The Treasury of Lives

Despite the many layers of legend that have accreted around Padmasambhava, scholars generally agree that a renowned Indian tantric master by that name did visit and teach in Tibet in the late eighth century. Our earliest evidence for his activities comes from several tenth-century manuscripts found in Mogao Cave 17 near the modern city of Dunhuang. These materials provide glimpses of Tibetans writing on Padmasambhava after his supposed departure from Tibet, around the end of the eighth century, but before the time of his first major biography, the Copper Palace (zangs gling ma) revealed by Nyangrel Nyima Wozer (nyang ral nyi ma 'od zer, 1124-1192).

The first of these Dunhuang manuscripts to be studied by modern scholars is Pelliot tibétain 44, a small booklet devoted to the tantric deity Vajrakīlāya. It describes the master's time in India and Nepal prior to his trip to Tibet. According to this account, he gathered the texts and performed the rites for The Hundred-Thousand-Verse Vajrakīlāya Tantra (phur bu'i 'bum sde) at the Asura cave in Yanglesho (yang le shod), Nepal. During this same period, he is also said to have tamed four troublesome Se (bse) goddesses and bestowed upon them new Buddhist names. On gaining accomplishment in the practices of Vajrakīlāya, the master then performed a series of miracles, including the magical diversion of a stream for irrigation purposes.

Pelliot tibétain 307 is a scroll containing several texts on the seven mothers (ma bdun), a set of seven goddesses native to the Tibetan landscape. The framing narrative for the rites found therein tells how, in accordance with the buddhas' earlier subjugation of Rudra, Padmasambhava and the Tibetan Lang Pelgyi Sengge (rlang dpal gyis seng ge, eighth century) tamed the seven mothers and bestowed on them oaths and new names as protectors of Secret Mantra. The passage ends with a nine-syllable verse supplication to the newly converted Mothers, now led by Dorje Kundrakma (rdo rje kun grags ma), formerly named Kongla Demo (rkong la de mo).

Also illuminating is the Dunhuang manuscript IOL Tib J 644, which contains two texts on the nine vehicles (theg pa dgu) and the different vidyādhara levels a tantric practitioner ma achieve. In the context of the latter discussion, Padmasambhava is said to have achieved the highest level of Mahāyoga realization, that of a mahāmudrā vidyādhara. A similar claim is seen two centuries later in Nyangrel's Copper Palace. IOL Tib J 644 also exhibits other narrative threads found woven into later biographical accounts of Padmasambhava's activities. The ideal Kriyā-tantra practitioner, for example, meditates in an Asura cave, attains a vision of their deity, reveals a new stream of pure waters, and so on. Such details suggest that the early biographies of the master represent a weave of narrative themes that had long circulated throughout Tibet in shorter independent works. 

In addition to the above-mentioned biographical snippets, the Dunhuang archive also contains a lengthy commentary titled the Lotus Garland Synopsis (padma 'phreng gi don bsdus pa), a commentary on the Mahāyoga tantra known as the Noose of Methods (thabs kyi zhags pa). Both the commentary and its root tantra are preserved in later canonical collections, but only in the Dunhuang version are their connections to Padmasambhava so clearly spelled out; only there do several interlinear notes appear to suggest that the commentary was written by none other than Padmasambhava. Some scholars, it should be observed, have proposed that these notes might be interpreted to mean that the eighth-century master wrote the tantra itself, but a more likely interpretation would suggest the commentary.

Another text that many scholars have suggested may have been written by the historical Padmasambhava is the Pith Instruction in A Garland of Views (man ngag lta ba'i 'phreng ba). There are others candidates as well, such as Mahāyoga-inflected commentary to the Vajravidāraṇā-dhāraṇī (Toh. 2679) that is attributed to the master. Taken together, such writings provide some sense of the historical master's eighth-century interests. We can at least say that he appears to have been deeply involved in the Buddhist tantras, including those of the Mahāyoga class and perhaps those relating to the deity Vajrakīlāya in particular.

During the later dissemination of Buddhism in Tibet (phyi dar), Tibetan literature exhibits an ever-increasing interest in Padmasambhava. The Testament of Wa/Ba (dba'/sba bzhed), parts of which may date from the tenth or eleventh centuries, is an early history of the imperial period that includes a brief narrative of the eighth-century master's visit to Tibet. Here we see many of the details that would become so well known in later years: The monk Śāntarakṣita suggests to the emperor Tri Songdetsen (khri srong lde brtsan, c. 742-800) that he invite Padmasambhava to assist with the founding of Samye (bsam yas), Tibet's first Buddhist monastery. On his arrival, the master offers a series of prophecies and tames Tibet's local spirits who are resisting the introduction of Buddhism. The Testament of Wa also has the master overseeing several irrigation projects in the area around Samye. Such details have led some scholars to suggest that irrigation, and the spirit taming that would have entailed, may have been an area of particular expertise for the master. In the end, however, the Testament of Wa has these same irrigation activities run him afoul of the king and his ministers, and he is soon forced to leave the country. On his way out, Padmasambhava pauses at the border to make a final prophecy, predicting trouble for Tibet and its Buddhists because of his not having been able to complete his activities.

Again, many of these themes are picked up and developed in subsequent biographies. Particularly influential was the above-mentioned Copper Palace, a treasure revelation discovered by Nyangrel Nyima Wozer. This was the first complete hagiographical account of Padmasambhava's life. Many of its narratives were also incorporated into Nyangrel's history, the Flower Nectar: The Essence of Honey (chos 'byung me tog snying po sbrag rtsi'i bcud) and then further expanded in the famous Pema Chronicles (padma bka' thang), another revealed hagiography discovered by the fourteenth-century treasure revealer Orgyen Lingpa (o rgyan gling pa, b. 1323). By the time of this biography, the legends of Padmasambhava were well established in Tibet, his role within the Nyingma tradition's treasure tradition clearly predominant.

According to these accounts, Padmasambhava was born amidst miraculous circumstances and grew up a prince in Oḍḍiyāna, in the modern-day Swat Valley, Pakistan. As a youth, the prince turns to tantric practice, and before long, the local people force his father, the king, to send him into exile. Padmasambhava then travels around India, receiving teachings and practicing in sacred charnel grounds. Eventually he arrives in Yanglesho, where he gathers the texts of Vajrakīlāya, ends a drought by defeating some troublesome local spirits, and gains realization. While in Nepal, he receives King Tri Songdetsen's invitation and proceeds to Tibet, where he battles a now much-expanded series of local Tibetan spirits, helps to establish Samye, and leaves while pronouncing many ominous prophecies regarding the future of Buddhism in Tibet.

Of note in these later accounts are the master's involvements with the princess Yeshe Tsogyel (ye shes mtsho rgyal), as well as his concealment of various treasures for discovery by later reincarnations of his twenty-five principal disciples (rje 'bangs nyer lnga). Scores of Padmasambhava biographies have been produced as treasure texts, each adding new material to his rich biographical tradition, and as place is so often central to the revelation of treasure, countless religious sites that the eighth-century master is believed to have visited are scattered across today’s Tibetan Plateau.

In the later treasure traditions, e.g. that of Guru Chowang (gu ru chos dbang, 1212-1270), Padmasambhava is depicted as having eight manifestations (gu ru mtshan brgyad), each of which reflect a different aspect of the master's miraculous activities: Shākya Sengge (shAkya seng ge), Padmasambhava, Nyima Wozer (nyi ma 'od zer), Sengge Dradrok (seng ge sgra sgrog), Dorje Drolo (rdo rje gro lod), Tsokye Dorje (mtsho skyes rdo rje), Pema Gyelpo (padma rgyal po), and Loden Chokse (blo ldan mchog sras). These eight manifestations are frequently depicted in art both individually and as a group, and some, such as Dorje Drolo, have developed into popular deities with liturgical traditions of their own.

Through these means, Padmasambhava has become central to the treasure traditions of the Nyingma School. This is quite unlike the traditions witnessed prior to the fourteenth century, when Vimalamitra and other masters often served as the original teachers of revealed treasure, and, of course, within the treasures of the Bon religion. Whereas early Bon texts tend to depict the master negatively, as an enemy of their traditions, later writings of the New Bon (bon gsar) sometimes claim him as one of their own, adding further Bon interpretations of his birth, episodes in Zhangzhung, and so on to their renditions of the master’s biography.