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

The biographies of Rechungpa 210
constant nurse, haven’t you?’ (bla ma spangs nas zhang dang ‘grogs/nad g.yog rgyun du
ma babs sam). 47 The song appears to hint at another narrative, which we shall see in The
Blue Annals, in which rather than Rechungpa walking out on her, she left him for her
uncle!
Rechungpa encourages her to plead for forgiveness. She does, he takes her as his
pupil, and the uncle recovers his health.
Gyadangpa consulted a lost text, apparently written by Rechungpa’s pupil
Khyungtsangpa, who stated that when he met Rechungpa, the uncle had died suddenly
the previous year, but Lhachik Dembu was still alive. She had become a good
practitioner, and was a living example of Rechungpa’s compassion, because he cared for
her in spite of the way she had previously treated him. 48
Lhachik Dembu in The Blue Annals
The Blue Annals touches only briefly on this incident, but provides us with a distinct
variant that is not found elsewhere and provides an alternative, or an additional, cause for
Rechungpa’s abandoning her. It states:
Then he stayed in Yarlung (Yar-klungs) and had a mudrā (consort) named
Lhachik (lHa-gcig). She slept with another man, and, saddened, he ran
away. 49
This may give some explanation for the lines in the Gyadangpa song given above. For as
we have seen on a few occasions, the songs do not always agree with their accompanying
prose.
Lhachik Dembu in The Life and Songs of Shepay
Dorje
The Life and Songs of Shepay Dorje version of Rechungpa’s relationship with Lhachik
Dembu takes place in the episode entitled Lhachik Dembu (lHa-cig 50 lDem-bu′i 51
skor 52 ). 53 It is, as we have come to expect, far more dramatic. This text portrays
Rechungpa less favourably than Gyadangpa did, but its depiction of Lhachik Dembu is
much worse. She is not described as accompanying or helping Rechungpa in his studies
under Asu, nor does she live in a hermitage with him, but remains living at her home in
Yarlung.
She first appears infuriated that a beggar has called at the door, only to change her
mind when she sees how good-looking Rechungpa is. This physical attraction is the
reason she invites him in to see her sick father.
Rechungpa cures her father who becomes his patron, giving him both his province and
Lhachik Dembu. He lives with them at the palace for three years. Milarepa, however,
unhappy at Rechungpa’s new life style, comes and transforms himself into three
pleading, dying beggars to whom Rechungpa throws a turquoise from the top of the
palace. Lhachik Dembu is furious when she discovers what he has done.