[ detail from a thangka painted by Karshu Gonpo Dorje, Rumtek Monastery, Sikkim, India;
photo courtesy the late His Holiness the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa, Rangjung Rikpe Dorje ]
[ detail from a thangka painted by Karshu Gonpo Dorje,
Rumtek Monastery, Sikkim, India;
photo courtesy the late His
Holiness the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa, Rangjung Rikpe Dorje ]
Marpa
(the Translator)
(Marpa Lotsawa, Marpa Chökyi Lodrö)
( 1012 - 1097 ) ( 1012 - 1099 )
links
Trial by Tower Building:
Milarepa meets Marpa
Marpa
from Karma
Triyana Dharmachakra
Naropa's Guru was Naropa
Naropa was Guru to Milarepa
Above woodcut from Derge district in Eastern Tibet, circa
1950s (?).
It "places Marpa (central figure), the first of the Tibetan
gurus ("Teachers")
of the Kargyütpas School of Northern Buddhism, in
his apostolic line.
The line begins (top center) with "Dorje-Chang, the 'Holder of the Dorje' (the Spiritual Thunderbolt of the Gods), in Whom the Esoteric Lore of the Kargyutpas has its origin.
He is regarded as an Emanation of the Buddha Shakya Muni" (top left corner). It also "venerates Him, as the Kargyütpas do, as the Chief of the Celestial Buddhas, analogous to the Adi, or Primordial, Buddha of the Old School of Padma Sambhava."
On the right of the Celestial Buddha is Tilopa, the first of the human gurus, an Indian yogi, who received direct guidance and teaching from the Celestial Buddha. Tilopa holds aloft in his right hand a golden fish, symbolizing "sentient beings immersed in the Ocean of Worldly Existence"; and in his left hand a blood-filled skull, symbolizing his ability to confer occult powers pertaining to the world.
Opposite Tilopa is his favored disciple, Naropa, the second of the human gurus. He is blowing a trumpet made of a ram's horn, proclaiming the glory of his Order. Naropa was a professor of philosophy in the celebrated Buddhist University of Nalanda, in northwest India, the principal center of learning of that epoch. It was there that Marpa, on one of his manuscript-collecting journeys to India, met Naropa and became one of his disciples. Marpa made a number of journeys to India for manuscripts, which he translated from Sanskrit into Tibetan, thus becoming known in Tibet, his native land, as Marpa the Translator.
In India, Marpa also met Atisha (top right corner), an Indian Buddhist monk, from whom he obtained special teaching. Atisha went to Tibet in A.D.1038 and became the first of the Reformers of Lamaism, introducing celibacy and "higher morality" among the priesthood.
Milarepa (lower left corner), A.D. 1052-1135, Marpa's uniquely great disciple, sits, supposedly, in a cave on an antelope skin.
Gampopa (lower right corner), A.D. 1077-1152, Dvagpo-Lharje— that is, Physician of the Dvagpo Province (in Eastern Tibet)—was Milarepa's most spiritually gifted disciple, from whom "onwards to our own day the Kargyütpa Dynasty of Teachers has continued with out a break."
[ from Thirteen Tibetan Tankas, by Edna Bryner, pp. 10-11, ©1956
Falcon Wing Press and Evans-Wentz's Tibet's Great
Yogi Milarepa ]
bibliography (and excerpts)
The Life of Marpa the Translator:
Seeing Accomplishes All
Tsag Nyön Heruka ( 1452 - 1507 )
Nalanda Translation Committee (Translator),
under the direction of Chögyam Trungpa
Shambhala
Publications
Paperback / Published 1995
information and order from:
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| * | barnes
and noble | * | powells
| * | ABE
1st Shambhala ed. 1986:
information and order from:
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| * | barnes
and noble | * | powells
| * | ABE
1983 ed.:
Gtsan-Smyon He-Ru-Ka
information and order from:
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| * | barnes
and noble | * | powells
| * | ABE
The Great Kagyu Masters
The Golden Lineage Treasury
Translated by Khenpo Könchog Gyaltsen
Edited by Victoria Huckenpahler
Snow Lion Publications
/ 1990
information and order from:
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and noble | * | powells
| * | ABE
The Rain of Wisdom:
The Essence of the Ocean of True Meaning
Nalanda Translation Committee, trans.
Hardcover / January 1989
information and order from:
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and noble | * | powells
| * | ABE
The Rain of Wisdom:
The Essence of the Ocean of True Meaning
Paperback / Shambhala, 1985.
information and order from:
amazon.com
| * | barnes
and noble | * | powells
| * | ABE
[ see also Naropa and Milarepa ]