Padmasambhava
Tibetan Buddhist · deity · mythic · Recorded classification
THE LARGEST SINGLE ABSENCE THIS PROGRAMME HAS FOUND. The Tibetan Buddhist key held nine records, four of which are spirits this figure bound under oath, and it did not hold him. He is authored as a deity and not as a mortal because the tradition's own transmission gives him no parents and no death: he appears already eight years old in a lotus on Lake Dhanakosha and departs for the Copper-Coloured Mountain, which is why vitalStatus is 'departed'. The eight manifestations (Guru Tsokye Dorje, Guru Shakya Senge, Guru Nyima Ozer, Guru Padmasambhava, Guru Loden Chokse, Guru Pema Gyalpo, Guru Senge Dradok, Guru Dorje Drolo) are a SERIES and are not ingested as separate records; the sources' own note that the details of his origins are debated is recorded rather than resolved. TYPE deity IS THE NEAREST CATEGORY THIS SCHEMA HAS AND THE TRADITION DOES NOT USE IT. The vocabulary deity|numen|demigod|quartigod|scion|mortal has no category for a buddha, a bodhisattva or a yidam, and Vajrayana does not regard any of them as a god. Lane 26 escalated this; nothing is decided here.
Domains
- tantric transmission to tibet
- subjugation of local spirits
- terma
Epithets
Relations
- tantric consort of: MandaravaIn-batch and reciprocated. The kind is free-form because the relationship the sources describe is not a marriage in the ordinary sense the schema's 'spouse' carries, although the source does say the king married him to his daughter.Reference treatment of Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche), the Lotus-Born: an Indian tantric master said to have transmitted Vajrayana Buddhism to Tibet and Bhutan in the eighth century; tradition holds he was incarnated as an eight-year-old child appearing in a lotus blossom floating on Lake Dhanakosha in the kingdom of Uddiyana; the local king recognised his nature and married him to his daughter Mandarava; his other principal consort was Yeshe Tsogyal, his chief disciple, the princess who recorded his teachings and concealed his terma in Tibet; many details of his life, including his origins, are debated, and the fourteenth-century terton Orgyen Lingpa's Padma bka' thang (Lotus Testament, 1352) gives his eleven deeds in full. (secondary)
- tantric consort of: Yeshe TsogyalIn-batch and reciprocated.Reference treatment of Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche), the Lotus-Born: an Indian tantric master said to have transmitted Vajrayana Buddhism to Tibet and Bhutan in the eighth century; tradition holds he was incarnated as an eight-year-old child appearing in a lotus blossom floating on Lake Dhanakosha in the kingdom of Uddiyana; the local king recognised his nature and married him to his daughter Mandarava; his other principal consort was Yeshe Tsogyal, his chief disciple, the princess who recorded his teachings and concealed his terma in Tibet; many details of his life, including his origins, are debated, and the fourteenth-century terton Orgyen Lingpa's Padma bka' thang (Lotus Testament, 1352) gives his eleven deeds in full. (secondary)
- sent for by: ŚāntarakṣitaIn-batch. It was at Santaraksita's insistence that the king invited him.Reference treatment of the founding of Samye: Santaraksita was invited to Tibet by King Trisong Detsen, founded the temple and monastery of Samye and ordained the first seven Tibetan monks in 779, establishing the Tibetan sangha; construction begun in 763 met serious resistance from the non-human forces native to Tibet, and at Santaraksita's insistence the king invited the Indian Vajrayana master Padmasambhava, who tamed the local spirits and bound all human and non-human obstructers to the service of the Dharma before the monastery's completion in 767. (secondary)
- invited by: Trisong DetsenIn-batch.Reference treatment of the founding of Samye: Santaraksita was invited to Tibet by King Trisong Detsen, founded the temple and monastery of Samye and ordained the first seven Tibetan monks in 779, establishing the Tibetan sangha; construction begun in 763 met serious resistance from the non-human forces native to Tibet, and at Santaraksita's insistence the king invited the Indian Vajrayana master Padmasambhava, who tamed the local spirits and bound all human and non-human obstructers to the service of the Dharma before the monastery's completion in 767. (secondary)
- bound under oath: Pehar GyalpoNON-SYMMETRIC, and written from this end only, because Pehar is a pre-existing record and this batch mutates none. THE CORPUS HELD THE BOUND SPIRIT AND NOT THE MAN WHO BOUND HIM.Reference treatment of Pehar Gyalpo and the Nechung oracle: Padmasambhava subdued the local guardian spirit Pehar Gyalpo and appointed him protector of Samye Monastery in the eighth century, a binding by sacred oath that compelled him to become head of all Buddhist protective spirits; Pehar leads a band of five gyalpo kings who are his own emanations - Indra on his elephant, king of the mind; Buputra on his white lioness, king of the body; Shingjachen on his black steed, king of merit; and Dralla on his black mule, king of speech; Dorje Drakden, known as Nechung Chogyong, is chief minister of Pehar's retinue and the Emissary of the Five Kings, principally an emanation of the King of Speech, and became the principal protector of the Dalai Lamas, manifesting through the Nechung Oracle; Pehar became protector of Nechung Monastery in the seventeenth century under the Fifth Dalai Lama. (secondary)
- bound under oath: Nyenchen TanglhaNON-SYMMETRIC. Nyenchen Tanglha is filed under the Tibetan Bön key and is a mountain god bound by Padmasambhava, which is the clearest single sign that the three Tibetan keys do not track the material. The edge is drawn across the key because the source draws it.Reference treatment of the Tibetan mountain gods: Nyenchen Tanglha names both a 700-km mountain range of northern Tibet and the protector deity associated with it, who was bound under oath by Padmasambhava when Buddhism was first established in Tibet, the name gNyan-chen-thang-lha being read as 'the god of the grassland'; Yarlha Shampo, Machen Pomra and Nyenchen Tanglha are among the important Tibetan mountain deities and have consorts in the tradition; Yarlha Shampo is the ancestor god of the Yarlung kings, and tradition holds that the divine ancestor descended from the sky to its summit; Machen Pomra can appear in his aspect as a wealth deity, riding a white lion; among the chief focal points of Buddhist and Bon pilgrimage are Mount Kailash, Amnye Machen, Nyenpo Yurtse, Kawa Karpo, Zhara Lhatse, Dakpa Shelri, Bonri and Yarlha Shampo in Yarlung. (secondary)
- bound under oath: Tashi TseringmaNON-SYMMETRIC. The Five Long-Life Sisters were originally wild Bon and mountain spirits, bound by Padmasambhava.Reference treatment of the Five Sisters of Long Life (Tshe ring mched lnga): Tashi Tseringma in the centre, white, riding a snow lioness, who protects from premature death and leads the five; Tingi Shalzangma in the east, blue, on a mare, for beauty, youth and harmonious relations; Miyo Lozangma in the south, yellow, on a tigress, for wealth and prosperity, the goddess who lives on the summit of Chomolungma; Chopen Drinzangma in the west, red, on a hind, for wish-fulfilment and auspiciousness; and Tekar Drozangma in the north, green, on a turquoise dragon, for vitality and warding off disease; originally wild Bon and mountain spirits, they were bound by Padmasambhava, and Milarepa made them protectors of the Kagyu teachings. (secondary)
Sources
- The Indian tantric master said to have transmitted Vajrayana Buddhism to Tibet and Bhutan in the eighth century, held by tradition to have been incarnated as an eight-year-old child appearing in a lotus blossom floating on Lake Dhanakosha in the kingdom of Uddiyana.: Reference treatment of Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche), the Lotus-Born: an Indian tantric master said to have transmitted Vajrayana Buddhism to Tibet and Bhutan in the eighth century; tradition holds he was incarnated as an eight-year-old child appearing in a lotus blossom floating on Lake Dhanakosha in the kingdom of Uddiyana; the local king recognised his nature and married him to his daughter Mandarava; his other principal consort was Yeshe Tsogyal, his chief disciple, the princess who recorded his teachings and concealed his terma in Tibet; many details of his life, including his origins, are debated, and the fourteenth-century terton Orgyen Lingpa's Padma bka' thang (Lotus Testament, 1352) gives his eleven deeds in full. (secondary)