of Buddhism (snga dar) in Tibet. Rin chen bzang po’s
return to Mnga’ ris after his travels in India is the tra-
ditional date for the beginning of the second spread
(sphyi dar) of Buddhism.
According to hagiographical accounts, late in his life
Ye shes ’od told his son Byang chub ’od (Changchub ö,
984–1078) to invite Atisha, then the foremost Indian
Buddhist scholar, to help further the spread of Bud-
dhism in Tibet. Atisha accepted the invitation and ar-
rived in Mnga’ ris in 1042. He never returned to India,
traveling and teaching extensively before his death in
central Tibet in 1054.
In western Tibet Atisha collaborated with Rin chen
bzang po on Tibetan translations of PRAJN
APARAMITA
LITERATURE. Atisha later collaborated in central Tibet
with Nag mtsho tshul khrims rgyal ba (Nagtso
Tsultrim gyalwa) on Tibetan translations of many fun-
damental texts of the Madhayamaka (Middle Way). Of
his many Tibetan disciples the most important is
’Brom ston rgyal ba’i byung gnas (Dromtön Chökyi
jungnay, 1008–1064), who founded Rva sgreng (Ret-
ing), the first monastery of the Bka’ gdams (Kadam)
sect. The Bka’ gdams, which evolved into the DGE LUG
(GELUK) or Yellow Hat sect, is the Tibetan sect with
which the name of Atisha is most closely associated.
Among Atisha’s best known works is his Byang chub
sgron me(Lamp for the Path), taught soon after arriv-
ing in Tibet. In it he classifies practitioners of Bud-
dhism into three types (those of lesser, middling, and
superior capacities), and he stresses the importance of
a qualified guru, the need for a solid foundation of
morality, the central place of Mahayana altruism, and
an understanding of ultimate reality. He also sets forth
the practice of TANTRAas a powerful technique for
quickly reaching enlightenment. Atisha’s works influ-
enced all the later Tibetan Buddhist sects (BKA’ BRGYUD,
SA SKYA, and Dge lugs). Some later Dge lugs writers, in-
fluenced by TSONG KHA PA’s Lam rim chen mo(Stages
of the Path to Enlightenment,written in 1403) projected
onto the historical Atisha a mythical perfect guru who
became for them the symbol of their exclusive form of
monasticism and scholastic learning.
See also:Tibet
Bibliography
Chattopadhyaya, Alaka. Atis ́a and Tibet.Calcutta: Indian Stud-
ies Past and Present, 1967.
Eimer, Helmut. Rnam thar rgyas pa: Materialien zu eine Bi-
ographie der Atis ́a(Dlpam ̇karas ́rljñana). Wiesbaden, Ger-
many: Harrassowitz, 1979.
Sherburne, Richard, trans. The Complete Works of Atis ́a
S ́rlDlpam ̇kara Jñana.New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 2000.
GARETHSPARHAMAVADANAAs a genre of Buddhist literature, the Sanskrit term
avadana(Pali, apadana; Chinese, piyu; Tibetan, rtogs
par brjod pa’s sde) denotes a narrative of an individ-
ual’s religiously significant deeds. Often these narra-
tives constitute full-fledged religious biographies,
sometimes of eminent monastics, sometimes of ordi-
nary lay disciples. The avadanasportray, frequently
with thematic and narrative complexity, concrete hu-
man actions that embody the truths propounded in
the doctrine (dharma) and the discipline (VINAYA).
Avadanasrange from formulaic tales that simply
dramatize the workings of KARMA(ACTION) and the ef-
ficacy of FAITHand devotion, to fantastical adventure
stories, to the sophisticated art of virtuosi poets. Like
modern novels and short stories, avadanasoffer some-
thing for every taste. The avadanaliterature draws on
diverse sources: actual lives, the biography of the Bud-
dha and tales of his former births (JATAKA), biograph-
ical accounts in the canonical literature, and the vast,
pan-Indian store of secular story-literature. Indian
Buddhists composed avadanasfrom about the second
century B.C.E. to the thirteenth century C.E. Thereafter,
Buddhists elsewhere in Asia continued the tradition.
In India and beyond, avadanastories also inspired nar-
rative painting.
Structurally, avadanas,like jatakas(which came to
be considered a subcategory of avadana), consist of a
story of the present (pratyutpannavastu), a story of the
past (atltavastu), and a juncture (samavadhana) in
which the narrator, always the Buddha or another en-
lightened saint, identifies characters in the past as for-
mer births of characters in the present. For the story
of the past, some avadanassubstitute a prediction
(vyakarana) of the protagonist’s spiritual destiny.
The earliest avadanas, like the Apadanaand the
Sthavlravadana(ca. second century B.C.E.), are autobi-
ographical narratives in verse attributed to the Bud-
dha’s immediate disciples. In contrast, biographical
anthologies from the first to the fourth centuries C.E.,
such as the AVADANAS ́ATAKA(A Hundred Glorious
Deeds), Karmas ́ataka(A Hundred Karma Tales), and
DIVYAVADANA(Heavenly Exploits), are in mixed prose
and verse and feature a much wider range of charac-AVADANA