Saraha is considered to be one of the founders of Buddhist Vajrayana, and particularly of the Mahamudra tradition.
Saraha was originally known as Rāhula or Rāhulbhadra and was born in Roli, a region of the city-state of Rajni in eastern India, into a Brahmin family and studied at the Buddhist monastic university Nalanda.[3] According to Sankrityayan and Dvijram Yadav, Saraha was born in Raggyee village of ancient Bhagalpur, the then Capital of Anga Desh.[4]
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A scroll painting of Saraha, surrounded by other Mahāsiddhas, probably 18th century and now in the British Museum |
Teachers and consorts
Saraha is known for being a wandering yogi and avadhuta engaging in behaviors that overturned the social norms of caste, social class, and the oppressive normative gender roles
and hierarchies of the time. Two of Saraha's important teachers and
consorts were women who were technically lower than him from the stand
point of caste, class. and gender. Yet, each of these nameless women met
Saraha as an equal on the path of spiritual practice and each of them
had realization that led Saraha further in his own spiritual
development.
The Arrow Making Dakini
Saraha
is normally shown seated and holding an arrow (Skt. śaru). It is from a
mature nameless woman, often called the Arrow Smith Dakini or the Arrow
Making Dakini, who was Saraha's teacher and consort, that the typical
iconography of Saraha holding an arrow emerges. Some versions of their
meeting say that Saraha saw the Arrow Making Dakini in a vision and thus
was wandering here and there, searching her out. Some say they met at a
crossroads,[5] while other versions say that it was in a busy marketplace where she was selling her arrows.[6][7]
Whether
they meet in a marketplace, or a crossroads, it is this woman's intense
concentration and spiritual instructions to Saraha that are
transformative. When he finds her, Saraha inquires about what she is
doing. Her reply to him is pith and direct: "The Buddha's meaning can be
known through symbols and actions, not through words and books." [8]
The Arrow Making Dakini then explained the symbolic meaning of the arrow to him using the elusive tantric twilight language that is common to dakini teachings. It is said, that in this moment, Saraha fully realized the state of mahamudra
and in that moment he said the single syllable "da." This is a play on
the sound of this word, which can mean either "arrow" or "symbol" (dadar or mda' dar in Tibetan). Saraha then recognized the wisdom dakini in front of him, abandoned his studies and monastic vows and moved to a cremation ground with her to practice[9][10]
As an homage to the Arrow Making Dakini
and Saraha and their great spiritual accomplishments, and to bring
forth the blessings of these spiritual lineages, there are contemporary
tantric communities engaging in archery and arrow smithing as a form of
spiritual discipline and practice.
The Radish Curry Dakini
The second nameless woman who was Saraha's teacher and consort is often called the Radish Curry Girl or the Radish Curry Dakini.
Saraha met her when she was just 15 years old and it is likely she had
been working as a servant. The story that provides this accomplished
dakini with the epithet Radish Curry Girl also has several versions. One
of the more well known ones states that one day Saraha asked this young
woman to make him a radish curry. While she was doing this, Saraha fell
into meditation. His meditative absorption was so complete that he
remained in samadhi for twelve years.
When
he emerged from mediation, twelve long years later, he asked the young
woman if he could have some of the radish curry. Her direct replies to
him are the teachings. She said: "You sit in samadhi for twelve years and the first thing you ask for is radish curry?"[11]
Saraha
noted her wisdom and realized his own faults in meditative practice. He
decided that the only way for him to make any progress on the spiritual
path would be to move into an isolated mountain location, away from all
distractions.
Again, the Radish Curry Dakini offered pith instructions to Saraha: "If you awaken from samadhi
with an undiminished desire for radish curry, what do you think the
isolation of the mountains will do for you? The purest solitude," she
counseled, "is one that allows you to escape from the preconceptions and
prejudices, from the labels and concepts of a narrow, inflexible mind."[12]
Saraha
was wise enough to listen carefully to the wisdom of this dakini in
front of him, realizing that she was indeed not just his consort but
also his teacher. From that moment forward, his meditative practices
changed and he eventually attained the supreme realization of mahamudra. At the time of his death, both Saraha and his consort ascended to Dakini Pure Lands.[13]
Disciples
Luipa was a pupil of Saraha.[14]
Doha, Caryagiti, and Vajragiti
In
the oral and literary traditions of South Asia, there are at least
three classifications for the tantric compositions and teachings of
Saraha: doha (poetic couplets), caryagiti(performance songs), and vajragiti (adamantine songs, which are classified according to the content, not the form).
As one scholar writes:
Saraha's
transmission does not consist merely in his presence--past and
present--but also in the corpus of his work. As befits a mahasiddha,
his method of teaching was spontaneous, inspired, and challenging.
Saraha is said to have uttered collections of esoteric verses designed
to directly point to the nature of mind and reality. Despite the size of the corpus (there are twenty-four works attributed to him in the Tengyur alone, the only ones that have received any serious attention to date are his Doha
Trilogy (Doha score sum; grub snying), a trilogy of songs that have
eclipsed everything else attributed to the master Saraha. His King and People dohas
have been translated numerous times into English and into other Western
languages and have been the subject of major studies. Saraha's Adamantine Songs, however, have scarcely been touched.[15]
Doha are a form of couplet poetry and a portion of Saraha's doha are compiled in Dohakośa, the 'Treasury of Rhyming Couplets'. Pada (verses) 22, 32, 38 and 39 of Caryagītikośa (or Charyapada) are assigned to him. The script used in the doha shows close resemblance with the present day Kaithi, Anga Lipi, Assamese, Bangla and Odiya scripts which imply that Sarahapa has compiled his literature in the earlier language which has similarity with both Odiya language and Angika language.[16][17]
Resemblance of Ang Script | Oriya script in Dohakosa by Sarahapada
In the opinion of Rahul Sankrityayan, Sarahapāda was the earliest Siddha or Siddhācārya and the first poet of Oriya, Angika and Hindi literature . According to him, Sarahapāda was a student of Haribhadra, who was in turn a disciple of Śāntarakṣita, the noted Buddhist scholar who traveled to Tibet. As Śāntarakṣita is known to have lived in the mid-8th century from Tibetan historical sources[18] and Haribhadra was a contemporary of Pāla king Dharmapala (770 – 815 CE), Sarahapāda must have lived in the late 8th century or early 9th century CE.[19] From the colophon of a manuscript of Saraha's Dohakośa, copied in Nepali Samvat 221 (1101 CE) and found from Royal Durbar Library in Nepal (most probably the earliest manuscript of Dohakośa), by Pt. Hara prasad Shastri in 1907, we know that many doha-s of Saraha were extant by that time. Thanks to the efforts of a scholar named Divakar Chanda, some of them have been preserved.,[20] and were printed and published first in the modern Bangla font by the Bongiyo Shahityo Porishawd in 1916 along with the Dohakosh of Sarahapa in Bangla font, the Sanskrit notes of the dohas of Sarahapa also in the Bangla font, the Dakarnab adage-poems, the dohas of Kanhapa or Krishnacharyapa or Kanifnath and the Mekhla notes.
The mouthpiece was by Haraprasad Shastri who had found the manuscript
at the Royal Durbar Library of the Nepal kingdom in 1907.
The following song and poem of Saraha are from the original Apabhramsa or Aangi or Modern Angika[21] (the language Saraha most often wrote in) is no longer extant but we have the Tibetan translation:
Tibetan in Wylie transcription:
la la nam mkha'i khams la rtog par snang
gzhan yang stong nyid ldan par byed pa de
phal cher mi mthun phyogs la zhugs pa yin
English translation
Some think it's
in the realm of space,
others connect it
with emptiness:
mostly, they dwell
in contradiction.[22]
Here is one scholarly interpretation of the above verses:
"space:
In Indian thought, especially Buddhist, a common metaphor for the
objective nature of reality as empty or unlimited, and the subjective
quality of the mind that experiences that emptiness...Space also is one
of the five elements recognized in most Indian cosmologies, along with
earth, water, fire, and air. In certain contexts... "sky" is a more
appropriate translation for the Apabhramsa or Tibetan original. emptiness:
According to most Mahayana Buddhist schools, the ultimate nature of all
entities and concepts in the cosmos, realization of which is required
for attaining liberation. Emptiness (Skt. śūnyatā) may be regarded
negatively as the absence, anywhere, of anything resembling a permanent,
independent substance or nature...more positively, it is regarded as
the mind's natural luminosity, which is "empty" of the defilements that
temporarily obscure...The critical remarks directed here at those who
think "it" (i.e., reality) is connected with emptiness presumably are
meant to correct a one-sided obsession with negation, which is one of
Saraha's major targets."[23]
The
point of Saraha in this poem is clearly to ensure that the aspirant on
way to becoming adept, does not get trapped by the metaphor and
soteriological lexicon. This was a recurrent motif in Saraha's teachings
and is key for why he is depicted in Tibetan iconography with an
'arrow' or 'dadar'
(Tibetan: mda' dar). Further to this, the comment of scholar Judith
Simmer-Brown (2001: p. 359) as follows is relevant: "The word for arrow is mda', which is identical in pronunciation to the word for symbol, brda'".[24]
Again, we are brought back to the relevance of the coded tantric twilight language
that is embedded in not only Saraha's oral compositions and teachings
but also in the descriptions of his spiritual life, his teachers and
consorts, and his own realization.
Works Attributed to Saraha in the Tibetan Tengyur
There are a number of songs of realization attributed to the Indian Buddhist yogi Saraha in the Tengyur of the Tibetan Buddhist canon:[25]
rgyud vol Ra.
104b–150a To. 1652: Śrī Buddhakapālatantrapañjikā jñāna vatī nāma (trans: Gayadhara, Jo Zla ba'i 'od zer)
225b–229b To. 1655: Śrī Buddhakapālasādhana nāma (trans: Gayadhara, Gyi jo Zla ba'i 'od zer)
229b–230b To. 1656: Sarvabhūtabalividhi (trans: Gayadhara, Gyi jo Zla ba'i 'od zer)
230b–243b To. 1657: Śrī Buddhakapālamaṇḍalavidhikrama pradyotana nāma (trans: Gayadhara, Gyi ja Zla ba'i 'od zer)
rgyud vol Wi.
70b–77a To. 2224: Dohakoṣagīti - do ha mdzod kyi glu - "People Doha" (trans: ?)
- colophon:
rnal 'byor gyi dbang phyug chen po dpal sa ra ha chen po'i zhal snga
nam mdzad pa do ha mdzod ces bya ba de kho na nyid rnal du mtshon pa don
dam pa'i yi ge rdzogs so/
rgyud vol Zhi (Ui: Shi)
26b–28b To. 2263: Dohakoṣa nāma caryāgīti - do ha mdzod ces bya ba spyod pa'i glu - "King Doha", "Royal Song" (trans: ?)
- colophon:
rnal 'byor gyi dbang phyug chen po dpal sa ra ha'i zhal snga nas mdzad
pa/ do ha mdzod ces bya ba spyod pa'i glu rdzogs so/
28b–33b
To. 2264: Dohakoṣopadeśagīti nāma - mi zad pa'i gter mdzod man ngag gi
glu zhes bya ba - "Queen Doha" (trans: Vajrapāṇi rev: Asu)
- colophon:
rnal 'byor gyi dbang phyug dpal sa ra ha pas mdzad pa rdzogs so//
//rgya gar gyi mkhan po badzra pāṇi dang/ bla ma a sus zhus//
55b–57b To. 2266: Kakhasyadoha nāma (Ui gives "Kakhadoha nama") (trans: Śrīvairocanavajra)
57b–65b To. 2267: Kakhadohaṭippaṇa (trans: Śrīvairocanavajra)
106b–113a To. 2269: Kāyakoṣāmṛtavajragīti (trans: ?)
113a–115b To. 2270: Vākkoṣarucirasvaravajragīti (trans: Nag po pa)
115b–117a To. 2271: Cittakoṣājavajragīti (trans: Nag po pa)
117a–122a To. 2272: Kāyavākcittāmanasikāra nāma (trans: Nag po pa)
122a–124a To. 2273: Dohakoṣa nāma mahāmudropadeśa (trans: Śrīvairocanarakṣita)
124a–125a To. 2274: Dvādaśopadeśagāthā (trans: ?)
125a–126a To. 2275: Svādhiṣṭhānakrama (trans: Śāntabhadra, rma ban chos 'bar)
126b–127b To. 2276: Tattvopadeśaśikharadohagīti nāma (trans: Kṛṣṇa Paṇḍit)
rgyud vol Zi
3a–4a To. 2345: Bhāvanādṛṣṭicaryāphaladohagītikā nāma (trans: ?)
5b–5b To. 2351: Vasantatilakadohakoṣagītikā nāma (trans: ?)
55b–62a To. 2440: Mahāmudropadeśavajraguhyagīti (trans: Kamalaśīla, ston pa seng ge rgyal po)
rgyud vol. Phu
182b–183a To. 3164: Trailokavaśaṃkaralokeśvarasādana (trans: Abhaya, tshul khrims rgyal mtshan)
183a–184a To. 3165: Trailokavaśaṃkaralokeśvarasādana (trans: Ratnākara, Tshul rgyal)
rgud vol. Mu
46b–47a To. 3371: Trailokavaśaṃkaralokiteśvarasādana (trans: Don yod rdo rje, Ba ri)
88a–88b To. 3427: Trailokavaśaṃkaralokeśvarasādana (trans: Grags pa rgyal mtshan)
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