Great-Bliss-Tantric-Sex-and-the-Path-to-Inner-Awakening

Śabara
“For twelve years Śabara meditated upon undirected and
unstructured sublime compassion in a thought-free state,
and he attained the supreme realization of Mahāmudrā.”
- Abhayadatta, The Legends of the Eighty-Four Siddhas
The Sādhana of Secret Vajravilāsinī was first revealed
to the Indian siddha Śabara (c. early 800s), who was
born and lived in the mountainous forest region of
Orissa. His name means “the Hunter,” and tradition
remembers him as having taken the name of the tribe
of his consort. It is clear from the high quality of the
Sanskrit of the sādhana and his extensive knowledge
of the Tantras that he was highly educated, and was
probably a brahmin.
Because of his lifestyle, Śabara would have been an
outcaste by the rigid caste standards of medieval India.
In Tantric circles, however, he would have been held
in high esteem for his tribal connections. Tribal
peoples such as the Śabaras were praised by the
siddhas as examples of living in joyful harmony with
nature. Both Hindu and Buddhist yogis worshipped
the nature goddess Parṇaśavarī, a personification of
the Śabara tribe, as a giver of healing powers. Śabara
is easily recognized in art by his identifying attributes
of a bow and arrow and a belt of peacock feathers.
Śabara is known as one of the eighty-four siddhas, great Indian Buddhist spiritual masters whose
life stories were compiled by the Indian master Abhayadatta (c. 1100-1150) in his book The
Legends of the Eighty-Four Siddhas. There were, in fact, many hundreds more great Indian
masters than these, but they became emblematic of the siddhas as a whole with their free and
unconventional lifestyles, miraculous powers, spontaneous songs of realization, and often wild
and erotic Tantric practices. In Abhayadatta’s story, Śabara was a hunter by trade.
Śabara was a disciple of Saraha, the greatest of all Indian siddhas. He received both his training
in Mahāmudrā and Cakrasamvara deity practice directly from Saraha. The famous lineage of
teachings on Mahāmudrā taught by Tilopa began with Saraha and passed through Śabara.
Śabara, along with Saraha’s other principle disciple Nāgārjuna, was the one of the most
important Tantric gurus of his day. Śabara’s principle deity practice was the eleven-headed,
thousand-armed Avalokiteśvara. He is best known as one of the earliest masters of the
Cakrasamvara tradition, the most popular of all Buddhist Tantric deity practices in India.
Śabara’s most important students were Lūipa (c. 800), Saroruha (c. early 800s), Maitrīgupta (aka
Advayavajra, Tib. Maitripa; 1007-1085), Vīṇā (c. early 800s), and Vibhūticandra (c. 1100s).
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