The Lives and Liberation of Princess Mandarava:
The Indian Consort of Padmasambhava

( Bsam-Gtan-Glin-Pa Phrin-Las-Gro-Dul-Las-Rab-Bde-Ba-Rtsal )

Translated by Lama Conam and Sangye Khandro
Intoduction by Janet Gyatso
Wisdom Publications (1998)
 

This lucid translation of a rare Tibetan treasure text makes available for the first time to Western readers the remarkable lifestory of Princess Madarava. As the principal consort of the eighth-century Indian master Padmasambhava before he introduced tantric Buddhism to Tibet, Mandarava is the Indian counterpart of the Tibetan consort Yeshe Tsogyal. Lives and Liberation recounts her struggles and triumphs as a Buddhist adept throughout her many lives and is an authentic deliverance story of a female Buddhist master. Those who read this book will gain inspiration and encouragement on the path to liberation.

 "An extraordinary story from the heart of Tibetan religious culture...replete with messages of encouragement...[that] presents its readers with a complex image of a woman engaged in a difficult process of self-cultivation."—Janet Gyatso, Amherst College

Lama Chonam, born in Golok in eastern Tibet, is an ordained master teacher of the Nyingmapa school of Vajrayana Buddhism.

Sangye Khandro is a noted translator of Tibetan Buddhist texts. She resides in Oregon.

Janet Gyatso is a professor of religion and Indo-Tibetan studies at Amherst College in Massachusetts.

Contents

 Translator’s Preface

 Introduction by Janet Gyatso

 1. Daughter of the King of Zahor, Princess Mandarava
2. The Daughter of King Indradeva
3. Marrying Prince Suryagarbha
4. In the Kingdom of Kanaka
5. In the Kingdom of Damaru
6. Enlightening the Kingdom of Damaru
7. In the Realm of the Gods
8. In the Naga Realm of Black Chandala
9. Daughter of the Demigod King
10. Shri Sagara
11. The Twenty-Five Manifestations
12. Blessings from the Dakinis
13. Seeing the Country of Her Birth
14. Choosing Her Mother and Father
15. Entering Her Mother’s Womb
16. Paying Homage to Her Father and Mother
17. Aversion to Samsara
18. Perfecting the Outer Sciences
19. Liberating the Heretic Kyabsal Nagpo
20. Leading Three Hundred Noble Women to the Path of Dharma
21. The Death of Prince Pawode
22. Setting Five Hundred Women on the Path to Liberation
23. The Sacred Flesh of a Bodhisattva
24. A Vision of Vajrasattva
25. Taking Vows and Training in the Dharma
26. Meeting Master Padmasambhava
27. Subduing the King with Miracles
28. Freed from Imprisonment
29. Abandoning Samsara
30. Accomplishing Longevity in Maratika Cave
31. Subjugating Heretics in the Kingdom of Kotala
32. Conquering Elementals at the Charnel Ground
33. Bringing the Cannibals of Chamara to the Dharma
34. Eight Miracles in Eight Countries
35. Turning the Wheel of Dharma in Oddiyana
36. Turning the Wheel of Dharma in Shambhala
37. Becoming the Wisdom Dakini
38. Supplication to Mandarava’s Emanations

 Epilogue

 Table of Equivalents

 Notes

About the Contributors

Translator’s Preface   (complete)

 As spiritual practitioners we receive encouragement and inspiration by reading the lifestories of great and sublime teachers, and the inspiration we receive from their exemplary lives allows us to progress more swiftly along the path to liberation. Because the appearance of everything we can know and experience depends on causes and circumstances, ordinary individuals embarking on the path must do so through a gradual process. Princess Mandarava, however, already liberated from the cycle of suffering and perfectly omniscient, was not an ordinary individual. She intentionally emanated into realms of ordinary existence in order to inspire beings and lead them through this gradual process, teaching them how to practice through her example. The pages of this book present, for the first time, an English translation of the precious treasure text of Padmasambhava called The Lives and Liberation of Princess Mandarava. The accounts of Mandarava’s remarkable lives illuminate the experiences of a great wisdom dakini who inspired everyone she met, turning their minds irrevocably toward liberation.

Princess Mandarava of Zahor is often depicted at the side of Guru Padmasambhava opposite his other principal consort, Kharchen Yeshe Tsogyal. Princess Mandarava was instrumental in the guru’s accomplishment of immortality, and, as a result, she is usually depicted holding a long-life vase and arrow. Because of his relationship with Mandarava, Padmasambhava was able to extend the duration of his enlightened activities in this world and thus travel to the snow land of Tibet, where, according to Je Mipham Rinpoche, he remained some fifty-four years.

In the thirty-eight chapters of this revelation, the reader comes to know a nirmanakaya (enlightened manifestation) dakini (goddess) who chose numerous times to enter the world as an aristocrat. The purpose of this depiction is not to show us that only those of high status or wealth are fortunate enough to have such opportunities, but to reveal that Mandarava was able and willing to renounce that which is most difficult to renounce, namely attachment to the so-called pleasures of worldly life. In each of her lifetimes, she unflaggingly forsakes fame and pleasures to work for the benefit of others through example and skillful means. Her abandonment of the temporary pleasures that steal away precious time and opportunities for spiritual development mirrors the struggles facing modern day Dharma practitioners. Although Mandarava was a famous female practitioner, she ultimately defies gender distinctions, and her enlightened activities are timeless. The Dharma that Mandarava—and all sublime teachers like her—teach is the path that transcends all relative distinctions made by ordinary individuals based on the ordinary habits of the dualistic mind.

Great importance is placed on the purity and authenticity of lineage in the Vajrayana tradition. The great female practitioners within these lineages deserve our recognition. This can be accomplished by translating more of the lifestories of great female practitioners and important classical texts and commentaries written by women into the English language. The project of translating this particular text was originally inspired by the devotion of several disciples of Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo. Jetsunma is the spiritual director of Kunzang Palyul Choling in Poolesville, Maryland and is an American woman recognized as an emanation of a famous dakini from Tibet by H.H. Penor Rinpoche, the present head of the Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism. Anxious to make the lifestory of Mandarava available to English language readers, Thubten Rinchen Palzang found the Tibetan text at the Library of Congress. Special thanks go to Susan Meinheit who lovingly cares for the vast Tibetan collection at the Library and helped locate the original text. My translation of this text would not have been possible without generous sponsorship provided by Thubten Jampal Wangchuk, Noel Jones, Sarah Stevens, W.W. and Eleanor Rowe, as well as dozens of others from the KPC Sangha. Since this text is written in the Ume (dbu med) Tibetan script and possesses many abbreviated words as well as spelling errors, the translation would not have been possible without the kind assistance of Lama Choying Namgyal, better known as Chonam, who tirelessly worked with me, going through the text line by line. Lama Chonam’s knowledge of the Dharma, Buddhist history, and the Tibetan language was indispensable in completing this difficult task. The rough draft was initially reviewed by W.W. and Eleanor Rowe, who spent countless hours meticulously editing the initial translation. Thubten Konchog Norbu coordinated the translation project and oversaw many of the small details. Because several years transpired since our initial efforts, Lama Chonam and I again reviewed the entire text for accuracy. Despite our best efforts, there may still be errors in the translation. For any such errors we offer our apologies and welcome any corrections or improvements that scholars may detect. I would like to acknowledge and express my gratitude to Arthur Azdair, who has been indispensable in these final stages of the preparation of the manuscript by overseeing, editing, and skillfully inputting all of our revisions and corrections. Finally I feel I must mention that the views and comparisons presented in the introduction that follows do not completely reflect my views and reasons for translating this precious revelation treasure. The basis for the difference of opinion centers around the interpretation of the feminine principle and how it pertains to the path of Vajrayana Buddhism.

 The notion that Vajrayana Buddhism is male-oriented is misleading. Still, many women attempting to pursue the path may naturally become discouraged when they encounter the strong Tibetan cultural influence. The more Dharma takes root in the West, however, the easier it becomes to relate directly to the Dharma, which is perfectly pure and free from biased distinctions, rather than focusing on the habits of ordinary individuals from foreign cultures. It is my prayer that this book may be of some benefit in encouraging the many excellent female practitioners in the world to cultivate their noble qualities and, through the force of their practice, go on to become fully qualified teachers themselves. May this work bring immeasurable benefit to all living beings, who are all equal and able to realize their precious buddha nature.

 Sangye Khandro
Tashi Choling
Ashland, Oregon 1998

Introduction   (complete)

 The Lives and Liberation of Princess Mandarava is an extraordinary story from the heart of Tibetan religious culture about the Buddhist liberation of a woman.1 Recounted from the magisterial perspective of a female buddha—Pandaravasini—and her emanations in the world, the story tells of life after life of compassionate manifestations in samsaric trouble spots, where the heroine uses her splendor, magical powers, and often her feminine charms to tame demons and teach the Buddhist messages of impermanence, compassion, and enlightened insight to all. This superwoman’s story has a fairytale quality that is counterbalanced by the real-life problems of women in Indian and Tibetan society that the work repeatedly addresses: the assumption that all women must marry, their control by the men in their lives, and the lack of respect for them in society at large. In the final long episode of the heroine’s life as the consort of Padmasambhava, these themes are writ large in her struggles with her parents and her censure by those around her on account of her controversial relationship with the tantric master. She is finally victorious in these struggles, but only after an arduous path of self-cultivation and self-expression.

 The version of the story translated in this book dates from the turn of the twentieth century, but the figure of Mandarava has long occupied a chapter in the larger narrative of Buddhism’s introduction of in Tibet, in which Padmasambhava plays such a leading role. But like its counterpart, the lifestory of the famous Tibetan female saint Yeshe Tsogyal (who also became a consort of Padmasambhava), the tale of Mandarava and her previous lives goes far beyond its significance for Tibetan national history and identity.2 It is replete with messages of encouragement for women of many Buddhist traditions. In order to appreciate the meaning that its exceptional, proto- femininist themes might have had for its traditional audience—that is, its readers, male and female alike, as well as the auditors of its oral renditions—some general background in the lifestory tradition in Tibet and in Buddhist literature might be helpful to convey a sense of the history and religious practices of the cultural milieu from which the work originates.

 All lifestories in Buddhist literature model themselves on the lifestories of the Buddha, which began to be written by the first century B.C.E. Most importantly, the plot of Shakyamuni’s lifestory, his steps to buddhahood and his enlightened activity thereafter, set the standard for all exemplary Buddhist lives. Mandarava’s own story shares this basic orientation. The work translated here recounts how she first achieved enlightenment in the distant past as the buddha Pandaravasini (chapter 2). The process seems to be repeated in her last lifetime as Mandarava when she achieves the status of an immortal awareness holder (vidyadhara, rig ’dzin) after rigorous training at Maratika (chapter 30) and then wins the ultimate rainbow body at death (chapter 37). The explanation for the repetition may be that Mandarava’s second enlightenment was meant as a display or model for others on the path. In any event, it is the lifestory of Mandarava that is recounted in most detail in this book and that serves most prominently as an exemplary life for the student. Many of its moments repeat similar moments in the lifestories of the Buddha: her deliberate choice of parents; the auspicious dreams of parents and other significant indications at her conception; her precocious words and signs of advanced realization at birth; the sights of old, sick, and dead people that disillusion her and inspire a renunciatory attitude; her escape from the palace and periods of ascetic practice; her later efforts to teach and train. The parallel of her story with that of the Buddha is especially obvious in the overview summary that the text itself provides at the close of chapter 1. When the reader recognizes these elements as typical themes in the lifestory of a Buddhist saint, it becomes an important sign that the life being told is going in the same direction and that the protagonist too is a Buddhist saint. Such conventions structure the large proportion of hagiographical and biographical literature in Tibet—a genre that, significantly, is labelled “full liberation [story]” (rnam thar). Hundreds of such works were produced in Buddhist Tibet; it is important, first of all, to place the work translated in this book within that tradition.

 The impact that the story of liberation has on its readers and hearers has been given paramount importance since the inception of lifestory literature in Buddhism. The point was made early on in this tradition that the entire purpose of the Buddha’s life was to demonstrate to others the paradigmatic steps on the path to enlightenment. The Buddha’s own life in fact was characterized as repeating a basic pattern already in place in the lives of buddhas of past eras. In turn, it was projected that others who reached his level of buddhahood would subsequently go through much the same process. This expectation is then confirmed when elements in his lifestory are repeated in the lifestories of so many saints in Buddhist literature, as we see in the present work.

 In Tibetan literature, the lifestory of an enlightened master is also said to have a positive impact by causing marvel and wonder in the reader. This is the expected response to narratives of fantastic powers, intergalactic travel, and scintillating meditative experience. Such features were well known in Indian story literature and became prominent in the Mahayana sutras and the Puranic renditions of the exploits of the Hindu deities and their avatars. Much of the cosmic, miraculous quality of Mandarava’s story can be understood as influenced by this large and heterogenous tradition, as are many other Tibetan narrative cycles. Stories of the founders of lineages are particularly likely to contain such marvelous dimensions; they are certainly central to the cycle of stories surrounding Avalokiteshvara and his manifestations in Tibet, as well as to the lifestory tradition of Padmasambhava, with which the Mandarava story is directly connected.3 The idea is that the spectacular vision of a magnificent cosmic heritage will inspire faith in the religious practices the story represents.

 But confidence (yid ches, or nges shes), a special notion often invoked in Tibetan discussions of the benefits of reading lifestory narratives, is equally induced by another corner of the biographical tradition in Tibet—namely, that which tends more toward the everyday. Connected, to be sure, to the miraculous tale tradition in Tibet just discussed, some biographical and especially autobiographical writing in Tibet achieves an exceptional level of candor and historical specificity that becomes the source of a different sort of confidence for the reader: it assures one that that one’s difficulties are not unique to oneself, and it gives some indication of ways to overcome such obstacles on the religious path. Some of the realistically portrayed family and social problems that the various heroines in Mandarava’s stories endure present such role models. Even the most realistic biographical writing in Tibet may strike Western minds as fantastic, not infrequently referring, for example, to the protagonist’s past lives, as well as recounting special dreams and epiphanies. Reading this literature always impresses upon the modern student how differently the line between psychic and material realities is construed in Tibetan Buddhist culture than it is in the contemporary West.

A lifestory such as that of Mandarava is seen to possess efficacious powers of its own. The text serves ritual functions; reading or chanting it as a liturgy is an act of devotion to Mandarava, and is even used to invoke her visualized presence. Rehearsing the story enables one to visualize its characters and their world, and this act of imagination in turn evokes important experiences and opportunities for cultivation on the part of the reader/listener. Some sense of the expected effects of such transformations may be gained from pp. 201–2, where it is maintained that, as a result of reading the story of Mandarava, one’s wishes will be fulfilled, one will be protected on journeys, evil spirits will be subdued, animals and agriculture will flourish, and even that disease and war will end.

 What has been said so far describes the traditional views on virtually all hagiographical or biographical work in Tibetan religion. But what is distinctive about the particular work at hand, the account of the past and present lives of Mandarava? One of its most important features is that it is a story about a female. This can be said of only very few of the hundreds of lifestories in Tibetan literature. Indeed, the principal reason that Mandarava is important to Tibetans at all has to do precisely with her gender. She is never even said to have been in Tibet; her claim to fame, rather, is that she was a consort of Padmasambhava. And since Padmasambhava is probably the most important Buddhist teacher in Tibetan history, we need to note, first of all, that it is the lore surrounding Padmasambhava that provides the basic framework for the story of Mandarava.

Invited to Tibet to tame its wild demons by the eighth-century King Trisong Detsen, Padamsambhava was a tantric master from an area of northwest India commonly called Oddiyana. Although several previous Tibetan kings had established some connections with Indian, Chinese, and other traditions of Buddhism, the powerful ruler Trisong Detsen is said to have been bent upon establishing it as the state religion. However, the scholarly Indian abbot Shantarakshita whom the king invited to Tibet was unable to impress and convert the anti-Buddhist factions (especially those in the spirit world) that opposed this conversion. The story goes that the learned abbot then recommended Padmasambhava as a master with the right charisma and power to handle the volatile Tibetan situation. Padmasambhava’s hagiography is replete with graphic descriptions of his suppression and taming of Tibet’s fierce spirits as he crosses the border from Nepal, not to mention his subsequent wrangles with the conservative Tibetan aristocracy. He finally succeeds in initiating the king and some of his retinue in several key tantric traditions and leading them through a series of esoteric meditations at the mountain cave retreats in central Tibet. Some of these meditations involve sexual yoga, and Padmasambhava takes as his principal consort and disciple in these yogas the Tibetan lady Yeshe Tsogyal, who had been one of King Trisong Detsen’s own queens. It is also Yeshe Tsogyal who helps Padmasambhava hide many treasure texts (gter ma) in Tibet, earmarked for future generations, before the master at last leaves Tibet.

 Mandarava plays little part in these events, but her story is sometimes told in the earlier chapters of Padmasambhava’s lifestory, when she was his consort in India, prior to his sojourn in Tibet.4 Since she has no apparent relation to Tibetans, one might wonder why her story is told at all, and particularly how she came to be the protagonist of the elaborate version of her present and past lives that is translated in this book; many other characters appear in the story of Padmasambhava whose full lifestories never appear. A significant part of the answer to this question revolves around the fact that Mandarava is female. Even if we were to regard her story only as an embellishment of the Padmasambhava narrative cycle, the fact that what provides this embellishment is female is most striking.

 Many contemporary scholars are coming to believe that much of the impact that Padmasambhava is portrayed as having in Tibet relates to his transmission of the controversial techniques of tantric yoga to Tibetans; and a large part of what Padmasambhava represents to Tibetans has to do with his virtuosity in the practices of consort yoga. In particular, his liaison with the Tibetan queen Yeshe Tsogyal importantly sets the stage for the subversion of the traditional forms of patriarchy, kinship structures, and power relations that ensued as tantric religion gained sway in Tibetan culture. And although for Tibetans Padmasambhava’s relationship with Yeshe Tsogyal is one of the primary markers of this cultural transformation, the fact that he also is depicted as having taught and practiced consort yoga with many other women only reinforces his image as the master of this esoteric tradition. As a very common Tibetan prayer says, Padmasambhava ever has “many dakinis circling around him.” Dakini is a polysemous category of female figures, sometimes referring to goddesses, sometimes to human women, in tantric Buddhism. Mandarava, devoutly called the “head of one hundred thousand dakinis” in the opening to the current work, is the other main consort of Padmasambhava, the Indian counterpart of Yeshe Tsogyal. This is a key element of Mandarava’s claim to fame in Tibet.

 However, the Tibetan reader’s interest in the story of Mandarava and her status as a dakini is not particularly motivated by a desire to glorify the legacy of Padmasambhava; her female gender has a great significance of its own. That is, Mandarava is a female heroine in her own right, and it would be accurate to say that her connection with the famous Padmasambhava serves to enhance her image, rather than vice versa. The function of Mandarava as a female heroine is most appropriately understood in light of the large numerical gap between the precious few female Buddhist heroines in Tibetan literature and lore and the much more numerous male heroes. Like the separate lifestory of Yeshe Tsogyal, the story of Mandarava translated in this book helps fill that gap by providing detailed narratives of what the life of a female Buddhist practitioner might entail and what a powerful female saint is like.

The female model presented by the story of Mandarava differs in significant respects from that of Yeshe Tsogyal. The latter, by virtue of being Tibetan and, relatively speaking, a much more historically locatable figure than Mandarava, is a more accessible role model with whom Tibetan female readers might identify than is the foreign and—certainly in this version of her story—far more deified figure of Mandarava. In some respects we might compare Mandarava’s story more profitably to that of the female bodhisattva Tara. That narrative places at its the center the possibility of female enlightenment, as a counter to the view prevalent for several centuries in many sectors of the Buddhist world that buddhahood was limited to males.5 Clearly in protest of that view, Tara constructs her initial vow to achieve buddhahood specifically to include the rider that in all of her future lives on the way to this goal she will always be female and attain the final fruit in a female body.6 Mandarava’s story of past and present lives instantiates this same goal: in all of the incarnations recounted here she is always a female, often struggling with typical female problems on the path, achieving enlightenment as a female buddha, and then manifesting herself as a female goddess/buddha to accomplish her many compassionate projects to help other sentient beings. In many ways, then, we can say that the Mandarava story, like that of Tara, has universal messages for all Buddhist women and is less tied to a specifically Tibetan cultural matrix than is the story of Yeshe Tsogyal, even though the latter also has universal messages for women as well. But in other respects the Mandarava and Yeshe Tsogyal stories have more in common, both going a great deal further than the story of Tara in drawing out the particular problems of female life on the one hand and in suggesting ways to capitalize on distinctive female virtues for Buddhist purposes on the other. The Mandarava and Yeshe Tsogyal stories also share a deep root in tantric practice and mythology, with very particular lessons to teach their readers about the nature of the dakini figure and her relation to her teachers, her consorts, and her disciples.

In considering all of these questions about the models and messages of a work like the lifestory of Mandarava, we must continue to wonder to what degree those messages were meant to inspire a female audience in particular, and whether the story’s images were fashioned specifically as models for female identification, and to what extent, on the other hand, these served to edify all readers, regardless of gender. Such a question cannot be answered precisely for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the current lack of sufficient historical and sociological information. But we can at least be sure that, given the many feministic themes in the work, the creators of the story of Mandarava clearly had gender-related issues in mind.

 The work translated in this book is classed as a treasure text, a genre that has been fostered by a long tradition of treasure discoverers (gter ston). Such visionaries claim to recover works that were previously concealed by Padmasambhava and several of his close disciples back in the late eighth or early ninth century. This particular text’s status as a treasure is made explicit at the beginning and end of the work (see pp. 19–21, 203), where it is stated that Mandarava’s story was originally conveyed by Padmasambhava to Yeshe Tsogyal, King Trisong Detsen, and his court. Yeshe Tsogyal in turn records and hides the work, as she is said to have done for most of Tibetan treasure literature.7 On the occasion of the burial of a treasure, a prophecy is typically uttered regarding its future revelation. In the present case, several versions of the treasure are mentioned, each of which is predicted to be discovered by a particular discoverer. The discoverer of this particular version (the “intermediate version:” see p. 204) is a yogin named Samten Lingpa, who probably was born in 1871 (the “iron sheep year”). Unfortunately there is not much information available about his life, but it is known that soon after his revelation of the story of Mandarava, he appeared in the village of the family of the maternal grandmother of Khanpo Palden Sherab and Khanpo Tsewang, two scholars from Riwoche in eastern Tibet now living in the United States. His treasure text was later edited by Dorshul Tsewang Tendzin (mentioned on p. 205), at the time the main lama of Gochen Monastery, which is also the home monastery of the Khanpos. The relationship between that lama and the treasure discoverer is described briefly at the end of this work.

 As already indicated, however, stories about Mandarava had long been in circulation before the revelation of this particular version. They are often recounted in the course of relating the life of Padmasambhava. One of the earliest summaries of her lifestory is given in the 12th century treasure discoverer Nyangral Nyima Ozer’s hagiography of Padmasambhava. Other material can be found in the treasures of Orgyan Lingpa and Sangye Lingpa (both fourteenth century) and Padma Lingpa (fifteenth century); several other versions are referred to in the final pages of the current work.8 Scholars have not recognized any independent evidence from Indian sources of a woman named Mandarava, not to mention any of the previous lives that are detailed in the current version of her story. Nonetheless the text contains allusions to a fascinating array of places and persons—some historical, some mythological—in the Indian subcontinent, and for the careful historian this work would surely provide many hints about the sacred geography and political actors of India’s tantric Buddhist period.

Although the known versions of the lifestory of Mandarava from the Tibetan treasure tradition follow the same overall outline, details vary. Few contain the accounts of her previous lives that are provided by Samten Lingpa’s version. This narrative, spanning eons (see the summary of the episodes on pp. 195–201), is framed as the enlightened emanations of the female buddha Pandaravasini (Tib. Gökarmo), “She in White Garments,” the consort of the famous buddha of the Western Paradise, Amitabha. In an important sense Pandaravasini is the true identity of Mandarava, although on occasion this strict identity is blurred when, for example, in chapter 22 Mandarava encounters an epiphany of her enlightened side as Pandaravasini, seemingly a separate figure.

 The first eleven chapters of the work describe various previous lives of Mandarava, including the one in which she originally attained enlightenment as a buddha, followed by subsequent emanations in a variety of realms to teach a variety of types of beings. Many other lives than could be detailed are alluded to in the eleventh chapter, including a life as the goddess Singmo Gangadevi during the time of Shakyamuni.

The remainder of the text describes the life in which she is Mandarava, the consort of Padmasambhava. It would have taken place not long before the text’s imputed recording by Yeshe Tsogyal. The account commences in chapter 12 by returning to the grand purpose of Mandarava’s existence, which, significantly, is connected both to Buddha Shakyamuni and to the establishment of Buddhism in Tibet. It is ultimately related to the emanation activity of Pandaravasini’s consort, Amitabha. The conditions of her particular life as Mandarava are traced to a prophecy by Kashyapa (a disciple of Shakyamuni), who predicts his own future life as Padmasambhava, and for whom Pandaravasini is aroused and consecrated so as to emanate herself as Mandarava. She is in this way cast as the true mother of herself, since her grand union with Amitayus produces a seed that descends upon the royal couple in the land of Zahor who are to become her human parents.

Zahor is an area in northeast India, also famous in Tibetan lore as the birthplace of Shantarakshita, and associated with some of the early origins of tantric Buddhism. The beautiful princess Mandarava, who is born to a royal couple in that land, is portrayed here as wise and virtuous. She eschews her many suitors, however, and wishes only to practice Buddhism, for which she finally wins her parents’ consent. While in retreat she is visited by the tantric master Padmasambhava and becomes his devoted disciple. Although she and Padmasambhava are persecuted by the conservative countryfolk and Mandarava’s parents alike for their seemingly scandalous behaviour, the couple finally vindicate themselves by displaying their magical powers. The final chapters of Mandarava’s lifestory recount her sojourns around the Indian religious landscape. She continually cultivates her yogic virtuosity and Buddhist realizations further under the tutelage of Padmasambhava. She also continues to hone her skills in taming beings, just as she had done in her past lives, in places such as Padmasambhava’s birthplace, Oddiyana, and the hidden country of Shambhala. On the eve of Padmasambhava’s trip to Tibet, she finally passes away after conveying final teachings to her disciples.

 A closer look at a few of the details of this story as they are rendered by Samten Lingpa can provide insight into the work’s messages about the path of female practitioners of Buddhism, its conceptions of female glory and power, its feminine and in some cases feminist sentiments, and its portrayal of the particular problems that females face in the world of Buddhism.

 Perhaps most striking of all the positive images of the female that the work provides is the exceptionally positive characterization in chapter 2 of the womb and the experiences of the fetus therein. In marked contrast to a very standard strain throughout Buddhist literature that pictures the womb as dirty and the source of stain and pain for both mother and child,9 the current text has the fetus speaking from her mother’s womb, attesting to her experiences of bliss, conceiving of her mother’s body as a pure realm and the placenta as a source of bliss, warmth, and softness. Attention might be called to the literal meaning of “Pandaravasini” itself, which names the very same “covering of white silk” that here euphemizes the placenta. The meaning of Pandaravasini’s name thus suggests a powerful affirmation of the birthing process.

Certainly there is no discomfort with, and indeed a straightforward valorization of, feminine beauty throughout the story of Mandarava. Although she frequently has to take on a wrathful or frightening demeanor in her activities to subdue evil and to teach, her default countenance is one of classical feminine beauty. There seems to be a deliberate point in the repeated references to this virtue, as in chapter 3, where the princess Natyendri is said to have “gentle beauty, smiling face, and melodious speech,” to be “lovely to behold,” “exquisitely beautiful,” and so on. Similar attributes are ascribed to other outstanding female characters throughout the work. A woman who turns out to be the prior incarnation of the famous female Nepalese teacher Shakyadevi is bedecked in jeweled ornaments, the first teacher of Mandarava is characterized several times as a beautiful woman, her precocious fellow female student is a dakini in the form of a youthful maiden, and Pandaravasini herself appears as an intoxicatingly beautiful goddess when she decides to reveal herself as an epiphany to her own emanation, Mandarava.

The very fact that Mandarava has many accomplished and serious female companions, teachers, and mentors itself makes an important set of womanist points. These come out most clearly in the protagonist’s own accomplishments. Surely one of the most basic purposes of the work is to show how women can achieve anything—just as well, if not better than—men usually do in Buddhist hagiography. The female incarnations of Pandaravasini are teachers, debaters, and conquerors, overpowering enemies and binding demons by oath—not only by virtue of her wisdom and skill but also through her charisma and even brute strength. This is not to say, however, that all female figures in the text are characterized positively. The work personifies evil in both male and female form; the latter appear in the form of blood-thirsty mamos (an ancient Indic class of terrifying “mother” spirits), cannibal queens, evil dakinis, and other monstrous females. Still, positively portrayed female characters far outnumber their evil counterparts in the work, which outstrips virtually any other example of Buddhist literature in its emphasis upon wise and powerful female figures.

 The positively imaged male figures in the story are few. The most prominent one of course is Padmasmabhava himself, and in fact it is in the context of Mandarava’s relationship with him that a few hints of womanish weakness on her part can be discerned. For example, when she begs him to take her with him to Maratika, he feels he must warn her that she will need to be strong and courageous enough to retain her “pure vision” even when traveling in frightening environments (chapter 29). Feminine vulnerability in fact sometimes becomes a special burden, and she must even overcome foes who challenge her power by raping her (chapter 32). Still, Padmasambhava continues to assign her realms which it is her special duty to “tame,” and several of the final chapters of the work seem to be precisely about her cultivation of the powers and skill to tame such realms effectively. But her precocious abilities, surpassing those of the more conventional heroes in the tale, are already more than evident in her early years. One striking example is found in chapter 22, when her wise comments not only convince her father to realize the futility of a war in which he is engaged, but even inspire him to write a letter that ends up causing all of the feuding parties to disarm.

The text’s pro-female orientation prefigures what in modern times would be called feminist. On several occasions, wittily playing on the widely-acknowledged preference for sons over daughters in Indian society, the text portrays the birth of a child attended by all the auspicious signs that lead everyone to assume that a son has been born. But no, it turns out that the child is a girl (chapters 4, 16). In another life, the parents even perform rituals so that they will have a son, but they too end up with a daughter—albeit one who clearly is just as blessed and saintly as any boy would be (chapter 10). The text nonetheless overtly recognizes the special limits upon females in samsara (see p. 106–7). Most remarkably, this work rejoins the lifestory of Yeshe Tsogyal in courageously engaging the too-often repressed topic of rape. In the case of Yeshe Tsogyal, the heroine transforms her rape by seven brigands into an opportunity to teach them about the tantric transformation of bliss.10 Mandarava instead takes a more defiant stance by deliberately provoking the ridicule and aggression of a group of butchers, displaying herself as a beautiful but husbandless vagrant. When they taunt and then try to rape her, this becomes the excuse for her to manifest herself as a wrathful dakini in order to extract their vow to stop taking the lives of others and to enter the Buddhist path (chapter 34). In addition to showing the heroine as capable of overcoming her male tormentors, this episode subverts the stereotype of the vulnerability of any woman who lacks a husband.

 In any event, a strong critique of the conventional institution of marriage pervades the entire text, particularly the section on Mandarava. This theme is, of course, directly indebted to the monastic orientation of Buddhism overall, evident with respect to women as early as the Therigatha.11 Like many of the women featured in that Pali account of the first Buddhist nuns, as well as many other female Buddhist heroines, Mandarava’s rejection of marriage in favor of her desire to practice Buddhism is resisted by her parents. Thus her propensity for the Dharma simultaneously becomes the occasion for her separation from her parents. It also becomes the occasion for Mandarava to lecture her maidservants on the uselessness not only of husbands, but also of class status and wealth—again very much in line with the overarching anti-materialist stance of the ascetic strand in Buddhism (chapter 20).

Mandarava eventually wins her father’s approval to be a nun (her mother supports her daughter’s wishes more readily), but only after escaping from her parents’ home and finding a master to ordain her on her own. Her father still attempts to control Mandarava and to enforce conventional morality by virtually imprisoning her in a retreat house, surrounded by nun attendants but strictly guarded against any male intrusions. The castle is nonetheless penetrated by Padmasambhava, and for the rest of her life she follows the tantric path, rather than one of strictly celibate monasticism. Messages that subordinate the importance of family continue throughout the narrative, as when Padmasambhava lectures on the superiority of the Dharma over blood relatives (chapter 28). This irreverence for conventional norms and sexuality becomes almost humorous when, criticized again in another context for not having a husband, Mandarava’s mocking response is to create a multitude of manifestations of herself, all of whom proceed to join in sexual union with all of the men in her presence.

 Despite the work’s critique of worldly family ties, the religious milieu represented here resolutely affirms the value of tantric consort yoga. The transformation from the celibate to the esoteric path in Mandarava’s story is in fact typical of the tantric approach in Buddhism, which insisted that students at the advanced level should cultivate meditative awareness not only in isolated states of purity, but rather in every conceivable activity in the world. Hence tantric practices such as consort yoga are not only permissible for qualified practitioners, but are even said to be necessary on the path to enlightenment. This is one of the primary reasons for the tantric path’s notable inclusion of female figures, in stark contrast to the exclusions of male-dominated institutions in most forms of monastic Buddhism. It is important to note, however, that the esoteric practices of consort yoga cannot be equated with conventional sex; and as already noted, the temporary partnerships entailed by the practice are also not to be conflated with the more worldly institution of marriage.

 Nevertheless, the ethos of consort yoga sometimes does seem to translate into a greater valorization of couplehood. Several illustrations of this view are found in the stories of Mandarava’s past lives, where royal couples are conceived of as acting in enlightened concert to benefit their subjects. In one past life, Mandarava exploits the acceptability of couplehood to achieve her own Buddhist aims, using her feminine charms to convert the prince who has fallen in love with her and promising to marry him only if he would change the evil ways of his kingdom. But the most sustained defense of the value of enlightened couplehood is found in Mandarava’s own story, indeed in the explicit context of consort yoga. Although the text clearly acknowledges the disapproval that most conventional Buddhists would have had for her daring relationship with Padmasambhava, the cowherd who reports the couple’s activities and the king who attempts to punish them are humiliated and shown to have been in the wrong. Mandarava is especially furious with her father for not recognizing the holy character of her tantric mate, to whose male body and beauty she defiantly sings an elaborate song of praise.

 Mandarava goes on to receive detailed instructions in all of the relevant techniques of tantric yoga in Maratika cave in Nepal. The realizations she achieves in accordance with Padmasambhava’s instructions are at the heart of the demonstrations of skill, charisma, and power that she displays in the final chapters of the work. In the end, her story presents its readers with a complex image of a woman engaged in a difficult process of self-cultivation. That the story is mythologized and deifies its characters reflects the religious vision of which it is a part. What would have been most striking to its traditional readers is the strength of its resolutely feminine heroine, who carved out a distinctive way to travel on the classical tantric path. Although we lack precise knowledge about the community of practitioners in the circle of Samten Lingpa, the discoverer of this work, we can assume that both the men and the women who were in that tantric circle took special inspiration from the exceptional hagiography revealed by their master.

 Janet Gyatso
Department of Religion Amherst College

Chapter 18   Perfecting the Outer Sciences   (complete)

 From then on the princess stayed in the upper chambers of the palace, immersing herself in all aspects of literature and composition under the guidance of the excellent sage Kamalashri. She studied until she thoroughly understood the five major, eight minor, and one hundred branch and auxiliary texts. Then she mastered the languages of eastern and western India, Oddiyana, Maruta, Nepal, Raksasa, Dakini, all the border lands, Singhala, and Yangchen Üpa, plus the language and written script of the kingdom of Shambhala and many others. Not only did she master these languages, but she also learned the local dialects perfectly. She became a scholar without rival.

 The heretic Atashi entered the Buddhist path and became a spiritual teacher himself. He was invited to the palace. The princess studied the ten non-Buddhist subjects of learning, such as poetics, logic, and grammar. She studied the great sutras such as the King of Samadhi and others. She received all the teachings and transmissions of the Buddha’s spoken teachings and contemplated them thoroughly. At that time, she developed perfect comprehension of twenty-five sutras. She also studied all there was to know about the subject of chanting and spiritual melodies.

 One day, as the princess was looking out from the window of the palace, she saw a large gathering of women by the southern fence. A beautiful woman sat at their head, addressing the group. She held an arura sprig and was explaining the many qualities of the plant. A woman seated upon a tree refuted her, saying that except for its bitter flavor the arura possessed no significant qualities. The beautiful woman replied: “The arura is the seed of origination, and, as the golden precious jewel of plants, it was blessed by the Buddha. A is the unborn jewel of perfect purity. Ru is the unobstructed explanation of the illnesses that affect beings. Ra is the fruition of compassion. The eight edges of the plant symbolize the eight-fold path of the aryas. The eight facets symbolize the cleansing of the eight passions. The fine root symbolizes that the phenomena of existence can be extinguished! The broad top indicates expansive noble qualities. The outer bark, astringent and bitter, eliminates all types of poisonous properties. The inner bark is sour, eliminating all illness. This is a substance that delights the minds of all the victorious ones. The innermost trunk of the plant is hollow, indicating that the absolute meaning of all relative dharmas is emptiness. The trunk of the plant is wide and the bark is layered, indicating that the dharmas of samsara must be gradually eliminated. The ample blooms symbolize the fact that wisdom permeates all dharmas. In these many ways, the arura plant embodies sublime, noble qualities, and has many medicinal properties!”

 Asked about the worth of the plant, she replied that, if sold, it would be as valuable as gold—yet, if one possesses gold without cherishing it as wealth, this is a sign of small-minded ignorance. Upon hearing this, Mandarava knew that it was time for her to study the science of medicine. She began at once. The doctor Ratna was invited to the palace to become her teacher. First, she made a thorough investigation of the medical tantras. Then she studied the four seasons, the eleven changes in the five elements, the twenty-one thousand six hundred vital energies, and all corresponding root and branch texts, including the Four Cycles of Mother and Son, the extraordinary Seven Roots, and so on. Her studies were extensive and thorough. With regard to the science of weather, she studied light, clouds, moisture, atomic particles, colors, and the cycle of tides. She studied some eighteen tantras in all dealing with this subject. She also studied the causes, conditions for, and process of fetal development in the womb. The Katitsa and other texts explaining the solid and hollow organs were investigated. She thoroughly comprehended all one hundred chapters of the root tantra. Then she learned the tantras on pointing-out instructions concerning the corresponding accomplishment practices. Other scriptures on the subject of medicine that she studied included the five hundred Auxilliary Scriptures of the Sages, the Ajita medical scripture in one hundred chapters, and the five texts on abandonment. She became a great scholar of the science of medicine.

 Early one morning, when she went to the top of the palace, she saw people of many cultures gathered in the western garden. Among them was a poorly dressed monk holding a staff. His name was Arnapa. Many people began asking him questions. Some could not figure out what he was saying; others clearly understood him. The discussions kept leading to more confusion, and clarification was not forthcoming.

A young girl asked the monk where he had trained to develop his knowledge. He replied that he had studied almost every subject, but in particular he showed her many pages of an astrological text, explaining that he had studied this subject in particular detail. He told the girl that if she was intelligent, she should also study in this way. The girl replied that this was something she already knew. She had thoroughly studied the cycle of the four seasons, the correspondence of the twelve months to the male and female genders, the twenty-four hour cycle of the day, the dissolution of time, and how the cycle of the twenty-one thousand six hundred breaths is complete. She went on to say that she had also studied the white and black cycles of astrology51 in their entirety.

 All this displeased the monk. He denounced the girl for rambling like a magpie. He accused her of falsifying her comprehension and blasted her for speaking too much, which was proof that she could not possibly have mastered such topics. To his verbal abuse, the young girl responded, “The esoteric instructions on astrology are just like a wish-fulfilling treasury. How could someone like you—with no qualifications at all—claim to know anything about it? Within the wisdom text of Sarasvati, there are the extraordinary instructions on astrology, which clarify the karmic results of relative truth, while the Kalachakra tantra discusses the subject of unchanging absolute truth. This wisdom text of Sarasvati is as melodious as the sound of the vina. The composition is as beautiful as a dance of art upon paper. This great treatise clarifies both the excellent and the negative and is famous in a thousand ways. It is an ornament of the most fortunate minds; if one is without protection, wandering vulnerably in the state of delusion, to simply make contact with this great wealth of scriptures is to perfect transcendent primordial wisdom. After all, isn’t this the precious doctrine of the Buddha?” After she thus spoke, the monk became infuriated and replied, “Who knows if the doctrine of the Buddha would be given to someone like you?” Then he quickly went on his way.

 Mandarava then told the queen what she had seen and heard. “In the garden to the west of the palace, many people were gathered. Among them was a youthful maiden. Her qualities are so astonishing that I feel a strong need to meet her.” The queen gave her permission, and Mandarava went immediately to find the girl. Upon meeting her, Mandarava said, “You are a girl of great intelligence. Who are your parents, what is your caste, and why have you come here?” The girl replied, “My father’s name is Rigche Dawalha. My mother is Lhamo Yukye. My lineage is that of the Mingpo Dawa gods. I am sixteen years of age, and my name is Palmo Shonu. When I turn seventeen I will live in the western region of Zahor, near the city of the Nectar Garden.” Mandarava asked the girl to teach her everything she knew. The girl replied: “Although my training in Dharma is weak, I have had an opportunity to study the sacred literature on the subject of astrology from my father. I have achieved a strong sense of confidence in my studies. But, aside from that, I know very little. Goddess, it is doubtful that I am a suitable candidate to be your teacher. If you insist, however, I will do my best to offer you what I can.”

 Mandarava returned to the queen. “O daughter of my heart,” said the queen, “with whom have you been speaking?” Mandarava answered: “Mother, there is an amazing girl who is the daughter of Rigche Dawalha, of divine lineage. Her name is Palmo Shonu. She debated with a monk on the subject of astrology and defeated him. She has previous training in the scriptures and is highly learned in astrology. I requested her to be my teacher in that subject.” The queen replied that she thought the king would never allow a common person to instruct his daughter, and it might be better to invite a scholar of astrology to come to the palace instead. Mandarava replied, “The male teachers are so strict and overbearing, it is difficult to learn from them. I prefer a female teacher, who would be more gentle.”

 Then the queen went off to speak to the king. She told him how Mandarava desired to study astrology and wished to have permission to invite this young woman to be her teacher. Indeed, the king felt strongly that the princess’ teacher must be equal to her in status and caste. He decided to invite a holy man to the palace for consultation. After carefully examining the situation, the holy man proclaimed that the daughter of Rigche Dawalha was a manifestation of a dakini and that it would be good for her to remain permanently with the princess Mandarava. She was destined to eventually become Manda-rava’s main disciple. After this prophecy, the girl Palmo Shonu was invited to the palace. She became a member of Mandarava’s entourage and taught the princess everything she knew about astrology. After some time, Palmo took the vows of ordination and remained close to Mandarava thereafter.

 At this time, there were many heretics in the land of India, so the king ordered Mandarava to study the art of logic. He requested her previous teacher, Atashi, to return to teach dialectics to both Manda-rava and Palmo. He was a master of both the outer and inner teachings on the five sciences. Mandarava studied until her noble qualities were unsurpassed by any other. She also studied arts and crafts and sorcery. Mastering every science that existed in India at that time, she became a scholar without rival.

 Samaya

 This completes the eighteenth chapter of
The Lives and Liberation
of the Princess of Zahor, Mandarava,
called A Precious Garland,

Explaining how she perfected her studies of the outer sciences.

Chapter 26   Meeting Master Padmasambhava   (complete)

 The time arrived for Vajra Guru Padmasambhava to tame the kingdom of Zahor, including Princess Mandarava and her assembly. Light radiated from his heart and entered the three doors of Mandarava and her assembly, bestowing profound blessings.

 That night she had the following dream: In the space before her, within an expanse of five-colored light rays, there appeared a golden flower with a red stamen. Upon the flower appeared a nirmanakaya manifestation of a buddha. She prostrated and supplicated with devotion. Then this buddha spoke: “O maiden of perfect noble qualities, Princess Mandarava, I am an emanation of Avalokiteshvara. Tomorrow, on the tenth day of the monkey month, come to the top of the grassy hill to meet me. I shall bestow upon you the pointing-out instructions that bring about liberation in one lifetime.” After thus speaking, he dissolved into space.

 Mandarava awoke from her dream ecstatic at the prospect of meeting such a sublime manifestation. The next morning, while giving her Dharma discourse, she said to the five hundred attendants who had gathered: “E ma! Last evening I had a most remarkable dream. Today we shall go out for a stroll and meet an enlightened being who will bestow upon us the pointing-out instructions that bring liberation in one lifetime.” Mandarava and her virtuous attendants went to the grassy hill that was adorned with flowers fragrant as incense. Suddenly, in the space before them, appeared the great Vajra Guru Padmasambhava, radiating wondrous rainbow-colored light. At the moment they beheld him, Mandarava and her assembly were overcome with irreversible faith. The princess spoke: “E ma ho! Crown jewel heart son of the buddhas of the three times! Having fulfilled your destiny, you work only for the welfare of others. With your hook of loving compassion, you constantly gaze upon all sentient beings, nourishing everyone with the medicine of your boundless love. Display your joyful, radiant countenance and deliver us all to the shore of liberation upon the vessel of equanimity. Look upon those of us who are blind and lost, unable to find the way! We implore you to come to our palace and turn the wheel of Dharma!”

 The guru promised to come. Mandarava and her assembly quickly returned to the palace to prepare for his imminent arrival. Some prepared the outside, others the inside. Some arranged his teaching cushion, while others prepared the food. Some held up offerings of incense. When all the preparations were complete, the guru arrived. They closed and sealed the doors, and the guru took his teaching seat. They offered the five precious jewels, various dry substances, grains, liquor, wine, and beverages to quench his thirst. Presenting all these substances as a mandala offering to the guru, Mandarava supplicated: “E ma! One like you, whose face represents the buddhas of the three times, where could you possibly have been born? What could be your caste and the class of your parents? O precious one, please bestow upon us the nectar of your sacred words!”

 Then the guru replied: “E ma! Amazingly beautiful maiden Manda-rava, captivator of the mind’s attention! I am fatherless—as my birthplace is the empty nature of truth. The womb of my mother is the wisdom of emptiness. I arose from within a lotus in the center of lake Dhana-kosha. I am from the family that is free from the limitation of both existence and quiescence. I myself represent the spiritual attainment of self-originating bliss. “In the sublime realm where the minds of sentient beings are tamed, a buddha appears who meets the needs of each and every being. Although these emanations have different names and modes of appearance throughout the three times, ultimately they are nondual. In the past, the Buddha of Boundless Light, Amitabha, created Mount Potala, the paradise of Avalokiteshvara.

Avalokiteshvara then manifested as Padmasambhava in Lake Dhanakosha. In the sphere of truth, he is the primordial buddha Samantabhadra; in the Realm of Dense Array, he is the buddha Vajradhara; and in the vajra seat Bodhgaya, he is the enlightened one, Lord Buddha.

I too am this spontaneous presence, appearing indivisible as the Lotus-born, Padmasambhava. The inconceivable blessings that arise in response to the needs of sentient beings further emanate as the eight male buddhas and their eight consorts, the eight places and eight supreme power spots, the eight great charnel ground practice places, and the eight manifestations of the guru, which are the pure display of the eight groups of consciousness. In addition there are the manifestations of the eight vajra masters and the eight emanations, the eight glorious ones and the eight accomplishment herukas, the eight great accomplishments of perfected union and liberation, the eight tantras of the approaching stage, as well as the eight aspects of miraculous enlightened activity. These eight buddhas have perfected the two accumulations and all noble qualities in the past, present, and future. With supreme heirs manifesting themselves from this base, inconceivable emanations are present throughout the past, present, and future, always raising the victory banner of the doctrine in the ten directions.”

 Hearing his words, Mandarava and her assembly were overcome with joy. Under the guru’s guidance they began training day and night in the Dharma of secret mantra. They were taught the three outer tantras of Kriya, Charya, and Yoga, and the three highest tantras of father, mother, and nondual. They also studied the one hundred classes of secret mantra vehicles. In accordance with these classifications of inner tantra, they received teachings on the generation stage with elaboration, as well as on the thousands of major tantras dealing with the energy channels, essential winds, and fluids. They received all the principal teachings in their entirety on the path of secret mantra.

 Samaya

 This completes the twenty-sixth chapter of
The Lives and Liberation
of the Princess of Zahor, Mandarava,
called A Precious Garland,

Explaining how, according to the
prophecy, Mandarava met Vajra Guru Padmasambhava and how she received
the stages of spiritual transmission.

About the Contributors   (complete)

Lama Chonam is an ordained Khenpo in the Nyingma school of Vajrayana Buddhism. He was born in Golok as the son of a nomadic family and joined the monastery in his early teens. His root teacher was the late Khenpo Munsel, one of the revered senior teachers of the Great Perfection Tradition. He left Tibet in 1991 and was invited to come to the U.S. in 1992. He serves as an authority and interpreter of the epic of Gesar of Ling, which he is translating with colleagues at the Tibetan Institute of Literary Studies. He is an advisor to the Nalanda Translation Committee and works closely with Sangye Khandro in the translation of many important texts.

Sangye Khandro has been a student and practitioner of Buddhism since 1972. She has dedicated her life to the study and practice of Vajrayana Buddhism for the last twenty-six years and has served as a world-reknowned translator for many great senior Tibetan teachers over the last eighteen years. In 1979 she met H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche, who became her root teacher. Prior to that she also met the Venerable Gyatrul Rinpoche and became his spiritual companion. Under the guidance of H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche and his family, Gyatrul Rinpoche and Sangye Khandro helped establish the Yeshe Nyingpo Dharma centers in America and build Tashi Choling retreat center in southern Oregon. Her recent translations include Perfect Conduct, a translation of one of the most important Vajrayana texts on the subject of the three vows and commentaries found in the new treasures of Dudjom Rinpoche. In addition, she is one of three scholars engaged in the lengthy translation of the classical epic of King Gesar of Ling.

Janet Gyatso is Associate Professor of Religion at Amherst College. She has studied with many Tibetan teachers and has received her doctorate in Buddhist studies from the University of California at Berkeley. Her recent research interests have focused on Tibetan visionary practices, lifestories, diaries, and female religious masters. Her most recent book is Apparitions of the Self: The Secret Autobiographies of a Tibetan Visionary (Princeton, 1998).