Table Of ContentTARANATHA'S
LIFE OF KR.S .N . ACARYA/KAN. HA
Translated by
David Templeman
LIBRARY OF TIBETAN WORKS AND ARCHIVES
© 1989 LIBRARY OF TIBETAN WORKS AND ARCHIVES
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ISBN 81-85102-7Q-8
Published by the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, Dharamsala,
H.P., India and printed by lndraprastha Press (CBl), New DeUti, India.
Contents
Foreword vii
Introduction ix
Part One-The Life
Kf~I)acarya's Early Life and Relationship with his
Guru 3
Feats in Various Parts of India 20
Events Surrounding Kf~I)acarya's Death 37
Principal Male Disciples 51
Principal Female Disciples 62
Other Disciples 68
Part Two-The Supplement
Supplementary Material Concerning Kf~I)acarya 81
Stories of Subsequent Yogis of the Carya Lineage 85
Notes 107
List of Works by Kf~I)acarya Found in the Tanjur 142
Bibliography 147
Index of Sanskrit Terms 156
Index of Tibetan Terms 172
Index of English Terms 17 6
Foreword
Jonang Taranatha is one of Tibet's most repmed
historians, whose writings are regarded as par:ticularly
authentic and reliable. His work is of special interest with
respect to the history of Buddhism in India. With the
decline of Buddhist culture in the land of its birth,
whatever historical records and oral traditions may have
existed have largely been lost. Here lies Taranatha's great
value, for, assembling material from both written and oral
sources, he provides us with a remarkably clear picture of
the later, specifically tantric, period of Indian Buddhism.
His Life of K!~l'}licarya presents a portrait of one of the
more colourful siddhas or tantric adepts, who was an active
participant in many of the tantric lineages later brought to
Tibet. The life of this charismatic yogi is typical of the
unorthodox and free-wheeling siddha tradition to which he
belonged.
We are happy to be publishing David Templeman's
third trar).slation from Tarapatha's works. Once again he
has brought great enthusiasm and thoroughness to the task
of making the great historian's writings accessible to
non-Tibetan readers. In so doing he contributes to a
growing understanding of the Indian roots of Tibetan
Buddhism and an appreciation of Tibet's role as a
repository ofliving Buddhist culture.
Gyatsho Tshering
Director, LTWA
Introduction
The historical and biographical works of Jo-nang
Taranatha (1575-1634) are some of the most important
sources for information on the growth and development of
Buddhism in India. His historical works which were first
translated into European languages in the last century and
the early part of this century, namely Schiefner's
translation of his History of Buddhism in India1 and
Griinwedel 's work on his seven transmissions\ have been
extremely widely used by Scholars working in the field of
Indian history and culture since that time. Although
Taranatha's works must be used with some reservations
when they refer to royal genealogy and political events, in
general they are often able to shed light on the growth and
diffusion of Buddhism in this confusing and little - known
era. At times Taranatha's views on lineages of saints differ
from the generally accepted view, and not infrequently he
takes exception to other scholar's statements where they
conflict with his own findings based on the direct evidence
of his own teachers' statements. This should not suggest
some obscurantist attitude, but rather that his particularly
thorough mind was wen· able to evaluate and synthesise
information from a particularly wide variety of sources,
many of them unknown to other scholars, and .to draw
them together into a cogent narrative. Some of those
unknown sources make reading his works a most
tantalising affair as one cannot, in any way, get an idea of
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their nature except for the snippets Ta:ranatha gives us as
evidence of his case. When one considers that his History
of Buddhism in India was written at the extraordinarily
young age of thirty-four years, one can do little but marvel
at the colossal amount he had digested in those few years.
Indeed in his early erudition he ranks with Bu-ston whose
History of Buddhism3 was composed at thirty-three years
of age. Sum-pa wrote his History• at forty-four years old,
Padma-dkar-po composed his Historf at forty-eight years
old, dPa'-bo-gtsug-lag-'phreng-ba commenced his History6
at forty-two, completing it at sixty-one years and 'Gos-lo
tsa-ba wrote his Blue Annals 7 between the ages of eighty
four and eight-six. All of the above is eloquent testimony
to iaranatha's prodigious ability, both as a historian and as
a direct partaker in many of the linea,ges he wrote about.
Apart from the vast number of his writings on
liturgy and specific doctrinal points, Ta:ranatha excelled in
studies related to India, particularly siddha biographies,
works relating to the lineages of the Indian masters and
accounts of the diffusion of certain doctrines. It appears
that in many of these later doctrino-historical works he was
greatly aided by his close contacts with Indian masters
within whose lineage he became established. They
provided him with rare and invaluable oral records which
he frequently testifies to in his writings.
The sadhanas, homas etc., for Cakrasarp.vara were a
very important part of the teaching Ta:ranatha had received
and throughout his writings works on this practice are
often found. Indeed, in the seventh volume of his Collected
Works8 are found two sadhanas and a mar:t"alavidhi for
Cakrasarpvara according to the tradition of Kr~r:tapada( =
Kr~r:tacarya, = Kar:tha etc.)
Taranatha's deep interest in Kr~r:tacarya and his
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