Our knowledge of the famous yogin of the Kagyu tradition, Kunga Zangpo, the Madman of U (dbus smyon kun dga' bzang po), is primarily derived from the thorough biography titled The Life Story of the Noble Kunga Zangpo, Glorious Holy Lama, the Preeminent Siddha Whose Practice Is Totally Victorious in All Respects, Called "That Which without Restriction Gives Goosebumps of Faith" (contained within volume II of W20499). This text was written in two parts: the first five chapters, in 1494, by the disciple Nyukla Paṇchen Ngawang Drakpa (smyug la paN chen ngag dbang grags pa, 1458-1515), when the yogin was about thirty-six years old; and the last four chapters in 1537, by Lhatong Lotsāwa Shenyen Namgyel (lha mthong lo tsA ba shes gnyen rnam rgyal, born 1512), five years after the yogin’s death.
The first part of the biography begins by describing how, in the wake of a series of dreams portending something excellent, he was born to a pious and heavily-indentured farming family of the Nyang (myang) clan in the Wolkha region of U. From a young age he tended to sit in meditation posture, and would sometimes play-act as a lama. In childhood he learned reading, Kagyu lore, and Chod at a local monastery. After experiencing a series of samsaric hardships and injustices—including the death of his mother and the perpetual burden of corvée labor—during his teenage years his mind turned to entering the monkhood.
Against the wishes of his family, at the age of sixteen he fled to Tsāri (tsA ri), where he began to train under his first guru, Chuworipa Kunga Namgyel (chu bo ri pa kun dga' rnam rgyal). Their meeting is compared to Nāropa's long-awaited encounter with Tilopa. He immediately took the pre-novitiate monastic ordination, at which time he was given the name Kunga Zangpo.
While traveling around U to receive transmissions from various eminent masters, Kunga Zangpo met Drakchokpa Rinchen Zangpo (brag lcog pa rin chen bzang po), who replaced Chuworipa as his main guru. From Drakchokpa he received a comprehensive program of instructions. As the first part of the biography describes his education to this point: "In short, like a vase being filled to its brim, the Master received and mastered all of the empowerments, tantras, reading transmissions, and oral instructions, including, in particular, all of the esoteric oral instructions of the precious Kagyu."
Kunga Zangpo then journeyed to Lapchi (la phyi) and Chubar (chu bar) in southwestern Tibet, where he devoted three years to performing the practices of the Generation and Perfection Stages in sealed retreats. The biography states that he transcended ordinary perceptions and gained perfect control over his psychophysical winds. His tummo or yogic heat enabled him to endure the winters wearing only a single cotton cloth.
After this the yogin returned to Densa Til and spent a full year with Drakchokpa. He received further instructions, and had all of his doubts and concerns cleared away through their conversations. As recorded by the biography, the final words Drakchopa spoke to him were the following directive: "It is now time for you to travel to the Three Great Abodes—Tsāri, Lapchi, and Mount Kailash (ti se)—the Six Fortresses of Milarepa, and so on, and as far as Nepal and 'Indian' Parping. All the while, stay in monasteries high above the villages, apart from those who are mired in human lives defined by the eight worldly concerns. Further increase what you have achieved in terms of renunciation and realization. Finally, through the four types of enlightened activity, you must take care of transmigrating beings."
The next five years were devoted to intensive practice in a score of holy places in southwestern Tibet, most of them associated with the supreme yogin Milarepa (mi la ras pa, 1040-1123). Kunga Zangpo subjected himself to extreme ascetic trials, and according to the biography achieved perfect bliss, non-conceptuality, and luminosity. He saw everything from the perspective of the Mahāmudrā and transcended all limitations of understanding. He became able to disappear, to fly, to emanate multiple bodies at once. He saw deities and other nonhuman spirits, both friend and foe to the dharma. The hagiography asserts that he attained a state of complete and perfect awakening.
Then, one day, Kunga Zangpo set his life upon a very different track. The text describes how he went before a statue of the Buddha and removed his monks' robes. He then smeared his body with the ashes of a corpse, put on a set of ornaments made from human bones, a cloak made from a human skin, and a tiger pelt skirt. He took up a thighbone trumpet, a cup made from a skull, an ornate khaṭvāṅga staff, and other implements—all of which was prescribed by texts like the Cakrasaṃvara and Hevajra tantras. This marked the end of his life as a monk and the beginning of his attempt to enact a completely uncompromised form of Unexcelled Yoga Tantra, embodying the supreme deity Heruka in the here and now.
This change in Kunga Zangpo's appearance was accompanied by changes in his behavior as well. He proceeded to Dzongkar (rdzong kha) and infiltrated the compound of the king of Ngari Gungtang (mnga' ris gung thang). As the alarmed royal guard rained blows upon him with a variety of weapons, he remained in meditation, and even danced and sang like the deity. The fact that he was miraculously able to endure this attack was seen by the king and everyone else as proof of the yogin's siddhahood. People began to refer to him as "the Madman from U" (dbus smyon).
He proceeded to Kathmandu and meditated in the famous charnel grounds, where he is said to have subdued every last demon. The biography maintains that he also desecrated a number of statues of Hindu deities by dancing on their heads, urinating upon them, or destroying them outright. In retaliation, the locals attacked and tortured him over a number of days, using every conceivable type of weapon. Finally they used axes to chop up his body and roasted the pieces over a fire. When he reappeared the next morning, dancing triumphantly as the Heruka, they were all moved to honor and revere him.
The Madman of U then returned to central Tibet. Traveling from monastery to monastery, he continued to amass teachings and transmissions. He spent a full year meditating at Tsāri, with significant results.
By now the yogin had attracted disciples of his own, whom he instructed in such topics as the Six Dharmas of Nāropa and the Mahāmudrā. Tashi Dargye (bkra shis dar rgyas, died 1499), the provincial governor (khri dpon) of Ja (bya yul), became his first major patron. He traveled through Kongpo, Lhasa, Tsang, Mount Kailash, and again down to Kathmandu, regularly drawing peoples’ ire through his erratic and norm-overturning behavior.
In Tsang he established a center for meditation (sgrub sde) called Choying Namkhai Dzong (chos dbyings nam mkha'i rdzong), or Fortress of the Expanse of Being, where he continued his teaching activities.
In the monkey year of 1488, Kunga Zangpo joined tens of thousands of people gathered at Zambulung (zam bu lung) in the Shang Valley to honor Padmasambhava. According to the hagiography, wearing his Heruka garb, Kunga Zangpo's "presence amid that enormous gathering—which included most of the more famous geshes, yogins and yoginīs, as well as ordinary people as numerous as the sands of the earth—was like that of the moon shining among the stars. The Great One's physical body sparkled like crystal. He was as magnificent as an entire Mount Meru of gold. Blazing with the radiance of the sun, he overwhelmed the whole world with his glory, even the gods. He sat there, blazing with a refulgent, pellucid, placid radiance, like a stūpa made out of crystal."
Throughout the yogin's thirties his life revolved around his relationships with members of the ruling Rinpung family (rin spung), who had wrested control of Tibet from the Pakmodrupa (phag mo dru pa). The Madman of U was particularly connected with Donyo Dorje (don yod rdo rje, 1462/63-1512), who was effectively the ruler of Tibet at this time. The two spent time together in Tsang and then U, as the Rinpungpas closed in on and finally took control of Lhasa. When the yogin arrived for the first time in Nyukla/Chushul (smyug la, chu shur), the authorities, according to the biography, "thought that he was undoubtedly an unsurpassed fraud acting like a madman." He was savagely beaten, thrown from a cliff, and crushed under a boulder. To the amazement of all, he survived, bearing no harm whatsoever. Nyukla Paṇchen Ngawang Drakpa, the author of this first part of the biography, made his acquaintance at this time.
After traveling through Wolkha, Kongpo, Drikung ('bri gung), Penyul ('phan yul), Lhasa, and elsewhere, the Madman of U founded a second monastery, Tarpa Ling (thar pa gling), at Kharak (kha rag). This first part of the biography closes by describing how the yogin used the resources at his disposal to honor his deceased guru Drakchokpa, and to make offerings to the inhabitants of a number of monasteries.
The second part of the biography picks up in 1495, when the Madman of U was about thirty-seven years old. After returning to Wolkha to be present at the death of his father, he traveled for the last time through Kongpo, Tsāri, and Densa Til.
This marked the end of the yogin's itinerancy. He would remain for the rest of his life in the area of Penyul, northeast of Lhasa. The biography tells of his teaching his disciples at Kya-lhuk cave (phug pa skya lhug). They performed "the offering of a sheet" ritual (ras phud), in which they wrapped themselves in wet clothes, then dried them by means of their yogic heat. Not only this, but their warmth caused the ground outside to thaw, and the frozen Tsangpo river to melt.
In 1502 the Madman of U was granted possession of a monastery in Penyul called Tsimar Pel (rtsi dmar dpal). He would remain there for the final thirty years of his life. The first decade of this period was spent in a very strict retreat, during which the yogin’s interactions with the world were limited to what could pass through a small window.
In 1512, at the age of about fifty-four, the Madman of U ended his retreat. The message that he would resume his teaching activities spread far and wide, attracting hundreds of interested parties from all over Tibet. The Tsimar Pel community blossomed. The yogin would give courses of instruction and transmission throughout the year, while individually advising and guiding his closer disciples. He would dispatch them with commitments to practice for lengths of time in holy places throughout Tibet, and beyond. They would return bearing gifts, with their own disciples in tow. During these years the Madman of U was also visited by Drukpa Kunle, the "Madman of the Drukpa" (brug pa kun legs, born 1455), and received letters and gifts from powerful figures, both religious and lay, from across the Himalayas.
In 1514 the Madman of U's nephew, thirteen years of age, came to him from Wolkha. He entered the monkhood and was given the name of Kunzang Nyida Pembar (kun bzang nyi zla dpal 'bar). He would be groomed as the great yogin's heir and the inheritor of the Tsimar Pel community.
The Madman of U continued his teaching activities year after year. Then, in 1531, he made a number of statements that seemed to suggest that he was not long for this world. Devotees flocked to Tsimar Pel as never before. As recorded in the second part of the biography, the master made a proclamation about the importance of remaining diligent in one's meditation, then entered a strict retreat, granting an audience to no one. He died sitting in the meditation posture, at dusk, on the anniversary of the Buddha's descent from heaven, in the autumn of 1532. Flowers fell from the sky.
The yogin's casket was adorned with the bone ornaments from his Heruka attire. Extensive funerary services were performed, while countless people thronged to pay their respects and make offerings. The cremation of the master's body yielded small pearl-like relics, as numerous as the sands of the Ganges. In time a silver reliquary stupa was constructed and filled with some of his remains and other blessed objects. The biography describes how, on the day of its consecration, the sky became filled with rainbows and divine instruments could be heard. The reliquary would remain "at the Master’s seat, the glorious, supreme meditation school of Tsimar Pel, as a material support enabling the sentient beings of this degenerate age to accumulate merit."
There are a handful of other sources from the Madman of U's lifetime that corroborate or contradict the version of events presented in his biography--and do so in intriguing and significant ways that bear upon the history of the "madman" phenomenon in Tibet. For example, as detailed in The Holy Madmen of Tibet, the four-volume collected writings of Drukpa Kunle contain a text praising the Madman of U, and another said to have been written at the Madman of U's behest. This would seem to confirm that Drukpa Kunle did indeed visit the Madman of U at Tsimar Pel, as the biography summarized above claims. Meanwhile, the most substantial biography of the Madman of Tsang, the Heruka (gtsang smyon he ru ka, 1452-1507), written by Gotsang Repa Natsok Rangdrol (rgod tshang ras pa sna tshogs rang grol, 1482-1559) tells of a complicated and tragic relationship between the Madman of U and the Madman of Tsang, playing out over a number of years. This account suggests that the Madman of Tsang may have been influential in Kunga Zangpo's decision to take on his tantric, Heruka, "madman" lifestyle, and that the two were always at personal odds with one another. The Madman of U's biography, meanwhile, makes absolutely no reference to the Madman of Tsang. The question of the relationship between these two famous "madmen" thus remains a mystery.
参考书目
'Brug pa kun legs (b. 1455). 'Brug pa kun legs kyi rnam thar. Lhasa, Beijing: Bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang, 2005. TBRC W29517.
DiValerio, David. 2015. The Holy Madmen of Tibet. New York: Oxford University Press.
DiValerio, David. 2016. The Life of the Madman of Ü. New York: Oxford University Press.
Ehrhard, Franz-Karl. 2010. "The Holy Madman of dBus and His Relationships with Tibetan Rulers of the 15th and 16th Centuries." In Geschichten und Geschichte: Historiographie und Hagiographie in der asiatischen Religionsgeschichte, edited by Peter Schalk, 219–46. Uppsala: Uppsala University Library.
Rgod tshang ras pa sna tshogs rang grol (1482–1559). Gtsang smyon he ru ka phyogs thams cad las rnam par rgyal ba’i rnam thar rdo rje theg pa’i gsal byed nyi ma’i snying po. Edited by Lokesh Chandra. New Delhi: Sharada Rani, 1969. TBRC W1KG9090.
Smyug la paN chen ngag dbang grags pa (1458–1515) and Lha mthong lo tsA ba bshes gnyen rnam rgyal (born 1512). Dpal ldan bla ma dam pa grub pa’i khyu mchog phyogs thams cad las rnam par rgyal ba’i spyod pa can rje btsun kun dga’ bzang po’i rnam par thar pa ris med dad pa’i spu long g.yo byed. In: Bka’ brgyud pa Hagiographies: A Collection of Rnam Thar of the Eminent Masters of Tibetan Buddhism, compiled and edited by Khams sprul don brgyud nyi ma, vol. 2: 383–660. Palampur, Himachal Pradesh: Sungrab Nyamso Gyunphel Parkhang, Tibetan Craft Community, 1972. TBRC W20499.