Махасиддхи: Великие адепты йоги и тантры

Master practitioner of yoga and tantra

Mahasiddha (Sanskrit: mahāsiddha "great adept; ) is a term for someone who embodies and cultivates the "siddhi of perfection". A siddha is an individual who, through the practice of sādhanā, attains the realization of siddhis, psychic and spiritual abilities and powers. Mahasiddhas were practitioners of yoga and tantra, or tantrikas. Their historical influence throughout the Indian subcontinent and the Himalayas was vast and they reached mythic proportions as codified in their songs of realization and hagiographies, or namtars, many of which have been preserved in the Tibetan Buddhist canon. The Mahasiddhas are identified as founders of Vajrayana traditions and lineages such as Dzogchen and Mahamudra, as well as among Bön, Nāth, and Tamil siddhars, with the same Mahasiddha sometimes serving simultaneously as a founding figure for different traditions. Comparing Abhayadattaśrī's and Ratnākaragupta's Vajrāsana lists of the 84 siddhas, Lopez found that only 34 names are held in common. Dowman (1986) holds that they all lived between 750 and 1150 CE.

According to Ulrich von Schroeder, Tibet has different traditions relating to the mahasiddhas. Among these traditions, two were particularly popular, namely the Abhayadatta Sri list and the so called Vajrasana list. The number of mahasiddhas varies between eighty four and eighty eight, and only about thirty six of the names occur in both lists. In many instances more than one siddha with the same name exists, so it must be assumed that fewer than thirty siddhas of the two traditions actually relate to the same historical persons. In the days when the siddhas of the later Tibetan traditions flourished in India (i. e., between the 9th and 11th centuries), it was not uncommon for initiates to assume the names of famous adepts of the past. Sometimes a disciple would have the same name as his guru, while still other names were based on caste or tribe. In such a context the distinction between siddhas of the same name becomes blurred. The entire process of distinguishing between siddhas with the same name of different texts and lineages is therefore to large extent guesswork. The great variation in phonetic transcription of Indian words into Tibetan may partly be the result of various Tibetan dialects. In the process of copying the Tibetan transcriptions in later times, the spelling often became corrupted to such an extent that the recognition or reconstitution of the original names became all but impossible. Whatever the reasons might be, the Tibetan transcription of Indian names of mahasiddhas clearly becomes more and more corrupt as time passes.

Local folk tradition refers to a number of icons and sacred sites to the eighty four Mahasiddha at Bharmour (formerly known as Brahmapura) in the Chaurasi complex. The word chaurasi means "eighty four". It is also very significant that nowhere else, except at Bharmaur in Chamba district, may be seen the living tradition of the Eighty four Siddhas. In the Chaurasi temple complex, near which the famous temple of goddess Lakshana (8th century A. D.) stands, there once were eighty four small shrines, each dedicated to a Siddha. A number of archaeological sacred sites require iconographic analysis in the Chaurasi complex in Chamba, Himachal Pradesh. Although it might be hagiographical accretion and folk lore, it is said that in the reign of Sahil Varman:

The Caturasiti siddha pravrtti (CSP), “The Lives of the Eighty four Siddhas”, compiled by Abhayadatta Sri, a Northern Indian Sanskrit text dating from the 11th or 12th century, comes from a tradition prevalent in the ancient city state of Campa in the modern state of Bihar. Only Tibetan translations of this Sanskrit text seem to have survived. This text was translated into Tibetan by sMon grub Shes rab and is known as the Grub thob brgyad cu rtsa bzhi’i lo rgyus or “The Legends of the Eighty four Siddhas”. It has been suggested that Abhayadatta Sri is identical with the great Indian scholar Mahapandita Abhayakaragupta (late 11th–early 12th century), the compiler of the iconographic compendiums Vajravali, Nispannayogavali, and Jyotirmanjari. The other major Tibetan tradition is based on the list contained in the Caturasiti siddhabhyarthana (CSA) by Ratnakaragupta of Vajrasana, identical with Bodhgaya (Tib. : rDo rje gdan) located in Bihar, Northern India. The Tibetan translation is known as Grub thob brgyad cu rtsa bzhi’i gsol ’debs by rDo rje gdan pa. There exist several Tibetan versions of the list of mahasiddhas based on the Vajrasana text. However, these Tibetan texts differ in many cases with regard to the Tibetan transcriptions of the Indian mahasiddhas names.

According to Ulrich von Schroeder, Tibet has different traditions relating to the mahasiddhas. Among these traditions, two were particularly popular, namely the Abhayadatta Sri list and the so called Vajrasana list. The number of mahasiddhas varies between eighty four and eighty eight, and only about thirty six of the names occur in both lists. It is therefore also wrong to state that in Buddhism are 84 Mahasiddhas. The correct title should therefore be Names of the 84 Mahasiddhas according to the Abhayadatta Sri Tradition. It should also be clearly stated that only Tibetan translations of this Sanskrit text Caturasiti siddha pravrtti (CSP) or The Lives of the Eighty four Siddhas seem to have survived. This means that many Sanskrit names of the Abhayadatta Sri tradition had to be reconstructed and perhaps not always correctly.

According to Ulrich von Schroeder for the identification of Mahasiddhas inscribed with Tibetan names it is necessary to reconstruct the Indian names. This is a very difficult task because the Tibetans are very inconsistent with the transcription or translation of Indian personal names and therefore many different spellings do exist. When comparing the different Tibetan texts on mahasiddhas, we can see that the transcription or translation of the names of the Indian masters into the Tibetan language was inconsistent and confused. The most unsettling example is an illustrated Tibetan block print from Mongolia about the mahasiddhas, where the spellings in the text vary greatly from the captions of the xylographs. To quote a few examples: Kankaripa [Skt.] is named Kam ka li/Kangga la pa; Goraksa [Skt. ]: Go ra kha/Gau raksi; Tilopa [Skt. ]: Ti la blo ba/Ti lla pa; Dukhandi [Skt. ]: Dha khan dhi pa/Dwa kanti; Dhobipa [Skt. ]: Tom bhi pa/Dhu pi ra; Dengipa (CSP 31): Deng gi pa / Tinggi pa; Dhokaripa [Skt. ]: Dho ka ra / Dhe ki ri pa; Carbaripa (Carpati) [Skt. ]: Tsa ba ri pa/Tsa rwa ti pa; Sakara [Skt. ]: Phu rtsas ga’/Ka ra pa; Putalipa [Skt. ]: Pu ta la/Bu ta li, etc. In the same illustrated Tibetan text we find another inconsistency: the alternate use of transcription and translation. Examples are Nagarjuna [Skt. ]: Na ga’i dzu na/Klu sgrub; Aryadeva (Karnaripa) [Skt. ]: Ka na ri pa/’Phags pa lha; and Ghantapa [Skt. ]: Ghanda pa/rDo rje dril bu pa, to name a few.

For the identification of individual mahasiddhas the concordance lists published by Ulrich von Schroeder are useful tools for every scholar. The purpose of the concordance lists published in the appendices of his book is primarily for the reconstitution of the Indian names, regardless of whether they actually represent the same historical person or not. The index of his book contains more than 1000 different Tibetan spellings of mahasiddha names.