132 CHAPTER SIXan inch of his life. These humiliations form his initiation, putting his mind in
the proper state to receive his teacher's more subtle instructions. In Abhaya-
datta's version of the story, however, Naropa is a simple Kashmiri woodcutter
who attends to his guru for many years, receiving instruction only after hav-
ing proven his full devotion to the guru by a successful theft from the wedding
feast. These two versions of the story demonstrate how the content of hagio-
graphicalliterature can be shaped by the purposes of the authors and the ex-
pectations of their intended audiences.
Although most of the siddha legends center on men, a closer look reveals
that many of the male siddhas had female teachers or received transmissions of
texts and practices innovated by women. Without the formal restrictions of
monastic Buddhism, women were free to practice on their own and innovated
many new forms, including female Buddhas, female yoga practices, yogini
man<;l~las, and Vajrayanic feasts led by women for women. Only those men
who knew the secret etiquette for approaching such secret female practition-
ers could apprentice themselves to them and join in their rituals.
In the ninth or tenth century, Saraha, Kalfha, and Tilopa, natives of north-
eastern India, took the process of inversion inherent in the Tantric movement
one step further by denouncing the use ofTantras in favor of completely spon-
taneous action. This movement is sometimes called the Sahajayana (natural or
spontaneous vehicle). Sahaja denotes the world of freedom naturally born (ja)
with every moment (saha), thus indicating that every moment offers the op-
portunity to realize the absolute (Strong EB, sec. 5.5.6). Their songs, using al-
lusive "twilight language" sung to folk tunes, couched spiritual messages in a
form that spoke deeply to people on all levels of society. Recorded in the In-
dian literary vernacular AP,abhraq1sa, these songs became very popular.
Saraha originally had been a Hindu brahmin priest, but became a Bud-
dhist monk with a propensity to drink. Once, while he was in a drunken stu-
por, a bodhisattva appeared to him, directing him to seek out a low-caste
female arrow maker. At their first meeting, she presented him with the image
of her humble craft: making arrows that had to be perfectly straight. Using
two eyes (dualistic vision), she could not straighten the shaft, but using one
eye (nonduality), she could. Saraha immediately intuited her message, aban-
doned his monastic status, and became her disciple and companion, taking on
her low caste and occupation as a way of expressing his transcendence of dual-
ism. In one ofhis songs, he declared: "Here there's no beginning, no middle,
no end, no saq1sara, no nirval).a. In this state of supreme bliss, there's no self
and no other." For him, the Awakened person was beyond good and evil, Path
and attainment.
6.3.5 Mainstream Monastic VajrayanaThe question of how these antinomian movements related to the mainstream
Buddhist tradition was controversial right from their inception. Most Bud-
dhists reportedly rejected these practices, whereas a minority found justifica-
tion for them in the teachings of Madhyamika and Yogacara. The issue