The life and works of the mysterious Indian yogin, Saraha, who has inspired Buddhist practitioners for over a thousand years.
Saraha, “the Archer,” was a mysterious but influential tenth-century Indian Buddhist tantric adept who expressed his spiritual realization in mystic songs (dohās) that are enlightening, shocking, and confounding by turns. Saraha’s poetic verses made the esoteric ideas and practices of Vajrayāna accessible to a wide audience on the Indian subcontinent and served as a basis for the exposition, in Tibet, of mahāmudrā, the great-seal meditation on the nature of mind that permeates every tradition of Buddhism on the Tibetan plateau.
This is the first book to attempt a thorough treatment of the context, life, works, poetics, and teachings of Saraha. It features a search for the “historical” Saraha through evidence provided by our knowledge of the medieval Indian context in which he likely lived, the biographical legends that grew up around him in Tibet, and the works attributed to him in Indic and Tibetan text collections; a consideration of the various guises in which Saraha appears in his writings (as poet, social and religious critic, radical gnostic thinker, and more); an overview of Saraha’s poetic and religious legacy in South Asia and beyond; and complete or partial translations, from Tibetan, of over two dozen works attributed to Saraha. These include nearly all his spiritual songs, from his well-known Dohā Trilogy to obscure but important expositions of mahāmudrā, as well as several previously untranslated works.
“After the Buddha himself, there is hardly a more important Indian figure among the legendary sources of the Tibetan meditative tradition than Saraha, the arrow maker, the radish eater, the father of mahāmudrā. And yet he remains among the most elusive. In this nonbiography, Roger Jackson . . . compensates by providing a vast treasury of any, and maybe all, relevant information. This includes an instructive survey of India and its contemplative religions, the origins of tantra, brief life stories, and an exhaustive list of literature attributed to Saraha. Finally, it is perhaps in Jackson’s profound analyses of some of Saraha’s lyrics that we come closest to sensing the real person.” —Sarah Harding, author of Niguma, Lady of Illusion
“There have been relatively few academic examinations of [Saraha’s] full body of work and its ongoing legacy. With Saraha: Poet of Blissful Awareness, Jackson presents the first thorough treatment of Saraha’s context, life, works, poetics, and teachings, including new translations of nearly all of Saraha’s dohas, or spontaneous songs.” —Tricycle
ROGER R. JACKSON is a Professor Emeritus of Asian Studies and Religion at Carleton College. He has nearly fifty years of experience studying and practicing Buddhism and has authored numerous books on Indian and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, meditation, and ritual.
The life and works of the mysterious Indian yogin, Saraha, who has inspired Buddhist practitioners for over a thousand years.
Saraha, “the Archer,” was a mysterious but influential tenth-century Indian Buddhist tantric adept who expressed his spiritual realization in mystic songs (dohās) that are enlightening, shocking, and confounding by turns. Saraha’s poetic verses made the esoteric ideas and practices of Vajrayāna accessible to a wide audience on the Indian subcontinent and served as a basis for the exposition, in Tibet, of mahāmudrā, the great-seal meditation on the nature of mind that permeates every tradition of Buddhism on the Tibetan plateau.
This is the first book to attempt a thorough treatment of the context, life, works, poetics, and teachings of Saraha. It features a search for the “historical” Saraha through evidence provided by our knowledge of the medieval Indian context in which he likely lived, the biographical legends that grew up around him in Tibet, and the works attributed to him in Indic and Tibetan text collections; a consideration of the various guises in which Saraha appears in his writings (as poet, social and religious critic, radical gnostic thinker, and more); an overview of Saraha’s poetic and religious legacy in South Asia and beyond; and complete or partial translations, from Tibetan, of over two dozen works attributed to Saraha. These include nearly all his spiritual songs, from his well-known Dohā Trilogy to obscure but important expositions of mahāmudrā, as well as several previously untranslated works.
Reviews
“After the Buddha himself, there is hardly a more important Indian figure among the legendary sources of the Tibetan meditative tradition than Saraha, the arrow maker, the radish eater, the father of mahāmudrā. And yet he remains among the most elusive. In this nonbiography, Roger Jackson . . . compensates by providing a vast treasury of any, and maybe all, relevant information. This includes an instructive survey of India and its contemplative religions, the origins of tantra, brief life stories, and an exhaustive list of literature attributed to Saraha. Finally, it is perhaps in Jackson’s profound analyses of some of Saraha’s lyrics that we come closest to sensing the real person.” —Sarah Harding, author of Niguma, Lady of Illusion
“There have been relatively few academic examinations of [Saraha’s] full body of work and its ongoing legacy. With Saraha: Poet of Blissful Awareness, Jackson presents the first thorough treatment of Saraha’s context, life, works, poetics, and teachings, including new translations of nearly all of Saraha’s dohas, or spontaneous songs.” —Tricycle
Author
ROGER R. JACKSON is a Professor Emeritus of Asian Studies and Religion at Carleton College. He has nearly fifty years of experience studying and practicing Buddhism and has authored numerous books on Indian and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, meditation, and ritual.
