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

The biographies of Rechungpa 200
Rechungpa’s inferiority is at its most explicit, unsurprisingly, within biographies of
Gampopa. For example, in The Liberation of Unequalled Gampopa by Sonam Lhundrup,
we have Milarepa saying:
This Rechungpa has attained an irreversible result for himself, but he will
not bring great benefit to beings. But now, a scholar from Ü, who will
benefit many beings, has come. 2
Similarly, Nyengyu lineage histories state unequivocally that Rechungpa is Milarepa’s
principal pupil and successor, a status that has been eclipsed in popular perception as a
result of that lineage’s marginalisation and absorption into the Karma, Talung and
Drukpa Kagyu. However, these incorporated Rechungpa lineage histories retain
anomalous declarations of Rechungpa’s supremacy.
Gyadangpa
In Gyadangpa’s early biography of Rechungpa, the personal relationship between
Rechungpa and Milarepa is not beset with difficulties, though it is lively. For example,
Rechungpa’s persistence in badgering Milarepa for songs of instruction provokes from
Milarepa the good-natured complaint, ‘This Rechungpa won’t let an old man sit down!’
(ras chung pa ‘dis mi rgan sdod du mi ster ba ‘dug gsungs) before he complies. 3
Milarepa interprets Rechungpa’s dreams that appear to be very bad omens as signs of
spiritual success, and he is listed as first amongst his four principal repa pupils, with
these four being amongst the twenty-five prophesied to Milarepa in a vision by a
Gampopa does not appear among those twenty-five, even though Gyadangpa’s text is a
lineage history of the Drukpa Kagyu and Rechungpa’s biography is preceded in that text
by a laudatory biography of Gampopa. This indicates that the Rechungpa biography had
its origins within the Nyengyu tradition. Khyungtsangpa, Rechungpa’s pupil and source
of a Nyengyu lineage, is twice referred to as a source.
Rechungpa is declared by Milarepa to be characterised by ‘great wisdom’ (shes rab
can) 4 and transmits to him the lineage of ‘buddhahood without meditation’ (ma sgoms
par sang rgya ba), which he had been told he could pass on to one pupil only. 5 This term
refers, in this context, to the practice of sexual yoga, which is said to be ‘without
meditation’ because of its emphasis on physical movement, posture, breathing and the
normal morphology of sexual excitement. The implication is that Milarepa transmitted
this to no one else, including Gampopa, who was anyway a monk.
Rechungpa leaves Milarepa for central Tibet on Milarepa’s insistence. Rechungpa
wishes to spend Milarepa’s last years with him, but he tells Rechungpa that he is not a
disciple who is a son that has to take care of his father’s corpse. 6
Rechungpa’s departure provides the context for a song unusual in the context of a
hagiography, and which at first appears to run counter to its surrounding narrative. After
Rechungpa leaves, Milarepa sings a plaintive song that, even though it emphasises
Rechungpa’s spiritual attainments, sings about ‘the shameless Rechungpa’ who has
abandoned him. Milarepa laments that from now on, even if the valley were to be filled
with people, he will feel alone. The subsequent prose narrative draws these contraries