is pronounced: Tah-yah-tah Om Beh-kahn-dzeh Beh-kahn-dzeh Mah-hah Beh-kahn-dzeh Rah-dzah Sah-mood-gah-teh So-hah. In Tibetan practice, "Bekandze" is sometimes rendered "Bek-an-dze" with a slight separation between "bek" and "an." The "dz" in Bekandze is a combined consonant, like the "ds" in "adds." The mantra has a naturally flowing, repetitive quality that becomes very smooth with practice.
Listening to traditional Tibetan Buddhist chanting recordings is strongly recommended, as the melodic contours of the mantra carry their own healing quality. There are both rapid japa versions (for accumulating large numbers of repetitions) and slower melodic versions used in formal puja. Either approach is considered valid; the key is clarity of pronunciation and sincerity of intention.
Origins and Tradition
The Medicine Buddha Sutra was translated from Sanskrit into Chinese by Xuanzang in 615 CE and into Tibetan in the early 9th century CE. The Sanskrit original likely dates to the 4th–5th century CE in India. The sutra describes the twelve great vows of the Medicine Buddha, each directed at alleviating a specific form of suffering, and prescribes the recitation of his mantra, his name, and meditation on his form as the primary practices. The text became enormously important in Chinese Buddhism, where Medicine Buddha temples were built across the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE) and continue to be central places of prayer and healing today.
In Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism, Medicine Buddha practice is one of the four major practices of the Sarma (New Translation) schools and is also found in the Nyingma tradition. The Dalai Lamas have consistently taught Medicine Buddha practice as a support for illness and dying. In the Nyingma tradition, Medicine Buddha is considered one of the Eight Medicine Buddhas, each with their own distinct healing quality. The mantra is chanted in hospitals, hospices, and healing centres across Asia and increasingly worldwide as part of Buddhist-informed integrative medicine programmes.
How to Use the Medicine Buddha Mantra in Your Practice
The standard practice combines visualisation with mantra recitation. Sit quietly, close the eyes, and visualise the Medicine Buddha before you, a luminous lapis-blue figure radiating healing light. As you chant, imagine that rays of blue healing light stream from his body and enter your own, dissolving all illness, pain, and suffering at every level. Hold the intention both for your own healing and for the healing of all beings. Complete one or more malas of 108 repetitions.
For healing others, including those who are ill, dying, or suffering, the same visualisation is used with the person held in mind: visualise the healing blue light streaming into them as you chant. Many practitioners chant the Medicine Buddha mantra regularly as a preventive practice, not only during illness. In formal Tibetan practice, Medicine Buddha puja includes the recitation of the Sutra, the twelve vows, the mantra, and extensive dedication of merit to all suffering beings. Even a simple daily practice of 108 repetitions with sincere visualisation is a complete and effective form of this practice.
The Benefits of Chanting the Medicine Buddha Mantra
The Medicine Buddha Sutra describes specific benefits of the practice: healing from illness, protection from harm, extension of life, relief of poverty, liberation from negative karma, and ultimately the attainment of Buddhahood. The twelve vows of the Medicine Buddha address the full spectrum of suffering, from physical illness and mental anguish to the fundamental suffering of ignorance and cyclic existence, and his mantra is understood as the sound-form of his commitment to fulfil those vows for all who call upon him.
Tibetan Buddhist teachers, including Khenchen Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche and Lama Zopa Rinpoche, have emphasised that the Medicine Buddha mantra works simultaneously on the outer level (physical body and circumstances), the inner level (subtle energy and emotional patterns), and the secret level (the nature of mind itself). This threefold healing is what distinguishes it from purely symptomatic treatment: the mantra addresses the root of suffering, not only its expression.
Research on Buddhist meditation and chanting for health outcomes has grown significantly in recent decades. Studies on mantra-based meditation in clinical contexts have found benefits for pain management, anxiety, immune function, and quality of life in patients with serious illness. While specific research on the Medicine Buddha mantra is limited, it is widely used as part of integrative oncology programmes in Buddhist-influenced healthcare settings in Asia.
For practitioners in good health, the mantra cultivates the bodhisattva aspiration to heal and serve all beings, developing compassion and generosity as stable qualities of character, rather than merely as emotional responses to individual situations.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the Medicine Buddha Mantra mean?
The mantra invokes the healing presence of the Medicine Buddha and asks for the elimination of suffering at three levels: physical illness (first Bekandze), karmic causes of suffering (second Bekandze), and all suffering at its root (Maha Bekandze). The overall meaning is: "O supreme Medicine Buddha, fully present and awakened, may all suffering be removed. So be it."
How do you pronounce the Medicine Buddha Mantra?
Tah-yah-tah Om Beh-kahn-dzeh Beh-kahn-dzeh Mah-hah Beh-kahn-dzeh Rah-dzah Sah-mood-gah-teh So-hah. The "dz" in Bekandze is a combined consonant sound. The mantra flows most naturally when heard and imitated from a traditional Tibetan recording.
How many times should you chant the Medicine Buddha Mantra?
108 repetitions on a mala daily is the standard practice. For healing sessions for oneself or others, multiple malas are beneficial. In retreat settings, practitioners accumulate 100,000 repetitions. The mantra can also be chanted continuously for a set time, 11, 21, or 31 minutes.
What tradition does the Medicine Buddha Mantra come from?
It comes from the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, specifically the Medicine Buddha Sutra (4th–5th century CE, translated into Chinese in 615 CE and into Tibetan in the 9th century). It is used widely across Tibetan Vajrayana, Chinese Mahayana, and Korean and Vietnamese Buddhist traditions.
