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Dzogchen Explorations
Okar Research
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"Garab Dorje (Fl. 55 CE) and passed according to tradition along with other tantras through various lineages of transmission by way of important Dzogchen figures such as Mañjuśrīmitra, Shri Singha, Padmasambhava, Jnanasutra and Vimalamitra......The first human lineage-holder of the Dzogchen teaching was the Nirmanakaya Garab Dorje, an emanation of the Buddha Vajrasattva. He was born a son of a royal family in Oddiyana.....Garab Dorje (Skt. Prahevajra/Pramodavajra/Surativajra; Tib. དགའ་རབ་རྡོ་རྗེ་, Wyl. dga' rab rdo rje) — the lineage of Dzogchen, unbroken to the present day, is traced from the dharmakaya Samantabhadra (‘Kuntuzangpo’ in Tibetan) to the sambhogakaya, represented by the five buddha families and Vajrasattva, and then to the first human master Garab Dorje. It then passed to Mañjushrimitra....Garab Dorje is best known by the Tibetan version of his name. Various attempts have been made to reconstruct his name in Sanskrit, usually giving it as Prahevajra, but also as Pramodavajra or Surativajra....According to the NYINGMA tradition, the teachings of Dzogchen were first taught in India by a master named Garab Dorje, who was from Oddiyana, in present day Pakistan.....Patrul Rinpoche (b. 1808) provides us with more detail when describing the birth place of Garab Dorje not simply as 'Uddiyana' but as being close to Lake Kutra in the region of Dhanakosha."
"The Pith Instructions of Nyingma Dzogchen consist of esoteric scriptures written down by Pramodavajra, the guru of Manjusrimitra. Thus the lineage of Dzogchen-holders is said to descend from Pramodavajra (Tib: Garab Dorje), to Manjusrimitra (Tib: Jampel She-nyen), to Sri Simha (Tib: Pel gi Sengge), and then to Sri Simha's two disciples, Jnanasutra and Vimalamitra. The latter introduced the tradition into Tibet circa 755 to 797 AD."...http://www.dharmafellowship.org
"... the Dharma Fellowship of His Holiness Gyalwa Karmapa holds that the 'Five Peaked Mountain' of "the Land of Cina" is a mountain near the Kinnaur Valley associated with the historical Suvarnadwipa (Sanskrit) nation also known as 'Zhang-zhung' ....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeen_tantras
Click on the map to enlarge
"Garab Dorje lived in the 7th Century in Pakistan/Afghanistan...his verses were orally transmitted and written down in 'Indic' languages of the region. They were translated into the Tibetan language by 8th century masters such as Vairotsana and Vimalamitra. The original Indic language texts no longer exist."....Dowman (2010 pg 13)
Garab Dorje (Skt. Prahevajra/Pramodavajra/Surativajra; Tib. དགའ་རབ་རྡོ་རྗེ་, Wyl. dga' rab rdo rje) ......7th Century/8th Century.....dga' rab rdo rje/.....slob dpon dga' rab rdo rje/.....prahevajra......vajra of supreme happiness......Garab Dorje means 'Indestructible joy.'.....Garab Dorje or Garap Dorje is the only attested name. The Sanskrit offerings are reconstructions. No Sanskrit name has been found in a colophon to attest to historicity.
Born (as son of Su-dharmā, island-dwelling daughter of king Upa-rāja of Dhana-koṣa) in the land of Uddiyana, also the birthplace of Padmasambhava, Prahevajra is said to have received all the Tantras, scriptures and oral instructions of Dzogchen directly from Vajrasattva and Vajrapani. Alternatively, his mother is named as Pāraņī, and located on the banks of lake Kutra....In the Land of Uddiyana, on the island Dhanakosha, was a great temple called the Blissful Tower, Deje Tsekpa, surrounded by 6800 shrines. In this tower lived King Upa Raja and his consort Queen Radiance. Their daughter, Sudharma......
Garab Dorje (Skt. Prahevajra/Pramodavajra/Surativajra; Tib. དགའ་རབ་རྡོ་རྗེ་, Wyl. dga' rab rdo rje) — the lineage of Dzogchen, unbroken to the present day, is traced from the dharmakaya Samantabhadra (‘Kuntuzangpo’ in Tibetan) to the sambhogakaya, represented by the five buddha families and Vajrasattva, and then to the first human master Garab Dorje. It then passed to Mañjushrimitra.....http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Garab_Dorje
"Garab Dorje (dga' rab rdo rje, Skt. Surati Vajra, Prahevajra, Pramoda Vajra).....The incarnation of Semlhag Chen, a god who earlier had been empowered by the buddhas. Immaculately conceived, his mother was a nun, the daughter of King Uparaja (Dhahenatalo or Indrabhuti) of Uddiyana......Semlhag Chen....Noble Spirit (sems lhag can).
A god on Mount Sumeru who, empowered by Vajrapani, reincarnates as Garab Dorje to spread the Dzogchen teachings in the human world."....http://rywiki.tsadra.org/index.php/Semlhag_Chen
Garab Dorje or Garap Dorje is the only attested name. The Sanskrit offerings are reconstructions: "Vajraprahe" and "Prahevajra". (Tibetan: Garab Dorje, Tibetan: དགའ་རབ་རྡོ་རྗེ་, Wylie: dga’ rab rdo rje; Sanskrit: Prahevajra or Pramodavajra)
Garab Dorje (Skt. Prahevajra/Pramodavajra/Surativajra; Tib. དགའ་རབ་རྡོ་རྗེ་, Wyl. dga' rab rdo rje) — the lineage of Dzogchen, unbroken to the present day, is traced from the dharmakaya Samantabhadra (‘Kuntuzangpo’ in Tibetan) to the sambhogakaya, represented by the five buddha families and Vajrasattva, and then to the first human master Garab Dorje. It then passed to Mañjushrimitra......http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Garab_Dorje
Garab Dorje is best known by the Tibetan version of his name. Various attempts have been made to reconstruct his name in Sanskrit, usually giving it as Prahevajra, but also as Pramodavajra or Surativajra.
Garab Dorje (dga' rab rdo rje, Skt. Surati Vajra, Prahevajra, Pramoda Vajra). The incarnation of Semlhag Chen, a god who earlier had been empowered by the buddhas. Immaculately conceived, his mother was a nun, the daughter of King Uparaja (Dhahenatalo or Indrabhuti) of Uddiyana....http://www.rangjung.com/authors/Garab_Dorje.htm
GARAB DORJE: embodiment of Semlhag Chen, a solar day ago was lettered Buddhist tradition. The white Virgin that pregnant, mother of Sir is a nun, son of King Uparaja (Dhahe-natalo or Indrabhuti) of Uddiyana. Garab Dorje received all teachings on tantra, Dzogchen and Vajra-sattva and Vajrapani from in general people and become the first man in line vidyadhara Dzog-chen. Reach enlightenment fullness through the "great Global Charity not recognised," Garab Dorje the tenets for Entourage is the special beings. The main disciple Manjushrimitra are considered his. Padmasambhava is also known to have received the lineage of the Dzogchen Tantras directly from Garab Dorje's body position. Garab Dorje, meaning "joy immortal."......http://bodhimandala1.blogspot.com/2012/05/road-represents-whole-friendly-13.html
Dzogchen ( Tibetan, rdzogs-chen ). The central teaching of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism , Dzogchen or the Great Perfection is regarded as of the Buddhist Dzogchen lineage in our world was Garab Dorje (Wylie: dga' rab rdo rje, Sanskrit *prahevajra) from Uddiyana (Wylie:. o rgyan). — “Dzogchen: .....http://worddomination.com/prahevajra.html
Born (as son of Su-dharmā, island-dwelling daughter of king Upa-rāja of Dhana-koṣa) in the land of Uddiyana, Prahevajra is said to have received all the Tantras, scriptures and oral instructions of Dzogchen directly from Vajrasattva and Vajrapani. Alternatively, his mother is named as Pāraņī, and located on the banks of lake Kutra.
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The district Dhana-kos`a, in the country of Uddi-yana, "was surrounded by sandalwood forests and inhabited by the type of animal known as kos.an.a [‘rending’], whose bodies are human with bear-like faces and whose claws are ... iron spikes."
The women would tied their hair in two knots, one at the front and one at the back and embellish it with ... bone ornaments.
Su-dharma (daughter of this country’s king titled Upa-raja and of his queen Radiant Light), while asleep "in a grass hut on the island known as Covered with Golden Sand, ... dreamt that
a white man shaped out of precious crystal ... placed a crystal vase at the crown of her head ..."When she awoke, her attendant the d.akini Serene Purn.a interpreted the dream to mean that she would give birth.
To him were given 4 names :
Praj~na-bhava,
Pra-he[la]-vajra [/pra-hela/ ‘playful’],
Resurrected Ash-Colored One,
Serene Resurrected One.
He taught, on mt. Malaya, the Great Perfection in 64 laks.a-s of sections, t the requaest of
Blissful World Taste (the vajra-dhatu d.akini "with three faces, wearing tiger’s skin, her four arms holding a parasol of peacock feathers, and riding tigers and lions"); and of
Yellow Bliss-Giver of Boundless Qualities (a d.akini "riding a dragon, holding a garland of lightning-bolts ...").
Meanwhile in the region in China known as Sos.a-dvipa (So-sa glin ‘salty island’) [or else as Kos`a-dvipa, "the householder Virtuous One and his wife Wise Light had a son known as S`ri Simha who ... took birth in the city called Black S^o-Am Jom. ... he studied ... with the Chinese master Hastibhala under the Tree of Enlightenment in China".
Having journeyed, mounted on a black camel toward the city of Golden Sanctuary to the west of the Tree of Enlightenment, and proceeded thence eastwardly in China to "the Five-Peaked Mountain, Wu Tai-shan," S`ri Simha furthermore studied Secret Mantra for 7 years under the low-caste master Bhela-kirti, before (at the instance of Avalokita-is`vara) travelling for 9 nychthemera, "one cubit above and not touching the ground," to meet with Man~jus`ri-mitra at Sos.a-dvipa.
"Vimalamitra remained ... in the city of Bhirya to the west ... Later ... living in the great charnel ground known as Brilliant ...Vimalamitra made three copies of the manuscripts of the supreme secrets :one set he concealed on the island Covered with Golden Sand, in the land of Uddiyana,one set within the craggy cave known as Suvarn.advipa in Kas`mir, and one set he placed in that charnel ground to serve as an object of veneration for the d.akinis."
Erik Pema Kunsang (transl.) : Wellsprings of the Great Perfection. Rangjung Yeshe Publ., Hong Kong, 2006. pp. 112-206 = "Part II. From Early Treasure Masters"
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The following texts are attributed to Garab Dorje:
"Cutting Through the Three Times" (Tibetan: དུས་གསུམ་ཆིག་ཆོད, Wylie: dus gsum chig chod)
"Overwhelming the Six Modes of Consciousness with Splendour" (Tibetan: ཚོགས་དྲུག་ཟིལ་གནོན, Wylie: tshogs drug zil gnon)
"Natural Freedom That Underlies Characteristics" (Tibetan: མཚན་མ་རང་གྲོལ, Wylie: mtshan ma rang grol)
"Direct Encounter with the Three Kayas" (Tibetan: སྐུ་གསུམ་ཐུག་ཕྲད, Wylie: sku gsum thug phrad)
"Vajra Fortress" (Tibetan: རྡོ་རྗེ་མཁར་རྫོང, Wylie: rdo rje mkhar rdzong)
"Deep Immersion in Awareness" (Tibetan: རིག་པ་སྤྱི་བླུགས, Wylie: rig pa spyi blugs)
"Manushrimitra, a learned scholar of Brahman origin, was evidently an adherent of the Yogachara school before his becoming a disciple of the mysterious Prahevajra or Garab Dorje (dga'-rab rdo-rje) from the country of Uddiyana (Eastern Afghanistan)...... the earliest reliably dated Dzogchen texts? There is The Meditation on the Awakened Mind by Mañjuśrīmitra, which is mentioned in the Denkarma, an early 9th century library catalogue. And then there are the many texts quoted by Nub Sangyé Yeshé in his Lamp for the Eyes of Contemplation, written in the late 9th century. These are generally short instructional texts which overlap to some extent with the traditional list of eighteen early Mind Series (sems sde) texts.".....http://earlytibet.com/2008/01/24/early-dzogchen-iii/
In the north-western part of the land of Oddiyana, Uddiyana (Eastern Afghanistan)....Buddhist texts speak of Oddiyana as a beautifully green and fertile kingdom, inhabited by gentle people often clothed in white, who had great respect for wisdom and learning. It was surrounded by high, rugged mountains, and in the broad valleys were towering white stupas and golden temple roofs. It seemed a paradise on earth and so was called “the royal garden” from the Sanskrit udyana......Oddiyana was also known as “the paradise of the dakinis”, as it was reputed for its unique sisterhood of priestesses—ladies dedicated to wisdom and spiritual development. These priestesses were not nuns, and lived in sanctuaries or forest chapels......With regard to the origins of the Vajrayana teachings, the tantric scriptures recount that it was King Dza of the kingdom of Zahor who first received the tantras, which landed miraculously on his palace roof. It is believed that Dza is another name for King Indrabodhi of Oddiyana. If this is the case, then the tantras began to be disseminated in Oddiyana......The first human Dzogchen master, Garab Dorje, was born near Lake Kutra in Oddiyana.......Padmasambhava, who was to introduce Vajrayana and Dzogchen to Tibet was miraculously born on Lake Dhanakosha and raised by the king of Oddiyana. Many of the Dzogchen texts that were translated into Tibetan during the early period of transmission were translated from the language of Oddiyana.......Patrul Rinpoche gives a more precise indication of where Oddiyana was in The Words of My Perfect Teacher (Tib. Kunzang Lamé Shyalung) when he describes the birthplace of Garab Dorje as being close to Lake Kutra in the region of Dhanakosha. Dhanakosha means ‘treasury of wealth’. This corresponds to a region between Chitral, Gilgit and Swat. John Reynolds suggests that “perhaps Uddiyana is actually a name of a much wider geographical area than the Swat Valley alone, one embracing parts of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and even Western Tibet (Zhang Zhung).".....Reynolds, John M., The Golden Letters, Snow Lion, Ithaca, New York, 1996
"When Giuseppe Tucci strongly proposed the idea (in 1940) that the land known as Uddiyana was finally identified as the Swat valley, he did not know Patrul Rinpoche's text (translated in 1994). Instead, he based himself on two medieval Tibetan travelers who had visited Swat and believed it to be the legendary region that produced such well known adepts as Garab Dorje, Padmasambhava, Luipa and Tilopa - not to mention their mainly female teachers; the women who made this country famous as Paradise of the Dakinis. Tucci had translated these medieval texts and published them as Travels of Tibetan Pilgrims in the Swat Valley - and from then onwards, most authors and translators kept reciting and reprinting the mantra "Uddiyana is Swat" until almost everyone believed it....(http://yoniversum.nl/dakini/uddiyana.html)
King of Oddiyana, Indrabhuti....
"Garab Dorje, The Original Tulku.......In the Land of Uddiyana, on the island Dhanakosha, was a great temple called the Blissful Tower, Deje Tsekpa, surrounded by 6800 shrines. In this tower lived King Upa Raja and his consort Queen Radiance. Their daughter, Sudharma, had taken novice vows and soon after the full Bhiksuni ordination, and she lived on a small island with her maidens in meditation. One night she dreamed that an immaculate white man came to her holding a crystal vessel sealed with the mantra OM AH HUNG SVAHA, and he placed it on her head three times and light shone out from it and she perceived the threefold world clearly in its totality. Soon after the Bhiksuni Sudharma gave birth to a son, but ashamed that the baby had no father, she sought to conceal it and threw it into a pit of ashes. Light and music emanated from the ash pit and after three days the mother retrieved the baby and the gods and spirits came with offerings to honour him. But Sudharma remained unaware that the baby's father was the Bodhisattva High Mind, Adhicitta, the emanation of Vajrasattva who had taught Dzogchen in the heavens.
"When he was seven years old, the boy defeated the five hundred panditas of the royal court in debate and they gave him the name Prajnabhava, Wisdom Being, but the king called him Acharya Garab Dorje and by that name he became renowned. It was at this time that the boy recited the sutra "The Vast Spaciousness of Vajrasattva". Garab Dorje renounced his parentage and palace and journeyed to the mountains where amongst peaks inhabited by Hungry Ghosts he spent thirty-two years meditating in the residence of a Mountain God. Here he achieved realization and a rainbow body and the earth shook seven times. The world made obeisance, but the Shakta-Dakinis proclaimed that a danger to their yoga practice had arisen. When the Hindu king sent messengers to apprehend him he ascended into the sky.
"At the completion of his period of renunciation and ascetic practices, Garab Dorje had comprehended both the outer and inner paths and most particularly he had apprehended the sixty-four hundred thousand Dzogchen verses. Then the Bodhisattva Vajrasattva gave him the initiation and empowerment of the Bestowal of Awareness and permission to write down the sixty-four hundred thousand Dzogchen verses and the oral tantras. They were written down by three Dakinis, some say on Mount Malaya.
"Garab Dorje then journeyed to Bodhgaya to the terrible Sitavana cremation ground, where he remained for the rest of his life. He met his disciple Manjushrimitra there and taught him for seventy five years. He attained his parinirvana in a mass of light and then bestowed upon Manjushrimitra a tiny golden casket containing Dzogchen verses. The text called "The Three Incisive Precepts" (Tsiksum Nedek) was amongst those verses."......http://www.keithdowman.net/lineage/dzokchen_masters.htm
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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com
John Hopkins.....Northern New Mexico….January 2013
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