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

The biographies of Rechungpa 84
Songs of Shepay Dorje, which does relate this story, has Rechungpa’s life-span being
doubled from the forty-fourth year, which he had then reached, to a span of eighty-eight
years. 27 However, that would mean this visit to India took place in the year 1126/7, which
contradicts the majority of the dates for Milarepa’s death, and all sources have Milarepa
still alive when Rechungpa returned from India. Gö Shonnu Pal states that it is evident
from a text written by Rechungpa’s personal pupils that he lived only until his seventyeighth
year. 28 This text must be the lost The Essence of a Wonderful Jewel, which was
completed in 1195. Therefore, Gö Shonnu Pal may be relying on it when he gives the
wood-rat year (1084) as the year of Rechungpa’s birth. 29 He also specifies the iron-snake
year (1161) as the year of Rechungpa’s death, 30 in disagreement with the iron-hare year
of 1171 given by Lhatsun Rinchen Namgyal and Götsang Repa. The year 1171 cannot be
accurate as it conflicts with accounts in the biographies of Rechungpa’s contemporaries.
The year 1171 is presumably the result of using the life-span of eighty-eight years as
given in the Siddharājñī story, which added ten years to Rechungpa’s life.
Jamyang Chökyi Drakpa (1478–1523) and Götsang Repa concur with The Blue Annals
in giving the wood-rat (1084) as Rechungpa’s birth-year. 31 Götsang Repa agrees with
Lhatsun Rinchen Namgyal in stating that the birth occurred in the ninth lunar month
(dbyug-pa), which is roughly equivalent to October, and which he specifies correctly
(unlike the Lhatsun text) to be the middle autumn month. The middle autumn month is
the same lunar month that both Götsang Repa and Lhatsun Rinchen Namgyal give for
Rechungpa’s death, 32 so that perhaps the month of the death may have been duplicated to
serve as the month of the birth. Götsang Repa adds that Rechungpa was conceived nine to
ten months previously within the same (Tibetan) year, even though it would have to have
been in the conclusion of the preceding year. Śākya Rinchen (1744–55), basing himself
on the Gadé Gyaltsen text, which is identical with Götsang Repa’s, gives the same month
and year for his birth. 33
Kathok Tsewang Norbu (1698–1755) is alone in
his choice of Rechungpa’s year of birth. He is driven to this conclusion by his erroneous
calculation of Mlarepa’s dates as 1028–1111. Equating Rechungpa’s birth with the
commencement of Mlarepa’s solitary retreats, he arrives at the years of water-rat or
wood-tiger (1072 or 1074). He states that Rechungpa dies in his seventy-eighth year,
which concurs with The Blue Annals and presumably the lost The Essence of a Wonderful
Jewel, and calculates his death to 1249 or 1251. Nevertheless, Tsewang Norbu does note
that ‘some people’ say Rechungpa was born in the wood-rat year (1084). 34
Other than this aberration, we have, unlike the narrative tradition of Milarepa, no other
information about the date of Rechungpa’s birth other than the ninth Tibetan month of
1084, which is consistent with the rest of the narrative.
Rechungpa’s names
Almost all the sources that mention Rechungpa’s family name (in Tibetan, the family
name is normally placed before the personal name), agree that it was Nyen (gNyan),
some giving the variant spelling gNyen and sNyan, which would have had the same
pronounciation.