Mandatory Question for Final Exam – RN100
Explain the evolution of religion through four major transitions: from our prehuman ancestors to the Paleolithic period; from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic
period; from Neolithic to the Axial Age period; and from the Axial Age to the New
Age (globalization, and modern trends of secularization). A good answer will
address two interrelated concerns: a) what factors provoked each transition, and b)
what are the main features of each of the four stages in terms of social structures,
technology, modes of communication, relationship between political (secular) and
religious authority, and the nature individual religiosity? Feel free to elaborate
beyond what is specified.
Major Transitions in the Evolution of
Religion
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Introduction
Acknowledgements
PART I
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
PART II
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
MILAREPA’ S DISCIPLES
COLOPHON
Appendix - Tibetan Terms
Notes
Glossary of Buddhist Terminology
PENGUIN
CLASSICS
THE LIFE OF MILAREPA
TSANGNYÖN HERUKA (Gtsang Smyon Heruka, 1452-1507), the selfproclaimed “Madman of Central Tibet,” was both an iconoclastic tantric
master and a celebrated author, best known for his versions of The Life of
Milarepa and The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa.
ANDREW QUINTMAN is assistant professor of religious studies at Yale
University. He specializes in the Buddhist traditions of Tibet and the
Himalayas, with his teaching and research focusing on Buddhist doctrinal
literature and sacred biography, visual and ritual cultures of the wider
Himalayan region, and the esoteric Buddhist traditions of tantra in Tibet
and South Asia. He served as the academic director of the School of
International Training’s Tibetan Studies program based in Kathmandu for
seven years and also held the Cotsen-Melon Fellowship in the History of
the Book through Princeton University’s Society of Fellows. He currently
serves as the co-chair of the Tibetan and Himalayan Religions Group of the
American Academy of Religion and is leading a five-year seminar at the
AAR on “Religion and the Literary in Tibet.”
DONALD S. LOPEZ JR. specializes in late Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism
and in Tibetan Buddhism. He is an Arthur E. Link Distinguished Professor
and department chair at the University of Michigan and was elected to the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000. He is the author of The
Madman’s Middle Way: Reflections on Reality of the Tibetan Monk
Gendun Chopel, and he was also the editor of Penguin Classics’ Buddhist
Scriptures.
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This translation first published in Penguin Books 2010
Translation copyright © Andrew Quintman, 2010
Introduction copyright © Donald S. Lopez Jr., 2010
All rights reserved
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Gtsan-smyon He-ru-ka, 1452-1507.
[Mi-la-ras-pa’i rnam thar. English]
The life of Milarepa / Tsangnyön Heruka ; translated by Andrew Quintman ;
introduction by Donald S. Lopez Jr.
p. cm.—(Penguin classics)
eISBN : 978-1-101-45904-1
1. Mi-la-ras-pa, 1040-1123. 2. Lamas—China—Tibet—Biography. I.
Quintman, Andrew (Andrew H.)
II. Title.
BQ7950.M557G813 2010
294.3’923092—dc22
[B] 2010018244
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Introduction
The Buddhism of Milarepa
In his eightieth year, as the Buddha was about to pass into nirvana, he told
his disciples that after his death they should cremate his body and then
build a stupa or reliquary at a crossroads, explaining that those who visited
his stupa and venerated his relics would be reborn in heaven. After his
passage, his body was duly cremated. But a dispute arose among his lay
followers over who should receive the remains, and so the Buddha’s relics
were divided into eight portions and distributed among the various groups.
The ashes from the pyre made a ninth object of veneration, and the bucket
used to apportion the relics made a tenth. Thus not one but ten stupas were
erected.
Not long after the Buddha’s death, one of his chief disciples overheard a
monk expressing relief that the Buddha was no longer around to scold the
monks. Aghast at the sentiment, the disciple convened an assembly of five
hundred monks in a cave on Vulture Peak outside the city of Rājagrha, the
site of many of the Buddha’s most famous sermons. The purpose of the
assembly was to recite what the Buddha had taught, both his discourses as
well as the code of monastic discipline. First to speak was Ānanda, the
Buddha’s cousin and personal attendant. He had spent more time with the
Buddha than any other monk, and the Buddha had promised to repeat to him
any discourse he had delivered on those occasions when Ānanda was
absent. Ānanda was also renowned for his prodigious memory. At this first
assembly, Ānanda was called upon to recite everything he had heard the
Buddha teach. He began the recitation of each discourse with his personal
testimony, “Thus did I hear.” All texts that purport to be the word of the
Buddha begin with this famous phrase.
A consideration of the Buddhism of Milarepa, as presented in the
biography translated here, might begin by noting that the first chapter of the
text starts with the phrase “Thus did I hear,” and that it ends with a dispute
over Milarepa’s relics. These are clear signs that Milarepa was regarded
as a buddha by his lineage, and that the author of the biography, Tsangnyön
Heruka, made effective use of the tropes of Buddhist literature in the
composition of the biography; the story of the distribution of the Buddha’s
relics and the opening formula of a sutra are renowned among all the
Buddhist traditions of Asia.
A Buddhist sutra begins with “Thus did I hear,” and then names the place
where the Buddha was residing and who was seated in the audience at the
time of the discourse. But here the Buddha is absent, or perhaps more
precisely, Milarepa is the Buddha. The scene is not Vulture Peak in India
but Belly Cave in Tibet, and the members of the audience are not the
famous monks and bodhisattvas of Indian Buddhism, but Milarepa’s
Tibetan disciples, joined by some local Tibetan deities. The implication of
the scene is that there was the Indian Buddha, Śākyamuni; there was
Padmasambhava, the Indian tantric master who brought Buddhism to Tibet
in the eighth century, sometimes referred to by Tibetans as “the second
Buddha”; and there is Milarepa, a Tibetan buddha, born and enlightened in
Tibet, without going to India or receiving the direct instructions of an
Indian master.
One of the standard elements of the Mahāyāna sutras is for Śākyamuni
Buddha to praise a buddha who resides in another universe, telling stories
of his former lives as a bodhisattva, describing the glories of the buddha
field or pure land that he inhabits. In the biography of Milarepa, his
disciple Rechungpa (Ras chung pa, 1084-1161) has a dream in which he
finds himself in what seems like a pure land, with buildings made of
precious stones and inhabitants dressed in fine brocades. The place is
called “Oddiyāna, Garden of Dākinīs,” indicating that it is a special place
for tantric practice; Oddiyāna in northwest India was considered by
Tibetans to be the birthplace of Padmasambhava and the place of origin of
many important tantric texts and lineages. In this sacred place, Rechungpa
is invited to attend the teachings of Aksobhya (“Imperturbable”), the
buddha of the East. As Śākyamuni so often did, the buddha Aksobhya
recounts the lives of other buddhas and bodhisattvas. He concludes his
discourse by saying, “Tomorrow I shall narrate the life story of Milarepa,
which is even more excellent than those I have just described, so come and
listen.” The members of the audience leave the discourse wondering where
this buddha Milarepa might reside. Perhaps it is Abhirati, the eastern
buddha field of Aksobhya himself, perhaps it is Akanistha, the heaven that
is the eighth and highest level of the Realm of Form (rū̄padhā̄tu) and,
according to many Mahāyāna texts, the abode of the enjoyment body
(sambhogakā̄ya) of the Buddha. Rechungpa knows, however, that Milarepa
is in neither place, but is rather in Belly Cave, just a few feet away from
where he is sleeping.
Rechungpa’s dream introduces a theme that runs throughout The Life of
Milarepa: that there are two parallel universes, one profane and one
sacred. In one, Milarepa is an impoverished beggar living on nettles in a
cold and barren cave; in the other, he is a highly advanced yogin, practicing
blissful sexual yoga with beautiful goddesses; in one, Marpa is a cruel and
greedy drunk, demanding payment in exchange for his teachings; in the
other, he is a compassionate buddha capable of purging the sin of multiple
murder from his disciple; in one, Milarepa is a dangerous sorcerer to be
avoided at all costs; in the other, he is a kind teacher willing to teach all
who approach, even his evil aunt; in one, Milarepa is a murderer, in the
other, he is a buddha. Much of the story is concerned with the failure of
those in the first world, beginning with Milarepa himself, to perceive the
second. After he becomes aware of the sacred world, Milarepa’s
compelling songs are often intended to shift his listener’s perceptions from
one world to the other. As Rechungpa’s dream intimates, Milarepa
occupies both worlds, suggesting that ultimately the two domains are one.
Buddhism arrived late in Tibet. The Buddha lived and taught during the
fifth century BCE, and in the centuries after his death his teachings were
carried by his monks over most of the Indian subcontinent and north into
what is today Kashmir, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. In the third century BCE,
Buddhism spread to the island of Sri Lanka, then to China in the first
century CE, to Southeast Asia in the third century CE, to Korea in the fourth
century, to Japan in the sixth century.
Buddhism did not enter Tibet until the seventh century, its influence
initially limited to the royal court. The first monastery was not established
and the first Tibetan monks were not ordained until the late eighth century.
A brief period of generous royal patronage for Buddhist institutions and for
the translation of Buddhist scriptures from Sanskrit into Tibetan followed,
but this was cut short by the death of a pious king in 838 and the succession
of his brother, who persecuted Buddhism. This began the so-called dark
period in which Buddhism, and especially monastic Buddhism, declined
across the Tibetan domain, remaining in the shadows for more than a
century and a half.
Buddhism returned in the eleventh century, its renaissance sometimes
marked retrospectively by three events. The first was the return to Tibet of
Rinchen Sangpo (Rin chen bzang po, 958-1055), a monk dispatched to
India by the king of western Tibet at the age of seventeen. He would spend
the next seventeen years abroad, most of them in Kashmir, returning as a
skilled translator of sutras, tantras, and their commentaries. The second
event was the arrival of the great Bengali monk Atiśa (982-1054), who
came to western Tibet in 1042 at the invitation of the local king. He spent
the remainder of his life in Tibet, composing his most influential work
there. The third were the journeys of Marpa the Translator (1012-1097)
from his home in southern Tibet to Nepal and India, where he received the
initiations and instructions that he would pass on to Milarepa. There were
other important figures, but these three, two monks and one layman, two
Tibetans and one Bengali, each contributed to different elements that were
central to what Tibetan historians call the “later dissemination” (phyi dar).
Among the one hundred and fifty-seven text translations credited to
Rinchen Sangpo, there are many tantras and tantric commentaries, works
that set forth the elaborate world of the mandala, the initiations required to
enter it, and the practices meant to transform the aspirant into the fully
enlightened buddha who sits on the throne at the center of the mandala
palace. Atiśa, although an accomplished tantric practitioner and exegete,
focused his teachings on the practices of the bodhisattva, especially the
cultivation of the aspiration to enlightenment (bodhicitta) and the
perfection of wisdom (prajñā̄pā̄ramitā) through insight into emptiness
(́śūnyatā) as set forth by the Madhyamaka philosophers of India. Marpa
returned from his journeys to India with tantric texts to be translated but
also with oral instructions of the siddha or “adept” tradition of Bengal,
where enlightenment could be triggered by a spontaneous song or, as in the
case of Nāropa, by being slapped on the head with the guru’s shoe.
These three streams of late Indian Buddhism were just beginning to flow
freely into Tibet during the eleventh century and the lifetime of Milarepa
(1028/40 -1111/23). But they were flourishing by the lifetime of his
biographer, Tsangnyön Heruka (Gtsang Smyon Heruka, 1452-1507). Thus
when we consider the Buddhism of Milarepa, at least as represented in his
famous biography, we are considering Buddhism as it was understood and
practiced in Tibet in the fifteenth century, projected back in time.
Nineteenth-century scholars of Buddhism in Europe tended to evaluate
the various Buddhist traditions of Asia based on their temporal proximity to
the founder. The Theravāda tradition of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia—
whose canonical language of Pāli was linguistically related to the language
that the Buddha likely spoke, which was transmitted to Sri Lanka in the
centuries immediately following the Buddha’s passing, and which rejected
the Mahāyāna sutras as spurious—was sometimes dubbed “original
Buddhism.” Chinese Buddhism, with its translations of early scriptures lost
in Sanskrit, and its sober dedication to the Mahāyāna sutras, just as they
were being composed in the first centuries of the Common Era, was
considered an exemplar of what was then called “Northern Buddhism.”
Tibetan Buddhism was denigrated as the most distant from the pure source,
as adulterated with all manner of magical elements from the pre-Buddhist
religion of Tibet. Indeed, for some it did not merit the name Buddhism and
instead was called “Lamaism.” It is likely the case that the black magic that
figures so heavily in the life of Milarepa, first made available to an
anglophone audience in the 1928 edition of Walter Evans-Wentz, Tibet’s
Great Yogī Milarepa, did little to dispel this view.
But an alternative view is also possible, not one in which Tibetan
Buddhism is suspect because it is not sufficiently early, but one in which it
is particularly important because it is so late. Theravāda Buddhism was not
unaware of the Mahāyāna sutras; it simply rejected them as the word of the
Buddha and generally deemed them unworthy of study. Chinese Buddhism
developed as the Mahāyāna sutras were being composed. It is thus very
much a “sutra-based” Buddhism, one in which a particular sutra, the Lotus
Sutra or the Avatamsaka Sutra or the three pure land sutras, provided the
focus for an entire school or regimen of practice. By the time that the
period of the composition of the major sutras was over, Chinese Buddhism
had already developed its own forms. The Chinese monk Xuanzang (602664) departed from the Tang capital in 629 and traveled overland to India
to retrieve Buddhist texts, returning sixteen years later to make some of the
most accurate translations from Sanskrit into Chinese ever rendered. But
the works that he translated were of limited influence because Chinese
monks had already developed their own tradition of exegesis of earlier
translations of many of the same texts. It was during the period of
Xuanzang’s sojourn in India that Buddhism was being introduced into Tibet
for the first time.
Tibet received its Buddhism, especially in the second wave, just as
Buddhism was about to disappear from the Indian subcontinent. Indeed, one
of the reasons that Atiśa came to Tibet in 1042 was the specter of Muslim
invasions and the fear that Buddhist monastic universities would be
destroyed, a fear that turned out to be justified. Thus Tibet received and
made accurate translations of the sutras that were so important in China,
Korea, and Japan. But it also received and made accurate translations of
the treatises on Buddhist logic and philosophy, including the major works
of the Madhyamaka and Yogācāra schools as well as the late Yogācāra and
Madhyamaka synthesis, largely unknown in East Asia. It received and made
accurate translations of the extensive literature on the buddha nature, the
tathā̄gatagarbha, as well as important commentaries on the Perfection of
Wisdom sutras, setting forth in great detail the structure of the bodhisattva’s
path to buddhahood, commentaries that had little influence in China. And
Tibet received the transmission of the tantras, far more than were translated
into Chinese, as well as the teachings of the great adepts of medieval India,
the mahā̄siddhas.
From this perspective, then, Tibet received the final flower of Indian
Buddhism, the culmination of a tradition that stretched back more than a
millennium to the time of the Buddha. The Life of Milarepa is rich in its
imagery, woven into the biography by Tsangnyön Heruka, beginning with
the introductory verses, where so many of the key terms and doctrines of
Buddhism—mainstream, Mahāyāna, and Vajrayāna—are so skillfully
evoked.
Some of these elements, although familiar throughout Buddhist literature,
have a particular motivation here. One such element is lineage, so central
to Buddhist histories, where authenticity and authority are measured by the
unbroken succession of teacher and student, how this student received this
instruction from his teacher, who received it from his teacher, eventually
extending back across space—whether it be from Japan back to China or
from Tibet back to India—and back across the centuries, ending at the
beginning, with the Buddha (or, in the case of the tantras, a buddha)
himself. In The Life of Milarepa, lineage is manifest in two ways, one
retrospective, one prospective. The author is concerned here, as he is in
another of his important works, The Life of Marpa, to establish a direct
connection between Marpa and the Indian siddha tradition, especially with
the mahā̄siddha Nāropa. Thus he recounts Marpa’s meetings with Nāropa
at several points in the text, and there are constant references to the
teachings that Marpa received from Nāropa. Marpa did indeed make three
trips to India to retrieve tantric teachings. But by the time he made his first
trip to India, Nāropa had already died; Marpa studied instead with some of
Nāropa’s direct disciples. Works by Marpa’s contemporaries make it clear
that he never pretended to have studied with Nāropa. Yet by the time that
Tsangnyön Heruka wrote his biographies of Milarepa and Marpa, the
lineage of the Kagyu sect—beginning from the buddha Vajradhara, then to
Tilopa, Nāropa, Marpa, and Milarepa—was well known, and it was
necessary that it be reflected in their life stories. Whether Tsangnyön was
himself aware of the lacuna in the lineage is not known.
Lineage figures prospectively in the form of prophecy. Prophecies are
important elements of Buddhist literature, with prophecy (vyā̄karanṇa)
listed as one of the nine (or twelve) traditional branches of scripture. Thus,
in the sutras and legends (avadā̄na), the Buddha will often make a
prophecy or prediction, usually of the future enlightenment of a member of
his audience. Scholars find a different meaning in the Buddha’s prophecies,
using them to date Buddhist texts. Therefore, if the Buddha makes a
prophecy about the emperor Aśoka, this is proof that the text was composed
after Aśoka. If the Buddha makes a prophecy about the great Madhyamaka
master Nāgārjuna, this is proof that the text was composed after Nāgārjuna.
That is, prophecy is regarded as a device by which Buddhist authors
project present importance into the past, enhancing that importance by
expressing it in the form of a prophecy by the Buddha himself. In The Life
of Milarepa, it is not the Buddha who makes a prophecy but Marpa, when
he interprets Milarepa’s famous dream of the four pillars, each surmounted
by a different animal: a lion, a tigress, a garuda, and a vulture. Marpa
identifies the vulture that sits atop the pillar in the north to be Milarepa,
with the many small birds that fly above it his disciples. The Kagyu sect,
flourishing at the time of Tsangnyön Heruka, originated from one of
Milarepa’s last disciples, the monk Gampopa (Sgam po pa, 1079-1153),
whose own disciples would later found the four major branches of the sect.
If the date of Tsangnyön Heruka’s works were not known, the presence of
this prophecy would help to date the text at a time when the Kagyu sect was
already well established, something that was not the case during
Milarepa’s lifetime.
These and many other elements together transform the life story of
Milarepa into the biography of a Tibetan buddha. Here, however, there are
no stories of the Buddha’s former lives. Instead, negative karma that would
ordinarily be accumulated over many past lives is created by Milarepa in
one life, as he murders thirty-five people with a single act of black magic.
The horrific karmic consequences of that deed, ordinarily resulting in many
eons in one of the eight hot hells, is here foreshortened by Marpa, whose
ruthless compassion forces Milarepa to undergo the suffering over a few
short months of pitiful hardship. And rather than perfecting himself over
many lifetimes as a bodhisattva, as the Buddha did, Milarepa undertakes
the bodhisattva path and completes it in a single lifetime. Unlike the
Buddha, who achieved buddhahood without relying on a teacher in his last
lifetime, Milarepa did so through his deep devotion to Marpa and his strict
adherence to his instructions.
Milarepa achieves buddhahood by the rapid method of the tantric path. In
mountain caves across southern Tibet, he practiced the stage of generation
(utpattikrama), visualizing himself as a buddha, his own body as a
mandala, with various deities located at specific points within it. He then
practiced the stage of completion (ni spannakrama), in which he brought
under control the various energies or winds that course through a network
of channels in the body, causing those winds to enter the central channel
that runs from the crown of the head to the base of the spine, generating
both an inner heat (gtum mo) and increasing levels of bliss. Finally, he
achieved the mahā̄mudrā̄, or “Great Seal,” spontaneous realization of the
most profound nature of the mind.
Yet despite all the references to the stage of generation and the stage of
completion, and all of Milarepa’s meditation on the channels, winds, and
drops, as he approaches the achievement of buddhahood his instructions to
those he encounters continue to embody the most basic of Buddhist
teachings: impermanence, the sufferings of saṃsā̄ra, the certainty of death
and the uncertainty of its arrival, the frightful rebirth that is the direct result
of our benighted deeds. Beyond Milarepa’s words is his example, his vivid
demonstration, expressed in sublime song, that even one who has murdered
thirty-five innocent people can, through devotion to the teacher and the
practice of the path, transform oneself into a perfect buddha, where the
dharma is present everywhere one turns, where “everything in the outer
world appears as scriptures,” where the profane is sacred.
DONALD S. LOPEZ JR.
Translator’s Introduction
Milarepa, the eleventh-century poet and meditation master, is perhaps the
most recognizable figure in the history of Tibetan Buddhism. In paintings,
his slender torso is usually draped with a simple white cotton robe, the
attire of a repa (ras pa, literally “cotton-clad”), or itinerant yogin. His face
may look hollow from years of living in the frigid caves of Tibet’s high
snow mountains, or it may have a greenish hue from a diet of nothing but the
broth of wild nettles. His legs are loosely crossed and wrapped with a
special belt to help maintain a proper posture during long meditation
sessions. His left hand rests in his lap in a gesture of deep contemplation.
His right hand is held to his ear in the pose a singer might strike to better
hear his own voice; his lips may be slightly parted as if singing one of the
spontaneous songs of inner realization for which he is so famous.
Surrounding him might be the many disciples he taught, or the demons he
tamed and converted to Buddhism, or scenes of the miracles he performed.
Such images would be instantly identifiable to all Tibetans, even the small
community of non-Buddhist Tibetan Muslims and Christians. Members of
every sect of Tibetan Buddhism venerate him as an exemplar of religious
dedication and mastery. Many can recite his songs from memory.
Most of the stories and attributes associated with the figure of Milarepa
stem from a single source: the account of his life translated here, The Life
of Milarepa. It is difficult to overestimate the role that The Life of
Milarepa has played in shaping the way Buddhism developed in Tibet and
later came to be understood in the West. Numerous versions of Milarepa’s
life story exist, some written within a generation of the yogin’s death in the
early twelfth century. The present version, composed by Tsangnyön Heruka
in the late fifteenth century, almost four hundred years after Milarepa,
draws upon many of these early works. But the resulting narrative eclipsed
them all, serving as the canonical record of Milarepa’s life ever since. The
Life of Milarepa is now famous for its themes of sin and redemption, faith
and devotion to the guru, perseverance in the face of hardship, dedication
to meditative mastery, and the possibility of liberation in a single life. The
story helped establish the founding figures of the Kagyu sect of Tibetan
Buddhism. It shaped the sacred geography of southern Tibet. It served as a
vivid inspiration for both the plastic and performing arts across the
Himalayas.
OVERVIEW OF MILAREPA’ S LIFE
While The Life of Milarepa paints a striking and often fabulous portrait of
Milarepa the magician, mendicant, and Buddhist master, we have no
independent record of his life from contemporary sources; indeed, we
know very little about him as a historical figure at all. Even the dates of his
birth and death have long been a source of disagreement among historians,
both Tibetan and Western. Tsangnyön Heruka records that the boy was born
in the male water-dragon year (1052) and passed away in the wood-hare
year (1135) at the age of eighty-four—here using the traditional Tibetan
lunar calendar that forms a sexagenary cycle by combining five elements
with twelve animals. Other Tibetan sources move these dates back by one
or two twelve-year cycles, suggesting instead the years 1040 or 1028 for
his birth. Several sources posit his birth as early as 1026 or 1024.
Translators of the story outside Tibet have generally agreed upon the dates
1040-1123, although a number of prominent Tibetan scholars of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries favor the earlier span of 1028-1111.
Regardless of precisely when he was born, Milarepa appeared at the
beginning of a new wave of Buddhist expansion in Tibet, a period that
Tibetan historians would come to describe as the “later dissemination”
(phyi dar). This is contrasted with the “early dissemination” (snga dar),
which took place during the height of the Tibetan empire between the
seventh and ninth centuries. The period of early dissemination witnessed
the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet, the construction of the first Tibetan
Buddhist monasteries, and the translation of Buddhist texts from Sanskrit
into a new Tibetan language, said to have been developed for that purpose.
Traditional histories describe the disintegration of the Tibetan empire in the
mid-ninth century, and with it the collapse of Buddhism in central Tibet,
ushering in a so-called dark period lasting some hundred and fifty years.
Although recent evidence calls into question the extent, and even the
existence, of such a dark period, a resurgence of religious activity did
begin during the eleventh century in western Tibet, marking the onset of the
“later dissemination.” This was a period in which Tibetan translators
traveled to Nepal and India, where they trained with tantric Buddhist
adepts and returned bearing new philosophical and ritual texts. Milarepa’s
principal teacher, known as Marpa the Translator, was one such individual,
and famously made three trips to India in search of new teachings. Several
sects of Tibetan Buddhism, including Milarepa’s own Kagyu (bka’ brgyud,
“oral transmission”), likewise trace their lineage back to this period.
Indeed, members of the Kagyu sect venerate Marpa and Milarepa as the
primary founders of their lineage in Tibet.
It was during this swell of renewed interest in Buddhism that Milarepa
was born in the small village of Kyangatsa in southern Tibet, not far from
the modern border of Nepal. The Life of Milarepa describes his ancestors
as nomads from the north, one of whom was a Nyingma tantric practitioner
named Khyungpo Josey. He became famous for his proficiency in
subjugating harmful spirits, a talent that earned him both respect and wealth
from the local community. During one such encounter with an especially
pernicious spirit, Josey caused the demon to cry out in horror “mila, mila,”
an admission of submission and defeat, not unlike crying “uncle.” Josey
then adopted this exclamation as a new clan title and his descendants came
to be known by the name Mila. Khyungpo Josey’s great-grandson
eventually gambled away his inheritance and the family was forced to
leave in search of a new life elsewhere. Resettling at Kyangatsa, in the
region of Mangyul Gungtang, they slowly regained their wealth. This
allowed them to purchase agricultural land and construct a new manor
house called Kazhi Dunggyé (four columns eight beams), an indication of
its size, and described as “one of the most pleasant homes in Kyangatsa.”
Milarepa, and later his younger sister Peta Gönkyi, were thus born into a
prosperous and powerful family. At the time of his birth, here revealing the
traditional preference for male offspring, his father declared, “I am
delighted to hear the news that the child has been born a son,” and so
named him Töpaga, literally “delightful to hear.” The boy proved to have a
pleasing voice and a natural gift for song, thereby living up to his name. He
was later betrothed to a local village girl named Dzesé. Toward the end of
the first chapter, Milarepa describes his family in this way: “We held great
authority and influence throughout the region, so the local nobility became
aligned with our family and the peasants came into our service.” At this
point in the story, Milarepa seems destined for a quiet and comfortable life.
When the boy turned seven, his father was stricken with a fatal illness
and prepared a testament that entrusted his wife, children, and wealth to the
care of Milarepa’s paternal uncle and aunt, with the provision that
Milarepa regain his patrimony when he reached adulthood. The rapacious
uncle and aunt instead appropriated the estate for themselves, casting
Milarepa’s family into a life of terrible poverty. While the boy was sent
away to study reading and writing, the relatives forced his mother and
sister to labor as servants. “With flavorless food, tattered clothing, and
miserable spirits,” Milarepa sadly reflects, “we did not know any
happiness.”
Driven to the brink of madness by the decline in their fortunes,
Milarepa’s mother then advanced a plan to exact revenge upon the aunt and
uncle, revealing the depth of her hatred in a near-hysterical appeal to her
son:
I would like to see you draped in a fine cloak and mounted upon a horse
with your stirrups slashing the throats of our hated enemies. Such will not
come to pass; yet success is still possible by means of treachery. So I
would like you to train to become an expert in black magic, curses, and
casting hail. Then you should destroy all those who inflicted misery on us,
villagers and countrymen beginning with your uncle and aunt, cutting off
their family lines for nine generations. . . . Son, if you return without
showing signs of black magic in our region, I, your old mother, will kill
myself right in front of you.
Within the broad context of traditional Tibetan religion, the efficacy of
black magic—curses cast from a distance or the manipulation of the
weather—was unquestioned. Milarepa dutifully trained first in its rituals,
murdering thirty-five people attending a wedding feast at his aunt and
uncle’s house. Unsatisfied with this gruesome result, Milarepa’s mother
then commanded him to cast a powerful hailstorm across his homeland. He
did so just as the village’s barley crops were about to be reaped, washing
away the mountainside and wiping out the entire harvest.
Although his revenge seemed righteous, Milarepa felt remorse at the
terrible crimes he had committed. In a major turning point of the story
(demarcated by the transition to part two of the narrative), he begins to
consider the Buddhist teachings as a means for expiating the karmic effects
of his sinful deeds. With the encouragement of his old black magic teacher,
he set out to find a Buddhist master, one able to instruct him in the path to
liberation from rebirth, especially the rebirth in hell for those who commit
murder.
His initial encounter with a meditation teacher of the Nyingma sect
proved ineffective. The author’s presentation here of the contemplative
practice known as Great Perfection (rdzogs chen) seems little more than a
caricature of the tradition, blithely promising liberation without the need
for strenuous effort. This perhaps is meant to serve as a foil for the
meditation system of the Kagyu sect, and for Milarepa’s great
determination, described later in the story. Milarepa takes these
instructions literally, lazing about in bed and daydreaming about his newly
found good fortune. But it is at this time that he first hears the name of his
future guru, Marpa the Translator, which fills him with “indescribable
happiness” and causes the hairs on his body to “quiver with joy.” Once
again encouraged by his teacher, he sets out in search of Marpa.
Milarepa eventually reached the region of Lhodrak in southern Tibet,
where he encountered a heavyset plowman standing in his field. In reality
this was Marpa himself, who previously had had a vision that Milarepa
would become his foremost disciple. He thus had devised a way to greet
his future student in disguise. The connection that developed between
Marpa and Milarepa would become the most celebrated story of the
teacher-disciple relationship in Tibetan Buddhism and an exemplar of the
fundamental importance of devotion to a spiritual guide. Marpa, however,
was famous for his fierce temper and did not immediately teach Milarepa.
Instead, he subjected his new disciple to a continual stream of verbal and
physical abuse, forcing Milarepa to endure a series of ordeals, including,
in one of the story’s most memorable episodes, the construction of four
immense stone towers. Pushed to the brink of despair, Milarepa first
plotted his escape and later contemplated suicide. But just when all hope
seemed lost, Marpa revealed that Milarepa was, from the beginning, a
disciple prophesied by his own guru, the Indian master Nāropa. He further
explained that the trials were actually a means of purifying the sins
committed earlier in his life. Milarepa then received numerous tantric
initiations and instructions that Marpa had brought from India—especially
those of tummo (gtum mo) or yogic heat, the so-called aural transmissions
(snyan rgyud), and the meditation system on the quintessential nature of
mind called Great Seal mahāmudrā). Marpa famously commanded
Milarepa to spend his life meditating in solitary caves and mountain
retreats, persevering against all hardship.
Milarepa returned briefly to his homeland, only to find his mother long
dead, her bones lying in a dusty heap among the ruins of his family house.
Profoundly moved by this illustration of impermanence, he retired to a
series of retreats not far from his home. Most famous among these is Drakar
Taso (White Rock Horse Tooth), where he remained for many years in
arduous meditation. With nothing but wild nettles to eat, his body withered
and grew increasingly weak, while his flesh turned pale green, resembling
that of a nettle worm. At last, after many years persevering in meditation
practice, Milarepa gained a deep experiential realization about the true
nature of reality and a mastery of the fundamental Buddhist truths, which he
describes in this way:
Thus, in general I understood all phenomena of life’s round and
transcendence to be interdependent. I further ascertained that the underlying
basis of mind is free from biases. Life’s round is the result of the path
conditioned by wrong views. Transcendence is the result of the path
conditioned by insight. The essence of both is emptiness and luminosity.
From that point on, Milarepa found himself able to perform all manner of
miracles, transforming his body into fire or water and flying through space.
At the conclusion of chapter ten, the central narrative of Milarepa’s life
comes to a close: he has become a realized yogin, deeply experienced in
the practice of meditation and no longer encumbered by worldly
expectations or societal norms. In a final act he forgives his aunt, both the
cause of his worldly misery and the catalyst for his religious career, and
then teaches her the dharma—illustrating a bodhisattva’s perfect
forbearance, and perhaps also a literary device, bringing the story full
circle.
Chapter eleven poses a challenge for readers unfamiliar with the broader
tradition of Milarepa’s biography; its bewildering lists of retreat sites and
disciples break the narrative so carefully constructed up to this point. As
early versions of Milarepa’s life story coalesced, authors began inserting
dozens of chapters (in some instances, more than seventy) into the break
between the yogin’s first extended meditation retreats and his death. These
were cycles of religious poetry framed by brief narrative vignettes, and
they recorded Milarepa’s mature teaching career, his subjugation of harmful
spirits, and his gathering of disciples at various locations across southern
Tibet. Perhaps most importantly, they also catalogued the many songs of
practical instruction and inner realization he famously sang throughout his
life. These additional chapters more than doubled the length of the text,
creating a cumbersome if comprehensive record. Tsangnyön Heruka was
the first author to separate the biography proper from these narrative
vignettes and compose two independent texts. The former became The Life
of Milarepa translated here; the latter is the acclaimed The Hundred
Thousand Songs of Milarepa (Rje btsun mi la ras pa’i mgur ’bum),
translated into English in 1962 by Garma C. C. Chang. The hundred
thousand in the title is not a literal reckoning, but rather a convention
meaning “many” or “all,” so the collection claims to contain everything
Milarepa ever taught. Freed from the complex and lengthy stories of The
Hundred Thousand Songs, the biography could now be read as a seamless
narrative, spanning Milarepa’s birth and training to his liberation and final
passing.
This chapter thus summarizes all the various song cycles that were
stripped out and published separately in The Hundred Thousand Songs.
Indeed, at its conclusion the author explicitly notes, “These [events] are
described at great length in the context of The Hundred Thousand Songs.”
Even though it covers the latter half of Milarepa’s life with great brevity,
the chapter still serves several important functions. First, it delineates all
of the places Milarepa practiced meditation, effectively mapping out the
sacred geography of the yogin’s life for future practitioners and pilgrims.
Many of these sites were caves, referred to as “fortresses”: the six wellknown outer fortresses; the six unknown inner fortresses; and the six secret
fortresses, with the addition of several other locations. While such lists
appear in earlier works, here the sites are each named by Milarepa himself,
thus projecting upon them the legitimacy of the yogin’s direct prophecy: “If
you meditate in these places, favorable circumstances will converge in
your solitude and you will receive blessings of the lineage. Therefore,
meditate in them.” By this device, much of southern Tibet, extending into
Nepal, is claimed for the Kagyu sect by Milarepa’s biographer. The chapter
also records the names of Milarepa’s foremost disciples and establishes
their roles in transmitting the Kagyu sect’s teachings stemming from
Milarepa and Marpa.
Perhaps the most vivid episode of Milarepa’s life is his death, described
in the final chapter. The account is filled with miraculous visions and signs,
befitting the final passing of a buddha. The Buddha’s death is said to have
been caused by food poisoning; Milarepa was given poisoned food by a
jealous geshé. Like the Buddha, Milarepa’s body was to be cremated. The
pyre beneath the Buddha’s body would not ignite until his disciple
Mahākāśyapa arrived; Milarepa’s body would not burn until Rechungpa
appeared. The Buddha’s remains first caused a dispute over their
ownership, but later served as relics to be venerated. Milarepa’s disciples
argued over who should take ownership of their master’s remains, but here
the narratives diverge. Milarepa’s disciples awaken one morning to find
his corporeal relics being spirited away to a celestial realm by ḍā̄kinī
goddesses. One earlier version of the biography presents a slightly
different account. There, Milarepa’s relics are divided into two portions,
one of which is given to his divine consort Tseringma. A voice from the
heavens then commands the disciples to cast the remaining relics into two
nearby rivers, thus liberating all beings who come into contact with their
waters. In both stories we find a rebuke of the disciples’ fixation on the cult
of relics, perhaps as a means for universalizing the yogin’s teachings by
detaching them from reliquaries and the monasteries that are inevitably
built around them. Regardless, the disciples were left with little more than
a strip of Milarepa’s robe, a knife and flint steel, and a portion of rock
sugar. But they also retained their memories of the departed guru, his
teachings on the nature of mind, his songs of realization, and his vivid
example of perseverance in the face of all adversity—the elements that
would later constitute the relic of his life story.
THE LIFE OF MILAREPA AS A WORK OF LITERATURE
Since at least the nineteenth century, The Life of Milarepa has served as a
primary source for the Western study of Tibet’s religious and literary
traditions. It was the first complete Tibetan text to be translated into
English (although it was not the first to be published), and scholars quickly
recognized the literary merits of Tsangnyön Heruka’s work. The text is now
regularly hailed as an exemplar of world literature. But The Life of
Milarepa also served as a model for Tibetan biographers. The most
common form of biography in Tibet is called a namtar (rnam thar),
literally “complete liberation,” signifying a literary genre that recounts the
lives of religious figures with an emphasis on their practice of the Buddhist
path and their spiritual awakening. Tibetan biographies are often filled with
visions and miracles, as is The Life of Milarepa. For this reason, Tibetan
namtars are frequently equated with the hagiographies of medieval Europe,
which record the often fabulous lives of Christian saints.
Tibetan biographies, however, vary widely in terms of both content and
style. One common taxonomy, into outer, inner, and secret biographies,
gives some indication of this diversity. While an outer biography might
recount an individual’s mundane affairs, such as places visited and people
met, inner biographies could focus on the subject’s religious career,
recording long lists of teachings received and meditation retreats
undertaken. Secret biographies frequently record the visions and
experiences gained through intensive meditation retreat. The Life of
Milarepa does not strictly fit into any of these categories, yet portions of
the story seem to reflect something of each. Tibetan literature also
preserves numerous examples of autobiographical writing, although the line
between biography and autobiography was not always firmly established or
maintained; such is the case with The Life of Milarepa.
One of Tsangnyön Heruka’s central innovations was to recast Milarepa’s
biography in the form of an autobiography. The switch to a first-person
account, narrated by Milarepa himself, is a literary artifice, but one that
nevertheless creates a compelling story while also investing the text with
an authority derived from personal testimony. There is also strong evidence
to suggest that Tsangnyön Heruka believed himself to be Milarepa’s
reincarnation, an assertion that his followers promoted. In this case, the
biography of Milarepa might then be understood not as an artificial
autobiography but a real one, with the author speaking as his own
biographical subject, recounting the events of a former life, a venerable
genre in Buddhism.
Another important change that Tsangnyön Heruka made was to structure
the biography in the form of a traditional account of the Buddha’s life. The
text’s twelve chapters, each described as recording a specific deed
Milarepa performed, are roughly modeled after the twelve acts of the
Buddha as preserved in most Tibetan accounts. Rechungpa requests
Milarepa to tell his life story by noting, “Precious Jetsün lama, buddhas of
the past taught their inconceivable life stories consisting of twelve deeds
and the like for the benefit of sentient beings.” Rechungpa’s unspoken
suggestion is that Milarepa should do the same. The author explicitly
outlines the text in this way, where Milarepa’s twelve “marvelous and
amazing deeds” are divided into three “ordinary deeds” and nine “supreme
deeds of peace and transcendence.” This framework, however, is little
more than a conceit and most chapters bear only a general resemblance to
traditional enumerations of the Buddha’s deeds, which are often presented
as follows: (1) descending from Tusita heaven; (2) entering the womb of
his mother; (3) birth; (4) education as a youth; (5) marriage and birth of a
son; (6) renunciation; (7) practicing austerities; (8) meditating under the
bodhi tree; (9) subduing the demon Māra; (10) attaining buddhahood; (11)
teaching the dharma; and (12) death and parinirvā̄ṇa.
The text more closely resembles the Buddha’s life story in its
introductory framing tale, discussed in Donald Lopez’s “The Buddhism of
Milarepa” above. The story opens with the words “Thus did I hear,” the
phrase attributed to the Buddha’s disciple Ānanda, reflecting his perfect
memory of everything the Buddha ever taught. These words signify that
what follows is considered the authentic word of the Buddha
(buddhavacana). In this way too, the present version of the biography has
come to be accepted as the authentic words of Milarepa, and in this sense it
has become the canonical version of his life. The life story thus resembles
the famed Lalitavistara Sutra, a much-revered Mahāyāna text in which the
Buddha narrates the events of his life at the request first of a group of
Hindu gods led by Īśvara, and later by an assembly of his disciples. The
life story then unfolds as a kind of religious teaching. If Milarepa has taken
the place of the Buddha, his biography has become his teaching, the
dharma.
There are many ways to read The Life of Milarepa. One would be for its
presentation of the Buddhist path to liberation, which is how audiences
have traditionally approached the story. The text is also valuable for
readers interested in the social history of eleventh-century Tibet, at least as
imagined four hundred years later. We find descriptions of village life and
social structures, marriage conventions, travel customs, architectural
design, and even the prominent role religious texts played as a form of
family wealth. Milarepa occasionally discusses complex questions of
Buddhist philosophy using the technical vocabulary of the tradition. But we
also find in the story the theme of anti-intellectualism (Milarepa’s murderer
is depicted as a vain scholar of philosophy) and a disdain for institutions of
religious hierarchy (he dismisses as fraudulent the wealthy monk Bari
Lotsawa). These themes both seem to reflect Tsangnyön Heruka’s own
fifteenth-century perspective. The text also reveals Tibetan tastes in humor,
as when Milarepa concludes his final written testament, after leading his
disciples to believe they will inherit his hoard of gold, “Whoever says that
Milarepa possessed gold, fill his mouth with shit.”
Perhaps the most celebrated elements of The Life of Milarepa, and even
more so of The Hundred Thousand Songs, are the yogin’s poems
interspersed throughout the narrative. These are presented as songs of
awakening (mgur), spontaneous expressions of meditation experience and
realization that served as one of Milarepa’s principal methods of
instruction. Such poetry is deeply influenced by the Indian styles of tantric
songs—the dohā̄, vajragīti, and caryā̄gīti—employed by great adepts such
as Nāropa. Marpa and Milarepa are among the first Tibetans to make
extensive use of these forms. Milarepa, famous for his singing voice even
as a young boy, incorporated both the themes and structures of Tibetan folk
songs and epic verse, creating a vernacular form of religious poetry.
Beginning in the thirteenth century, a more ornate style of poetry developed
in Tibet, in part modeled after early Indian writers such as Dandin (seventh
century) and his seminal treatise the Mirror of Poetry (Kāvyā̄darśa).
Although far removed from the direct style of Milarepa’s songs, verses of
this type open and close the text as, Tsangnyön Heruka notes in the
colophon, “embellishments” serving a “feast for scholars fond of
grandiloquence.”
AUTHOR OF THE LIFE OF MILAREPA: THE MADMAN OF
TSANG
Nowhere in the text of The Life of Milarepa does the author record his
name. Instead, in the colophon at the conclusion of the story he signs the
text with the epithet “Rupé Gyenchen (dressed in bone ornaments), the
yogin who wanders in charnel grounds.” This image is that of the tantric
siddhas of India, antinomian figures who lived on the margins of society,
far from both village and monastic life. The name was cause for confusion
among early translators of the biography, who either read the first-person
narrative as an autobiography in Milarepa’s own hand or saw the framing
tale as an indication that the story was written by Rechungpa, Milarepa’s
close disciple. It was not until the 1960s that scholars of Tibetan literature
identified the author of the narrative as the individual called Tsangnyön
Heruka, the “Madman of Tsang.”
Tsangnyön Heruka was born in 1452, a period of regional and sectarian
conflict in central and western Tibet. (Tsang is Tibet’s western province
and thus forms the first syllable of his name.) But it was also a time of great
religious and intellectual innovation. He was one of several individuals
identified during this period as religious madmen. The unconventional
conduct of such figures is traditionally believed to reflect a profound
realization of the true nature of reality, one that no longer discriminates
between pure and impure, virtue and sin, secular and sacred. Modern
scholars have interpreted such behavior as a reaction against the rising
wealth and power of Tibet’s monastic institutions by returning to a model
of the itinerant yogin’s life. Indeed, Tsangnyön Heruka spent much of his
adult career emulating Milarepa.
Although Tsangnyön Heruka was ordained as a monk in his youth, at the
age of twenty-one he renounced his monastic vows. He trained under
teachers from various sects of Tibetan Buddhism, but his central interest
was the so-called aural transmissions of Rechungpa (ras chung snyan
rgyud), a corpus of carefully guarded tantric instructions passed on from
Nāropa to Marpa to Milarepa, and then taught by Milarepa’s disciple
Rechungpa. He then spent many years in solitary retreat, during which time
he exhibited transgressive and antinomian behavior. Upon his returning
from the mountain wilderness of Tsari in southern Tibet with his body
smeared in human ashes and blood and the fingers and toes of human
corpses woven into his hair, local villagers are said to have given him the
title Nyönpa (smyon pa), or “madman.” He later received the epithets
Traktung Gyalpo (khrag thung rgyal po), “King Blood Drinker,” which
incorporates the Tibetan translation for the Indian term heruka (khrag
thung) that forms the second part of his name.
Even as Tsangnyön Heruka largely rejected Tibet’s traditional Buddhist
institutions, he also formed close ties with powerful political leaders in
Tsang, who would support his religious activities. He visited Nepal three
times, sponsoring major renovations of the famed Buddhist stupa and
pilgrimage center of Swayambhū. He was also enlisted to broker peace
negotiations between warring factions of western Tibet and Nepal. But
Tsangnyön Heruka is perhaps best remembered for his major literary
projects, including biographies of both Marpa and Milarepa. Traditional
accounts of the madman’s own life record that a visionary encounter with
Nāropa inspired him to write The Life of Milarepa. But we may also
understand his biographical writings as a means for establishing the
unequivocal authority of the early teachers of the Kagyu sect, of the
instructions they transmitted, and of the yogic practices they espoused.
The colophon informs us that Tsangnyön Heruka completed the text in
1488. He was the first author to publish and distribute a printed edition of
Milarepa’s life story, with each page of text meticulously carved in reverse
onto wooden blocks, which were then inked to make impressions on long
strips of paper—a practice that had only recently become widespread in
central Tibet at that time. He then distributed his new biography to the
leading religious and political figures of the region. It was perhaps the
printed form of the text that allowed it to circulate as widely as it did and
which accounts, at least in part, for its widespread fame. This seems to
have been the author’s intention from the start. Traditional records make it
clear that he desired to create a story that would appeal to members of all
levels of society—from kings and ministers, to the religious elite, to lay
householders—as a means for inspiring faith, accumulating virtue, and
progressing on the path toward buddhahood. There is no doubt that The
Life of Milarepa accomplished that task. More than five centuries later, it
continues to do so.
A NOTE ON TRANSLATORS, TRANSLATIONS, EDITIONS, AND
TEXTS
The first translation of The Life of Milarepa into a foreign language was a
Mongolian edition completed in 1618. By the late nineteenth century, both
Milarepa and his biography had become an important subject of study for
scholars of Tibet in Europe and North America. The Life served as a
principal reference for the Tibetan-English dictionaries of the Moravian
missionary H. A. Jäschke and the British spy Sarat Chandra Das, published
in 1881 and 1902 respectively. In 1925, the French Tibetologist Jacques
Bacot published an extensive, though incomplete, translation of the
biography under the title Le poète tibétain Milarépa: ses crimes, ses
épreuves, son Nirvā̄na. Although Bacot omitted the final chapter describing
Milarepa’s death, this was one of the first comprehensive accounts of a
Tibetan figure in a European language, and the translation remains an
impressive achievement.
The story appeared in English for the first time in 1928 as Tibet’s Great
Yogī Milarepa, the second of a quartet of books edited by W. Y. EvansWentz, an eccentric American spiritual seeker and would-be scholar.
Although Evans-Wentz could not read Tibetan, he collaborated with the
Sikkimese national Kazi Dawa Samdup (1868-1922), who was employed
at the time as the headmaster of the Maharaja’s Bhutia Boarding School in
Gangtok and later taught at the University of Calcutta. Dawa Samdup had
worked intermittently on a translation of the Life between 1902 and 1917,
well before Bacot’s publication appeared. But it was only after the
Sikkimese translator died in 1922 that Evans-Wentz took an interest in the
account of Milarepa’s life. He received the manuscript of Dawa Samdup’s
translation from the translator’s family in 1924 and published it four years
later. Although this constituted the first complete English translation of the
story (lacking only the opening kā̄vya-style verses), its language is
encumbered by an excessively biblical style, likely added by Evans-Wentz
to Dawa Samdup’s generally accurate translation.
The text achieved even greater fame in the West through the efforts of
Lobsang Lhalungpa (1924-2008), who published a new translation in 1977
as The Life of Milarepa. Lhalungpa served as a government official in
Tibet prior to exile; he later acted as an interpreter for the fourteenth Dalai
Lama and pioneered the first Tibetan-language program for All India
Radio. Although occasionally erring when addressing Buddhist
terminology and often overly free in its rendering of poetry, Lhalungpa’s
translation effectively served as the voice of Milarepa for a generation of
readers.
The Tibetan source for each of these translations is Tsangnyön Heruka’s
composition entitled The Life of the Powerful Lord of Yogins Jetsün
Milarepa, Demonstrating the Path of Liberation and Omniscience (Rnal
’byor gyi dbang phyug chen po rje btsun mi la ras pa’i rnam thar thar pa
dang thams cad mkhyen pa’i lam ston). Although prints from Tsangnyön
Heruka’s original wood blocks have not yet come to light, nearly two dozen
editions are known to have been printed across Tibet by the mid-twentieth
century. For the present translation I have relied mainly on the critical
edition by J. W. de Jong, who in turn based his work on editions produced
in four locations: Spung thang, Bstan rgyas gling, Spo, and Bkra shis lhun
po. I have also extensively consulted the editions from Ron ’Od gsal phug
(perhaps the oldest extant edition) and Sde dge, as well as the modern
Chinese reprint. For comparison, I have read many parallel sections from
versions of the life story that predate Tsangnyön Heruka’s text, including the
so-called Twelve Great Disciples (Bu chen bcu gnyis), A River of
Blessings Relieving the Tormenting Heat of the Mental Af flictions (Byin
brlabs kyi chu rgyun gyis nyon mongs pa’i tsha gdung sel bar byed pa),
and The Life of Jetsün Milarepa: An *Illuminating Lamp of Sun and
Moon Beams (Rje btsun mid la ras pa’i rnam par thar pa gsal byed nyi
zla’i ’od zer gyi sgron ma) by G.yung ston Zhi byed Ri khrod pa (born ca.
1320).
In the translation, I have generally sought to strike the delicate balance
between faithfulness to the text and transparency of its meaning. I have
attempted as much as possible to avoid the technical jargon of Buddhism
and “translationese” by rendering all words into English instead of
reverting anachronistically to Sanskrit—recognizing of course that this runs
the risk of creating a new form of English jargon. Some terms may therefore
appear unconventional (such as “life’s round” for the Tibetan ’khor ba
[saṃsā̄ra]). I have left several Tibetan words untranslated, including repa
(ras pa), and Jetsün (rje btsun). The former economically avoids repeating
the somewhat cumbersome “cotton-clad,” especially in songs where
Milarepa uses the term self-referentially. The term Jetsün, a title of respect,
renders the Sanskrit bhaṭṭā̄raka and is difficult to translate precisely. One
Tibetan dictionary glosses it as follows: “Someone described as a lord
(rje) because he is like a helmsman among guides for others on the path to
liberation, and as venerable (btsun) because he is utterly unsullied by the
non-virtues of the three gates.” In accordance with this definition, the term
is frequently translated as “Venerable Lord.” The title is found ubiquitously
in reference to the yogin, sometimes together with the name Milarepa, and
frequently in the abbreviated form Jetsün Mila. In some cases, he is
referred to simply as “the Jetsün.” I have therefore chosen to treat it as part
of his personal name. For clarity, I have added several section titles
lacking in the original text: Prologue, Milarepa’s Disciples, and Colophon.
It is often noted that translations are necessarily inadequate renderings of
the original. Jorge Luis Borges’s essays on translation suggest instead that
“every translation is a ‘version’—not the translation . . . but a translation,
one in a never-ending series, at least an infinite possible series.”1 So too,
this translation of The Life of Milarepa serves as a translation, one that
seeks to provide a clear English meaning for Milarepa’s eloquent Tibetan
words.
ANDREW QUINTMAN
NOTE
1 See the “Note on the Translation” by Borges’s translator Andrew Hurley
in J. L. Borges, Collected Fictions (New York: Penguin, 1998), 519.
Acknowledgments
Although the process of translation often seems like a solitary endeavor, I
am grateful for the generous assistance I have received in matters of both
language and interpretation. In particular, I am indebted to Khenchen
Thrangu Rinpoche and Khenpo Tsultrim Gyatso Rinpoche, both of whom
embody the living tradition reflected in The Life of Milarepa, for clarifying
numerous difficult points in the text. I would also like to thank a number of
individuals for their assistance and advice: Pema Bhum, Lauran Hartley,
Khenpo Jigme, Thupten Jinpa, and Khenpo Karma Namgyal.
PROLOGUE
Namo Guru
In the sphere of the reality body, a celestial realm primordially free from
the clouds of ignorance, your full form body, the sun and moon, radiates
enlightened activities, limitless light rays of wisdom and love blazing with
splendor, beyond the reach of demon Rāhu.1
They encompass everything that can be known and utterly dispel the
passing darkness of bewilderment in all its forms about reality for all
living beings of every kind, temperament, nature, aptitude, birth, time, and
at every stage of the path.
For beings who entered or will yet enter the path propelled by their
aggregate bodies and practice non-virtue without boundary or limit as if
struck by a poison arrow bursting their heads into flames—your activities
turned them away from all feelings and pain that result from this path and
refreshed them instead in well-being.
Moreover, you set beings on the paths to total purity and then granted them
the attributes of a powerful nāga lord2—to you known as Mila, lord
endowed with the ten powers, glorious protector of beings vast as space, I
bow down.
From the ocean of your compassion, waves of enlightened action benefiting
beings crash down and fill my mind, a hollow hoof print, with drops of
wisdom, jewels of faith, and more, completely eliminating the privation
and the burning heat of mental afflictions.
Thus I am suddenly overwhelmed with joy, like a passionate man
confronted in a secluded place by a beautiful bejeweled maiden,
maintaining his vows of chastity yet in light of her youthful and radiant
splendor unable to take a step back.
When this life story, like that enchanting beautiful woman, adorned with
compassion, fell upon this fortunate one’s ears, though it had been
concealed, in order to bring broad smiles and deep laughter by means of its
amazing glorious splendor, I lay out this feast of words.
So, with the fragrant water of faith and exertion I cleanse the stain of
concealment from this jewel of a life story, and then for the benefit of
beings I offer it as the crown of the victory banner of the Sage’s teachings.
For this, may the lama and ḍākinīs grant their permission.
In the beginning of his life, here in the snowy land of Tibet, he developed
a feeling of weariness toward the vast shortcomings of life’s round, which
is like a pit of fire, and a sense of renunciation. His revulsion was such that
he did not aspire, even momentarily, for the happiness of the high states of
Brahmā or Indra. Rather, having seen the qualities of liberation, like a lotus
grove, and omniscience, he was drawn toward those instead. Endowed
with faith, diligence, wisdom, and compassion, and free from even the
slightest sense of anxiety or intimidation, he renounced both life and limb
for the sake of dharma.
In the middle of his life, he was accepted as a disciple by an authentic
lama and in solitary mountain retreats tasted the nectar that flowed from the
lama’s mouth. Thus he was freed from the fetters of mental afflictions, and
the sprouts of experience and realization were born. Through his fierce
determination to renounce the world, he became a perfect example of
earnestly unfurling the victory banner of practice. Thus for his fortunate
followers he cracked the whip that accomplishes the path without laziness
or fixation on ordinary worldly perceptions. He was cared for by his
chosen deities and ḍākinīs, and with obstacles cleared away and his
practice enhanced, his experience and realization increased so that he
gained mastery in the dharma. Perfecting his devotion toward previous
masters of the lineage, he received the transmissions on compassion. Thus
he was endowed with the marks of the lineage’s limitless and unparalleled
blessings. Through the power of his expansive and powerful enlightened
attitude, beings lacking the habitual patterns of virtue who merely heard his
teachings or even his name transformed their outlook, developed goose
bumps of faith, and were moved to tears. Thus he sowed in them the seed of
enlightenment and was able to protect them from all fear of life’s round and
of birth in the lower realms. Maintaining the key points of the path of the
messengers of Secret Mantra, the celestial wisdom consorts aroused in his
body the bliss of the wisdom of the four joys and helped him to accomplish
the path.
At the end of his life, he cleared away everything to be abandoned, the
two obscurations and so forth, bringing all phenomena to the point of
extinction, and he perfected all good qualities without exception, such as
wisdom and love. Thus he became a self-developed buddha, a fact beyond
dispute by anyone, Buddhist or non-Buddhist, and stood apart from them all
like the crowning ornament of a victory banner. He quickly learned the path
of the unsurpassed Vajra Vehicle and perfected experience and realization.
Heroes and ḍākinīs proclaimed his greatness so the banner of his fame
fluttered in all ten directions of the world. The descending joy from above
spread to the tips of his toes and the ascending joy of stability from below
reached the crown of his head. Thus achieving the resultant joy, the coarse
and subtle knots of the three principal channels at the four wheels all
unraveled on their own and thereby transformed into the essence of the
central channel. For this reason he sang, in a completely unhindered way,
vajra songs expressing the full underlying meaning of the twelve divisions
of scripture according to the sutras, and the four classes of tantra.
All perceptions dawned as the reality body, so forms of dualistic
thinking were expelled. He mastered inner awareness, so everything in the
outer world appeared as scriptures. The power of his wisdom and love
was unfathomable, so he was able to guide sentient beings who had been
born as animals and establish them on the path of ripening and liberation.
He had no need to accept or reject the eight worldly concerns or to save
face, so he remained a magnificent, serene, and resplendent object of
veneration for all beings, including gods and humans, and they all bowed
their heads to him. He developed perfect diligence cultivating the profound
path, so he became an unrivaled master, an object of worship by
bodhisattvas like himself. With the great lion’s roar of selflessness actually
experienced, he overwhelmed the wild game of perverted views and strode
like an unbridled white lion through the expanse of snow mountains, space
without middle or edge. Inwardly, he mastered the meditative absorption of
totality, so outwardly he overwhelmed and overcame all harmful forces
comprised of the four elements, turning them into companions. He held firm
control over subtle energies and mind, so he was able to demonstrate
amazing behavior such as soaring in the sky like a bird as he moved and
rested. He could perform all kinds of physical miracles, such as
transforming his body into blazing fire, swirling water, or whatever else he
desired, so he was able to dispel the wrong views of those who held them
and instill in such individuals perfect view, meditation, conduct, and
results. He perfected the practice of the four initiations, so heroes and
ḍākinīs gathered like clouds at the twenty-four sacred lands of his vajra
body and he became a Heruka lord of their assembly. He possessed a
confidence that showed no fear, so he overwhelmed the eight classes of
gods and demons and they carried out his commands, allowing him to
spontaneously conduct the four kinds of activity.
He was a skilled craftsman who understood that all things have the
nature of emptiness-luminosity.
He was an effective physician who cured the chronic illness of the five
poisons with the medicine of the five wisdoms.
He was an expert on sound who recognized the truth of the natural
sounds of all inner and outer phenomena, both pleasant and unpleasant, and
understood that they are all sound-emptiness.
He was an expert on valid cognition who clearly perceived all hidden
phenomena, both good and bad such as the minds of others, and directly
ascertained that all objects of knowledge lack a self.
He was a great paṇḍita of the essential truth who recognized all outer
phenomena as inner awareness, and determined that the mind is
primordially luminous, unborn, and empty, and that it is self-liberated,
inseparable from the three bodies, a natural display that arises without
obstruction.
He was able to visit, by miraculous means, limitless buddha fields of
all-encompassing purity in a single instant. By virtue of his pure activities,
he became the topic of dharma exposition and study by the buddhas and
bodhisattvas in those realms. Thus the buddha fields were entirely cleansed
and purified. For the six kinds of sentient beings, he manifested according
to their individual levels of good fortune and taught the truth of the Victors’
intentions by using dharma examples appropriate to their intellect and in
accord with their worldly perceptions. Thus he ripened and liberated them.
In short, in one life and one body, he attained the four bodies and the five
wisdoms, the high state of the great sovereign lord Vajradhara. In a state of
immeasurable compassion, he taught the unsurpassed dharma and thereby
released untold sentient beings from unbearable misery. Thus he was
transported to the citadel of great bliss, the four bodies, spontaneous great
liberation, where he remains, a supreme individual, the very best of men.
The amazing and wondrous deeds of the individual called Lord Jetsün
Mila Zhepa Dorjé, who is as famous as the sun and moon, as they were
perceived by his most excellent disciples, are inexpressible and beyond
comprehension. However, while the preceding eulogy approximates them
in brief and his deeds as they were perceived by his ordinary disciples are
inexpressible and beyond comprehension, they can be succinctly divided
into two parts: (1) the ordinary worldly deeds and (2) the deeds of supreme
peace and transcendence. The first part has three chapters: (1) the deed of
his birth, together with the reason his paternal family was named Mila and
the origins of his ancestral lineage; (2) the deed in which during his youth,
with his father dead, his nearest relatives rose up as enemies and, bereft of
both inner and outer possessions, he experienced the truth of suffering in its
entirety; and (3) the deed in which, encouraged by his mother’s command,
he accomplished the activity of wrathful intervention and then annihilated
his enemies. I begin with the first. Here I set forth an introduction to the
amazing life story.
PART I
CHAPTER ONE
E ma ho.3 Thus did I hear. At one time the Powerful Lord of Yogins, the
great Heruka himself greatly renowned as Jetsün Mila Zhepa Dorjé, was
residing in the sacred place called Dröpa Puk in the region of Nyanam,
turning the wheel of the Great Vehicle dharma seated in the midst of his
heart-disciple yogins, bodhisattvas abiding on the spiritual grounds,
including Rechungpa Dorjé Drak, Repa Zhiwa Ö, Ngandzong Repa, Seban
Repa, Khyira Repa, Drigom Repa, Lengom Repa, Repa Sangyé Kyap,
Shengom Repa, Dampa Gyakpuwa, and Tönpa Śākyaguṇa; his fortunate
male and female disciples such as Leksé Bum and Shendormo; rainbow
body ḍākinīs such as the five Sisters of Long Life; and also gods of
completely pure lineage, together with an assembly of human yogins and
yoginīs.
At that time, Rechungpa was resting in meditation within his retreat cell.
During the course of an entire night, he had the following dream: In a lovely
and enchanting land called Oḍḍiyāna Khandroling (Garden of ̣Ḍākinīs), he
entered a great city where the houses and their foundations were all made
from precious gems. The inhabitants of this city were all dressed in silken
robes and adorned with ornaments of bone and jewels; they all had
pleasing features and were beautiful to behold. Without uttering a word,
they all exchanged glances, smiling joyfully. Among them was Bharima, the
female disciple of lama Tipupa whom he had met previously in Nepal. She
wore a red robe, carrying herself as the city’s principal figure.
“Nephew, welcome,” she said. “How excellent that you have come.” She
then led him inside a house made of precious gems, filled with an
inexhaustible store of objects to delight the senses. As a host would her
guest, she plied him with the excellent and refined service of food and
drink. She said, “At present, the buddha Akṣobhya is teaching dharma in
Oḍḍiyāna. Therefore, nephew, if you wish to request the dharma, I shall ask
his permission.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Rechungpa, who felt a strong desire to listen to him.
And so they departed together.
At the city’s center, Rechungpa saw the Blessed One Akṣobhya, more
exalted than he had previously imagined, seated upon a high throne made
from precious gems, teaching the dharma in the middle of an ocean-like
assembly. Intoxicated with bliss and well-being, he felt as if he would
faint.
Then Bharima said, “Nephew, stay here a moment. I will ask for
permission from the buddha.” She went to make her request and was
granted permission. She led the way and they arrived in the presence of the
buddha. Rechungpa prostrated himself at the buddha’s feet, requested
blessings, and sat before him listening to the dharma. The buddha smiled
and Rechungpa thought, “The buddha has been gazing directly at me for a
little while and is thinking of me with affection.”
The dharma discourse focused entirely upon the genealogies, birth
accounts, deeds, and life stories of all the buddhas and bodhisattvas, and as
the buddha taught them, Rechungpa felt a faith that caused the hair on his
body to quiver. Finally, he recounted the life stories of Tilopa, Nāropa, and
Marpa, which were more extensive and even more amazing than when the
Jetsün had told them previously. The entire assembly was thus completely
overcome with faith.
At the conclusion of his religious discourse, the buddha said,
“Tomorrow I shall narrate the life story of Milarepa, which is even more
excellent than those I have just described, so come and listen.” Some in the
assembly said, “There couldn’t be anything more excellent than the
previous accounts; if there were it would be a marvel of immeasurable
proportions.” Others said, “The spiritual qualities of those who were
previously described are fruits attained through the accumulation of merit
and the purification of obscurations during the course of many lifetimes.
Milarepa attained spiritual qualities not inferior to those previous masters
in one lifetime and one body.” The first people said, “Well then, if there is
such a marvelous dharma teaching and we failed to request it for the benefit
of sentient beings, we would be unfit disciples. We should therefore have
strength and determination in our three gates, and request it for the benefit
of beings.”
Someone else asked, “Where does Milarepa currently reside?” Some
said, “He resides either in Abhirati or Akaniṣṭha.” Rechungpa then thought,
“The Jetsün presently resides in Tibet. In any case, I am inspired by such
talk, so I should by all means request the Jetsün’s life story for the benefit
of beings.” As he was thinking this, Bharima took hold of Rechungpa’s
hands and while shaking them said, “Nephew, you have understood.
Nephew, you have understood.”
Rechungpa awoke from this dream just as dawn was breaking. His
awareness was clearer and his practice more potent than ever before.
Reflecting on the dream, he thought, “It is amazing indeed that I listened to
the dharma from Akṣobhya amid an assembly of Oḍḍiyāna ḍākinīs. Yet it is
more amazing still to have met the Jetsün lama. Even my listening to
Akṣobhya’s teachings is due to the Jetsün’s kindness. Those people said
that the Jetsün dwelled in either Abhirati or Akaniṣṭha.”
But then he scolded himself, “You belittled the lama, thinking he resides
in Tibet. In this way, you showed your lack of respect, putting yourself on
his level. In general, since the Jetsün is a buddha, his activities of body,
speech, and mind are beyond comprehension. In particular, wherever the
Jetsün abides is itself Abhirati and Akaniṣṭha. You are totally mistaken and
filled with disbelief.”
Afterward, he thought, “In my dream, the one who was teaching dharma,
Bharima who was listening to it, and all the other signs were indications
that I should request the Jetsün’s life story for the benefit of beings.
Therefore I should request it by all means.” He was filled with an
extraordinary devotion to the lama and he prayed from the depths of his
heart and the marrow of his bones. He rested in this state for a little while,
and within an experience that was a mixture of dream state and luminosity,
five beautiful maidens appeared, standing in a row before Rechungpa:
white, blue, yellow, red, and green, wearing the ornaments and clothing of
Oḍḍiyāna.
One of them said, “Milarepa’s life story will be told tomorrow. Let us go
and listen.”
Another asked, “Who will request it?”
“The senior heart-disciples will request it,” responded another. All the
while, they fluttered their eyes at Rechungpa.
One of them said, “Everyone would be delighted to hear such a
marvelous teaching, so we should each offer a fervent prayer.”
Another said, “It is proper for the senior disciples to request the life
story. It has instead fallen upon each of us to protect and propagate the
master’s teaching.” Having said this, they vanished like a rainbow.
Rechungpa then awoke from this state of luminosity. The dawn sun rose
brilliantly in the sky. He reflected, “I have understood the tidings of the five
Sisters of Long Life.” He prepared a meal while resting in a state of postmeditative experience. When he had eaten his fill, he went before the lama
and found him surrounded by a resplendent, colorful assembly of resident
disciples and lay followers. Rechungpa prostrated to the Jetsün and
inquired after his health. Then, kneeling before the Jetsün with his palms
joined, he made this supplication: “Precious Jetsün lama, buddhas of the
past taught their inconceivable life stories consisting of twelve deeds and
the like for the benefit of sentient beings. In this way, the teachings of the
buddha spread throughout the world. And nowadays, fortunate trainees can
be brought onto the path of ripening and liberation because lamas and
adepts of the past such as Tilopa, Nāropa, and Marpa have also taught their
own life stories. Now, precious Jetsün, in order to bring joy to your close
disciples, to look after those who would become your trainees in the future,
and most of all, to bring all living beings onto the path of ripening and
liberation, precious Jetsün I ask that, out of your great loving affection, you
tell the story of your life and deeds, together with the origins of your family
line.”
The great Jetsün replied with a smile on his face, “Rechungpa, you
already know me well, but since you ask I shall answer your request. My
clan is Khyungpo. My family line is Josey. I am Milarepa. First I committed
evil deeds. Later on I practiced virtue. Now I am free from both good and
bad deeds, and having exhausted the bases for karmic activities, I will not
conduct them in the future. Were I to explain these events at length, some
would be reason for laughter, others would be reason for tears. Such
discussions are of little use, so let this old man rest in peace.”
Rechungpa prostrated once again and then offered a supplication:
“Precious Jetsün, at first you practiced the profound oral instructions
through asceticism and strong determination. Devoting yourself to onepointed practice, you have now brought to the surface the abiding nature of
things and have brought phenomena to the point of extinction. In the future,
you will neither carry out nor experience any karma that could fetter you.
This is understood by everyone. Yet there is tremendous significance in the
reasons why your clan is Khyungpo, why your familial line is Josey, and
why you were given the name Mila, and also in the reasons why the manner
in which you first committed evil deeds and you later practiced virtue are
the causes for laughter and tears. Therefore I pray that you look upon
myself and all beings without indifference in body, speech, and mind, but
rather with great loving affection. In this way, then, please tell your story at
length. You vajra brothers and sisters assembled here, and lay followers
who have gathered out of faith, join in my prayer.”
After submitting this request, Rechungpa made many prostrations. The
great heart-disciples and faithful lay followers also made many
prostrations and then offered the same supplication that the sublime
individual Rechungpa had made, repeatedly requesting that their master
turn the wheel of dharma.
Then the Jetsün said:
When you again ask with such urgency and insistence, I have no reason
to keep it secret, so I shall tell you my story. My clan is Khyungpo,
descended from a great band of nomads in the northern region of Üru. My
family line stems from a lama who practiced Nyingma mantra, a yogin who
was the son of a nobleman (josey). Favorably received by his chosen deity,
he gained power in the practice of incantation. He set out to make a
pilgrimage throughout the countryside and to visit its sacred shrines.
Reaching a place called Chungpachi in the region of Latö Jang in Tsang, he
subjugated the harmful spirits in the area and offered his blessings. His
effectiveness in performing such activities brought tremendous benefit to
the region. His following and his activities thus increased. He was then
given the name Khyungpo Josey and remained in the region for several
years.
Whatever calamities fell, due to illness, harmful spirits, and so forth, he
was the individual who was called upon. Once there was a malicious
demon that could not go near Josey but was insurmountably fearsome for
everyone else. The demon descended upon a family that had very little faith
in Josey, inflicting it with harm. The family called upon another lama, who
performed a rite of wrathful subjugation and offered blessings, but they
were of no use; the demon argued back, ridiculing and condemning the
lama. At that point, unbeknownst to the demon, a relative of the faithless
family advised them to invite Khyungpo Josey, stating, “One uses even dog
fat if it cures the wound. So call him!” At this, the family invited Josey. He
approached the demon and, drawing himself up, cried in a booming voice,
“I, Khyungpo Josey, am coming. I eat the flesh and drink the blood of
demons and obstructing spirits, so just you wait.” He sprang forth as he
said this and even before he closed in, the demon was stricken with fear.
Taken by surprise, it cried out again and again, “O mother, O father. Mila!
Mila!”4 Many such terrified expressions fell from its lips.
Josey approached the demon, who said, “I have never bothered you, so
please spare my life.” Josey made him swear never to harm anyone in the
future and sent him away. The demon then reached a family that supported
him and said, “Mila! Mila! Never have I felt such agony and pain as I do
now.”
“Who brought this on?” asked the family.
“Khyungpo Josey appeared. He threatened me with death and I
accidentally pledged an oath,” said the demon, and he went away.
From then on, in order to express Josey’s greatness and his fine qualities,
everyone called him Josey Mila. His descendants therefore came to be
known by the name Mila. Since the demon never harmed anyone again,
everyone agreed that it must have passed on to another life.
Khyungpo Josey then married a woman and had a son. This son had two
sons, the elder of whom was known as Mila Dotön Sengé. To him was born
a son named Mila Dorjé Sengé. From then on, his descendants each had
only one son. Mila Dorjé Sengé was fond of playing the dice game sho, and
as an expert gambler he raked in considerable winnings. At that time in the
region there lived a man with many paternal relations who was a cheat and
quite skilled at playing sho. In order to test Mila Dorjé Sengé, he played a
game of sho, wagering a small sum. The man was thus able to size him up,
and on that day he won effortlessly. Displeased, Mila Dorjé Sengé said he
should be allowed to get even at dice the next morning. Wagering greater
stakes than before, they cast the sho dice, and the man let himself be beaten
three times. Finally he said, “I, too, should be allowed to get even.” They
agreed upon the size of the stakes and wagered their fields, their homes,
and their personal wealth. They bound themselves by written contract so
that there was no room for dispute and then they rolled the dice. The man
won. His paternal relations seized control of Mila Dorjé Sengé’s fields,
home, and personal wealth.
The two Milas, father and son, then set out from the region, leaving their
home and everything they knew. They reached a place called Kyangatsa in
Mangyul Gungtang, and then settled down. The father, Dotön Sengé, carried
out village rituals for the local inhabitants such as reading and reciting
scriptures, offering ritual cakes, providing protection from hailstorms, and
performing rites for protecting children. His services, which were very
much in demand, brought him many offerings. During winter the son Dorjé
Sengé undertook major trading trips to gather goods from Nepal in the
south. During summer he gathered goods from nomad lands in the north. He
also engaged in minor trade, gathering goods throughout Mangyul Gungtang.
In this way, the father and son accumulated a great deal of wealth.
At that time, the son Dorjé Sengé loved a local maiden and the two
married. To the couple was born a son who received the name Mila Sherab
Gyaltsen. While they were raising him, his grandfather Dotön Sengé passed
away, and they performed an extensive funeral. Afterward, Mila Dorjé
Sengé increased his fortune through trade and became wealthier than ever
before. There was a man named Orma in the vicinity of Tsa who owned a
fine, triangular field in Tsa. Dorjé Sengé purchased the field, paying out a
good quantity of gold and merchandise from the north and south, and it
came to be known as Orma Triangle. On the edge of the field lay ruins of an
old lodging house belonging to a neighbor. He bought that as well and laid
the foundation work for a manor house. While the house was being raised,
Mila Sherab Gyaltsen turned twenty. In a prominent family of Tsa, there
was a beautiful young woman of the Nyang clan named Karmo Gyen. She
was skilled in tending to worldly affairs, clearly loathing her enemies and
loving her friends. Sherab Gyaltsen took her as a bride and she became
known as Nyangtsa Kargyen.
Construction on the manor house continued. On the third floor they built
an open court, with a storage area and a kitchen off to the side. The house,
which had four columns and eight beams and was one of the most pleasant
homes in Kyangatsa, was known as Kazhi Dunggyé (four columns eight
beams). They lived there in happiness and developed a good reputation.
Thereafter, some relations in Chung heard the reputation of the father and
son, descendants of Mila Dotön Sengé. The son of Mila Dorjé Sengé’s
paternal relative, Yungdrung Gyaltsen, then left his home together with his
wife, children, and his sister Khyungtsa Paldren and went to Kyangatsa.
Mila Dorjé Sengé had great affection for his relatives, so he was overjoyed
at their arrival and plied them with hospitality and gifts. He taught them
how to undertake the business of commerce, and they too amassed a great
deal of wealth through trade.
Some time later on, Nyangtsa Kargyen became pregnant. Mila Sherab
Gyaltsen, having brought numerous goods from the south, set out to sell
them in the vicinity of Taktsé in the north. A long time passed while he was
away. On the twenty-fifth day of the first autumn month in the male waterdragon year, falling under the constellation Gyal, I was born. My mother
dispatched a messenger to the place my father was staying, entrusting him
with a letter that said, “Here, at harvest time, a son was born to me. Come
quickly to name him and to celebrate his naming feast.” The messenger
delivered the letter to my father and told him the story. Overjoyed, my
father said, “O wonderful! I have already named my son. There has never
been more than one son in each generation of my family line. As I am
delighted to hear the news that the child has been born a son, I shall call
him Töpaga (Delightful to Hear). Now that my business is finished, I shall
leave.” Saying this, he returned home and gave me the name Töpaga.
My family held a fine naming feast and then I was raised with love.
Later, whoever heard my pleasing voice was cheered up, so people said,
“That Töpaga was aptly named.”
Then, when I turned four years old, my mother gave birth to a girl who
was named Gönmokyi. Her nickname was Peta so she became known as
Peta Gönkyi. I remember that we two, brother and sister, had dangling
locks plaited with turquoise and gold. We held great authority and influence
throughout the region, so the local nobility became aligned with our family
and the peasants came into our service. While this pleased us, in secret the
locals said, “These foreigners are immigrants to our region, and there are
none more brazen or wealthy. Their house and fields on the outside, their
farm tools on the inside, and the ornaments worn by both men and women
are all a sight to behold.”
With all his wishes fulfilled, Mila Dorjé Sengé died. His funeral rites
were carried out on a grand scale.
Thus Milarepa spoke.
This was the first ordinary deed, the deed of his birth.
CHAPTER TWO
Then Rechungpa asked, “O lama, after the loss of your father long ago you
encountered much hardship. Please tell us what that was like.”
Milarepa continued:
When I was about seven years old, my father Mila Sherab Gyaltsen was
stricken with a terrible illness. Doctors and diviners foretold that he would
not recover and they abandoned him. Friends and relatives likewise knew
he would not live. Even my father himself was resolved that he would not
survive. Our relatives, including my paternal uncle and aunt, our friends,
countrymen, and neighbors all gathered. My father intended to place his
wife and children, together with all of his wealth, in the care of a trustee.
At last he prepared an extensive testament ensuring that his son would
reclaim his patrimony. Then he read it aloud for all to hear:
“I will say it in brief and out loud: I shall not recover from my present
illness. Consequently, as my son is still young, these are the arrangements
through which I entrust him to the care of all his relatives, especially his
paternal uncle and aunt. My wealth includes all the following: in the
highlands, yaks, horses, and sheep; in the lowlands, various tracts of land,
Orma Triangle foremost among them, upon which the poor dare not even
look; on the ground floor of the house, cattle, goats, and donkeys; in the
upper rooms, utensils of gold, silver, and iron, turquoise, silk fabrics, and a
granary. In short, my possessions are such that I need not aspire for any
other man’s wealth.
“Spend a portion of these for expenses after I am gone. The rest I entrust
to all of you gathered here until my son is able to support his own
household. In particular, I entrust him to the care of both his paternal uncle
and aunt. When my son is able to support his own family, he shall marry
Dzesé, as they were betrothed in childhood. You will then return to him my
wealth in its entirety and ensure that my son thus takes charge of his
patrimony. Until then may all their relatives, led by their uncle and aunt,
know the joys and sorrows of my wife and children. Do not lead them into
misery. I shall watch you from my grave when I die.”
With this, my father died. Our relatives performed the rites for the
deceased. In agreement they said, “Nyangtsa Kargyen herself should take
care of the remaining wealth, while we all should provide whatever
assistance she needs as best we can from the side.”
My uncle and aunt said, “Although some people are family, we are
sincere family. We won’t lead them, mother and children, into misery. In
accordance with the testament, we shall assume control of the wealth.”
Without listening to the arguments of my mother’s brother or Dzesé’s
father and brothers, my uncle took the men’s goods and my aunt took the
women’s; the rest they divided in half. Having done so, they said, “You,
mother and children, shall serve us each in turn.” Thus my mother and we
children no longer had control of our possessions.
In summer, the time for working the fields, we were our uncle’s servants.
In winter, the time for spinning and weaving wool, we were our aunt’s
servants. Our food was food for dogs, our work, work for donkeys. We
wore strips of tattered robe over our shoulders, tied with a jute belt.
Forced to toil without rest, our limbs became cracked and raw. With only
poor food and clothing, we became pale and emaciated. Our hair, once
dangling in locks plaited with gold and turquoise, turned ashen and thin and
became infested with lice. Sensitive folks who saw or heard us all broke
down in tears. Gossip quietly circulated about my aunt and uncle but they
acted without restraint. As we, mother and children, were beset with
misery, my mother said to my aunt, “You are not Khyungtsa Paldren
(Glorious Leader of the Khyung Tsa), you are Dümo Takdren (Demoness
Leader of Tigers).” My aunt thus became known as Dümo Takdren.
In those days there was a proverb: “When the false master aims to be
master, the true master is put out like a dog.” Such is what had become of
us, mother and children. Previously, when my father Mila Sherab Gyaltsen
was alive, everyone, both high and low, looked to see if we smiled or
frowned. Later, when my uncle and aunt became rich as kings, it was their
faces, smiling or frowning, upon which everyone gazed. About my mother
the people whispered, “How true the saying, ‘Rich husband, clever wife.
Soft wool, fine woolens.’ Now that no capable man is around, it is just as
the proverb says. At first, while Nyangtsa Kargyen was sustained by a fine
husband, it is said she was courageous and wise, and an excellent cook.
Now her wisdom has dimmed and she is completely miserable.” Our
inferiors all ridiculed us behind our backs just as the saying goes: “When
one is beset by misery, gossip will follow in turn.”
Dzesé’s parents gave me new clothing and boots and said, “When riches
are gone, you needn’t think yourself poor, since they are like dew drops in
a meadow. In the past, your ancestors didn’t acquire wealth until later on in
life. For you, too, a time of prosperity will come.” Saying this they
consoled us over and over.
Then I reached my fifteenth year. At that time there was a field given to
my mother by her parents as her inheritance, known by the unpleasant name
Trepé Tenchung5 (Little Boot Sole) but producing an excellent harvest. My
maternal uncle cultivated the field and did what he could to increase its
yield of barley while quietly stashing it away. With the excess he purchased
a great quantity of meat, he ground a large amount of white barley into
flour, and brewed a good deal of black barley into beer. This, he said, was
for Nyangtsa Kargyen and her children to reclaim their wealth. Then we
bo...
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