Herbert V. Guenther - The Life and Teaching of Naropa: Translated from the Original Tibetan with Philosophical Commentary Based on the Oral Transmition

In the history of Tibetan Buddhism the Indian Nropa ( a.d. 10161100) occupies a unique position. To the present day his life is held up as an example to anyone who aspires after spiritual values, which are never realized the easy way but only after years of endless toil and perseverance. It took Nropa twelve years of ardent devotion and indefatigable service to his Guru Tilopa ( a.d. 9881069) to attain his goal: the overwhelming experience of the Real in direct knowledge. Apart from this, Nropa also marks the beginning of a new and rich era of Buddhist thought in Tibet, while at the same time he is the culmination of a long tradition. None of his contemporaries or successors in India can compare with him in depth of experience.

Nropas biography, which has been translated here from hitherto unknown sources, contains a number of strictly historical data, but it is pre-eminently an account of the inner development of this scholar-saint. This makes it of particular interest.

Nropa (Napda, Nroapa) was born in the Fire-Male-Dragon year ( a.d. 1016) in Bengal. He is said to have been of royal parentage, his father being the king i-ba go-cha (ntivarman) and his mother the queen dPal-gyi bio-gros (rmat). Since in ancient-Indian usage the term king is merely an administrative title and does not denote the rank of a European monarch, and since the genealogical tree of his royal ancestry occurs in other combinations in other texts, this designation is merely a long-winded way of pointing out that he belonged to the gentry.

When he had reached the age of eleven ( a.d. 1026) he went for study to Kashmir, at that time the main seat of Buddhist learning. He stayed there for three years and having acquired a solid knowledge of the essential branches of learning he returned home in a.d. 1029. A large number of scholars went with him and for a further three years he continued his studies in their company. But then in a.d. 1032 he was forced to marry. His wife came from a cultured Brahmin family. The marriage lasted for eight years, then it was dissolved by mutual consent. His wife seems to have gone by her caste name Ni-gu-ma, and according to the widely practised habit of calling a female with whom one has had any relation sister she became known as the sister of Nropa.

The vision which induced Nropa to resign from his post and to abandon worldly honours, was that of an old and ugly woman who mercilessly revealed to him his psychological state. Throughout the years he had been engaged in intellectual activities which were essentially analytic and thereby had become oblivious of the fact that the human organ of knowledge is bi-focal. Objective knowledge may be entirely accurate without, however, being entirely important, and only too often it misses the heart of the matter. All that he had neglected and failed to develop was symbolically revealed to him as the vision of an old and ugly woman. She is old because all that the female symbol stands for, the emotionally and passionately moving, is older than the cold rationality of the intellect which itself could not be if it were not supported by feelings and moods which it usually misconceives and misjudges. And she is ugly, because that which she stands for has not been allowed to become alive or only in an undeveloped and distorted manner. Lastly she is a deity because all that is not incorporated in the conscious mental make-up of the individual and appears other- than and more-than himself is, traditionally, spoken of as the divine. Thus he himself is the old, ugly, and divine woman, who in the religious symbolism of the Tantras is the deity rDo-rje phag-mo (Vajravrh) and who in a psychological setting acts as messenger (