Saraha


Saraha, Sarahapa, Sarahapāda, or in the Tibetan language The Arrow Shooter, was known as the first sahajiya and one of the Mahasiddhas. The name Saraha means "the one who has shot the arrow.". According to one, scholar, "This is an explicit reference to an incident in many versions of his biography when he studied with a dakini disguised as a low-caste arrow smith. Metaphorically, it refers to one who has shot the arrow of non duality into the heart of duality."
Saraha is considered to be one of the founders of Buddhist Vajrayana, and particularly of the Mahamudra tradition.
Saraha was originally known as Rāhula or Rāhulbhadra and was born in Roli, a region of the city-state of Rajni in eastern India, into a Shakya family and studied at the Buddhist monastic university Nalanda. According to Sankrityayan and Dvijram Yadav, Saraha was born in Raggyee village of ancient Bhagalpur, the then Capital of Anga Desh.

Teachers and consorts

Saraha is known for being a wandering yogi and avadhuta engaging in behaviors that overturned the social norms of caste, social class, and the oppressive normative gender roles and hierarchies of the time. Two of Saraha's important teachers and consorts were women who were technically lower than him from the stand point of caste, class, and gender. Yet, each of these nameless women met Saraha as an equal on the path of spiritual practice and each of them had realization that led Saraha further in his own spiritual development.

The Arrow Making Dakini

Saraha is normally shown seated and holding an arrow. It is from a mature nameless woman, often called the Arrow Smith Dakini or the Arrow Making Dakini, who was Saraha's teacher and consort, that the typical iconography of Saraha holding an arrow emerges. Some versions of their meeting say that Saraha saw the Arrow Making Dakini in a vision and thus was wandering here and there, searching her out. Some say they met at a crossroads, while other versions say that it was in a busy marketplace where she was selling her arrows.
Whether they meet in a marketplace, or a crossroads, it is this woman's intense concentration and spiritual instructions to Saraha that are transformative. When he finds her, Saraha inquires about what she is doing. Her reply to him is pith and direct: "The Buddha's meaning can be known through symbols and actions, not through words and books."
The Arrow Making Dakini then explained the symbolic meaning of the arrow to him using the elusive tantric twilight language that is common to dakini teachings. It is said, that in this moment, Saraha fully realized the state of mahamudra and in that moment he said the single syllable "da." This is a play on the sound of this word, which can mean either "arrow" or "symbol". Saraha then recognized the wisdom dakini in front of him, abandoned his studies and monastic vows and moved to a cremation ground with her to practice
As an homage to the Arrow Making Dakini and Saraha and their great spiritual accomplishments, and to bring forth the blessings of these spiritual lineages, there are contemporary tantric communities engaging in archery and arrow smithing as a form of spiritual discipline and practice.

The Radish Curry Dakini

The second nameless woman who was Saraha's teacher and consort is often called the Radish Curry Girl or the Radish Curry Dakini. Saraha met her when she was just 15 years old and it is likely she had been working as a servant. The story that provides this accomplished dakini with the epithet Radish Curry Girl also has several versions. One of the more well known ones states that one day Saraha asked this young woman to make him a radish curry. While she was doing this, Saraha fell into meditation. His meditative absorption was so complete that he remained in samadhi for twelve years.
When he emerged from mediation, twelve long years later, he asked the young woman if he could have some of the radish curry. Her direct replies to him are the teachings. She said: "You sit in samadhi for twelve years and the first thing you ask for is radish curry?"
Saraha noted her wisdom and realized his own faults in meditative practice. He decided that the only way for him to make any progress on the spiritual path would be to move into an isolated mountain location, away from all distractions.
Again, the Radish Curry Dakini offered pith instructions to Saraha: "If you awaken from samadhi with an undiminished desire for radish curry, what do you think the isolation of the mountains will do for you? The purest solitude," she counseled, "is one that allows you to escape from the preconceptions and prejudices, from the labels and concepts of a narrow, inflexible mind."
Saraha was wise enough to listen carefully to the wisdom of this dakini in front of him, realizing that she was indeed not just his consort but also his teacher. From that moment forward, his meditative practices changed and he eventually attained the supreme realization of mahamudra. At the time of his death, both Saraha and his consort ascended to Dakini Pure Lands.

Disciples

was a pupil of Saraha.

Doha, Caryagiti, and Vajragiti

In the oral and literary traditions of South Asia, there are at least three classifications for the tantric compositions and teachings of Saraha: doha, caryagiti, and vajragiti.
As one scholar writes:
Doha are a form of couplet poetry and a portion of Saraha's doha are compiled in Dohakośa, the 'Treasury of Rhyming Couplets'. Pada 22, 32, 38 and 39 of Caryagītikośa are assigned to him. The script used in the doha shows close resemblance with the present day Kaithi, Ang lipi, Assamese, Bangla and Odiya scripts which imply that Sarahapa has compiled his literature in the earlier language which has similarity with both Odiya language and Angika language.
in Dohakosa by Sarahapada
In the opinion of Rahul Sankrityayan, Sarahapāda was the earliest Siddha or Siddhācārya and the first poet of Oriya, Angika and Hindi literature. According to him, Sarahapāda was a student of Haribhadra, who was in turn a disciple of Śāntarakṣita, the noted Buddhist scholar who traveled to Tibet. As Śāntarakṣita is known to have lived in the mid-8th century from Tibetan historical sources and Haribhadra was a contemporary of Pāla king Dharmapala, Sarahapāda must have lived in the late 8th century or early 9th century CE. From the colophon of a manuscript of Saraha's Dohakośa, copied in Nepali Samvat 221 and found from Royal Durbar Library in Nepal, by Pt. Haraprasad Shastri in 1907, we know that many doha-s of Saraha were extant by that time. Thanks to the efforts of a scholar named Divakar Chanda, some of them have been preserved., and were printed and published first in the modern Bangla font by the Bongiyo Shahityo Porishawd in 1916 along with the Dohakosh of Sarahapa in Bangla font, the Sanskrit notes of the dohas of Sarahapa also in the Bangla font, the Dakarnab adage-poems, the dohas of Kanhapa or Krishnacharyapa or Kanifnath and the Mekhla notes. The mouthpiece was by Haraprasad Shastri who had found the manuscript at the Royal Durbar Library of the Nepal kingdom in 1907.
The following song and poem of Saraha are from the original Apabhramsa or Aangi or Modern Angika is no longer extant but we have the Tibetan translation:

Tibetan in Wylie transcription:
English translation

Here is one scholarly interpretation of the above verses:
"space: In Indian thought, especially Buddhist, a common metaphor for the objective nature of reality as empty or unlimited, and the subjective quality of the mind that experiences that emptiness...Space also is one of the five elements recognized in most Indian cosmologies, along with earth, water, fire, and air. In certain contexts... "sky" is a more appropriate translation for the Apabhramsa or Tibetan original. emptiness: According to most Mahayana Buddhist schools, the ultimate nature of all entities and concepts in the cosmos, realization of which is required for attaining liberation. Emptiness may be regarded negatively as the absence, anywhere, of anything resembling a permanent, independent substance or nature...more positively, it is regarded as the mind's natural luminosity, which is "empty" of the defilements that temporarily obscure...The critical remarks directed here at those who think "it" is connected with emptiness presumably are meant to correct a one-sided obsession with negation, which is one of Saraha's major targets."

The point of Saraha in this poem is clearly to ensure that the aspirant on way to becoming adept, does not get trapped by the metaphor and soteriological lexicon. This was a recurrent motif in Saraha's teachings and is key for why he is depicted in Tibetan iconography with an 'arrow' or 'dadar'. Further to this, the comment of scholar Judith Simmer-Brown as follows is relevant: "The word for arrow is mda', which is identical in pronunciation to the word for symbol, brda'".

Again, we are brought back to the relevance of the coded tantric twilight language that is embedded in not only Saraha's oral compositions and teachings but also in the descriptions of his spiritual life, his teachers and consorts, and his own realization.

Works Attributed to Saraha in the Tibetan Tengyur

There are a number of songs of realization attributed to the Indian Buddhist yogi Saraha in the Tengyur of the Tibetan Buddhist canon:
rgyud vol Ra.

104b–150a To. 1652: Śrī Buddhakapālatantrapañjikā jñāna vatī nāma

225b–229b To. 1655: Śrī Buddhakapālasādhana nāma

229b–230b To. 1656: Sarvabhūtabalividhi

230b–243b To. 1657: Śrī Buddhakapālamaṇḍalavidhikrama pradyotana nāma
rgyud vol Wi.

70b–77a To. 2224: Dohakoṣagīti - do ha mdzod kyi glu - "People Doha"
rgyud vol Zhi

26b–28b To. 2263: Dohakoṣa nāma caryāgīti - do ha mdzod ces bya ba spyod pa'i glu - "King Doha", "Royal Song"
28b–33b To. 2264: Dohakoṣopadeśagīti nāma - mi zad pa'i gter mdzod man ngag gi glu zhes bya ba - "Queen Doha"
55b–57b To. 2266: Kakhasyadoha nāma

57b–65b To. 2267: Kakhadohaṭippaṇa

106b–113a To. 2269: Kāyakoṣāmṛtavajragīti

113a–115b To. 2270: Vākkoṣarucirasvaravajragīti

115b–117a To. 2271: Cittakoṣājavajragīti

117a–122a To. 2272: Kāyavākcittāmanasikāra nāma

122a–124a To. 2273: Dohakoṣa nāma mahāmudropadeśa

124a–125a To. 2274: Dvādaśopadeśagāthā

125a–126a To. 2275: Svādhiṣṭhānakrama

126b–127b To. 2276: Tattvopadeśaśikharadohagīti nāma
rgyud vol Zi

3a–4a To. 2345: Bhāvanādṛṣṭicaryāphaladohagītikā nāma

5b–5b To. 2351: Vasantatilakadohakoṣagītikā nāma

55b–62a To. 2440: Mahāmudropadeśavajraguhyagīti
rgyud vol. Phu

182b–183a To. 3164: Trailokavaśaṃkaralokeśvarasādana

183a–184a To. 3165: Trailokavaśaṃkaralokeśvarasādana
rgud vol. Mu

46b–47a To. 3371: Trailokavaśaṃkaralokiteśvarasādana

88a–88b To. 3427: Trailokavaśaṃkaralokeśvarasādana

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