Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Mahasiddha Lakshminkara: The Crazy Princess of Oddiyana

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Lakshminkara: the Crazy Princess.....(Abhayadatta Shri, mahasiddha #82)......The beautiful Lakshminkara was the sister of the great king Indrabhuti who ruled over the kingdom of Sambola in the land of Oddiyana....http://www.scribd.com/doc/94393016/James-B-Robinson-Buddha-s-Lions-The-Lives-of-The-Eighty-Four-Siddhas

"There are 84 Mahasiddhas in both Hindu and Tibetan Buddhist traditions......who flourished in India from the eighth to twelfth centuries. Basically, the lives of these eighty-four Indian men and women abound in episodes that demonstrate their conviction to perform any act contrary to convention.....The life story of Mahasiddha Laksminkara describes the kind of journey that is often required of those who seek ultimate truths.She was born into a royal family and had been delicately brought up in luxurious surroundings. She showed a grasp and understanding of tantric concepts even at an early age. All in all it was an idyllic life until she was betrothed to the king of Lanka as part of a deeper political alliance.....The princess despaired when she witnessed his inhuman treatment of animals. .....The next day, when she was finally invited into the palace, she locked herself into a chamber and refused to see anyone, discouraging visitors by throwing things at them. The princess then proceeded to unbound her hair, tore off her clothes and rubbed ashes on her body. She talked incoherently in a prattle, and to all appearances, she was hopelessly insane......One night, she crept out of the palace and fled to a cremation ground, renouncing the world to become a yogini, living by scavenging the food thrown out for dogs. She lived so for seven years until she attained siddhi. A sweeper of the royal latrines served her faithfully during this period. When she gained her realization, he was the first person to be initiated.".....http://www.exoticindiaart.com/product/paintings/mad-princess-who-became-mahasiddha-lakshminkara-WH78/

"Buddhist texts tell of the birth of the Buddhist Chinnamunda. A tale tells of Krishnacharya's disciples, two Mahasiddha sisters, Mekhala and Kankhala, who cut their heads, offered them to their guru and then danced. The goddess Vajrayogini also appeared in this form and danced with them. Another story recalls princess Lakshminkara, who was a previous incarnation of a devotee of Padmasambhava, cut off her head as a punishment from the king and roamed with it in the city, where citizens extolled her as Chinnamunda-Vajravarahi.".....Benard, Elizabeth Anne (2000), Chinnamasta: The Aweful Buddhist and Hindu Tantric Goddess, Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN 978-81-208-1748-7

Chinnamasta

"Mahasiddha Skt., roughly “great master of perfect capabilities.” In the - Vajrayana, this term refers to an ascetic who has mastered the teachings of the - Tantras. He distinguishes himself through certain magical powers ( - siddhi), which are visible signs of his enlightenment. Best known is the group of eighty-four mahasiddhas. They represent a religious movement, which developed in India from the 8th to 12th centuries against the background of, and in opposition to, the monastic culture of Mahayana Buddhism. Among the eighty-four mahasiddhas were men and women of all social classes; their model of highly individual realization strongly influenced Tibetan Buddhism. Also of importance were their spiritual songs. The biographies of the eighty-four mahasiddhas, preserved in Tibetan translation, describe personalities like Chatrapa the beggar, Kantali the tailor, and Kumaripa the potter. However, King Indrabhuti and his sister Lakshminkara are also among them, as are scholars like Shantipa. What is common to all of them, regardless of background, is the manner in which, through the instruction of a master, they transformed a crisis in their lives into a means for attaining liberation. Then, through unorthodox behavior and the use of paradoxes, they expressed the ungraspability of ultimate reality.".....http://www.ese-an.org/m/612-mahashunya.html

"Indrabhuti & Oddiyana.... O-rgyān, U-rgyān, O-ḍi-yā-na, and (2) O-ḍi-vi-śā, with the first series connected with Indrabhūti, i.e., Oḍiyăna and Uḍḍiyāna, while the second series falls back on Oḍi and Oḍiviśa, i.e., Uḍra (Orissa) and has nothing to do with Indrabhūti. N.K. Sahu objects, however, and points out that these two sets of names are seldom distinguished in Buddhist Tantra literature, and opines that the words Oḍa, Oḍra, Uḍra, Oḍiviśa and Oḍiyāna are all used as variants of Uḍḍiyāna. In the Sādhanamālā, he further points out, Uḍḍiyāna is also spelt as Oḍrayāna while in the Kālikā Purāṇa, as indicated earlier, it is spelt either Uḍḍiyāna or Oḍra. There is also evidence, Sahu continues, that Indrabhūti is the king of Orissa rather than of the Swāt valley. The Caturāsiti-siddha-Pravṛtti, for example, mentions him as the king of Oḍiviśa while Cordier, in his Bṣtān-ḥgyur catalogue, gives sufficient indications of his being the king of Orissa. Also, in his famous work Jñānasiddhi, king Indrabhūti opens it with an invocation to Lord Jagannātha, a deity intimately associated with Orissa and with no other area of India.".....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indrabhuti

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"According to Nyingma tradition, King Ja (also known as Indrabhuti) taught himself intuitively from "the Book" of the Tantric Way of Secret Mantra (that is Mantrayana) that magically fell from the sky along with other sacred objects and relics "upon the roof of King Ja" .....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indrabhuti

..." it should be stated that the falling of Buddhadharma relics upon a Tibetan royal palace also happened in the case of Thothori Nyantsen and these two stories (i.e. the story of Thothori Nyantsen and the narrative of King Ja) may have influenced each other as they share a distinctive motif of magical realism.....Lha Thothori Nyantsen (Tib. ལྷ་ཐོ་ཐོ་རི་; Chinese: 佗土度) (also spelled Lha Tho tho ri Nyentsen or lHa-tho-tho-ri gNyan-btsan) was the 28th King of Tibet according to the Tibetan legendary tradition. The syllable Lha (divine, pertaining to the gods of the sky) is an honorary title."......http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thothori_Nyantsen...

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

Northern New Mexico….February 2013

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