Ma Drag Sinmo

HER THREAT IS THE HINGE OF THE WHOLE MYTH: she does not seduce him, she tells him what will be born if he refuses, and the ascetic yields to prevent it. She is a different figure from the SUPINE DEMONESS of the Songtsen Gampo geomancy, who is also a srin mo and who is a separate record in this batch; the two are kept apart deliberately and each record says so.

Domains

• ancestry
• origin of the tibetans

Relations

• fathered the tibetan people with: Pha Trelgen Changchup Sempa
• held to be a manifestation of: Tārā

Sources

• Reference treatment of the Tibetan creation myth: in the beginning the world was covered by water, which evaporated little by little, leaving room for animal life; to the flooded land of Tibet came a monkey who had withdrawn there to immerse himself in meditation and follow a life of asceticism and chastity, settling on Mount Gongori - Pha Trelgen Changchup Sempa, pha 'father', trelgen 'old monkey', changchup sempa 'bodhisattva'; one day as he sat in meditation a female demon named Ma Drag Sinmo came to seduce him, held by tradition to be a manifestation of the bodhisattva Tara (Jetsun Dolma in Tibetan); she threatened that if he refused she would visit a demon and conceive a multitude of small monsters that would destroy all living creatures; the monkey yielded and requested Avalokitesvara's authorisation to marry her; Avalokitesvara blessed the pair, six small monkeys were born of their union, and as they fed on cereals they gradually lost their hair and their tails, which marked the beginning of the Tibetan people.