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

The biographies of Rechungpa 150
seeing two different individuals, or the Ra biography, which is one of the most fantastic
creations of Tibetan literature, is as historically unreliable as it seems to be.
There were other translators with the family name of Gö (‘Gos), including the
fifteenth-century author of The Blue Annals. However, it was probably the continuing
resonance of such names as Gö Lotsawa, Ma Lotsawa, Gayadhara and Amoghavajra that
was the cause for their appearance in the Rechungpa narrative.
In Lhatsun Rinchen Namgyal, Gö Lotsawa is replaced by the more innocuous Jogyal
(Jo-rgyal). Jogyal (Jo-rgyal) might possibly be a corruption of Gyijo Lotsawa (Gyi-jo
lotsāba), a.k.a Tulku Daway Ozer (sPrul-sku zla-ba’i ‘od-zer), who was a pupil of
Vajrapāni, who was a pupil of the Mahāmudrā master Maitripa. 37 However, it is more
likely an abbreviation of the obscure Jojo Gyaltsen (Jo-jo [sic] rGyal-mtshan) that we
find in Biographies of the Kagyu commencing with Vajradhara and in The Golden
Garland of Ralung, in which that translator is accompanied by Lenchung Darma Tsultrim
(Glan [sic]-chung Darma Tshul-khrims). Lenchung worked on translations with
Varacandra and Amoghavajra, a.k.a Vajrāsanaguru. 38
Rechungpa sings to Tipupa. His song describes his journey from Tibet to Nepal, which
had not been previously described in the narrative. It is a dangerous journey over swaying
rope bridges, through bandit-infested forests and a plague-ridden Kathmandu valley,
where corpses were piled in heaps as if they were compost. 39
Ma Lotsawa translates the song, but disagrees with Tipupa’s favourable impression of
Rechungpa, accusing Rechungpa of having previously composed the ‘spontaneous’ song,
Tipupa decides to test Rechungpa with questions that Rechungpa answers with another
song which includes a request for the five ‘teachings of the bodiless thus
discrediting Ma Lotsawa’s criticism. Tipupa then sings to Rechungpa listing these
instructions that he says he will give to him. 40
Rechungpa has to wait some time for Tipupa to give the teachings, and ‘all the
Indians’ tell Rechungpa that he is stupid, because Indians are reluctant to teach Tibetans,
while he could have had them from the Nepalese Asu, who lives in Tibet. Asu means
‘birthless’, so he was also known in Tibetan as Balpo Kyemé (Bal-po sKye-med)
‘Nepalese Birthless’. 41 He had an Indian grandfather, but was a native of Nepal and
became a pupil of who had been a pupil of Maitripa. He is said to have been
en route to China on pilgrimage when he married and settled down in Tibet where he
founded the Megyur (sMad- ‘gyur, ‘lower’ or ‘western’ translation) tradition of
Māhamudrā.
Maitripa (995/8–1075) had been the principal master of Mahāmudrā in India. He had
been a pupil of Nāropa and his many pupils included Marpa Chökyi Lodrö (Mar-pa
Chos-kyi Blo-gros) and Tipupa. He was therefore one of the Indian progenitors of the
Kagyu lineage, and a principal figure in the succession of the Mahāmudrā lineage. The
date for his death as presented in The Blue Annals did not specify the element and
Roerich appears to have chosen the wrong year, resulting in the dates 1007/10–87, which
does not correspond with the biographies of his pupils. He is said to have started teaching
after the death of Nāropa in 1040. His hermitage appears to have been in Mithila a.k.a
Tirhut, near to the then border with Nepal.
Maitripa’s pupil who taught Asu was ‘the Indian (born 1017) 42
was known as one of ‘the four great pupils of Maitripa’ and is of great importance for the
introduction of the Mahāmudrā tradition into Tibet. The other three ‘great pupils’ of