The Spread of Buddhism

the buddhist way into tibet 319

to cope with the dangers and vicissitudes of everyday life that for the
common people was determined and in uenced by various demonic
powers that had to be dealt with. Soteriological issues were relevant
in monastic circles where the individual salvation from the cycle of
existences and the attainment of buddhahood became increasingly
important. Both these divergent aspects found adequate expressions
in the emphasis on the mahsiddha type of Buddhist saint and in the
standardisation of the translation language which expressed the high
degree of philosophical sophistication the Tibetan Buddhists had already
reached in these early times.

6.3. Padmasambhava: Mahsiddha and Folk-hero

In order to propagate the Buddhist dharma, a way had to be found to
explain the abstract philosophy of Buddhism in terms the people could
easily understand. The problem of understanding in Tibetan sources
is dealt with in the narrative of the sojourn of Padmasambhava, the
Tantric master from U iyna, today’s Swat area of Northern Pakistan,
who according to legend was asked by ntarakita to come to Tibet
and help convert the Tibetan people to Buddhism:

Once upon the time, when the bCom ldan ’das^25 was dwelling in the

world, there was no one among all the gods and the nga of ’Dzam bu

gling^26 who was not bound by the order of the Buddha. However, in

this land of Tibet gods and nga have escaped [from] control and seem

to have prevented the bTsan po from practicing the holy doctrine. At

present, nobody in ’Dzam bu gling possesses greater powers in the use

of the mantra than the mkhan po of U rgyan, called Pad ma sa[m] bha ba.

[.. .] If most of the wicked gods and nga are subdued, bound by oath

and  rmly instructed, the land will become peaceful.^27

The rGyal-rabs-gsal-ba’i-me-long, written nearly three centuries later, is
even more explicit:

In order to bind the ’Dre and Srin by oath, the Teacher Padmasambhava

was invited from the land of U-rgyan, whereafter he bound the ’Dre and

Srin of Tibet by oath.^28

(^25) Tibetan for Sanskrit bhagavn, an epithet of the Buddha.
(^26) Sanskrit Jambudvpa, our world in Buddhist cosmology.
(^27) dBa’-bzhed, fol. 11v, see Wangdu & Diemberger 2000, p. 54.
(^28) rGyal-rabs-gsal-ba’i-me-long, p. 204 (lines 1–3). The ’dre and srin are two classes of
Tibetan local demons.