आगमे विश्वासटिप्पन्यः

Matthew I. Kapstein

The traditions concerning the Indian Tantric adepts known as the Siddhas (“per fected ones”) have long fascinated scholars of the Tantric religions. This reflects the great popularity of these traditions in the arts and literature of India, Nepal, and Tibet, and the fact that several of the living Tantric communities, both Saivite

and Buddhist, trace themselves back to the inspiration of the Siddhas. Although some of the Siddhas were no doubt purely mythical personages, many were famed teachers and adepts who lived in India during the last centuries of the first millennium C.E. and the first centuries of the second. The tales concerning the lives of all of them, however, are entwined in sacred legend, so that in most cases it is very difficult to arrive at precise historical conclusions about these figures. Several traditions speak of a collective grouping of eighty-four Mahasid dhas (“Great Siddhas”), and though the precise enumeration of the eighty-four differs somewhat from one lineage to another, a Buddhist version of the Lives of the Eighty-four Mahasiddhas, as compiled by the Indian adept Abhayadatta and preserved in a Tibetan translation done close to the year 1100, has become the most widely known source for the legendary accounts of their lives. The Lives is itself only one part of a larger collection of Buddhist literature relating to the Mahasiddhas that was introduced into Tibet during the same pe riod. Also important is a short verse collection, the Anthology of the Essential Re alizations of the Eighty-four Siddhas, compiled initially by an Indian teacher named Viraprabha. This work parallels the Lives and has an extensive commentary re cording the oral commentary of Abhayadatta upon it. The three works just men tioned, however, do not yet constitute the totality of the collection. Unnoticed by scholars so far is a peculiar text called the Garland of Gems, translated for the first time below, which is also accompanied by a commentary attributed to the col laboration of Abhayadatta and his Tangut disciple Mondrup Sherap (Smon-grub shes-rab). This work, like the commentary on the anthology of songs, was cer tainly written in Tibetan, possibly on the basis of the Indian master Abhayadatta’s instructions, but it is not the direct translation of an Indian text.

KIN G KUNJI’ S BANQUE T 53

The Garland of Gems presents itself as a summary of the systems of Tantric yoga and meditation taught by the eighty-four Siddhas, though the commentary in fact only mentions some of the eighty-four by name. According to the legend of its origin, the Garland of Gems was first taught on behalf of a yaksini, a type of female spirit who in this case is said to have haunted a cremation ground. The efficacy of its teachings is accentuated by this tale, for it is claimed that by prac

ticing them a tormented, inhuman creature achieved in the end a state of physical and psychic well-being. The text was first promulgated among ordinary human beings after the strange banquet hosted by a certain King Kunji, as recounted in the first extract translated below. The actual content of the Garland of Gems is consistent with later Tibetan Tantric accounts of the teaching of the Mahasiddhas, and accordingly emphasizes instructions concerning the ultimate nature of mind, often referred to elsewhere as the “Great Seal” (mahamudra), and the major tech

niques of Buddhist Tantric yoga called the “six doctrines”: the Inner Heat, or Wild Woman, whereby one masters the subtle physical energies of the body; Appari tion, through which the illusion-like nature of ordinary experience becomes known; Dream, in which one achieves the ability to explore consciously and to transform the dream experience; Radiant Light, referring to the luminous dimen sion of the mind; Transference, the means to cause one’s consciousness to leave the body abruptly at the moment of death, and to seek rebirth in a pure realm; and the Liminal Passage (bardo in Tibetan), which here refers primarily to the state of consciousness in the course of migration between death and rebirth. The first four enable one to attain enlightenment swiftly during this very lifetime, the last two to achieve it at death.

The most widely known part of the Buddhist Siddha literature, however, has been Abhayadatta’s Lives, which consists of an exotic collection of stories, not exactly fairy tales, speaking of strange and eccentric saints. As an example, we may summarize the first episode, which recounts the life of Luipa, the “eater of fish guts.” In this case, as in many others, the “name” of the Siddha is actually a sobriquet, referring to an outstanding characteristic or, as in the case of Tantipa, the weaver, the Siddha’s occupation. “Pa,” which is affixed to the names of many of the Siddhas, is ultimately derived from the Sanskrit word for “foot” (pada) and in this context means “venerable,” that is, one whose feet are worthy of veneration.

Luipa, it is said, was a Sri Lankan prince, and the reluctant heir to his father’s throne. After several failed efforts to flee the palace he succeeded at last, and became a wandering ascetic in India. By chance one day, while begging, he en countered a prostitute who was in fact a dakim, a woman embodying enlightened wisdom, and she, being clairvoyant, detected that despite his outward saintly deportment, there was still a smidgen of pride in his heart. She poured some vile slop into his begging bowl and he, disgusted, threw it out. At this the dakini exclaimed, “how are you ever going to get enlightened, if you’re still such a picky eater?” Luipa, recognizing that indeed he was covertly preoccupied with mundane judgments, resolved to uproot the last of his attachments, and dwelling near a fishermen’s settlement on the banks of the Ganges, he practiced austerities for

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twelve years while living on the entrails and other refuse discarded after the catch. So it was that he eventually freed himself from all mundane patterns of thought, and was able to transmute even the foulest matter into the deathless nectar of gnosis.

As we have seen above, the collection of which the Lives is one part also includes various songs and teachings attributed to the Siddhas. The relationship, in any given case, between a Siddha’s life, song, and teaching is not always straightfor ward, but the verses attributed to Luipa do seem to correlate with his story, and so may be taken to exemplify those cases in which such a correspondence is to be found. At the beginning of Viraprabha’s anthology he sings:

When honey’s smeared on the snout of a wild, mad dog,

it eats whatever it meets.

Likewise, when the guru bestows precepts on a luckless fool,

his spirit is scorched.

But the fortunate, who realize the unborn in whatever appears

thereby destroy common thought.

They become like mad battle elephants, swords tied to their trunks, demolishing enemy legions.

And the particular teaching attributed to Luipa in the The Garland of Gems, translated below, is called the “the instruction that applies to all appearances you meet.” All of this seems to fit neatly together with the tale of his overcoming his finicky tastes by adopting a diet of rubbish.

Much of the modern scholarship concerning the lives of the Siddhas has fo cused either upon the quasi-historical dimensions of these traditions or upon allegorical readings of them. Both approaches, to be sure, were in some sense sanctioned by the traditional Buddhist schools in which the collection was known. One author has gone so far as to tabulate a “lineage tree,” arranging the eighty four Siddhas into a single complex geneology. This tendency to historicization continues to inform Western interpretation, despite the observation, clearly artic ulated a half century ago by Shashibhushan Dasgupta, that eighty-four is a mys tical number and that the grouping of eighty-four Siddhas is “complete” only in the sense that it fills out this mystical number. Accordingly, in Dasgupta’s words, there is justifiable “doubt about the historical nature of the tradition of the eighty four Siddhas.” Dasgupta also provided a long and suggestive list of classifications that use the number eighty-four in Indian religious traditions; I add here only that, from a numerological point of view, the number eighty-four has the inter esting property of being the product of the sum and the product of three and four:

(3 + 4) X (3 X 4) = 84

Thus, symbolically it encompasses the range of possible relationships obtaining among the innumerable magical and natural categories involving threes and fours.

KING KUNJI’S BANQUET 55

That the number eighty-four is entirely arbitrary from a historical perspective is further underscored when the various traditional lists of Mahasiddhas are com pared, even if we restrict ourselves to the lists found within only the Buddhist

tradition; for there are a great many significant discrepancies among them. If the tales and traditions of the Siddhas are to be regarded not as historical but as constituting a mythic collection, then just what is this a myth of? Despite the tendency to incorporate the traditions of the Siddhas into those sanctioned by the mainstream monastic orders of Tibetan Buddhism, it is clear that margin ality and idiosyncracy are powerful themes; this, indeed, accounts for the appeal these tales have had in the contemporary Western religious counterculture. The quasi-canonical status of the tradition, the often enigmatic language of its poetry, the eccentricities of the iconography associated with it, its apparently strong con nections with other medieval Indian religious traditions that arose outside the bounds of high-status society, and similarly with such Tibetan Buddhist traditions as the Kagyu (Bka’-brgyud) yogic lineages - all of this seems to reinforce the view that this is a myth of freedom from convention, of the rejection of rigid norms. But this interpretation is clearly simplistic, for the force of tradition has been to normalize the apparently rebellious Siddhas, and to incorporate them and their teachings within a program of well-ordered religious discipline. The tale of King Kunji’s banquet seems to underwrite just such a perspective, by freezing the Siddhas in the form of statues worshiped by a royal patron. Perhaps we can speak, then, of the institutionalization of idiosyncracy through the cooperation of myth and normative practice. In other words, in the case of the Siddhas, a myth of idiosyncratic freedom undergirds an enduring ethos of order.

The Tibetan texts translated below are found in the great nineteenth-century encyclopedia of Tibetan esoterica: ‘Jam mgon Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas, Gdams ngag mdzod: A Treasury of Instructions and Techniques for Spiritual Realization (Delhi: N. Lungtok and N. Gyaltsan, 1971), vol. 11, pp. 9-11 (“King Kunji’s Banquet) and 92-143 (“The Garland of Gems”). Because the cryptic style of the original does not lend itself to literal English translation, I provide a rather free rendition of the verse text of the Garland of Gems. In the case of the commentary accompanying the verses, I supply here an abridged restatement of the Tibetan original, supplemented by my own occasional remarks intended to clarify the meaning of the verses. For further clarification of the text as a whole, I have added a topical outline.

Further Reading

Abhayadatta’s Lives of the Siddhas is available in an English translation in James B. Robinson, tr., Buddha’s Lions: The Lives of the Eighty-four Siddhas (Berkeley: Dharma Publishing, 1979). The same work, with Viraprabha’s Songs, is also trans lated in Keith Dowman, Masters of Mahamudra: Songs and Histories of the Eighty-56 MATTHE W T . KAPSTEI N

four Buddhist Siddhas (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985). The Indian Buddhist Tantric background for the Siddha traditions is surveyed in David Snellgrove, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism: Indian Buddhists & Their Tibetan Successors (Boston: Shambhala, 1987), vol. 1, chapter 3, “Tantric Buddhism.” The song literature attributed to the Siddhas is very extensive, and there have been several useful translations and studies, including Shashibhusan Dasgupta, Obscure Reli

gious Cults (Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1946), part 1, “The Buddhist Sahajiya Cult and Literature”; Herbert V. Guenther, The Royal Song of Saraha: A Study in the History of Buddhist Thought (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1968); Per Kvaerne, An Anthology of Buddhist Tantric Songs: A Study of the Caryagiti (Oslo:

Universitets for laget, 1977); and David Snellgrove, “The Tantras,” in Edward Conze, ed., Buddhist Texts through the Ages (New York: Philosophical Library, 1954), pp. 219-68. There is also a large body of indigenous Tibetan literature devoted to the lives, teachings, and songs of various Indian Siddhas, whether included in the lists of the eighty-four or not; for instance: Herbert V. Guenther, The Life and Teaching of Naropa (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963); Dudjom Rin

poche and Jikdrel Yeshe Dorje, The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism: Its Fun damentals and History, translated by Gyurme Dorje and Matthew Kapstein (Lon don: Wisdom Publications, 1991), vol. 1, pp. 443-504; David Templeman, tr., The Seven Instruction Lineages (Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Ar chives, 1983); Tibetan Religions in Practice, edited by Donald S. Lopez, Jr. (Prince ton: Princeton University Press, 1997), chapters 8-9. On the representation of the Siddhas in Tibetan painting, see Toni Schmid, The Eighty-five Siddhas (Stock holm: Statens Etnografiska Museum, 1958). For the teachings of the Siddhas in the Hindu Saivite traditions, refer to David Gordon White, The Alchemical Body (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). Those who wish to learn more of the yoga of the transference of consciousness, mentioned toward the close of The Garland of Gems, may consult my “A Tibetan Festival of Rebirth Reborn: The 1992 Revival of the Drigung Powa Chenmo,” in Melvyn C. Goldstein and Matthew T.

Kapstein, eds., Buddhism in Contemporary Tibet: Religious Revival and Cultural Iden tity (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998).

King Kunji’s Banquet

In the western part of India, in Kantamara, a district in Saurastra [modern Gujarat], the religious king Kunji governed his realm righteously. At some point his mother took ill and was fast approaching death. The king lovingly asked her, “Now it seems you will not live for long, Ma. For your benefit in future lives, I will do whatever you command and will offer donations for the worship of the community of monks, the brahmans, and the temples, and for charity and so forth.”

His mother replied, “You needn’t bother with the other virtues on my behalf. Just host a Tantric banquet for the eighty-four yogins and yoginis who have

KING KUNJI’ S BANQUE T 5 7

Figure 2.1. Two Mahasiddhas as depicted in a Tibetan woodblock print. To the left, Saraha straightens the arrow of mind. Tilopa, on the right, plays the hand drum (damaru) of awakening with his right hand, and in his left holds a skull-cup (kapala) overflowing with the nectar of attainment. He wears a meditation belt, used for support during long periods of yogic practice.

become Siddhas, and pray to them for my sake!” With these last words, she died.

The king then thought, “Those past Siddhas are no longer seen among men, so how can I invite them? But I cannot violate mother’s dying wish. Because the Mahasiddhas are compassionate, all I can think to do is to pray.” He prayed one-pointedly, and the two gnostic dakinis, Kokali and Dharmavisva [“Dha

madhuma” in the Garland of Gems], became visibly manifest and said, “We two will help you! Let’s invite the Siddhas and prepare a banquet hall!” The king arranged a great hall for the Tantric feast, while the two dakinis, through their miraculous abilities, journeyed to the various sacred lands in an instant to invite the Siddhas. Luipa was the first to arrive, and the other Siddhas also arrived momentarily, in their appointed order, and took their seats. The king generously served up the delights of the banquet, and they remained assembled in the Tantric feast for a long time. In the end, although the king asked the Siddhas to remain for a while so that he could continue to worship them, they would not permit this. Instead, each Siddha sang for the king one of his or her own vajra-songs, called dohas, and then vanished into the unknown. The king constructed images to represent each of the Siddhas, before which each one’s song was written, and there he worshiped them.

At the same time, a scholar named Viraprabha, who was traveling far away to the east, heard that the eighty-four Siddhas had actually come to be wor shiped by King Kunji, and he made haste to come there, but arrived a week after the Siddhas had left. He grew disconsolate and prayed fervently for seven

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days, whereupon the two dakinis visibly appeared, and transmitted to him the Garland of Gems, the very songs that had been sung at the royal feast, and other teachings, together with the tales of the eighty-four. He meditated upon their significance and thereby gained special realization, becoming himself a lord among Siddhas. He also authored a book in which the various dohas were collected together, and later he transmitted these teachings to the brahman scholar Kamala. The latter taught them to the Siddha and hermit Jamari, and he to the scholar from Magadha, Abhayadatta, who composed the collection of the tales of the eighty-four Siddhas and the commentary on the dohas. All of texts mentioned above were brought together and translated here in Tibet by that same scholar and his disciple, the Tangut translator Mondrup Sherap.

The Garland of Gems

In the Indian Language: Ratnamala [-noma]

In the Tibetan Language: Rin chen phreng ba zhes bya ba

According to Tibetan custom, in order for future generations to recall the efforts of past translators and scholars, the title must be given in both Sanskrit and Tibetan. In this case, it is explained that because each of the teachings of the Siddhas has many precious facets, they are like gems (ratnas), and because many such teachings are strung together here, they form a garland (mala).

Salutations to the Transcendent Lord of Speech [the bodhisattva Manjusri]

Manjusri, the bodhisattva of wisdom, is invoked before the beginning of the verse text in order to remove obstacles to the understanding of the text as a whole.

Introductory Verses

Your black hair is piled in a topknot,

Your eyes deep blue like the blue lotus

Your body is convulsed in your terrible roar -

To you, Acala, I bow in homage.

Acala is one of the foremost divinities of Tantric Buddhism, and is depicted in many forms, usually ferocious or wrathful, and wielding a sword. In later Buddhist Tantrism he became particularly popular in Nepal and in Japan, where he is often seen as a temple protector and is called Fudo.

I will not set down here all that was seen and heard

At the assembly of eighty-four Siddhas

In the heaven of manifest delight,

KIN G KUNJI’ S BANQUE T 5 9

That then was well practiced by Dhamadhuma;

But I shall explain the Garland of Gems

That was given as an instruction to the yaksini.

Because those fortunate enough to encounter or even hear of the assembly of the Siddhas become delighted by it, that assembly is known as the “heaven of manifest delight.” The dakini Dhamadhuma thoroughly mastered a great many teachings that the Siddhas bestowed there, but here only the Garland of Gems, which was taught on behalf of a yaksini, will be discussed. What, then, is the story of that teaching?

Once upon a time, in the cremation ground called Sama Grove (sa-ma’i tshal), there lived a yaksini who was condemned by her own misdeeds to dwell there feeding on carrion. In the northeastern quarter of the cremation ground there was a great hollow tree, inhabited by a family of seven bears. A huge rhinocerous

demon went to sleep there and fell over, crushing the tree and killing its inhab itants. At that point the yaksini arrived, killed the rhinocerous-demon, and found the flesh of the dead brood of bears. An ogre, however, was attracted by the odor of flesh and blood, and seeing that the yaksini had reached the feast first, became greatly enraged at her. Flying above, he poured molten copper upon her, so that she was horribly burned and suffered terribly. This was karmic retribution for the suffering she herself had caused other beings during her previous lives. Two dakinis, named Kokila and Dharmadevi [the “Dhamadhuma” mentioned above], took pity upon her and healed her wounds with mantras, except for one place where she had been burned right through to the bone. However, the two were the disciples of the eighty-four Mahasiddhas, who at that very time were gathered together in the pure land of manifest delight, where they recognized the yaksini to be receptive to the Buddha’s teaching. They therefore composed a short text, the Garland of Gems, epitomizing their own religious instructions, and transmitted it to the two dakinis, who in turn taught it to the yaksini. [In the commentary, however, the text is presented as a teaching given in direct dialogue with the yaksini.] By the power of this teaching she finally came to be fully healed in both body and spirit, and went on to become a great dakini in her own right, named Sumati.

Luipa’s Teaching: “The Instruction That Applies

to All Appearances”

The foregoing remarks serve as an introduction. The actual teaching of the Garland of Gems begins with an instruction of Luipa, “The Instruction That Applies to All Appearances You Meet,” which was delivered to benefit the ailing yaksini. When she requested this teaching, he said to her,

“Your fault is not knowing your own nature. If you know that, you’ll be freed from appearances, not to speak of bodily appearances alone.”

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“What’s it to know your own nature?”

“It is a luminous gnosis, in which the continuum of mundane reality comes to an end.”

When she replied that she still didn’t get the point, he said:

In what is insubstantial and incessant,

Without boundary or center, and thus pervasive,

The fact of the matter is really profound,

Like the fire of Malaya Mountain.

Here “insubstantial” means that in the nature of things there is no substantial being. For instance, though one may speak of a “sky-flower,” nevertheless, no such thing really exists, above and beyond the naming of it. Therefore, neither it, nor its supposed attributes, such as color and form, can be said to exist substan

tially. It is when the entire continuum of the attributions of existence, appearance, emptiness, idea, mind, and thought comes to an end that we speak of “luminous gnosis.” Like the radiance of a precious gem, it is “incessant,” and for this reason is characterized as “without boundary or center, and thus pervasive.” Like un

compounded space, it embraces everything, from the highest heavens to the depths of hell. And because the yaksini has the potential to realize her pain, her mental activity, and her apprehension of appearances to be in fact that luminous gnosis, “the fact of the matter is really profound.” It is “like the fire of Malaya Mountain” that incinerates all it encounters.

The yaksini, however, did not understand this, and so asked the Siddha Lilapa for clarification. He responded:

You are as one born from the ocean of things,

Longing to rest in the mire of things;

But what is experienced in the absence

Of the bee, nectar and flower?

The second couplet refers to the conditions for realization. Just as a sweet taste occurs when a flower, its nectar, and a bee come together, but not so long as they remain apart, so too, so long as you have not yet realized gnosis and remain clinging to bodily apprehensions, unable to detach yourself from objects, you will not experience the blissful taste of your inherent nature. And until you experience that taste, you will not be free of your pain.

The Siddha Kokala then taught her how that understanding becomes firm:

Like Brahma to the external world and its inner inhabitants, Like timely warmth and yogurt culture,

And like oil in mustard seed,

If you really realize it, you’ll be certain of it.

Just as the creator-god Brahma knows the entire universe and all its inhabitants, similarly the luminous gnosis, which is the nature of mind as taught by the guru, pervades all that you may know. But once it is known, how is that knowledge to

KING KUNJI’ S BANQUE T 61

grow firm? This is explained by the three examples that follow. “Timely warmth” refers to the warmth that occurs in the spring, which spreads throughout the natural world; so too, the individual who knows the radiant light of mind finds that it spreads through the range of experience. And just as a small amount of “yogurt culture” completely transforms a large quantity of milk, without ever getting rid of the milk, in the same way radiant light transforms mundane con

ceptual activity, without actually abandoning it. Similarly, as oil is present in a “mustard seed,” and only needs to be brought out, but not newly created, you come to realize that the mind in its natural state is pervaded by its radiant light.

But what is the fruit of such realization? To answer this question, the Siddha Camaripa was the next to speak:

6ab. In that which is inevident, invisible, and clear,

That space itself is revealed.

This refers to the body of reality, the dharmakaya, which is like space, and so “inevident, invisible, and clear.” Thus, it is not to be thought of as an entity or a nonentity, or as intellect, mind, or thought. But just as space, though not itself shaped or colored, provides a clearing in which sun, moon, and stars, as well as clouds, mists, rainbows, and more become manifest, so too in the invisible space of the dharmakaya, there is an incessant outpouring of compassion, taking form as the Buddha’s bodies of rapture and emanation.

To this Saraha added these verses:

6cd. The body apprehended by no one is most beautiful,

Like a treasure-vase, a wishing gem, or a jewel.

It is in fact the nature of mind, free from the conceptions of apprehended object and apprehending subject, that is here described as “most beautiful.”

Virupa’s Teaching: “The Empty City”

Then master Virupa sang of an instruction entitled “The Empty City”:

As for the city that is entirely empty,

Ask your self: who is the creator

Of body and speech in the three realms, the three spheres? The self-nature of the self is nothing;

It rests within no bounds whatsoever.

The “city” refers outwardly to the three realms, or three spheres of the world, and inwardly to the three spheres of body, speech, and mind, as well as to past, present, and future. As all of this depends upon a concatenation of causes, and does not exist independently, the entire city, whatever we conceive it to be, is empty. To establish this, review its possible causes in turn, and ask your self who its creator might be. You must ask your self, for you must also examine the reality

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of that self: it, too, is empty, devoid of self-nature. Perhaps you will conclude that all there is is emptiness, but that is not so. In the final analysis, one can speak neither of emptiness, nor nonemptiness, nor both, nor neither - “it rests within no bounds whatsoever.”

To affirm the meaning of this, Dombipa sang:

In the city that is emptied of everything

Where is any substantially existing thing?

This may be understood without further comment. Goraksa added:

In the city of appearance, sound, and thought,

Owing to apprehended objects, or to the apprehending of them, The unhappy silkworm is ensnared in its own saliva.

You’ll find happiness when, without apprehending, you let go.

The appearances and sounds of the world are imputed through conceptual activity - in truth, nothing goes beyond conceptual activity, so that this is a “city of thought.” As you bind yourself therein, it may be exemplified by a silkworm, wrapping itself up in its own saliva. But if you let go, and abide in the natural condition of reality, you’ll find happiness. Tantipa then said:

Without renunciation, without possession,

If you come to know, you’ll not enter the city.

But like Nanda and the gemstone light,

You’ll find the city to be supreme bliss.

When you have abandoned both acceptance and rejection, and become free of bewilderment, you no longer enter the city of bewilderment, but neither do you hold to not entering it as if that were a hard fact. Instead, bewilderment itself discloses the nature of reality, so that it becomes the city of supreme bliss. Then, like Nanda, the king of the serpents (nagas), who perceives the wish-granting gem that is invisible to all others, you will see that the city of thought is the city of bliss.

Saraha’s Teaching: “Remembrance Alone”

Following Virupa’s instruction on the blissful city, Saraha again sang to the yaks ini”:

When someone speaks of any phenomenon,

That speech is an act of remembrance.

So is it not also the faculty of remembrance

That speaks even of nirvana?

This is the teaching of the great brahman Saraha’s “Instruction on Remem brance Alone”: all acts of speech are bound up in remembrance. This is the case

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whether one speaks of samsara or nirvana, tranquillity or insight, meditative equi poise or what follows after meditation, appearance or emptiness, and so on. But what follows from that?

Whatever appears - earth, water, fire, or wind -

Simultaneously occurs within emptiness.

The splendid appearance of gnosis

Occurs in remembrance alone.

Although all those phenomena are bound up in remembrance, at the moment of their appearance they are simultaneously innately empty. Thus, all appearance is the appearance of the gnosis of emptiness. In this way, there is no independent phenomenon of remembrance, but it is, rather, indivisible from the appearance of gnosis. Being indivisible, they are one: this is what is meant by “remembrance alone.”

The Siddha Sabari then sang:

If you do not know the conjunction of sun and moon, Things are as many as waves in the sea.

When just that which is unique occurs,

It is not possible to find division here.

Here, the sun symbolizes appearance, or method, and the moon emptiness, or discernment. If you do not understand the conjunction of these, things appear as multiplicity, like waves in the sea: despite the underlying union, conceptual acts of remembrance become manifold. But when the essential nature of remembrance, which is unique, and no different from the natural state, occurs, then “it is not possible to find division here.”

To this Caurahgi added:

There is not even a particle of fault here.

It does not arise through composition.

That is to say that the natural state of reality is entirely free from all independent acts of remembrance, which are bound up with conceptual activity. The realiza tion of “remembrance alone” is not a conditioned phenomenon, dependent upon causal composition.

Then Vinapa, too, sang:

The mountain of conceptual thought

Sinks into the sea of nonconceptualization.

As the subject is an appearance in the sphere of reality,

Where can there be objective conceptualizations?

The remembrance of reality becomes like a vast ocean, into which all indepen dent acts of remembrance dissolve. When The appearance of the subject is known to be just reality, there is no conceptualization of objects as real entities.

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Minapa’s Teaching: “Elemental Food and Clothing”

Following Saraha’s instruction, master Minapa conferred an instruction on feeding and clothing oneself with the elements:

The bodily vessel becomes elemental light,

A melting stream of divine ambrosia above.

In the mass of reality’s light,

Conceptions of the six aggregates are exhausted.

Primarily, this refers to the creative visualization of the deity. At the start of such meditation, the bodily mansion becomes like a vase, filled with the light of the elements: from the seed-syallable yam comes fire-wind, like a solar orb, red in color and half a mile in diameter. Owing to its agitation there appears the red ram, from which fire radiates to the extent of the wind. From this steam and mist arise, red in color: this is the fire-water, but it is contemplated as being of the nature of light. From its condensation there appears the yellow syllable su, from which is projected fire-earth, to the same extent as those mentioned above.

Atop that mansion of elemental light, you then contemplate a white hum which is in its nature a divinity embodying the essence of mind, radiating light, and from which there is a melting stream of ambrosia. It dissolves into the elements, intermingling thus with the bodily vase. Mind itself, in essence a divinity, of the nature of the elements, now dissolves into light, having emanated in the form of a hum. Present as the mass of reality in the vase of light, it is like the self-luminous orb of the sun - concentrate upon this. The conceptual activity of the sensory fields reaches cessation herein, and if you examine the senses themselves, they are realized to be like lamps within a vase of light. The sign of contemplative success is an experience of outer warmth, and in this way one is clothed by the elements, while inner awareness is nourished by this contemplation, so that one is thus fed.

The yaksini, however, was unable to achieve this contemplation of elemental food and clothing, at which point the exalted Nagarjuna sang to her:

The varied conceptions of the six classes of beings

Have arisen through the accumulated power of errant desire. Through the power of knowledge which turns that around You awaken as Buddha, so that all desires are fulfilled.

The beings who inhabit the three realms of the world may be embodied in any way whatsoever, according to the diversity of their conceptual activity, and through the accumulated power of their perverse desires and thirsts. Thus, the yaksini experienced her body and its pains as she did, but this would certainly be changed to bliss if she had the power to realize the nature of mind to be a mass of light, a solar orb.

To this master Santipa added his instruction on the “six views, outer and inner, which turn ephemeral cognitions around”:

KING KUNJI’ S BANQUE T 6 5

The appearance of objective conditions is ceaseless,

Just like bubbles in water.

This is reversed by the antidote that follows meditation,

That is just like a staff in the water.

Sensory objects belonging to the six fields of sight, sound, taste, odor, bodily feeling, and thought arise incessantly. These ephemeral objects continue to arise, like bubbles in water, and so long as ephemeral appearances thus continue to arise they won’t be stopped by the mounted spear-bearing cavalry of ephemeral cognitions (which, however forceful and impressive, have no power to stop them). Such is the view of the six outer objects.

To grasp the six objects, however, as independently existing things is an er roneous view, which is reversed by a cognition following meditation, which rec ognizes ephemeral occurrences to be of the nature of reality. That cognition, which cuts through all sensations, is like a staff that passes through water. This antidote, indeed, becomes gnosis, and is referred to as the “inner six views” (for it applies to the same six fields of experience and cognition mentioned above).

In the first instance, the ephemeral states are afflictions that should be re nounced. Then they are renounced by gnosis, the antidote following meditation, which moves like a knife through the water. Finally, owing to that, what is to be renounced and its renunciation are realized to be no different - there is gnosis alone, known here as the “inner six views.”

The Teaching of the Two Dakinis

After that, the two dakinis encouraged the yaksini to seek the attainments of the Tantric divinities through five practices which they asked the Siddhas to impart to her: master Khagarbha’s abbreviated rites of Lord Acala; Kanaripa’s rites of the Mother of Wisdom; Dombipa’s rites which combine the tantric divinities Cakra

samvara and Hevajra; Caloka’s rites of Amitayus, the buddha of longevity; and Naropa’s instructions on the hundred-syllable mantra of purification and repen tance. The yaksini practiced these instructions, but desired quick results and so seized on object and subject as real. When the longed-for attainments were not, therefore, forthcoming, she complained that there were no such attainments to be realized, that the divinities were nonexistent, and that to persist in reciting mantras really pissed her off.

The two dakinis replied, “All those who have gone before have realized the attainments. If you have not, it’s only because you’ve failed to purify your own continuum of being.”

“I still don’t understand what this ‘continuum of being’ business is about.” To explain it, they said:

That which possesses the seed of beauteous youth

Abides pervading all beings.66 MATTHE W T. KAPSTEI N

This is grasped where the best faculties appear,

In the appearance of a unique act of gnosis.

This is the shifting shape of clouds in the sky,

The reflection appearing in a mirror.

When you examine this, just so,

No purpose is gained by the appearance of obscuration.

It is enjoyed through the power of secrets.

These two verses teach two topics, called “the little nail of the creative visual ization of the deity” and “the methodical precept of symbolic significance.” Con cerning the first, “beauteous youth” characterizes the visualized deity whose body is not of the coarse elements and is therefore free from the aging process. Because there are no flaws owing to false imputations, the deity is beautiful. “That which possesses its seed” is that which resembles it, has the potential to engender it, that is to say, all beings of the six classes, who are thus pervaded by it, without regard to class or status. Those of “best faculties,” in this context, are those who recognize the various forms of the deities to be the magical projection of mind, the unique appearance of gnosis, but not an independently existing god. The deity, pictured in the mind, is the body of rapture, whereas the unfabricated mind itself is the body of reality. The two bodies of rapture and emanation, appearances of that single gnosis, may appear as anything, ceaselessly. If you know this, the creative visualization of the deity is mastered.

Verse 20 then treats the second topic, “the methodical precept of symbolic significance.” Here, the sky and the mirror are symbols for the body of reality, while clouds and reflections are indicative of the bodies of rapture and emanation. Obscuration, or ignorance, serves no purpose with respect to the appearance of these two bodies of the Buddha. To dispel such obscuration, the individual who is cultivating the path must adhere to the appropriate Tantric vows, and thus the result may be “enjoyed through the power of secrets.”

The Teachings of Tilopa

The foregoing teachings hammer home the little nail of the creative visualization of the deity, so that now the essential instructions, the little nail of the subtle channels and vital energies, may be taught. The dakinis gave many instructions on the channels and energies to the yaksini, but however much she practiced, though her past pain was at once relieved, she became disturbed because she could not achieve bliss. She then turned to Tilopa for further instruction.

On the Vital Energies

Tilopa’s first teaching to her was this:

The seal which clarifies gnosis

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Is solely impressed on the vital points of the body.

That apparitional machine

Develops the force of the faculties.

In respect to the clarification of gnosis, these paths are taught in the way of secret mantras: there is the path which transforms the ground, so that by realizing conceptual activity to be of the nature of gods and goddesses, the modalites of gnosis are clarified in visualization practice; and there is the path of passion, which is dissimilar in that it relies upon the seals, or vital points, of the body, and so focuses upon the realization of the body’s subtle channels and vital energies. Then there is the path of liberation, which determines gnosis to be mere apparition, and the great path of liberation, which determines that gnosis itself is not and that this is no further gnosis, and that there are no afflictions or conceptualizations and that this too is no further gnosis - it is like a flower in space.

Now, then, what is “the seal which clarifies gnosis”? In this verse, this refers to the Wild Woman, the inner heat that rises below the navel, relying upon which the significance of gnosis comes clear. In cultivating it through exercises that make use of the body’s channels and energies, the body becomes like an apparitional mechanism, developing the force of the sensory faculties. Tilopa added this example:

Like a banana tree,

But with flesh, bone and marrow,

Its growth is generated

Just so by the channels and winds.

Just as a banana tree, depending upon the growth of its roots, trunk, and so on, finally produces its fruit, so in this case, it is the channels and energies within a body of flesh and bone that give rise to the appearance of gnosis, the triple body of enlightenment. Because that is the goal of the instruction on the body’s vital channels and energies, Tilopa then conferred his precepts on the ultimate view and meditation upon it.

On the Ultimate View

He sang:

In that which is causeless and without result,

All is clearly revealed.

There is no example, no designation.

In what is without separation, what clarification is needed? It is not generated by errancy or detour;

Not straying, it is opposed to unmoving passivity.

Natural, luminous gnosis is the final significance of the view. It is the skylike body of reality, which is not engendered by any cause, and is therefore without any result. Nevertheless, though not a causally compounded result, in its cease-

68 MATTHE W T . KAPSTEI N

lessness the two resultant bodies of rapture and emanation are “clearly revealed.” And in its essential nature, the skylike radiant light of mind can neither be ex emplified nor designated.

So, then, can no experience be cultivated of it?

There is an experienceless cultivation of experience, meditationless meditation, incessant absorption, a result that is never to be attained, but from which one is never separated. Hence, “in what is without separation, what clarification is needed”? It does not drift off in errancy, or wander into any detour, or stray into apathy, or remain fixed should you seek to freeze it in immobility.

On Integrating Radiant Light with the Apparitional Body

The foregoing teaches the ultimate view of luminous gnosis. Its meditative cul tivation, so that its realization becomes inseparable, is taught in the remainder of the text. Here, the view is that mind is radiant light, body is apparition, their connection is revealed in dream and in the liminal passage from death to rebirth, and the samadhi taught here is the transference of consciousness and the “pen etration of the city.” The following verses emphasize these teachings, discussing them in relation to five topics: liminal states, types of embodiment, potential disclosure, intermingling of the teachings, and their relevant connections. The first concerns the realization of radiant light during the liminal state between birth and death, that is to say, during this lifetime.

During the liminal passage from birth until death,

With respect to conceptions of the body of karmic maturation, Desire is purified in luminousness -

This is the amazing instruction of the guru.

The liminal passage from birth to death is the period during which all sorts of conceptions become concretely manifest, so that one is embodied in the “body of karmic maturation.” But conceptual activity may be disclosed as luminous in nature, and this luminosity in turn may be intermingled with the emotions and passions, purifying them. How so? On the path of transformation one holds the conceptions to be gods and goddesses, while on the path of desire one engenders bliss while relying upon the subtle channels and fluids, and on the path of lib eration engenders bliss relying upon the Wild Woman; but here, on the path of great liberation, one does not hanker after those sorts of bliss at all, but realizes them to be luminous and so intermingles luminousness with passion. Owing to what relevant connection may these teachings be realized? This is the amazing instruction of the guru!

On the Yogas of Dream and the Liminal Passage

The yoga of the dream is to be mastered during this lifetime. It is summarized as follows:

KING KUNJI’ S BANQUE T 69

There are the preliminaries and the main practice:

[The latter includes] apprehension and refinement,

Training in apparition, until one abandons fear,

And meditation that does not step beyond the nature of reality.

As for the preliminaries, the individual who embarks upon this path must not be lacking in karmic propensities, or have violated the Tantric vows, or be without merit, or be disrespectful to the guru; otherwise, he or she will not succeed in grasping his or her dreams. For this reason, the preliminary practices are those of repentance and purification, such as the hundred-syllable mantra, and devotion and worship directed to the guru and the Three Precious Jewels.

The main practice then has four parts: “apprehension,” in which you learn to grasp your dreams, to become aware when you are dreaming; “refinement,” whereby you learn to transform your dreams, and to travel freely within them; “training in apparition,” through which you realize the truthlessness of dreams, and so come to abandon all fears; and, finally, knowing that dreams are the bewildering projections of mind, you apply your guru’s instruction to whatever thoughts arise, and so cultivate “meditation that does not step beyond the nature of reality.”

This is to be practiced during this life, and pertains to the liminal passage of the dream, which is described in this way:

In the liminal passage of the transformations of consciousness, One is impelled by the body of latent dispositions.

The relevant preparation is actualized dreaming,

Wherein ignorance is dissolved in radiant light.

One applies oneself with fervent devotion.

Of the five topics mentioned earlier [verse 24], the liminal passage is here that of the dream, the body is that of latent dispositions, that which is to be disclosed is the potentiality of dreaming, which is to be intermingled primarily with the obscuration of ignorance as its antidote, while the relevant connection is formed through mindfulness and fervent devotion. In sleep itself one comes to realize the luminous nature of mind, so that sleep partakes of the essence of bliss and emp

tiness, giving rise to the experience of radiant light.

The liminal passage between death and rebirth, then, is taught in the following verse:

When this body of karmic ripening is destroyed,

[There remains] the mental body, with its latent dispositions, Desire should be disclosed as radiant light,

And attachment to parents should be abandoned.

Here, the liminal passage is the liminal passage of the possibilities of existence; the body is the mental body; radiant light is to be disclosed and then intermingled with the obscuration of aversion; and the relevant connection is formed by the

7 0 MATTHE W T . KAPSTEI N

potential parents who are thus abodes for rebirth, for which reason “attachment to parents should be abandoned.”

The mental body, between death and rebirth, unhampered by the physical body, is propelled by its confused dispositions. Those who have accumulated positive dispositions through meritorious action may nevertheless recollect the divine, or recall the true nature of things, and so be freed from the path of evil destinies. As in the yoga of the dream, one should not be bewildered by incessant apparitions, but attain instead the luminous body of reality.

The Transference of Consciousness

The foregoing verses have summarized the yogas of the dream, the liminal pas sage, apparition, and radiant light. Tilopa’s final teachings concern samadhi, the transference of consciousness and the “penetration of the city.” In order to realize these, one must cultivate mastery of the vital energies and radiant light, as indi cated below:

Time, bodily exercise, and object of concentration -

These are the first application.

The essential point of the Wild Woman is said to be the four vital winds,

And these are explained as four radiant lights.

At appropriate times, when the vital winds circulate through the central chan nel, one adopts the vajra posture as a bodily exercise, and concentrates upon the movement of the energies in relation to the four cakras at the crown, throat, heart and navel. The essential teaching of the inner heat, or the Wild Woman, then stresses the fourfold control of the breath. When proficiency in the inner heat is achieved by day, radiant light is grasped in four ways by night: there is the natural radiant light, which is the purity of all phenomena; the meditational radiant light, arising in the contemplative experience of the yogin in union with his consort; the radiant light of sleep, when coarse mental activity comes to a halt in deep sleep; and the radiant light of death, arising when, during the liminal passage, the bodily elements are deceased.

In general, the transference of consciousness, a special form of yogic exer cise, is said to cause the consciousness of the dying individual to depart suddenly from the body through a forced opening at the crown of the skull, and to travel immediately to a pure land, often the Sukhavati [the “Pure” or “Happy Land”] realm of the Buddha Amitabha, in which enlightenment can then be swiftly at tained. The “penetration of the city” is an especially high-powered version of this, permitting one to project one’s consciousness into the recently deceased corpse of another. The yaksini to whom Tilopa taught this technique soon achieved mastery of it, taking possession in this way of the body of the yogini Sumati. According to Tibetan tradition, the actual technique was lost not long after it was

KING KUNJI’ S BANQUE T 71

transmitted in Tibet during the eleventh century, and it has not been successfully practiced since. The yoga of the transference of consciousness, however, remains a fundamental practice of Tibetan Buddhism, and is widely practiced in connec tion with Tibetan funeral rites.

The verses in passage 29 in which The Garland of Gems discusses these tech niques are, unfortunately, almost indecipherable and even the commentary fails to clarify the text at this point. For this reason these verses are left untranslated here. Perhaps one who prays earnestly to the eighty-four Siddhas will once again encounter the two dakinis, and so come to recover this passage from the heaven of manifest delight.

Concluding Dedication

May the full realization of the entire teaching,

Bestowed for the sake of the yaksini,

And well practiced by Dhamadhuma,

Bring all creatures to the stage of perfection!

The small text of the instructions of The Garland of Gems is now concluded.