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

The biographies of Rechungpa 48
elements and animals, with a sixty-year cycle comprised of five cycles of twelve animals
each. Sang-gyé Darpo may have miscalculated in working out how many years separated
the earth-male-dragon of 1568 from the fire-female-hare of 1507. The hare directly
precedes the dragon in the twelve-year cycle, and the five elements succeed each other in
male-female pairs, forming a ten-year cycle. So perhaps Sang-gyé Darpo ahould have
said sixty-two inclusive years had passed since 1507, but that seems too long a time for
Sang-gyé Darpo to have been a direct pupil of Tsangnyön. However, Lhatsun Rinchen
Namgyal does not include Sang-gyé Darpo in his extensive list of Tsangnyön Heruka’s
pupils, 215 yet it seems unlikely, however weak his mathematics, that he would
erroneously think that the passing of sixty-two years was only thirty-eight years. But it is
even more unlikely that Sang-gyé Darpo could have made an error over what year he was
writing in, and as both names of the year are specified, scribal corruption seems less
likely. Therefore it may well be his mathematics that are at fault and that he was not a
direct pupil of Tsangnyön.
Kunga Rinchen: Life stories of the bKa′-brgyud
lamas (bKa’-brgyud Bla-ma-rnams kyi rNam-thar)
Author: The Drigung Dharma-Lord Kunga Rinchen (′Bri-gung Chos-rje Kun-dga′ Rinchen,
1475–1527). Date: 1508.
This text occurs within the Miscellaneous Writings (bKa’-‘Bum Thor-bu) of Kunga
Rinchen, abbot of the principal Drigung seat. 216 There is no biography of Rechungpa
within this text, but there is a biography of Milarepa in which Rechungpa appears. 217
Jamyang Chökyi Drakpa: A Garland of Jewellights:
The life stories of the long
lineage. (bDe-mchog sNyanrgyud
las brGyud-pa Ring-lugs kyi rNam-thar Norbu
‘Od kyi Phreng-ba)
Author: the third Drukchen (‘Brug-chen), Jamyang Chökyi Drakpa (‘Jam-dbyangs Choskyi
Grags-pa, 1478–1523).
The third Drukchen, was the first successor to the Drukpa Kagyu lineage through
incarnation, but his seat was separate from that of his predecessor, Kunga Paljor (Kundga′
dPal-′byor, 1428–76), which remained under the control of the second Drukchen’s
family and entourage. 218 The teachings of Rechungpa were of great importance for the
Drukpa Kagyu and Jamyang Chökyi Drakpa (‘Jam-dbyangs Chos-kyi Grags-pa) enlarged
the Rechungpa corpus of teachings. He is said to have obtained these instructions from a
vision of Rechungpa that he had in 1508. In a nineteenth-century history of the lineage,
he is said to have demonstrated to a group of Drukpa Kagyu masters how Rechungpa
appeared, floating naked in space, with his hands in the symbolic gesture of teaching the