Saraha
[1] According to one, scholar, "This is an explicit reference to an incident in many versions of his biography when he studied with a dakini disguised as a low-caste arrow smith.
[3] Saraha was originally known as Rāhula or Rāhulabhadra and was born in Roli, a region of the city-state of Rajni in eastern India, into a Shakya family and studied at the Buddhist monastic university Nalanda.
[citation needed] When he emerged from mediation, he asked the young woman if he could have some of the radish curry twelve long years later.
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.
Saraha is said to have uttered collections of esoteric verses designed to directly point to the nature of mind and reality.
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.
[16][17] In the disputed opinion of Rahul Sankrityayan, Sarahapāda was the earliest Siddha or Siddhācārya and the first poet of Bengali, Odia, Maithili 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.
The mouthpiece was by Haraprasad Shastri who had found the manuscript at the Royal Durbar Library of the Nepal kingdom in 1907.
[21] 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.
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.
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.
"[22]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.
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.
1657: Śrī Buddhakapālamaṇḍalavidhikrama pradyotana nāma (trans: Gayadhara, Gyi ja Zla ba'i 'od zer) rgyud vol Wi.
2263: Dohakoṣa nāma caryāgīti - do ha mdzod ces bya ba spyod pa'i glu - "King Doha", "Royal Song" (trans: ?)
2264: Dohakoṣopadeśagīti nāma - mi zad pa'i gter mdzod man ngag gi glu zhes bya ba - "Queen Doha" (trans: Vajrapāṇi rev: Asu) 55b–57b To.
2440: Mahāmudropadeśavajraguhyagīti (trans: Kamalaśīla, ston pa seng ge rgyal po) rgyud vol.
