[Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.] So welcome everyone to this, which is the second talk in the fourth series of our Padmasambhava and Tibet seminar.
There will be another couple of talks still to come, this Trinity term, and you can find details on our website.
You just have to google Padmasambhava or Diana and Tibet seminar and you'll find it all our talks are published as video podcasts.
They're available from our own web pages at the Wilson College Tibetan and Himalayan Studies cluster.
They're also available from the Central University of Oxford podcast pages and of course,
from Apple Podcasts and many other sites of that kind as well.
Please try not to interrupt during the recording. The discussion periods after the talks are not a podcast, and they are open to the entire audience,
so please don't hesitate to join in the discussions and ask questions then.
So today it's our very great pleasure to welcome doctor Amber Moore, who's joining us from Canada.
Amber Marie Moore is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto specialising in Buddhist philosophy.
Tibetan, Newar and Nepalese Buddhist manuscripts and narratives, Shariah dance and the intersection of philosophy and Buddhist Tantra.
Her research looks at the idea of philosophy as a practice,
and draws on Vajrayana Buddhist sources to envisage envision new positions on the nature of being, the self and the idea of liberation.
Her forthcoming book is titled The Life and Legend of Vajra Yogini, the Sanko from the money seller Mahayana.
Her PhD titled The Legend of Ugra Tara Virginia, A study of the name of Buddhist Money sila maha Vadhana,
was completed in 2024 and quickly won awards including the Britain Nepal Academic Council's PhD Dissertation Prize for 2025.
So, Amber, many thanks for taking the time to speak to our seminar and over to you.
Thank you and welcome. Dear colleagues and friends, I know some of my friends from the Canadian Niwa were planning on attending today,
and welcome to you anytime if you're here. Thank you so much, Robert, for asking me this question.
If Union is a Pita, then what is a Pita?
Because I truly did not realise how much my research had addressed this question of what is a Pita and how many resources I had to draw on.
You know, for this talk today, which I hope will eventually become a paper of some kind, and I look forward to expanding on the topic.
So today we're going to look at the figure of Padmasambhava in Newari sources and Newari Buddhism.
Who is called Udayana Acharya and the idea of encounter as the sacred domain of the Vajra Yogini in newer Buddhism.
So these two topics will be addressing today.
This is a topic in general that's very dear to my heart, and I love to discuss the intersection of kind of yogic vision,
whether it's from the Dogen path or the Mahamudra path, and how it how it intersects with sacred geography and the perception of our external reality.
So this is a very interesting topic. And I think for the Tibetan specialists, it will be a little bit different.
But I think, uh, the newer perspective is always, uh, very informative and, uh, mind expanding.
So let's continue with this. Okay.
So we have this question. What can we learn about Udayana and Padmasambhava from newer Buddhist accounts and sources?
So we have basically three kinds of resources available to us within Buddhism.
Uh, Nepal, uh, the context of the continuous Sanskrit,
Vajrayana Buddhism that developed continuously within a culture of Brahmanical and Shaiva religion and sacred sites.
So you have transcultural contexts between Gandhara, the Swat valley where Udayana is thought to have been, and the Kathmandu Valley.
We have a wealth of Newar manuscript sources on Udayana and Padmasambhava or Udayana Acharya as a historical and mythical figure.
Now I've only just started to look into this. The sources I found were quite interesting and we'll look at that.
But in general, he was not a figure that was emphasised in the early period with the transmission of Buddhism to Tibet.
And then we also have plenty of resources as to how people are understood and utilised in their water sources and accounts and how,
uh, this might have been the case also with Udayana. Of course.
It's a place.
So this idea of imagining or reimagining what Udayana as a site would have been like, and how this relates to the arrival of Buddhism in Tibet,
numerous Buddhist accounts and manuscript sources recorded in Proselyte and Jamal, handwritten in Devanagari and translated into Nepal Bhasa,
are of unimaginable value for gaining a glimpse into how Vajrayana Buddhism has functioned across Buddhist Asia,
including Ludhiana, a mobile culture of trade,
transmission and pilgrimage embedded within Brahmanical norms across India, Central Asia, Nepal and the northwest,
including areas of Gandhara, Kashmir, which is perhaps Udayana before the arrival of Buddhism in Tibet.
So before the arrival of Buddhism in Tibet, before and during the time then of King Songtsen Gampo,
seventh century Nepalese Buddhist such as Buddha Bhadra for a century, then later a contemporary of King Songtsen Gampo was Kilimanjaro.
Then they were the Nepalese Manju, who was known to have even translated work into the so-called newly formed Tibetan language.
Tala, Rima and Suniti were figures who were even involved during the reign of the Long Dharma and the fall of Dharma in Tibet.
They travelled to Central Asia, India, Gilgit and even translated Chinese canonical works during that time.
So of course, we all know. And for those friends who are here today who are not specialists.
Shanta. Raksha was invited to Tibet by King Songtsen Gampo to teach being a renowned scholar.
And this is well documented in our sources. As are as is the the Queen, the the Nepalese Pragati Devi who became the Tibetan Queen.
These are figures who are well known from that period.
But there is really not any emphasis that we see on the role, on the historical role of Padmasambhava or Udayana Acharya in this early period.
So this is this is of interest and I just I included this little image of Padmasambhava that was um, I think,
of one of the very early images and I'm just thinking of like these paleo Tibetan number 44 and all of these,
uh, manuscripts from, from Dunhuang in this that mention Padmasambhava are about, I think, the 10th century and so on.
So not that early, um, not as early as some of these other figures.
So that's what I'm talking about when I talk about the early period. So something to think about.
Not to say that he wasn't there, but somehow in the mix.
Mobile narratives across cultures. So this is what we have.
We have a situation where there are many, many shared narratives between Nepal.
The area of the Swat Valley and Khotan. So examples of this.
Um, so this is to say, just in the broader perspective, not just with regard to, uh, Viceroy Yana Buddhism and uh,
pitta sites and localised tantric sites in terms of Mahayana works, in terms of the other kinds of Mahayana glorification of specific sacred sites.
Um, and of course, then later, uh, the tantric information as well is being shared.
But all of this is, is our kind of like, mobile travelling accounts between Kashmir, the Swat, Swat Valley, Dunhuang, Kathmandu Valley.
So for one example, we have the tale of Go Puja, Foxtail Mountain in Nawa.
That's the some some Hagg. The Cow Tale hillock at Swayambhu North is shared between Khotan and Kathmandu.
Also it's at Swayambhu.
Nath is also a localised version of the education of Pancha Shiksha Parbat I shared between Khotan or Hotan and Kathmandu as well.
We also have examples of the Jataka as um or evidence.
This is the Rajkumar Mahasabha Aradhana Inn in Nepal Bhasa in the in the newer Buddhist version.
And so the Viagra Jataka is between Gandhara Taxila.
We have mainly the material account. So above in this picture here you can see this is the picture of the Bodhisattva maha Sattva,
who sacrificed his own body to the mother tiger to feed the cubs.
This famous story. Um. Whereabouts came the Buddha's first five disciples.
Who were the five cubs? And this is a story that was widely spread at an early period and not present in the Pali Canon.
So we have this northern, northern Mahayana traditions, and then we also have the shared account of the chakra samsara,
mandala pietas from the Rudra and Sati myths, and also the vajra systems,
as well as other monolith sized traditions that include all of the 24 sacred sites,
including the pittas across Buddhist Asia, including Kashmir and the Kathmandu Valley.
And so we're going to look at examples and actual accounts of all of these new our Buddhist system.
So what is a pitha for Buddhists? Now we might be familiar with this idea of the of the Shakti Peeth and but for Buddhists,
how are they kind of interacting with and incorporating that into the practice of Vajrayana Buddhism?
So it seemed to be almost a requisite that the site was not Buddhist, but that it was reinterpreted as such.
But we'll see later that there was also the kind of pitas which were the Sahaja,
the kind of spontaneously arising pittas that were commonly associated with the
more landscape oriented types of pizzas with rocks and water and so forth.
But anyway, let's just look at one definition here that, um, uh oh, sorry to Nico Suki, Suki I here I failed to mention his second name.
Uh, has has mentioned for us a Pita is defined in the Buddhist and Byron cycles as
a place where the Yogi needs dwell in marginal and low and liminal locales,
and congregate and communicate in a coded language that's from Davidson.
So these are not static divinities or practitioners of yoga or dhyana residing at a site, especially in the newer tradition,
but being to facilitate enlightenment in dependence upon meditative practice,
yogic perception and pure vision of the Vajrayana yoga, who encounters them regarding such meeting places.
So pitas are meeting places and meeting places are pietas.
Um, sometimes one category subsumes the other and sometimes it's reversed.
Um, the higher Fischer Tantra states they're at that meeting place,
abiding within that sacred domain, meaning to do whatever the Yogi needs, say Tantra.
Malayalam. Devi. Yoga. Karam. a retired variety, Eugenia.
So there's many accounts of this happening.
And the individuals who who have these kinds of interactions in inter-war Buddhism.
And this just gives us an idea of kind of how we would imagine the land of Udayana to be.
And when Vijaya asked, what, oh Lord, are these places of meeting these Melaka?
The Lord replies, listing the ten site categories that the Tadi the Arpita Chatra pita is the abode upper pita, the sub abode kshetra is area.
And then we go into all of the ten categories that are traditionally associated with the chakra symbol at the larger chakra samsara.
Um, kind of concept. So this is the these are the the definitions places where Yogi needs to dwell.
Now, how did they dwell there? How did they get there? And how, um, are the yogis, the practitioners of yoga?
Male or female? Um, coming into congregation with them?
So we should do whatever the yogini are telling us. Whatever they say, we need to do it.
So going back to this phrase, uh, there are two kind of examples of this that we have from the newer Mani Sharma Vana maha Vandana,
one from the Mani section and the other from the Chevalley section.
Um, here the Maitri Bodhisattva says, oh great King Brahma.
Do not forget, your wishes will come to fruition. And why is this?
because in our country, in the northern regions, up close to the Himalayan mountain range, there is a mountain called Moneta.
Okay, so this is the site where the yogini is arising. There is located a vara called Padma Mala.
At this vihara there resides the glorious goddess Uttara Yogini.
If you go there, worship her and listen to her advice. You will need to do just as she orders.
So the story goes on and he does everything that she tells him to do.
And then he, uh, is able to produce an heir with his wife, who ends up to be the Bodhisattva Nishida.
So even in the Mahayana, in is in Buddhism, we have the presence of these yogini and yogini giving the directions.
Okay. Because if you don't do what they say. Then this is what will happen.
So the glorious Goddess Eugenie was delighted and replied.
And this is from the shockwave section.
Oh son, I am overjoyed having heard your aspirations and for this very reason, I now know that you should be the one to maintain my daily Nitya Puja.
Okay, so at this place I would be pleased if your lineage Santana would undertake all the activities and duties related to worship.
So this place is talking about Sanchi, the sanctuary yogini site, uh, where the yogini is dwelling and people are coming to meet her there.
Uh, for as long as your lineage remains steadfast in this place, know that until then, I too will remain here at my place.
So? So this shows the idea that they are not inherently attached with the site, but rather exist as I,
as I had mentioned in conjunction with the perceptions, the practice and the aspirations of the Yogi.
Because if a time comes when your lineage fades into decline. No, to that I will forsake this place.
So she just makes that clear. So that idea is coming clear coming through very clearly in this work then.
So what is the essence of Arpita. We have really these two kinds of perspectives, two perspectives that are maybe more.
One seems to be maybe more associated with the Indic sphere of Vajrayana practices,
and the other is maybe more associated with the Himalayan areas where Vajrayana Buddhism is practised.
But it's not quite clear. So we have two options a being a female being or a stone.
So we have these sisters coming into contact, having these encounters with yogini at the pizza sites.
But what are they actually experiencing? Some are coming into contact with real living beings who are manifesting as a vision or as an actual being,
and some are coming into contact with stones,
notably mani stones from which they emerge, or which they are kind of symbolised by as an autochthonous deity.
So female beings. This perspective is from Abeokuta.
Gupta and Sakura Akita were proponents of magical female beings constituting the essence of the pit as not and not the presence of sex,
rocks and spring formations. So we have rocks in the form of, like the vulva, for example, of the magical being, the deity or what have you.
The presence of sex, rocks and massive rock formations like the Money Sheela formations is however well attested in the newer and Tibetan traditions.
Again, this is what Suzuki is informing us of, very helpfully.
And then we have the other perspective the mani ratna.
So the mani stone, it can be a gemstone or just a regular stone.
Uh, Mani Amani. Sheela. And this is an example of one we see here on the right in the picture.
So Mani stones,
rock lingas and Dharma ideas manifested in the landscape as one form of pitha that kind of exemplifies that idea of the solitary yogini,
and the idea that you can have a place there that you come to encounter, that being at this site.
So in the tenure attributed to Naropa and translated by Marpa,
it was defined the essence of the pitta was defined as a place where yogini is reside as
consisting of naturally occurring in geological rock formations of various and iconic shapes,
including rock lingas. Dharma ideas. Dharmakaya is here.
This is the the the source, the Dharma source.
The two triangles intersecting. Manifested in landscape.
This was the Sri Chakra sambar of the kavana ascribed to Naro Pada Naropa, which has no attested Sanskrit witness.
So this could perhaps be a reflection of the places where Naropa and Marpa were staying,
the kinds of pitas, the kind of yogini they were encountering. But this is not known.
And this is just a guess that it's possible this could be an apocryphal text.
Um, but this is just something that needs to be looked into.
So this whole idea of this Marni Stone here, uh, this one is, in fact,
the residence of actual Buddha, which is directly in front of the Saint Yogini site.
Because the Mani stone from which she emerged from is actually hidden underneath the temple.
But when they did the temple renovation, I saw it.
You can still see it as an actual stone, uh, but it's usually covered up.
So this one is just as an example. So again, using the money stone, some yogini are born from pietas and some are innate Sahaja Yogis.
So I would say that, uh, when I say born from Peethas, these are the pizzas that are already established as a system within the process of mandala.
Mandala modernisation of an area such as the larger Indic scheme,
or smaller and smaller schemes ranging from the Kathmandu Valley to each individual town.
And I'll show you how that works.
But the Sahaja Yogis are seeming to be, um, these ones that are associated with the money stones, association with money.
The money stone does not limit the activity to one site.
But these places of meeting transmitted in local histories have have historically been established as newer temple sites.
So, for example, then we have a city at the city vegetarian,
who is having this encounter with yogini or Ayyavazhi yogini meaning meaning that she's just a Buddhist.
You get yogini of some kind at Sanchi, where the the temple is established and where the his whole lineage of Acharya Nura was established.
Then we have the example of Vajra Pada at this at near Swayambhu, at the roundly smashing the cremation ground there.
That's just down from Swayambhu. And you have the, the video, Shruti Bhartiya Yogini is there and we have his whole encounter there,
and he actually remained for his entire life at that cremation ground.
And then you have the newer Badri temple, the yogini parking and the experiences of, of Naropa there.
So all of these sites became established yogini sites that began with the initial encounter.
And in many cases, you will see at these sites that there is at least one mani stone.
made by Bodhisattva tells an account of how Vajra Yogini spontaneously emerged from the Mani stone.
Here we can see the actual account that we'll just look at very quickly.
So this is again from the Mani Shiloh. And the stone is a massive and flat stone that's located under the shrine.
It says at that time I was the bodhisattva called Maharaja during the serving.
During this time in Nepal. There was a lake. It was huge.
There was Himalayan mountains and one of them is the Multitude Mountain. Up on this mountain there emerged to Mani stone.
It blazed and sparkled from a hole. In the middle of this massive and wide stone emerged the glorious goddess.
Eugenie. She took the form of a divine flame.
And we can see in our Buddhism how the relationship of the of the fire to the yogini.
This is something I noted just while reading that there.
Actually, Datu masala is considered the heart of Udayana, and I don't know if, um, the Tibetan studies scholars have seen this in the Tibetan sources,
but I thought it was very interesting that there's also a Datu Mala located or localised at Sanchi.
I thought that was kind of interesting. Beside note.
And here we have the account of liberation of Washoe City at Saku, um, along with his wife Gana Devi.
So here we can see kind of an account of encounter.
While Acharya and his wife were singing a sutra, Genie became kindly disposed and splendours rays of light shone forth from her body.
She transformed into a blazing fire.
It was a fire that encircled her body, but was no longer, but then became no longer visible and or her form became no longer visible.
Rather. And she was completely composed of fire. How can one, how can one describe this wondrous light?
It blazed just like a fire. It was neither hot nor cold.
A beautiful conflagration of flames. So the story goes on.
And they eventually merge with this fire, um, of the yogini disappear.
And as we can see from the the title of this chapter, which is CD given, uh, uh,
so this is the story of the liberation in the single life of the sage and the avatar CD.
And now, in addition to these kind of individual yogini pizza sites, we have the the classic 24 abodes,
which are also referred to as pizzas, which are sub classified into ten special types of places.
So many of us are familiar with this, but just to review, we have the pizza,
the category of pizzas proper, which is the the category under which the place of Udayana was included.
So then the Himalaya, as we see down here, is considered to be in the one that's in Nepal.
So in terms of the schematic of the larger chakras and bar Environment of the we.
We know that of the existence of Himalaya, which is equated to Nepal, and then Udayana, which was equated to the Swat Valley.
So we have this kind of vast and sprawling conceptualisation.
We have the meeting places, the cemeteries, um, all of these, um, kind of requisite parts of the chakra,
sambhar mandala and many of which you can see behind me here from this, uh, this neighbour tanka chakra, sambar and bajra yogini.
But how are they in placed at this site?
So scholar and vegetarian, um, the main military, uh, uh,
for many of the lineages and and student of Badri Ratna Vajra charity has said that Vajra chariots involved in Bodhisattva chariot activities.
So the the body set for activities.
Create at least one chakra wherever they settle and construct a vihara there for the proper propagation of Buddhism.
So we can see.
So obviously Padmasambhava is also practising the bodhisattva area, and so it's expected that the Bhattacharya will establish at least one chakra,
at least one mandala, including the body speech and mind mandalas wherever they reside.
So we can see it's basically connected to the yogic practitioner.
So with, uh, so here, uh, this is a fabulous diagram given by Naresh and Bhattacharya, and we can see the location,
um, in proximity to each other, um, of all of the 24 sacred States which fall into those ten subcategories,
and with the red dot being the general location of Udayana and the blue dot being the location of Himalaya,
which is equated basically to either all of Nepal, the Kathmandu Valley, and in.
In one instance, as we'll see with the actual Greek fari, a site at Pashupatinath.
So we have this. Oh, and just to see here.
So this, uh, site in Himalaya is called the subcategory of Kandahar.
So upper Kandahar, um, near Kandahar, sometimes it's called.
So let's look at how this Particular site manifests within this configuration of the modernisation.
And we have Tibetan accounts, Nepalese accounts and newer accounts of this site.
So here is one Tibetan account of Nepal as a whole, as the one Grand Pita of Upper Kandahar, of Himalaya.
So from the death and I didn't in the future, I need to include all of the different source texts but in the translation, but in the Tibetan text.
But anyhow, we have from the deathless nectar for the ear of the people, of the land of snows.
A guide to the Sacred sites of Nepal. The magnificent land of near Kandahar.
Well, this is what Nima is saying when he describes Nepal wrathful husband and wife Tamar and glorious Haruka abiding together with him,
where clouds of darkness and tackiness gather through abiding in great primordial wisdom,
the sacred sites and subsidiary places inhabited by the mandalas of the worldly gods were converted, as were the lands and subsidiary lands.
Subsidiary lands Zhengzhou subsidiary Tongzhou, the charnel ground,
subsidiary charnel grounds and so forth to the basis and those supported I pay homage stories I
heard about qualities and the power of listening to those stories is like that of a great universe,
because these places are endowed with such power. The stories of near Kandahar in Nepal are like a rosary of rays of light.
Upon the peak of the eastern mountain, a ornament to the ears of the people of the land of snows, the great land of near Chon, Doha.
This is a region of Nepal and it's a great sacred site which is primordial, primordial, established, and where doctors and kiddies naturally gather.
Now, the Tibetan texts tend to dwell on Doc as Indochinese, whereas the newer text seem to speak most often of yogis.
So then we have, uh. So the Tibetan conceptualisation of the pitta Doha is referring to Nepal as a whole.
So then we have the idea of a further localised Upper Caqueta,
which is at the very Pashupatinath Pashupatinath site on the actual hill there in Japan.
So the British Fairy Temple on the Bagmati River is a famous Shakti pitta associated with the descent of sorts.
So we can see kind of the dynamic of this, uh, the reinterpret,
the the kind of picture which is a reinterpretation and the fact that this is totally not problematic for newer Buddhists.
This very site represents two different things.
The the actual pita site of Doha Himalaya within the grand scheme, the place where Viracocha and deity reside.
But it also is the site and the sacred pitta of the Buddhist yogini Naga of the Hey Vajra Tantra,
which is also located and in place in the Nepal Mandala.
It just depends on which basic practice the yoga is doing,
and this site is to is to be visited for privacy for pizza Siva and is the topic of the chariot, the $3 Camelot.
This is such a beautiful chariot. Um, and we can look at it sometime.
Hopefully. But for Tibetans, this same site is interpreted as the pilgrimage site of Azure Varahi, known as Pokemon.
So we see there's a non problematic overlap of sites and interpretations based on the practice of the yogic practitioner.
And I think that's why we can for sure say that, uh, Padmasambhava was from Udayana, so Udayana surely was at the site.
So now I've gone. I've. I've included the whole translation of the tree to Kamala here, just to see that it showed that it includes Veera Patra Devi.
It includes, um, a description.
Um, so this has an accompanying, uh,
dance as well in practice that's associated with it and it's carried out at certain times at this site at Greyish Fairy.
So here we also have a Tibetan account of the actual fairy pizza as part two.
So so so. This is from a Gurung Lama close to Pashupati Ghulam, which is called Ghulam in Tibetan.
On the north bank of the Bagmati river is Gujarati. This site is the site of the Devi or Uma and is known to Tibetans as the water of his womb.
At this site, generations of kings of Nepal, they established the temple,
a beautiful temple and at the centre um, there is a support in the shape of a female birthing place.
So this would be in the Tibetan. This would be the name, a place which is self arisen at the centre of her secret place.
All two wallet water streams forth. So it's a spring. It overflows into a pool.
In recent times there's been an eight petalled lotus lid fashioned placed over top of it, and there's a bit of a description here.
Um, but I think the key point here is that this very site, um, this very specific site, which is considered the vulva of Varahi,
is interpreted as that of the one to be tamed, so that of the one to be subjugated or reinterpreted,
which is the sign of the goddess Uma Devi, um,
and that of the one and that of the one who does the taming being the secret sky of the mother of the victors and the adamantine sound Vajra.
Varahi. So this is just a perspective on how that works.
And we can see just the smaller local, uh, Mandala mandala of the Kathmandu Valley.
So Lalitpur has its own mandala with pitas, Bhaktapur,
Madhupur also um in all the various uh newer lineages, and we also have uh associated with Sanchi itself.
We have a whole list that's included in the Shalimar video of all of the the pitas located in Sanchi and in Kantipur according to Naraka and area.
And this is Narasimhan Bhattacharya himself, uh, working on a stone powder mandala.
This is a of the five Buddhas, not of Sri Yogini, but just to show that in its artistic, uh, depiction.
So anyhow, so now we've looked a bit at, um,
the idea of what appetite is and where Buddhism and what we might know then about
how it's interpreted within the kind of scheme of Brahmanical religions and
the kind of culture of Sanskrit Buddhism I keep including this picture to which
is because there's always mention of the pitta and the three petalled lotus.
And this is actually the mantra of um Raja yogini in the, um, patchouli script.
So now I just want to take a few minutes here. We've gone on quite a bit about, um, the account of Udayan Acharya as the Lord's guru, uh, in Nepal.
So I haven't been able to find many accounts yet. I'm working on it, and I know that there are many more.
But what we will see here is something which is quite unfamiliar To the kind of Lotus born guru Guru Rinpoche.
Accounts and stories that we hear of.
From the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. So it's it's quite interesting and entertaining.
So we have this account, um. Spoken by Maitreya Bodhisattva, who paid reverence and requested Jayasimha, Lord Buddha.
Oh, Lord, we wish you listened to the Gandhara Vita raga mahatmya.
So the Vita raga are also these sacred sites that are connected with bodhisattvas that were established in the valley.
May you grant the permission for this story. So it starts.
Udayan Acharya having established a Vani Keshava, Vishakha made a decision to accomplish the eight Perfections or the eight accomplishments Ashta CD.
Uh. And they have some, uh. What are these in the. In Tibetan?
Okay. I'll come to that later. These are the the the general accomplishments.
So, uh, of the yogic. Um, Sid does. So he proceeded north, uh.
And climbed up above the Kacha Parbat mountain, donning the skin of an elephant.
He sat on the seat of Kusha grass and raised 30, raised a 32 petaled lotus, uh, sorry,
32 petaled umbrella as a practice of tapas while performing 32 million offerings with devotion.
In this way he continued the practice of spiritual austerity, but resided, um, but residing there at the same mountain.
Ganesha noticed that he was not included at that time, and he climbed up to the top of the mountain and saw that the Lord, having not invited him,
had even invited Indra and all the gods,
but having already completed devotional prayers and the offering of the feast, they had already taken their leave.
So we have this kind of interaction between Acharya and Ganesha.
So the question that will come up in my mind is, is that when I ask, uh,
my newer Buddhist friends and is like, Who is Padmasambhava in the newer tradition?
Oh, we have, uh, Odeon Acharya. Odeon Acharya does all of these things, but it seems so different.
Um, so you have to wonder, is this the same figure? Is this a different perspective, a different lineage?
So you have this interaction of Odeon Acharya with Ganesha and and what happens.
So so he's very upset that he wasn't invited to the feast.
At that time. Okay.
And then what happens? Oh, I'm not sure if I have that.
Or maybe I didn't include the rest of the story, but what happens is that Ganesha becomes angry.
Um, he says, okay, even you're even sitting on this elephant skin and you're just you're disgracing me and you're embarrassing me.
But then somebody else arrives and says, what are you doing?
You're distracting the great Indian acharya from accomplishing his Ashta CDs, and, um, kind of reprimands Ganesh.
So you have these accounts that occur in this film.
So we have this little image of this famous Purana.
So this is a very fairly late text, but this is basically the glorification of the entire, um, Kathmandu Valley.
And it's linked to the establishment of this frame and the idea and you also have the stories
of all of the bodhisattvas and saints who perform their deeds in the Kathmandu Valley.
So we have in the fifth chapter quite a few stories of Odia Acharya from this text.
This text is probably from the 14th or 15th century.
But you know, it's it's always various layers of combined text, so it's hard.
Um, you know, as Kathi always says, to really put a date on a text because it's layers and layers of combine.
So then just to point out that the Gandhara raga is associated with the Pieta of Jala Vinayak Vinayaka of Jala Vinayaka.
Okay, so to take a quick look at the second story here from the uh, the Swayambhu Purana,
uh O Maitri Bodhisattva Acharya reached near this time he reached near the mountain, and he sat on a small mound blowing his conch.
Chanting mantras, meditating and performing japa and tapas.
The sound of the conch blown by acarya, was heard by the compassionate Lord residing in Sukhothai,
and having heard the sound and understood everything through his samadhi yoga,
he summoned the Bodhisattva and requested the Garbha Bodhisattva go to Nepal Mandala
to the mountain where Odia acharya is performing his tapas and liberate him.
So there's this whole story of Bodhisattva. He manifested from the conch shell.
And seeing this thought, Acharya thought, how fortunate am I today?
My birth has become meaningful. My aspirations will come to fruition.
And saying this, Odia Acharya worshipped Garbha Bodhisattva in various ways with devotion and recited stotra and prayers.
At this time, the bodhisattva proclaimed O. dear, oh dear.
Blessed is your penance.
By your merit, you have thereby attained the Ashta cities, so that I will thereby leave a part of my radiance here illuminated on this large stone.
So again, this so many different and iconic representations there, the bodhisattvas look again.
Oh, Diana, just as I said, the eight bodies of us have already manifested in this Nepal mandala in the form of renunciation.
So you have these kind of accounts which are so different,
but are also definitely of interest and not to be ignored in the grand scheme of the study of Udayana, Padmasambhava and Tibet.
And I'll be interested to see what else we come up with.
My conclusions are basically that the the concept of pittas were and are an absolute necessity for the Vasilyevna yoga.
So basically, uh, perpetuating them, creating them, encountering them, and having the encounters with these,
um, either female beings or an iconic beings at these sites is absolutely necessary.
So they will be wherever the Vajrayana yoga is. And there was a targeted practice in pilgrimage worship at these pitas across Nepal,
um, which may have been something that's shared with the an idea of Ludhiana.
Accounts and songs about the poets are popular among Newari Buddhists.
May help us to imagine, um, what Diana may have been like as a place,
or perhaps what is a state of liberation and awakening conclusions about the figure.
The same figure are not, but not foregrounded, and they were a Buddhist history and culture in the early stages, uh,
although in the later stages, of course, associated with major and Applebee's sites and Roebling, the Bagel and Mellon and so on and so forth.
Um, perhaps there was a prevalence of similar cities or so many similar cities in Nepal from an early period.
If you read the stories, it just seems like on every hilltop there's a siddha who is congregating with yogis and becoming enlightened.
So it seems like this was fairly common and but, um, but who knows.
It's very interesting. And I thank you again, um, for this wonderful opportunity.
And this is, of course, the Vajra, the den Vajra peta.
A little picture of that that I included in the final slide. So thank you, everybody.
I'm sorry for going on for so long, and I look forward to your questions.
And, um. Yeah.
Meeting further.