Fake sutras were a big problem in early medieval China. The influential bibliographer Sengyou (445–518) complained about them. He also complained about "extract sutras" 抄經 like the Heart Sutra.
Wouldn’t you say that the “supreme unfailing mantra” is essentially a paean to cessation?
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It isn't a mantra (that is a translation error). It is a dhāraṇī. Dhāraṇī use high prestige words in non-syntactic sequences as magic spells. Therefore they don't "mean" anything (cannot be analysed semantically.
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Most dhāraṇī were used apophatically - they turn away bad luck. The dhārāṇī in the Xinjing came from elsewhere and I haven't yet analysed the original context. So the short answer is "no, I don't think that".
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