VAJRAYANA AND LATER INDIAN BUDDHISM 131teacher's ability to identify the students' problems and understand their karmic
source; manipulate them through personal, often striking interaction; and
use charisma to overcome blocks that students could not surmount them-
selves. Thus they embodied the Vajrayana vision of the union of wisdom and
compassion.
By the late eleventh century, the center of the movement seems to have
shifted to the Pala empire. Abhayadatta, writing at that time, recorded the ha-
giographies of 84 of the siddhas called The Legends of the Eighty1our Mahasid-
dhas, most of whom were natives of the northeast (Strong EB, sec. 5.5.7).
These individuals came from all stations oflife, much as in earlier Buddhist
times. Among them were former kings, princes, monks, and brahmins; the
wealthy and poor; the handsome, ugly, young, and aged. Many came from
such despised occupations as clothes washer, rag scavenger, beggar, cowherd,
weaver, cobbler, fisherman, pearl diver, rope maker, bird catcher, hunter, and
smith. Some were even thieves. Those who came from higher castes were usu-
ally required to take on low-caste occupations as a way of subduing their caste
pride.
Typically in these legends, the potential siddha faces a personal crisis, be-
coming aware of the tedium of sarp.sara. Troubled, he/she may go to a crema-
tion ground for respite or, during a visit by a wandering mendicant-yogin or
<;lakin!, request teaching. The teacher directly addresses the karmic knot caus-
ing the person's distress and sings a verse stating the appropriate counteractive.
When the person responds appropriately to the song, the teacher gives initia-
tion into a sadhana (Vajrayana practice). Some students attain realization im-
mediately, but most practice from 6 months to 12 years to erase their
defilements. Their ~ttainment is termed mahamudra (the great seal or stance).
In Unexcelled Yoga, this stands for the state of innate bliss attained at the cli-
max of the practice; in the context of these hagiographies it includes both the
Awakening to the state of nonduality and the gaining of mundane psychic
powers, which the initiates then use during their long careers as siddhas. They
spend the rest of their lives (sometimes up to seven hundred years or more) in
selfless service to untold numbers ofbeings. Finally, they usually are said to
rise, often in bodily form and with their disciples, to the Paradise of the
:Qakini:s, a Pure Land presided over by a female Buddha. These <;lakini:s and
their Paradise are a Vajrayana innovation, but they may have their origins in
pre-Aryan traditions.
An interesting study in contrasts is offered by the story of Naropa
(1016-1100), whom the Tibetan Kagyii sects (see Section 11.2.2) recognize as
the source of their lineage. In their version of his life, he is a Bengali brahmin
of towering intellectual gifts who becomes the abbot of Nalanda university,
only to be chastised by a <;lakin! in a vision for knowing nothing of what he
taught. As a result of the vision, he leaves his monastic position and finds his
guru only after enduring visions that undermine such conventional attitudes
as honesty, humanity, and purity. As part of his training, he suffers further acts
of humiliation, including being forced to steal delicacies from a wedding feast
and getting caught for the theft, for which he is subsequently beaten to within