The Biographies of Rechungpa: The Evolution of a Tibetan ...

Sorcery, logic and angry monks 145
miraculous meeting of Darlo and Milarepa. It is less detailed than the equivalent passage
in Gyadangpa but more so than that in The Kagyu Garland of Wish-fulfilling Jewels.
Darlo (Dar-lo) comes to see Milarepa on his own individual initiative. It is Milarepa’s
pupils in general who wish to kill the monk, and Drigom (‘Bri-sgom) and Rechungpa
accompany Milarepa in his song (as in Gyadangpa). Darlo is converted, but although he
stops accumulating bad karma and develops good meditation he is not listed as being one
of a group of principal monk disciples (thus conforming with Gyadangpa). 70
The instruction to Rechungpa to go to India is set later on in the narrative and is not
directly related to the Darlo incident. As in Gyadangpa and The Kagyu Garland of Wishfulfilling
Jewels, the patrons misconceive the intention of Rechungpa’s journey as being
to learn logic as a result of the debate with Darlo; Rechungpa is set on a high throne and
Milarepa explains the true reason for Rechungpa’s departure. 71 The beginning of the song
that Gyadangpa merely referred to and was given in full in The Kagyu Garland of Wishfulfilling
Jewels is provided, but after three lines, it changes from verse to prose. 72
Milarepa appears to have no prior knowledge of Tipupa (Ti-pu-pa), as he merely
states, ‘It is possible that there is a pupil of Nāropa [still alive in India].’ 73
As in The Kagyu Garland of Wish-fulfilling Jewels there is no continuation of the
Rechungpa narrative, or a description of his return. There is only a mention of him in
passing when he and Milarepa go to stay in a haunted cave. 74
This text demonstrates the survival, well after the influence of the fully developed
popular mythology of Tsangnyön’s version, of narratives based in the earliest strata of the
tradition.
Without the contemporary witness of The Essence of a Wonderful Jewel, we have only
the variant witnesses of Gyadangpa, The Kagyu Garland of Wish-fulfilling Jewels,
Möntsepa, Biographies of the Kagyu Lineage, commencing with Vajradhara, and The
Great Golden Garland as indications of a version in which Rechungpa is not motivated
to go to India by the animosity of the scholars. This version dates back at least to the
early thirteenth century. We also have a narrative tradition as exemplified by the
Shamarpa’s Clouds of Blessings, which does not make even a minimal connection
between the two narratives of the debate and the journey to India. These versions have
now been eclipsed by the narrative tradition which came to full flower with Tsangnyön
Heruka and his portrayal of the ‘bad boy Rechungpa’, which we shall see plenty of in
Chapters 7 and 8.