RONALD M.

DAVIDSON

REFRAMING SAHAJA: GENRE, REPRESENTATION, RITUAL AND LINEAGE

One of the consequences of the paucity of critical investigations into the early medieval Indian movement known as esoteric Buddhism (Mantrayna, Vajrayna, Mantranaya, etc.) is that we maintain a relaa a tively supercial understanding of its fundamental nomenclature and technical terminology. Despite the plethora of available resources, and even though we enjoy much greater access to living Tibetan, Japanese and Newar representatives of the movement than ever before, the situation has only slightly improved in recent decades. This essay will attempt to address questions about the semantic value and ritual history of a term that, for a while, was central to the modern understanding of later Indian Mantrayna, but which unfortunately has been bypassed in a more contemporary discussions. This term is sahaja, which Tibetans have translated as simultaneously born (lhan cig skyes pa), and whose treatment in Indological literature has not fully engaged central questions concerning Buddhist intellectual and ritual history. One important reason for this state of affairs has been the totalizing response of modern scholarship to issues of Buddhist ritual and its hermeneutics, so that the differentiation into specic traditions has been under emphasized. While scholarship on the Indian Vinaya systems and the early Mahayana has rectied this tendency to some degree and though great strides in scholarship on East Asian Buddhist traditions have been taken Indian esoteric systems have not been so thoroughly explored. Sometimes this results from a method that takes cues from the surviving Sanskrit archive without consideration of the traditional Indian historical materials preserved in Tibetan or Chinese. Consequently, scholars have tended to amalgamate esoteric ritual theory and practice into a collective statement about Tantric Buddhism as a whole. Certainly, a broad overview is appropriate in certain venues, and it has yielded especially good results when focused on general attitudes or social groupings. However, technical vocabulary is often traditiondependent and demonstrates a great variation across systems and over time. Thus, the doctrinal and philosophical architecture developed in a single or small number of esoteric Buddhist traditions during the early
Journal of Indian Philosophy 30: 4583, 2002. c 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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medieval period of India has been sometimes taken as applicable to a much broader spectrum of literature and ritual. As a consequence of this response, the topography of Vajrayna has been obscured, so a that our understanding of idiomatic constructions, local usage, lineal importance, and a host of other concerns has not been facilitated. In some ways this is understandable in the case of Indian Mantrayna: a the bewildering varieties of nomenclature, the extraordinary number of personalities, the social and political backgrounds, are often depicted by hagiographical literature as uid and all encompassing. Its literature represents the personalities of esoteric saints in an extreme and ctive manner, so there has been little sense of historical security about the siddhas who are said to live for centuries, y through the air, and live on essences. Our uncertainty is particularly true for personalities found in the problematic collection that has been strongly emphasized, the Hagiographies of the Eighty-four Siddhas (Caturastisiddhapravrtti) . attributed to Abhayadattar, and almost equally true for data from the s 1608 CE annals of Trantha. Other and in many ways better sources a a exist, however, especially those dedicated to single lineages addressing a specic series of practices.1 Indeed, the convergence of terminology and lineal hagiographies may in some instances provide us with a focused representation of how their practices and its nomenclature came into being. Sahaja is, in fact, a good test case for the manner in which esoteric Buddhist technical terminology, developed in one environment, moved into others, and was sometimes held at bay and sometimes surreptitiously appropriated in disparate venues. However, our study is probematized by instances of individuals receiving multiple lineages. Yet their observed tendency in many cases is to respect the discourse specic to a system while working in that ideological arena. We must be wary, though, for such discipline is not universally observed, especially as terminology drifts from its temporal and spatial origins. Thus, liation and synthesis can be better mapped if we also pay attention to how a term is employed in specic environments and apparently excluded from others. It is my proposal that sahaja was a preclassical word that became employed in scholastic, particularly Yogcra, literature as an adjective a a describing conditions natural or, less frequently, essential with respect to circumstances encountered in an embodied state. It appears as a a technical term with Buddhajnnapda, who used it in his explanation a of the Guhyasamaja Tanta ritual system, probably in the rst quarter of the ninth century CE. Sahaja became most denitively discussed as a member of four joys in the Hevajra Tantra in the late ninth or early

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tenth century its allied works and their commentarial literature, ritual manuals, and related exegesis. It became employed in the songs of certain doha and Caryagti poets, and serves to localize their contributions into the ninth century or later, so that the study of esoteric Buddhist ritual nomenclature can make an important contribution to historical linguistics when, as in this case, the authors were Buddhists. While sahaja eventually was articulated as a technical term to identify the culminating experience of sexual practice an activity preceding the use of sahaja as a descriptive by approximately a century for Buddhists the term took on increasing philosophical importance in the Hevajra environment. At the same time, many other lineages, especially the Arya tradition of the Guhyasamaja and several Samvara systems, . remained relatively immune to its augmented status. Later, perhaps in the tenth century, the term becomes appropriated by one of several persons using the name Indrabhuti. His system and interpretation served further to increase sahajas importance to specic representatives of the esoteric persuasion. By the late tenth or early eleventh century, sahaja became incorporated into the Kalacakra Tantra, and further promoted the development of new doctrines, especially the doctrine of a sahajakaya. Finally, the polysemy of sahaja and its application in different environments means that it might be mapped according to its semantic registers. Because of the complexity of these issues, only a fraction of the material can be presented, and for that I beg the readers indulgence.

I. MODERN SCHOLARSHIP

To my knowledge, the issue of sahaja was rst broached by Cecil . Bendall in his 19031904 edition of the Subhasita-samgraha. This . quite late work is a compilation of later Indian esoteric materials and is actually an excellent marker of important sources for the work classied as yogin-tantra or mahamudra related texts. Yet the anonymous author . of the Subhasita-samgraha contributed to the synthetic or totalizing . direction of scholarship by his version of a Collection of Good Sayings, a genre that does not observe the lineal constraints evident in most other materials.2 Because of the early publication of this collection it was one of the earliest complete Buddhist Sanskrit works published in any venue scholars conceived of the work as a paradigmatic, rather than exceptional, statement of the traditional method of esoteric discourse. In editing the Apabhrama verses in his appendix, Bendall lamented the .s lack of terminological denition, for sahaja is a technical term of later

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Buddhist literature, which has not been as yet explained.3 At the same time, given the parameters of his Victorian age, Bendall responded to the content of the compendium with predictable horror at its erotically charged statements. He seemed to feel he had embarked on a distasteful public service, akin to discussing the physical disabilities of the aged:
Much (perhaps too much, in proportion to the published material) has been written about the glorious and vigorous youth of Indian Buddhism; sometimes about its middle age of scholasticism and philosophy; but next to nothing about the its (sic) decay, decrepitude and dotage, as shown in the Tantra-literature.4 I have printed text, and even, where extant, also commentary on this extraordinary phase of soi-disant Buddhism, thinking it well that scholars at least should know the worst. To me it all reads like an obscene caricature of the teachings both of earlier Buddhism and of legitimate Yoga.5

While I have no intention of providing yet another example of the curiosities of colonial literature, attitudes of this sort obviously complicated the critical examination of the material. However, Bendall established something of a movement, for many subsequent scholars have discussed sahaja in the context of the surviving Prakrit and Apabhrama poetry .s written by specic siddhas. Whereas those in service to the Crown found esoteric Buddhism repulsive, Bengali scholars embraced it as the validation of their own tantric heritage, and quickly afrmed that the language of some of the poems was the earliest surviving material in the Bengali language, an afrmation of regional identity that has not gone unchallenged. The interest in esoteric material was particularly true of the great pioneering scholar Hara Prasad Shastri, who in 1916 published the Bauddha Gan O Doha, the rst of many examinations of the Caryagtikosa and the dohakosas attributed to Tillopda, Saraha, and Knha. It was followed a a. in 1928 by Shahidullahs Les Chants Mystiques, an edition and French translation of the verses attributed to Saraha and Knha. Basing himself a. on the Sanskrit commentaries published by Shastri, Shahidullah was concerned as to whether these two were theists or not, and in the process offered a denition of sahaja:
Dabord on a limpression quils sont distes, parce que Knha parle de Niranjana e a. (str. 1) et Saraha de Paramevara (str. 60, 83). Or, on emploie partout ces deux mots s dans lInde moderne pour dsigner Dieu. Mais le comm. (K. 1) explique niranjana par e sahajakya, le corps de lInn, cest-`-dire ltat de vacuit, cest-`-dire, la vacuit . . . a e a e e a e En fait Knha et Saraha sont tous les deux nihilistes. Comme chez les philosophes a. mdhyamikas, rien nexiste, ni bhava lexistence ni nirvna lanantissement, ni a a. e bhva ltre, ni abhva le non-tre. La vrit est lInn (sahaja), cest-`-dire la a e a e e e e a e vacuit.6

While Shahidullah was relatively careful in his understanding of the context for these compendia, the same cannot be said of all Bengali

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scholars, and the period between the late nineteenth century and the middle of the twentieth saw the manufacture of a whole series of questionable categories for esoteric Buddhism, a process in which some Europeans participated as well. New vehicles were manufactured on the pages of scholars tomes Tantrayna, Klacakrayna, etc. and a a a Sahajayna or Sahajiyyna was not excepted in this rush to coin new a a a terms that to this day remain without an apparent source in medieval Buddhist literature.7 Most likely, this development was the combination of an immature understanding of the literature, a nascent nationalism in India, and the desire to afrm such subsequent phenomena as Sahajiy a Vaisnavism. It is curious that these ctional categories continue to hold .. the attention of researchers, and recent work by various Indian scholars still repeats the bland declaration that such terms have vertical referents in history.8 Such an overwhelming afrmation of sahaja was brought to its culmination in Shashi Bhushan Dasguptas 1946 Obscure Religious Cults, which was concerned with a thorough study of the Buddhist Sahajiy cult, the Vaisnava Sahajiy cult, as well as others to be found a a .. in Bengali literature of different periods.9 Dasgupta understood sahaja as the basis of the school, and engaged in the quaint identication of Buddhist and Saiva conceptual elds.
The Absolute is the Sahaja it is the ultimate reality behind the self and the not-self. The realization of this Sahaja in and through the self and the not-self is the ultimate aim of the Sahajiys. Now, in Sahajiy Buddhism Sunyat (void) and a a a a Karun (compassion), transformed as the Prajn and the Upya, are held to be the a a . two primary attributes of the ultimate reality which is Sahaja. As two aspects of a the ultimate reality Prajn and Upya are conceived in the Buddhist Tantras and in a a Sahajiy Buddhism just as Sakti and Siva of the Hindu Tantric school.10

Again, in his 1950 An Introduction to Tantric Buddhism, Dasgupta indicated the signicance of sahaja, which he continued to ascribe to a Sahajiy or Sahajayna Buddhism: a a
The name Sahaja-yna seems to be doubly signicant; it is Sahaja-yna because, a a its aim is to realize the ultimate innate nature (sahaja) of the self as well as of the dharmas, and it is Sahaja-yna also because of the fact that instead of suppressing a and thereby inicting undue strain on the human nature it makes man realize the truth in the most natural way, i.e., by adopting the path through which the human nature itself leads him. What is natural is easiest; and thus Sahaja, from its primary meaning of being natural acquires the secondary meaning of being easy, straight or plain.11

The emphasis on the doha literature of the medieval siddhas continued to be paramount, and Snellgroves 1954 translation of the poems or songs of Saraha followed closely that of Shahidullah. He also rendered sahaja

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as the Innate, eventually meeting with protests by others, especially H.V. Guenther. Guenthers 1969 translation of Sarahas verses from their Tibetan translation, with comments from an indigenous Tibetan commentary, was extraordinary in some ways. His attentiveness to the Tibetan legacy both afrmed lineal concerns for a positive contribution and reversed the normative historical perspective by privileging Tibetan over Indian interpretations. However, despite a wealth of ancient Tibetan translation materials and the presence of surviving Apabhrama verses, .s Guenther elected to expend his energy at defending fteenth-sixteenth century Tibetan interpretations of the term in a strong attack on his predecessors:
The literal translation of the Tibetan term lhan-cig skyes-pa (Sanskrit sahaja) would be coemergence, and as such it is explained by Padma dkar-po . . . Essentially it refers to the spontaneity and totality of the experience in which the opposites such as transcendence and immanence, subject and object, the noumenal and the phenomenal indivisibly blend. The translation of the term by lInn (M. Shahidullah) and the e Innate (D.L. Snellgrove) is wrong.12

In Guenthers 1992 reconsideration of these texts, his translation was more scholarly and his position more extreme, an odd combination:
Literally, sahaja means co-emergent (it can be read as a noun or adjective) where emergence (ja) is a spontaneous and uncaused manifestation of what we might call the principle of complementarity (saha). As an immediate experience, coemergence entails a feeling of togetherness (saha) whose numinosity erases all sense of separation. A precise rendering of the term sahaja would therefore have to be something like complementarity-in-spontaneity, a translation which I have adopted throughout.13

While it is gratifying that Buddhist authors are being taken as serious thinkers, many have questioned Guenthers technical renditions and the manner in which he presents them. To his credit, he attempts to rectify statements like those of Bendalls by bringing in vocabulary and concerns that are current, but in the process we might wonder if there can be any authentic commonality between the modern phenomenological terminology that Guenther favors and these Buddhist poets. The most signicant change in scholars perceptions of sahaja, . however, came with Carellis publication of the Sekoddesatka in 1941. This text is concerned with consecration into the Kalacakra system and is attributed to Nadapda, whom Carelli identies with Nrop, a a . a probably based on the colophon to the Tibetan translation. Carellis lengthy introduction to the text indicated two directions sahaja was to take in Kalacakra exegesis. He showed that sahaja was employed in the third consecration, which he called prajnaseka, in which the disciple 14 In the process, the disciple is supposed to practices a sexual yoga.

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experience four discrete joys ananda, paramananda, viramananda, and sahajananda.15 The culmination of this process brings in the other direction sahaja adopted in the Kalacakra system, the denition of a new body, the sahajakaya, which Carelli identied with the older Mahayanist svabhavikakaya.16 Building on this material, Dasgupta worked with multiple manuscripts of various tantras and discussed the association of the four joys with four specic moments, four psycho-physical wheels (cakra), and the four seals karmamudra, dharmamudra, mahamudra 17 and samayamudra. With the publication of Snellgroves 1959 edition and translation of the Hevajra Tantra, though, both the nature of sexual yoga and its controversies came into greater focus.18 Snellgrove schematized the most important aspects of sahaja as it was associated with joy or bliss (ananda) the location of the joys, moments, buddha bodies, and syllables in the various psycho-physical wheels during the ritual practice:19
Consecrations
crya a a

Joys
nanda a

Moments vicitra vipka a vimarda vilaksana . .

Cakras svabhvikakya a a sambhogakya a dharmakya a nirmnakya a. a

Body Head Throat Heart Navel

Syllable
HAM . OM .

guhya prajjna n a na caturtha

paramnanda a viramnanda a sahajnanda a

. HUM
A

Snellgrove also showed that there were controversies on the order of the joys: was sahajananda the fourth joy, as it was most frequently represented, or was it the third, as some authorities like Advayavajra and the Hevajra Tantra itself twice declared?20 Snellgrove concluded that the normative arrangement was the former, with sahajananda as the fourth joy, and reiterated both his understanding of the practice including . now its representation in the Sekoddesatka and the translation of sahaja as innate, in his 1987 Indo-Tibetan Buddhism.21 In the meanwhile, though, one of the more original contributions was put forward by Per Kvrne in 1975, in an article On the Concept of Sahaja in Indian Buddhist Tantric Literature. There Kvrne articulated the idea that the term is solely an adjective, and that it applies strictly to the ritual of consecration and nothing else:
. . . I doubt whether sahaja is ever used as far as Buddhist tantric texts are concerned a as a noun, except as short-hand for sahajnanda, sahajajnna, etc. . . . For the a moment I shall limit myself to saying that I believe that simultaneously-arisen or the like is the most suitable translation, and (anticipating my conclusions) that the term sahaja is basically connected with the tantric ritual of consecration where it refers to the relation between the ultimate and the preliminary Joys.22

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Kvrne then discussed the tantric consecrations, restricting himself to material from the limited archive of published Sanskrit (and one Tibetan) texts. Kvrne, in the section on mysticism and the experience of Sahaja, articulated that there are nine descriptives that apply to this experience: 1. it is ineffable, 2. it is blissful, 3. it is timeless, 4. it is a state of omniscience, 5. it is an abolition of the duality of subject and object, 6. it is cosmic, 7. it transcends the universe, 8. it is sacred, and 9. it is the luminosity of ones own mind.23 It is instructive that Kvrnes references for most of these attributes were taken from the Hevajra Tantra. All of these scholars have furthered our understanding, yet there is more that might be said, especially as many have indulged in a favorite form of hermeneutics: reading the terms application in later texts into the lines of earlier works, and modern scholars have generally privileged the latest and most recently written materials. In the process of proposing terminological development, I would argue that the frames of reference both historical and ritual are in need of reexamination. Most particularly, the question of variation of terminology and understanding must be reasserted. Variation would recommend itself initially, as we have seen that scholars have disagreed on whether sahaja indicates a noun or an adjective, on whether it is a vehicle or a body of the Buddha, or on whether it is an experience in the ritual life of a neophyte or a cipher for the absolute nature of the Buddha. We should also consider lineal differentiation in light of the historical model that, as I have argued elsewhere, the rise of esoteric Buddhism is in large part a consequence of socio-political fragmentation in early medieval India.24 Concerning ritual venues, we might also acknowledge that the application of certain terminology to a rite changes its understanding, or is at least a marker of an alteration in the conceptual architecture. Moreover, as we will see, abstracted from the ritual context, sahaja became a term that took on certain associations, precipitated by the Buddhist support of a discourse on naturalness as the sin qua non of correct realization. This discourse facilitated the reinterpretation of sexual yoga as an internal mediation rather than an external sacramental ritual.

II. NATURAL LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND YOGACARA TEXTS

Like most words employed in the esoteric system, sahaja has a history in the natural and literary language that is unfortunately neglected in scholarly literature on the Mantrayna. It is apparently a pre-classical a word, and the earliest usage I have seen is in Bhagavadg 18.48, ta

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where caste-specic behavior (karma) is described as inborn (sahaja) and not to be abandoned in spite of its faults (sahajam karma kaunteya . sadosam api na tyajet), a straightforward appeal by Krsna for Arjuna not .. . . to retreat to the forest. Sahaja, however, really gained currency in the a a classical world, and is observed in the work of Klidsa. Raghuvamsa . 8.43, for example, indicates that, faced with the sudden death of his wife Indumat, Rmas grandfather Aja released a torrent of sobs, abandoning a his courageous nature, even though it was innate (sahajam apy apahaya dhratam). The simile is compelling, for Aja burst into tears despite his fortitude, just as iron might experience weakness when overheated in a a furnace. In a somewhat different, less essentialist vein, Kmandakas 7th8th century treatise on polity, the Ntisara, denes enemies of two varieties:
Enemies are said to be of two kinds: natural and opportunistic. Natural enemies are those born into ones own family, while all others are understood to be opportunitistic.
sahajah karyajas caiva dvividhah satrur ucyate | . . sahajah svakulotpanna itarah karyajah smrtah || 8.56 . . . . .

Apparent in these descriptions is the importance of both familial lineage and individual character, which are perceived as framed in the environment of ritual impressions (samskara) and personal obligations. . Classical Buddhist literature also employed sahaja in the nontechnical capacity of accompanying or conjoined, especially noticeable in works related to the Yogcras, those great contributors to a a Buddhist terminology. Sahaja is used in a manner similar to sahajata, sahotpatti/utpanna, sahacarin, sahabhu, or sahagata, and they are often given the same or similar Chinese translations (such as chu sheng or chu chi) when Gupta period works were rendered in that language.25 In a favorable sense of association, the word occurs in the . . Mahayanasutralamkarabhasya to XVI.17-18, where giving (dana) is dened in the context of the perfections to be fullled by a bodhisattva. The cause of giving is an act of mental will accompanied by or equipped with non-desire and other positive elements (alobhadisahaja cetana 26 hetuh). . . In distinction, the Madhyantavibhagabhasya uses the term in combination with negative elements, specifying that one of the three cognitive obscurations (avarana) to the positive element of non-obscuration is . natural contamination (sahajam daus.thulyam). This peculiar phrase . . is glossed in Sthiramatis Tka as the deled latency to be removed . by meditative cultivation (bhavanaheyaklesanusaya). Alternatively, the natural contamination consisting of such views as the existence of a self, etc., is a natural seed of undeled ignorance that

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restricts penetration into objects of contact and so forth within the realm of reality, existing as a seed nurtured and established in the underlying consciousness (sahajam vatmadrs.tyadnam dharmadhatu.. . . arthadiprativedha-vibandhakasyaklistasyajnanasyalayavijnanas spars annivis.tam paripus.tabjam).27 The Lankavatara Sutra further species . . . that it is the stream-entrant (srotaapanna) whose perverse view of self-unity is natural because it has been collected from ignorance for a very long time.28 The Lankavatara also uses the term in conjunction with its description of the mental body (manomayakaya). After explaining that the mental body is one that may penetrate anywhere, just as by thought, the text turns to the mental body of the bodhisattva:
Even so, Mahmati, by means of a concentration that is like magic and has attained a this mental body, the bodhisattva is ornamented by the powers, masteries, super knowledges, and characteristics, posessing a nature in common with those in the realm of saints. Thus, recollecting the circumstances of his prior aspiration he operates as does the mind, his path unhindered for the maturation of living beings.
evam eva mahamate manomayakayasahapratilambhena mayopamasamena samadhina balavasitabhijnanalaksanakusumita aryagatinikayasahajo mana iva pravartate . . pratihatagatih purvapranidhanavisayan anusmaran sattvaparipakartham |29 . .

This same mental body of the bodhisattva or buddha is further specied elsewhere in the Lankavatara Sutra, where it is described as a body that can enter into every assembly circle in all the buddha elds. This is possible, as it is acquired on the eighth level of the bodhisattva and therefore has the activity of karmic formations natural to each of those groups of saints (nikayasahajasamskarakriyamanomayah kayah).30 . . . The Bodhisattvabhumi indicates that there are two varieties of super natural power (prabhava), one that is attained by virtue of concentration in this life and another that is the miraculous reality congenital (sahaja) to buddhas and bodhisattvas because of the power of . their previously acquired merit (purvam mahapunyasambharopacayad . . . buddhanam bodhisattvanam ca sahaja ascaryadhbhutadharmata); this latter was considered the lesser of the two (ayam api tesam sahajo . . 31 Moreover, among the fteen types of parah prabhavo veditavyah). . . resolute intention, there is one that is natural (sahajadhyasaya), which applies to bodhisattvas who have entered into the levels and is glossed as naturally in place (prakrtya) because of their other purities.32 . . The Abhidharmakosa-bhasya, caught up in the Vaibhsika presentaa. tion of the substantial existence of the past, present and future, provides a specically temporal value to sahaja. So, the sense faculty and the sense consciousness, while relying on past elements, arise simultaneously (sahaja), with the faculty as the support of the consciousness.33

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Here, a faculty that is sahaja is contrasted with prior bases that are in the past (atta) so that sahaja becomes a term employed to discuss temporal relations (prior-simultaneous-subsequent) while avoiding the potential confusion that would occur with the term present (pratyutpanna). A similar value is placed on sahaja in the discussion of nondeled indeterminate (anivrtavyakrta) and deled indeterminate . . . (nivrtavyakrta) elements, whose acquisition (prapti) is simultaneous . to their occurrence, this being an indicator of their weakness and relatively inconsequential nature.34 The exceptions to this rule are the forms of super knowledge and creative cognitions they are powerful and acquired by a specic application of mind, so their elements of acquisi tion may be prior, subsequent or simultaneous (tesam hi balavattvat . . 35 . . prayogavisesanispatteh purvam pascat sahaja praptih). . . . Perhaps the only classical Buddhist text I have found that approaches the essentialism apparent in Brahmanical Sanskrit is in the commentary to the Ratnagotravibhaga, a text noted for its postulation of inherent properties. After a lengthy discussion of the relationship between the a varieties of the embryo of the Tathgata (tathagatagarbha) as expressed in the scripture expounding that doctrine, the commentary sums up its position:
Then, in brief, with this teaching employing the images taught in the Tathagatagarbha Sutra, there are illuminated the two conditions in the entire realm of beings: they possess the accidental condition of deled elements in their beginningless minds, and they posses the natural (sahaja) inalienableness of purifying elements in their beginningless minds. samasato anena tathagatagarbhasutrodaharananirdesena krtsnasya sattvadhator . . anadicittasamklesadharmagantukatvam anadicittavyavadanadharmasahajavinirbhagata ca paridpita |36

However, it is indicative of the soteriological hermeneutics of the Ratnagotravibhaga that its explanation is in distinction to the ostensibly supporting quotation from the scripture. The statement from the Tathagatagarabha Sutra simply indicates that both pollution and . purication derive from conditions of mind (cittasamklesat sattvah . samklisyante cittavyavadanat visudhyanta iti). In its interpretation, the . Ratnagotravibhaga instead articulates the idea that there is inherent agency towards awakening in the embryo of the Tathgata, while bondage a is the accidental element. What do these tell us of the normative manner in which sahaja is used prior to the development of Buddhist esoterism? First, it is apparent that sahaja applies to that which is congenital, although this term is almost exclusively negative in American usage, indicating a birth defect or some other falling away from the norm. Clearly, here, the majority of its

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employment is with positive qualities that are specic to an individuals embodiment in the present station of life and as a result of extensive effort in the previous lives. Typically, it indicates elements that are acquired as time goes on, but these elements are taken as factors in the larger domain of Dharma. As such, they exist whether Buddhas proclaim them or not, and thus, in the Ratnagotravibhaga instance, speak of an irresistible force moving all beings towards universal awakening. Even in a a the reduced soteriological prole of sahaja in the mainstream Yogcra texts and the Lankavatara Sutra, the overall semantic value indicates elements of reality that are obtained at birth or secured through previous lives and frequently contrasted with those obtained through efforts in the specic lifetime under discussion. In its ambivalence as to whether such soteriological elements are inherent, the value of sahaja is similar to the ideology of lineage (gotra) found in the Bodhisattvabhumi, where two kinds are identied: that which is inherent and natural to the bodhisattva (prakrtistha) and that which is secured through effort . at virtuous conduct in prior lives (samudanta).37

III. EIGHTH CENTURY TANTRAS, NINTH CENTURY SYSTEMS

Whatever the precise signicance of its use as a non-technical term, sahaja apparently did not enjoy the central position in Mahayanist or related literature that it was to occupy in selected areas of esoteric ritual. However, this is not to say that it found a home in all ritual venues, and we must begin by setting aside some surprisingly important texts and their ritual manuals. If sahaja became one of the favorite designations for ritual nomenclature in the systems stemming from the Hevajra Tantra, that was certainly not the case for earlier Mahayoga and Yogin Tantras. This state of affairs is all the more curious, as all of these works articulate an involvement with sexual rites as part of the broader theory of release: awakening is best achieved by engaging in the behaviors that would normally lead to bondage, but under the correct circumstances lead instead to liberation. As employed by the end of the tenth century, certainly, sexual practice was generally conned to two major venues: the initiatory rituals authorizing advanced stages of yogic engagement, and the practice of sexual yoga itself, although it was also an option in the fortnightly tantric feasts (ganacakra). Sexual practices were normatively included in the . designation perfecting stage, or however utpanna/sampanna/nispanna. krama and their synonyms might be translated. As such, it is specically differentiated from the generation stage (utpattikrama), a ritual where

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the yogin visualizes himself as his chosen divinity at the center of a mandala. The generation stage authorization was by the end of .. the eighth century understood to be conferred on the disciple by a . master during the jar consecration (kalasabhiseka), the rst of four consecrations. Broadly speaking, perfecting stage involves two or sometimes three levels of ritual. Generally there is some form of internal yogic practice, often involving the visualization of an internal re burning up an internal mandala located in the psycho-physical centers (cakra) of spirituality. .. While terminology varies from tradition to tradition, often this mediation . is designated self-consecration (svadhis.thana), and the disciple is authorized to engage in this behavior with the second of the four . consecrations in this instance the secret consecration (guhyabhiseka). Here, the master copulates with a consort and the ejaculate is taken in by the disciple as a sacrament. The other level in the perfecting stage is that of sexual practice, and the disciple is introduced to this via . the gnosis of the insight consecration (prajnajnanabhiseka), which is often the third of the four fundamental consecrations conferred. Here the disciple, under the masters guidance, copulates with the consort, and obtains an understanding of great ecstasy (mahasukha) or some form of joy (ananda) in the process. With this latter consecration, the disciple is authorized to perform this practice as an independent ritual, and is expected to develop the experience of bliss or pleasure beyond that rst experienced in the ritual enclosure. Over and above the two major venues, we nd the employment of sexual yoga in the tenth century in the fortnightly meetings, the ganacakra, in which yogins and their . consorts come together for a gathering of adepts. There, in communal celebration, a ritualized sexual practice would also be consummated. By the tenth century, certainly, virtually all sexual practice was associated with yogic visualizations, breathing exercises, internal mandalas, the .. letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, etc., so that it involved the manipulation of a very large spectrum of psycho-physical entities. The problem with the above description, unfortunately, is that it presents a tidy well-packaged and after-the-fact organization of the advent of sexual meditative behaviors in Buddhism, an event that surely must constitute one of the more extraordinary developments in the history of Indian Buddhism. Few activities could be more in conict with the fundamental values displayed in the prior history of Buddhist monasticism, even if we can see that the standards espoused were not always actually practiced. Even then, one measure of the conict is the observation that all sexual activities became increasingly interpreted as

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either symbolic or visualized ritual forms, so that the actual physical enactment of sexual rituals seems to have become increasingly rare as time passes. Yet even this statement is somewhat misleading, for we are uncertain how frequent was their actual use in Indian Buddhist communities at any time and what degree of regional variation was exhibited. Our earliest solid evidence for the Buddhist espousal of erotic soteri ology is in the eighth century, specically in the Guhyasamaja, the Sarvabuddhasamayoga, Laghusamvara, and other works that became . eventually understood as proposing the path of highest yoga (anuttarayoga). These materials are unassailably from the eighth century, with references to them by well-known eighth and early ninth century gures a a like Amoghavajra, Vilsavajra, Jnnamitra, Skyamitra and others.38 a Our eighth century documents, where they mention sexual events, do not associate them necessarily with either initiation, and internal yoga is seldom to be found. Instead, we nd specied a sexual rite (given a number of designations) whereby magical powers or liberation may be obtained. Although not always separately entitled, when identied the name of this rite is variously given sometimes seal rite (mudravidhi), sometimes mandalacakra-rite, but without the yogic associations of .. later mandalacakra descriptions.39 The earliest, however, appears in the .. Subahupariprccha Tantra, which species that the monk or yogin will attract a non-human (generally a yaks) in the forest or other secluded . spot, and their copulation yields worldly benets, especially magical ight.40 The tantra indicates that any girl attracted by mantras cannot be human but must be a yaks, and it is probable that this disclaimer . reveals the social reality that Buddhists began to encounter tribal and semi-nomadic peoples extensively in the early medieval period, with political fragmentation and other socio-political events of the era.41 We can understand this ritual and its eventual use in the consecratory and yogic contexts by understanding it as specically sacramental in character. That is, in association with other sacraments (samaya) and in a secluded site, the purpose of the ritual was for the adept to experience sexuality while in relationship to a divinity, most often visualizing himself and his partner as the divinity and its consort. The consequent ejaculate was taken, then, to have the mystical properties of the divinity, so that it was, quite literally, the seed of divinity. Since the divinities most frequently represented, like Heruka, had their iconology taken from rural, tribal or Saiva contexts, the point was the recreation of divine attributes (siddhi, jnana, moksa, etc.) in the ritualist by reenactment . of the divine behavior. Thus the goal was the ritual experience of

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sanctied copulation, with partners either human or non human equally acceptable, just so long as the sacramental structure of the event was maintained. This entire experience had as its purpose the literal or gural transformation of the adept into a magus (vidyadhara), in line with the 42 Accordingly, the exploration pan-Indian mythology of such gures. of levels of joy experienced by the yogin through the extraordinary manipulations of breath and visualization, as found in the later ritual system, would have had little point here. Indeed, the architecture of ascent and descent along a central channel, the internal visualizations of psychic centers, wind, and the like, were utterly superuous to the early history of the rite. Likewise, the later vocabulary of an innate or natural ecstasy (sahajananda), particularly as a member of a series of ecstasies, was simply unnecessary.43 This history is not only visible in the surviving eighth century literature, but equally seen in the rst development of yogic systems set as the internal process in counterpoint to the external sexual ritual. In every one of these, the language of sahaja was not initially employed. Not only does the Guhyasamaja Tantra ignore the terminology and rhetoric of sahaja in its allusions to sexual practices, but the term also does not appear in the ninth century Arya-lineage manuals of the system.44 Ngrjunas Pancakrama a work dedicated to the perfecting process a a makes no mention of the term.45 Similarly, Padmavajras Guhyasiddhi ignores the word, and Aryadevas Caryamelapakaprad maintains pa his predecessors vocabulary. The Jnanasiddhi and the Pradpodyotana grjuna, although also employ the language and vocabulary seen in Na a the intertextuality exhibited between the approximately contemporary Guhyasiddhi, Jnanasiddhi and Pancakrama is still obscure.46 Be that as it may, in some of the Arya system works, the specically sexual rite is encompassed under the heading of non-conceptual activity (nisprapancacarya), and the dening experience is explained with . the simple terms of highest ecstasy (paramananda) or great bliss (mahasukha), and was an event that took place in a single instant, not the four or more moments of the later literature.47 In a like manner, the Laghusamvara Tantra only uses sahaja once, . so far as I have been able to determine. Certain feminine messengers . (dutadakin) are referred to as *Dutasahajasiddh, apparently indicating a that they are naturally accomplished or naturally present, rather than accomplished in the practice yielding sahajananda.48 Even much of the later Samvara literature on the consecrations or yogic practice . does not appear to employ the four moments and the four ananda. Instead, the same terms we have already seen highest ecstasy and

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great bliss are consistently represented. For example, in the work of Ghantapda (evidently written after the technical afrmation of . . a sahaja), his most extensive statement of the Samvara practice is in . his own autocommentary to his version of a ve-step program: the Srcakrasamvarapancakramavrtti. Therein is also the only mention . . of sahaja as a ritual term I have located in his surviving meditation manuals. He simply states that by means of these instructions (on nispannakrama) one will experience the self-aware nondual gnosis . of great bliss which is like the ower of explanatory sahaja.49 The allusion here refers to a distinction between the gnostic experience through the sahaja demonstrated in the consecration (drstantasahaja) . and the absolute nondual gnosis realized through absolute sahaja (paramarthikasahaja), the latter being the ower of the former.50 For the most part, though, in practices associated with the Laghusamvara, . sahaja is used in a terminological environment with non articial (akrtrima), essential form (svarupa), proper nature (svabhava), and . similar designations.51 Elsewhere, a special iconographic form of the deity Samvara is identied as Sahaja-samvara, but the designation is . . not dened in any of the sadhanas I have seen, and it is likely that the name was an extension of essential form as a valorization of an iconographical representation.52 The curious, and in some ways conicted, convergence of the esoteric afrmation of physical pleasure with the terminology of essential nature required that the phases of ecstasy or, more properly, orgasm, be differentiated. I believe the process of ecstatic differentiation and its eventual association with sahaja rst emerges in the later writing of a Buddhajnnapda, whose Dvikramatattvabhavana-mukhagama shows a a an evolution in this direction. Buddhajnnapda has been acknowledged a as the founder of the other major system of Guhyasamaja practice, called 53 This work is exceptional in a number a the Jnnapda school after him. a of ways and is a further development of language and terminology observable in other works associated with his name. Not the least of its innovations is the earliest solid references to sahajajnana that I have seen. The term is represented as the outcome of both the developing and the perfecting practices, but not as a member of a schema of joy or ecstasy.54 Instead, it occurs with other designations of the ultimate goal, rather than as an explicit member of the path. That does not mean, though, that the text is silent on the question of bliss. While his other writings do not provide such a differen tial of ecstasy in the sexual practice, the Dvikramatattvabhavana mukhagama trifurcates the experience. Here it comes in three avors:

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ecstasy, middling ecstasy, and the ecstasy of cessation (ananda, madhyamananda, viramananda) similar to the terms we will encounter later in the Hevajra Tantra and related systems.55 Although the Dvikramatattvabhavana-mukhagama describes these in terms of the perfecting practice, almost the same terminology was still being used in the early eleventh century by Vgvarakrti, in his discussion of the a s a consecrations according to the Jnnapda school.56 a Where did Buddhajnanapda get this arrangement and what is the a relationship between the two major schools of Guhyasamaja practice? While the Dvikramatattvabhavana-mukhagama mentions that the three are obtained in the manner that they have been explained (ji skad gsungs pa thob par gyur), it is not precisely clear where or by whom it was explained. He certainly is concerned with his lineage, though, a and Buddhajnnapda starts his treatise with an account of his teachers, a . beginning with the famous Haribhadra whose Abhisamayalamkaraloka la (ca. 775812 CE).57 was completed during the reign of Dharmapa He also worked with Vilsavajra and others in Odiyna and elsea . a where. However, it was undoubtedly his nine years of study of the Guhyasamaja with Balipda in Kanauj and Konkana, that was most a a inuential. Buddhajnnapda states that he did not entirely comprehend a the teaching of the Guhyasamaja when he received it in Konkana, but only came to his realization while mediating in a forest close to Vajrsana, when he was granted a vision of the deity Manjughosa.58 a . He eventually returned to Balipda in Konkana at the monastery of a *Sudrdhavihra to visit the teacher again. a .. Where was this site in Konkana? The Tibetan translation of Balipdas a center on the Western shore translates the name Nam-mkha shing-ldan (Having sky-trees?), and Vitapdas commentary indicates that it was a given this name since the site was like a rootless vine that climbs high on other trees.59 This does not help much, but we know that the Mahrja-mahvihra at Knher of North Konkan (Aparnta) continued aa a a a. a a a to receive ofcial largesse at least as late as 877/8 CE under Silhra Kapardin II and still exhibited signs of life as late as the 12th century.60 While the epigraphs are clear that Knher is from the Prakrit rendering a. of Krsnagiri Dark Mountain apparently both Vitapda and the a .. . Tibetan translation team interpreted it from Sanskrit as a tree (amhri) . in the sky (kha). In conjunction with a similar training pilgrimage a reported for himself by Skyamitra, and the hagiography of Kukurja a a by Jnnamitra, we can see that the early ninth century understood the primary esoteric centers to be along the western Coast, in Central India (Bihar and Kanauj), and in the Swat valley.61

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a Even if the phrases Buddhajnnapda employs for ecstasy and a sahajajnana are found to have a prior, perhaps late eighth century, source and this is entirely possible it is probable that he encountered the phrases not in texts but in oral instructions from this array of teachers, and most particularly Balipda.62 If true, it would reveal this otherwise a unknown master as a personality with overwhelming inuence in later esoteric doctrine and practice, principally through the literate work of his disciple. Thus, it appears from the documents known to me, that the use of the designation essential gnosis and various forms of ecstasy were brought together for the rst time in the most mature work of a Buddhajnnapda. However, he did not synthesize them into the specic a schematism found in the later materials from the time of the hevajra Tantra forward. As we will see, since the association between these terms did not occur at their advent, there was a continual tendency for sahaja to be separated from terms for ecstasy and to nd application in other technical elds, especially those denoting an absolute level of reality or its cognitive component, nondual gnosis.63

IV. HEVAJRA TANTRA AND RELATED WORKS

The Hevajra Tantra is the earliest work known to me to unify three forms of ecstasy with the ideology of a natural ecstasy, although the problems encountered by its authors are obvious enough when the text is examined in detail. Accordingly, we will peruse the core statements to see if textual criticism can lend support to the proposal that sahaja was not fundamental to an arrangement of varieties of sexual bliss. Most important will be two points: rst, that the Hevajra exhibits three different series of a threefold ananda, and, second, that since each ananda series evolved separately, the precise placement or relationship of sahaja to these groupings became a contentious issue. Let us begin with the statements of the Hevajra Tantra and see how these were later employed. The core text most frequently selected by representative authorities is Hevajra Tantra I.viii.2536:64
kramadvayam samritya vajrin dharmadean | as s a . .a utpattibhgam kathitam utpannam kathaymy aham || 25 a . a . . aa khadhtv iti padmesu jnnam bhagam iti smrtam | . . . a . bhvaneti sampattis tatsukham cakram ucyate || 26 a a . yathnyyam svasamvedyam bodhicittam tu devat | a a . a . . . yathodayam bhavec chukram dvaividhyam sahajam tatah || 27 . . . . . a yosit tvad bhavet prajn upyah purusah smrtah | a . . . . a . . pacd anayor dvaividhyam vivrtisamvrtibhedatah || 28 s a . . . . . pumsi tvad dhi dvaividhyam ukram tasya sukhan ca v | a a . . s . a a . prajnym ca yath pumsi ukram tasya sukhan ca v || 29 a a . s .

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atraivpi hi nandnm catasrnm prabhedanam | a a a a. . .a . . sahajam caturvidham yasmd utpannakramapaks atah || 30 a . . . . nandam prathamam v . paramnandam yogin | a a . . ram . suratnandam samastam tatsukhopyah sarvavit || 31 a a . . . nandena sukham kincit paramnandam tato dhikam | a a . . . viramena virgah syt sahajnandam esetah || 32 a . a a . s . . prathamam sparknksay dvit . sukhavncchay | sa a . a yam a a . trt . rganatvc caturtham tena bhvyate || 33 as a a . yam a . paramndandam bhavam proktam nirvnam ca virgatah | a a. . a . . . . madhyamnandamtram tu sahajam ebhir vivarjitam || 34 a a . . na rgo na virga ca madhyamam nopalabhyate | a a s . a ntra prajn na copyah samyaktattvvabodhatah || 35 a a . a . nnyena kathyate sahajam na kasminn api labhyate | a . tman jnyate punyd guruparvopasevay || 36 a a a a . a [25] The teaching of truth by the vajrin is based on the two meditative processes. The developing process has been explained; I will now explain the perfecting process. [26] (in I.viii. 1) in the sky means within the lotuses. Majesty is understood as gnosis. Cultivation means contemplation and wheel is its bliss. [27] By the rule means it is to be personally experienced. Here the divinity is bodhicitta, and as it arises indicates it comes as semen. Thus, sahaja is dialectical. [28] The woman is to be considered insight, while the man is skillful means. These in turn are each further bifurcated into absolute and relative. [29] Thus within the man, there are the complementary semen (relative) and bliss (absolute). Within the insight (woman) as well, there are both seminal uid and bliss. [30] Whats more, there is a further division into four forms of ecstasy, since sahaja is already fourfold in the perfecting process (as we have seen above). [31] The hero is ecstasy; the yogin is highest ecstasy; lustful ecstasy is their aggregation, and the Omniscient has his skillful means in that bliss. [32] By means of ecstasy there is some bliss; highest ecstasy is greater than that. Dispassion would be by cessation. Ecstasy of sahaja is otherwise. [33] The rst is through longing for touch, the second by desire for bliss, the third is from the destruction of desire, and the fourth is thus cultivated. [34] Highest ecstasy is explained as existence. Nirvana is from dispassion. Then there is a mere middle ecstasy (between the two). Sahaja is devoid of them all. [35] For there is neither desire nor dispassion, nor a middle to be obtained. In sahaja there is neither insight nor skillful means, compared to the realization of correct reality. [36] Sahaja cannot be explained by something else, nor is it found in anything. It is to be cognized by oneself, through merit and through service and attendance on the teacher.

First we must establish the importance of this section, since so many subsequent materials are either based on its statements or simply appropriate its verses for their own use. Shendge has shown that Dombherukas Sahajasiddhi, for example, is almost completely a . series of verses that comes from the Hevajra Tantra.65 More to the point, the above lines constitute the major part of the rst third of that work. Many other authors including Tillipa, Ratnkaranti, Thagana a sa make reference to this chapter and these verses when discussing questions of sahaja.66 Thus, the chapter on the circle of yogins has

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been taken by several exegetical authors as the locus classicus for the development of the sahaja practices and doctrines, an evaluation only somewhat mitigated by references to the lost Hevajra in 500,000 verses. However, part of the referential problem experienced by these good commentators is the hermeneutic difculty in making this material consistent, for this chapter in the Hevajra Tantra brings together several different strategies and attempts to wed them with sahaja. Here, sahaja is placed in relation to hierarchies of value and they are subordinated to it:
man [v. 28] (relative) [v. 29] semen sahaja = + (absolute) bliss woman [v. 28] (relative) [v. 29] semen (absolute) bliss

Sahaja here is the source of gender, and is divided into both relative and absolute categories within each gender. In this arrangement, the nature of the world is represented dialectically. Following up on this direction, the theistically-oriented Vyaktabhavanugatatattva-siddhi of Yogin Cint begins with a statement that the Lord emanates, through a his proper nature (sahajavasthaya) himself as the forms of male and 67 The relative and absolute cateogries are similar to, but not female. the same as, the division of bodhicitta into relative and absolute forms in esoteric Buddhist systems. This theme is eventually followed up as well by the division of sahajananda into that which is demonstrated during the third consecration (dr. .tanta-sahajananda) and that which is .s absolute (paramarthika-sahajananda), as we have seen above. Furthermore, sahaja is identied in this section of the Hevajra Tantra with several different schemes of ecstasy, both as a curious overarching concept as well as a member of these schemes:
sahaja [v.30] =
nanda [31] a a paramnanda nanda [32] a paramnanda a

suratnanda a a sahajnanda

viramnanda a sahajnanda a

paramnanda [34] a madhyamnanda a virga a sahajnanda a

nanda [II.ii.40] a paramnanda a

sahajnanda a viramnanda a

Little wonder that the crazy quilt of schemes should precipitate such discussions as to where sahaja comes or its precise nature, with some authors representing sahajananda as equivalent to orgasm and the apex of experience, while others indicate it is the moment following passion and beyond the process of sexual ritual. Contributing to the tension within the series of embedded discourses is the disclaimer at the end of

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the above Hevajra section [I.viii.3436] that sahaja has in fact nothing to do with any of this, after all. There are many questions here, some of which we cannot resolve with the materials yet investigated. However, a few things are clear. First, Kvrnes proposal that sahaja is exclusively adjectival cannot be accepted as proposed, even though we must acknowledge that he is correct in afrming that many instances of the use of sahaja in the literature do stand as shorthand for sahajananda or sahajajnana. Instead, we see here its nominalization, with the aegis category of sahaja applied to all the various levels included therein, including sahajananda. In this, certainly, we see the easy movement from an adjective to a noun, much as we see this process in other Buddhist terms: buddha, siddha, etc. Elsewhere, the specic nominal properties of sahaja are revealed when it is occasionally replaced with the terminology of inherent nature (svabhava) or proper form (svarupa), so that at the hands of some authors sahajananda is replaced with svabhavananda in the continuing 68 reiteration of forms of ecstasy. Second, we might observe the desire for two incommensurate directions in the hermeneutics of a term. On one hand, the term becomes a locus of synthesis for any number of various separately conceived a strategies. We have seen in the case of Buddhajnnapda that he a employed a schema of ananda, madhyamananda, viramananda, which is arguably the system in I.viii.34, above. However, his was exclusively a threefold hierarchy, so that sahajajnana was kept outside of the series altogether and instead discussed in relation to absolute awakening; it was a designation of the goal rather than a member of the path. Nonetheless, it was the desire on the part of its authors to amalgamate several of these arrangements that led to their formulation of this material in the Hevajra Tantra. The integration of these different series is one of the arguments to place its origin in the late ninth or early tenth century, a after the composition of Buddhajnnapdas Dvikramatattvabhavanaa mukhagama, which was probably from the rst quarter of the ninth century.69 On the other hand, we also see an entirely different hermeneutic direction. Having articulated a term as the locus of synthesis, the term is suddenly wrenched from its web of relations and cast as a cipher for absolute being. Buddhists had done this for quite some time, and ritual terminology became one of the great sources for philosophical directions. So, bodhicitta was formulated in Mahayanist terms to describe the conception of awakening conceived by a bodhisattva to differentiate him from the Arhat. It is described as part of the ritual of aspiration,

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and articulated as a conceptual eld based on its great longevity and durability. In the esoteric literature of the Mahayoga-tantras, it becomes a specic designation of absolute reality, bifurcated into relative and absolute terms and developed further in the yogin tantras.70 Similarly, mahamudra in some early esoteric literature appears to describe a specic symbol (a seal), and this was no doubt related to its initial genesis.71 I believe that this was the same process to which sahaja became subject. As we have seen, the term was around for quite some time, but once it became part of ritual nomenclature, then exegetes began to explore its possibilities, fueled in part by the rapidly expanding rhetoric of nature (prakrti), non articial (akrtrima) and other rough synonyms. . . After the Hevajra Tantras synthesis, various directions were taken in the literature. First and foremost, the relationship of sahaja to interior yogic practice not strong in the Hevajra was strengthened in the commentarial literature and in technical treatises associated with the tantra. Accordingly, as Snellgrove has already demonstrated, there became an association of the experience of various levels of ecstasy with the specic psychophysical centers (cakra), and accordingly disagreement as to which direction the process followed (up or down) and in which centers each level of ecstasy was felt. Eventually, the series of four ecstasies was to be divided each into four again, so that different forms of a complex arrangement of sixteen forms of ananda were to be specied. They were sometimes arranged according to body, speech, mind and gnosis (kayavakcittajnana), especially in the later commentarial tantras and the Kalacakra.72 Other authors divided each ecstasy into six kinds (via six vijnana) or, alternatively, the four cakras were trifurcated, and each part identied with an ecstasy, yielding twenty-four or twelve (or even one) varieties of ananda.73 Given these disagreements, the Sa-skya-pa order of Tibetan Buddhism was even tually to move the sahajananda ritual exegesis one further stage, with the articulation of two different and complementary ways of engaging in sexual yoga. In their system, entitled the Lam-bras (*Mrga-phala), a the relationship of the fourfold ecstasy to the cakras was given both descending from the fontanel to the navel (the normative mandalacakra .. system) or ascending in the opposite direction in a system called the adamantine wave (rdo-rje rba-labs = ? vajrataramga, if such a term . ever existed).74 Moreover, since the relationship of ecstasy to sahaja was formal and historical rather than an essential part of the meditative system, both sahaja and ananda continued to be discussed apart from their association in the physical practice. We will briey examine Indrabhutis

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Sahajasiddhi below, which articulates an absolutist sahaja, but we a should also note Prajnguptas mid-eleventh century explorations of these topics, in which numerous varieties of ecstasy are mentioned, with svabhavananda sometimes found where we would expect sahajananda.75 Another consequence of sahajas dissociation from the physical would be found with the complete interiority of the practice, so that no longer any physical partner (karmamudra) would be needed or even desirable. Instead, the real goddess whose form is gnosis will be invited as a gnostic partner (jnanamudra). An excellent example of this direction is found in Ratnkarantis Sahajayogakrama, where a sa the good monk discusses a practice only marginally out of place in the secluded halls of the monastery. Both the physical and gnostic directions were also to be taken by the authors and authorities of the early eleventh century Kalacakra Tantra, which is probably the source for the further hypostatization of sahaja into a full-edged body of the Buddha (sahajakaya).76 Each of these various directions is deserving of a separate treatment, however.

V. INDRABHUTIS SAHAJASIDDHI AND THE SIDDHA CULTURAL CRITIQUE

Following the lead of the Hevajra Tantra, as we saw above, there came about the development of a genre of texts that set out specically to teach sahaja in different ways. The one following most closely the text of the Hevajra was doubtlessly that of Dombheruka, and Shendge has . made this work accessible, while the Sarnath edition has provided a more complete series of readings. Other members of this genre survive, but the most interesting example I have seen is the relatively late work attributed to an Indrabhuti. We need to be circumspect with this identity, since Indrabhuti appears frequently in Indian esoteric literature, and even the Sa-skya tradition of Tibetan Buddhism maintains that there were three Indrabhutis, which is surely an underestimate.77 Indrabhuti in fact is associated with one of the most enduring myths of the preaching of the tantras, is attributed a soteriological hagiography of perfect awakening upon receiving the consecrations, as well as any number of other legendary activities. Indeed, a complete catalogue of texts and attributions associated with this popular name would ll an archive almost as large as that of Ngrjuna, and these two may be protably a a compared, both in terms of the widespread popularity of the name and in the tendency for traditional apologists and modern scholars to amalgamate the various personalities into one grand persona.

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This Indrabhuti, however, began the text with a lineage and identity that ts virtually none of the other persons of that appellation, and so we should start there. According to the short lineage list and the lengthy commentarial hagiography, Indrabhuti was the receptor of a a teaching on sahaja that began in Odiyna with a princess *Sr-Mah. a Lldev, and her encounter with an unnamed black-headed Rsi in the a .. a . a forest monastery of *Ratnlamkra.78 Upon being blessed by him, she realized that she was an emanation of the bodhisattva Vajrapni who a. is identied as the patron divinity of Odiyna and she and her ve a . hundred ladies in waiting all received awakening into the nature of sahaja. The teaching on this was then passed down in a lineage until the time of Indrabhuti, who wrote it down. Beyond the important hagiographical material, the representation of sahaja in the text is quite interesting, for it posits a series of attributes accorded to sahaja, and then spends a portion of the text denying the validity of others interpretations, interspersed with its own qualitative positions. In its analysis, the commentary, the Sahajasiddhipaddhati, presents the text in twenty-six sections, each of which either articulates a position on sahaja or provides a refutation of others position.79 In terms of afrmations, the text is unequivocally absolutist, and the statement describing its essential nature is revealing of its suppositions:
The peace of sahaja is all pervasive, always arising and self-existent. It is continuously inexhaustible, and is the rejection of conceptual evaluation.80 Present both internally and externally, it is not born from either the internal or the external. The category of synthesis (yuganaddhapadartha), through its presence in all that is moving and stable (caracara), is truly present in all the times. It is not attained except through this text.81

The refutations are more interesting, in terms of the intellectual and ritual distance attempted between the author and other authorities. In these we see some of the directions that continue to challenge esoteric Buddhism, as it became increasingly inuenced by other traditions:
Some claim the self is sahaja, and deluded fools make it vara. With their rejection Is of both conceptual attributes of self and non-self, the jinas have declared sahaja to be the condition of nonduality (yuganaddhapada). That is exactly the life of living . beings. It is the highest indestructible (paramaksara), all pervasive and present in all bodies. However, women, children, cowherds, mlecchas, low caste, aquatic life, gods, yaksas, along with nagas, none of these will understand sahaja. Instead, they . will wander in the cities of the world. . . .82 Some claim that accomplishment comes from the joining of sexual organs, but even if you are young and apply yourself for a long time until aged, by this you will not achieve sahaja. The moment there is a cause, it is error or something very similar. Some [quote] the texts about the enjoyment [body: sambhogakya], but this is a not called sahaja. In the middle of the navel is the highest cakra. Some practitioners continually meditate on the resplendent form in its midst, but this is not called

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sahaja. The great wheel present at the fontanel touching it and having bliss drip from it these are attained by application to the ritual requirement. They are not . that called sahaja. Some make effort in restricting the life breath (pranavayu : breathing through the nose), so as to reside (in concentration) at the tip of the nose. Whatever is obtained by this breath restriction that is not called sahaja. Others . afict the body by restricting the wind that evacuates the waste (apanavayu), again and again cultivating this practice but that is not called sahaja.83

In a similar manner, the author articulates or implies a relatively comprehensive list of yogic practices, meditating on cakras, restraining of vital breath, making sounds, and visionary experiences none of these is sahaja. He nally expresses the afrmative context again, largely in a negative relation to practice current at his time. In reality, this Sahajasiddhi resembles nothing so much as the genre of critical doha literature, well known through the various translations of the Saraha corpus, but equally observable in other literature attributed to Virupa, Tillopa, and many others. For example, the Sr presents an analogous series of practices that it indicates Birua-caurasi are the abnegation of sahaja.84 Included therein are many of these same items: purication rituals, meditation on mandalas, maintaining .. yogic positions while restraining various winds (physical functions), as well as others. The apparent intersection of each of the practices is that they may be considered excessive in their articiality and harmful in wresting the mind from its natural condition. It appears to me that we nd in this kind of material a curious convergence between the direction towards interiority found in esoteric literature associated with its monastic domestication as in the instances a of Ratnkaranti or Skyamitra and the statements in ninth century a sa literature. They both appeal to a critical faculty coupled and later doha with a distaste for the excessive yogic activities and sometimes lethal ingredients proposed by the tantras, such as the use of the drug dattura or the ingestion of human waste. It would be easy to dismiss these critical gures as disgruntled curmudgeons, employing religious literature and personal stature to engage in a broadside against foes and follies, real or imagined. And there might be something to that analysis, for such personalities are still encountered in India, deriding their society as having lost in the true path in every sort of area, spirituality not the least. The difference between the sahaja-centered critique and the interiorcentered meditative activity of the monks, though, is that some of the siddhas employing the rhetoric of sahaja clearly had the monks in mind, as much as anyone else. We nd included in Indrabhutis Sahajasiddhi, for example, a castigation of Mdhyamikas as addicted a

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to disputation, and it is clear that the monastic world with its ritualized intellectual combat was a no-mans land for those siddhas desiring to live in the natural state of awareness.85 The curiosity, though, is that so many gures within the larger eld of Buddhist esoterism chose the rhetoric and nomenclature of sahaja, as if the afrmation of naturalness itself caused some to perceive the foibles of the accelerated ritualism and claims to authority with which esoteric institutions were rife. It would therefore appear that sahaja operated as a point of intersection between the caustic disapprobation of excessive ritualism ever in the background of the Buddhist subculture, the iconoclasm of vernacular literature expressions, and the peripatetic behavior of wandering siddhas, for whom physical yoga was a waste of time. There appears to be a social component to this as well, for we occasionally read of siddhas as having been monks, but discharged from their monasteries, normatively for sexual behavior at odds with the life and survival of monastic decorum. So both Maitrpda and Virupa, for a example, are described in their hagiographic legacies as having been removed from the monasteries, the latter dramatically demoted from his position as the monastic head of Nland, if we are to believe the a a 86 While the monks wielded authority as representatives of these story. centers of virtue and learning, the siddhas derided the monastic estate as a new form of bondage, substituting the law of the monastery for the law of the king. Monks ordination and restraint from physical functions (sex, eating after noon, etc.) are, in their own way, as articial as the rites of passage (samskara) denoting status in Brahmanical society. . Indeed, we have seen Dasgupta lauding the sahaja path as other than suppressing and thereby inicting undue strain on the human nature, so that at least one modern Indian understood the term to apply to the path of least resistance. Many of the siddhas sought, and clearly felt they had, authority superior to all of these domains secular of sacred with their pedantry and legalistic wrangling. Thus, we may expect that part of the tension exhibited in the sahaja-related works was between monastic institutions and the newly evolved path of siddhas in the esoteric Buddhist world. That is not to say that the problematic of a natural condition was new, for the theoretical difculty with the rhetoric of naturalness is already foreshadowed in the older Mahayanist conundrum. If, as the problem is framed in some areas of the Mahayana, all humans are already possessed of inherent awakening, then is there nothing that actually needs to be done? However this question is formulated whether all beings have tathagatagarbha or if consciousness is inherently pure, clear

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light (prakrtiprabhasvara) the difculty remains. How do institutional . representatives explain the rationale for the grand edice of the Buddhist tradition, the residence in monasteries, and so forth? The formulation of two truths sets about to solve the dilemma, but did not do so in a manner that arrested the question from being continuously reframed. In the case of sahaja as well, the issue arises, for if sahaja is natural and the basis for all reality, then why observe the various vows of the Vajrayna, the consecrations, the ritual and meditative systems, etc.? a Even Ratnkaranti felt moved to discuss the issue in his commentary a sa to the Hevajra verses examined above (I.viii.2536). His answer was to invoke the two-tiered truth response that became the staple of Mahayanist analysis since Ngrjuna.87 So, according to this verication of rules and a a decorum, while absolute sahaja may be innate or inherent, neophytes only come to this realization through the practice of a relative level of ritual sahaja as a metaphor for the absolute sahaja.

CONCLUSIONS

Sahaja proved to be an extraordinary fertile term, and its application from the classical period through the latest documents of Indian esoteric Buddhism demonstrates continual development. In our understanding of the term, we should be sensitive to the difference between how sahaja is used in sentences as a carrier of specic information, and how some authors use it as a broader subject, so that any predicate may be identied with (or negated from) sahaja. Thus, some authorities equate sahaja with almost every important Buddhist term emptiness, interdependence, etc. Unfortunately, this is part of the larger problem of putative synonymy (paryaya) in Indian technical writing, and it often leaves us with a sense that the exercise is a temporary reverie of modest utility. The semantics of its use are the most important, and they provide a relatively good measure of its register. Throughout the period of its use, I believe the term is most frequently employed by Indian Buddhist authors in one of seven related and overlapping semantic values: 1. Sahaja means natural, as an adjective, roughly equivalent to akrtrima. . It describes a condition that applies to all, such as the basics of existence. These conditions are not exclusive to any group, and the term is important or not, depending on the value attached to nature. 2. Sahaja articulates a category of limitations or a range of restricted activities that are accidental and accrued at birth through inheritance. They may be based on caste, on strata of society, on gender or other social/physical factors that were supposed to be covered by questions

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3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

of karma but are often treated by Buddhist authors as possessing something of an element of chance. The association of an individual and a limiting element is thus occasional or adventitious rather than necessary or essential. Sahaja applies to certain behaviors or tendencies that are obtained from previous lives or innate personal characteristics. It describes something like anusaya, vasana or pratisamdhikarma. These are . very specic to an individual, even if they denote functional limitations applying to all individuals within that category. Thus, stream entrants have certain characteristics (mental body, decit of knowledge, etc.) that are sahaja. The term in this and the previous application is used in a manner similar to sahagata, sahotpanna or sahacarin. Sahaja indicates a fundamental, irreducible condition, decidedly a noun. It is roughly equivalent to svabhava or svarupa, and is used to described the inherent and inalienable attributes that exist irrespective of accidental circumstances. Sahajananda is often identied in this sense, and we see that later authors sometimes replace it with svabhavananda. Sahaja indicates the present moment when one thing occurs with another, a temporal value differentiated from the prior and subsequent moments, when the two items were not associated. It therefore indicates simultaneous, rather than accompanying, but the simultaneity is weak and adventitious, as in the case of the acquisition of nondeled indeterminant elements in Vaibhsika Abhidharma. a. Sahaja species a relationship of inherent simultaneity between two elements, neither of which is subordinate or superordinate to the other, but which are always necessarily present when the other is manifest. Ratnkaranti provides the example of great bliss a sa (mahasukha) and non conceptual gnosis (nisprapancajnana) as . 88 having the relationship of sahaja. Sahaja connotes the ritual of sexual yoga, whether physically enacted or visualized. Through synecdoche, sahaja implies not only sahajananda but the entire practice as well. This application is especially noted in the systems deriving from the Hevajra Tantra, and we see that titles like the Sahajayogakrama of Ratnkaranti a sa indicate the process leading up to, and culminating in, sahajananda.

No doubt this list could be improved and rened, for many of the issues implicated in the study of esoteric literature have not even been touched, such as the relation of sahaja to aesthetics, since sahaja is sometimes allied with the aesthetic perception of the incomparable

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taste of liberation (anupamarasasvadana).89 Other issues would have to include an examination of the difference of semantic value of sahaja when articulated in the different descriptions of rituals either physically enacted or simply visualized. We must ask the simple question if these latter despite the formal and verbal similarities to physical rites can even be termed rituals in any signicant sense of the term. A nonperformative ritual yielding a certain cognitive state might be accepted by Buddhist monks as just more meditative cultivation (bhavana), but it would suggest that the semantic load of the prime variables has changed in the process. Beyond the question of semantic values, and their respective intensions and metaphors, sahaja is one of those terms not employed by all esoteric Buddhists, so that it operates as one protable marker of both history and lineage. It seems that eighth century tantras and their derivative lineages particularly many of those in the Guhyasamaja and Samvara praxis . either ignored the new terminology altogether, or only invoked it as a selective response to the emerging power of naturalisms rhetorical stance. Sahajas synthesis with forms of ananda probably occurred in the ninth, or at latest tenth, century, and seems to have been precipitated by the authors of the Hevajra Tantra, in whose unitary vision natural ecstasy became an important component. Because of the various sources for the gradations of ecstasy, though, there was no unanimity in the initial formulation, with a division on the placement of the transcendental form of bliss in the system. As a result, eventually various offshoots emerged, with twelve, sixteen and twenty-four kinds of ananda eventually specied by various authors. For its part, sahaja eventually became a reference point for the siddhas criticism of Buddhist ritualism, scholastic involvement, and excessive yogic obsession, so that it occupied a soteriological, moral high ground excluding the articial. The further development of a new body, the sahajakaya, seems a late tenth or early eleventh century phenomenon, perhaps grounded in the new Kalacakra vision. Thus, as a methodological tool, sahaja commands our consideration. Attention to these kinds of nomenclature, which is often carefully considered by the traditions themselves, will assist in differentiating the esoteric Buddhist sources, traditions and history, so that the totalizing response of modern scholarship to Mantrayna a materials may be set aside for a more critical awareness of variation and nuance.

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NOTES For studies of this variety, see Tatz (1987) and Schaeffer (2000). On this genre, see Sternbach (1973). 3 . Subhasita-samgraha, Le Museon n.s. 5 (1904): 263. . 4 . Subhasita-samgraha, Le Museon n.s. 4 (1903): 376. . 5 . Subhasita-samgraha, Le Museon n.s. 5 (1904): 5, n. 2. . 6 Shahidullah (1928), pp. 1314. 7 E.g., Dasgupta (1950), pp. 6470; cf. Matsunaga (1973) for a critique of this problem. 8 Evident in essays by Saroja, Dvivedi, Sankarnarayan and Yoritomi, Chakravarti and Charkrvarti, Jana, and Banerjee, in Bhattacharyya, ed. (1999), pp. 134, 149, 167, 232, 257, 264. 9 Dasgupta (1946), p. xxv of the 1962 rev. ed. 10 Dasgupta (1946), p. xxxvi of the 1962 rev. ed. 11 Dasgupta (1950), p. 69. 12 Guenther (1969), p. 9, n. 14. 13 Guenther (1992), p. 22; despite a lack of reference, the noun or adjective certainly refers to Kvrnes 1975 article, as we will see. More unfortunately, Guenther felt moved to engage in an unnecessary ad hominem attack on Snellgrove (p. 18, n. 14), whose contributions are well acknowledged and in many ways central to this study. 14 . Sekoddes atka, Introduction, p. 34. 15 . Sekoddes atka, Introduction, pp. 1819. 16 . Sekoddes atka, Introduction, pp. 10, 12, 18; for a recent discussion of the kaya theory in early medieval scholasticism, see Makransky (1997), pp. 85286, and especially pp. 284285, where the esoteric employment of svabhavikakaya is briey mentioned. 17 Dasgupta (1950), pp. 174178. 18 Snellgroves 1957 Buddhist Himalaya, pp. 233234, had already discussed the Tibetan employment of this material. 19 This table is actually an amalgamation of two tables found in Hevajra Tantra, Introduction, pp. 34 and 38. 20 Hevajra Tantra, Introduction, p. 35. 21 Snellgrove (1987), vol. 1, pp. 243267. 22 Kvrne (1975), p. 89. 23 Kvrne (1975), pp. 124128. 24 Davidson (forthcoming a). 25 E.g., the translations of sahagata and sahaja are the same in many sections of Gunabhadras and Bodhirucis Lankavatra translations; T. 670.16.489c23, 498a220, . 501c13; T. 671.16.537a16, 540c23. 26 . Mahayanasutralamkara, p. 104.1011 (reading hetuh for hatuh). . . 27 Madhyantavibhaga, p. 62.1416; the Tibetan replaces dharmadhatusparsartha with dharmadhatvagrarthadi-; To.4032, fol. 227b7: chos kyi dbyings mchog gi don la sogs pa . . ., indicating that the dharmadhatu is the highest object. 28 Lankavatara Sutra, p. 118.48. 29 Lankavatara Sutra, p. 81, reading with the Tib. and Chin. as n. 12 of the text; T. 670.16.489c235, T.671.16.530a14. Gatinikaya and nikayagati are almost interchange able in the Lankavatara, and indicate group characteristics (nikaya) found within a specic realm of existence (gati); cf. the verses that opperate as a commentary on the model invoked here, Lankavatara X.209219, pp. 292293. This use is related to the form of causation providing continuity between births, nikayasabhaga; cf. . Abhidharmakosabhasya p. 126.15.
2 1

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Lankavatara Sutra, p. 137.110. Bodhisattvabhumi, Dutt (1966), pp. 40.56, 214.12. 32 Bodhisattvabhumi, Dutt (1966), p. 214.622. 33 . Abhidharmakos a-bhasya, p. 34.7 to I.44: tatra caksurvijnanasya caksuh sahaja . . . . asrayo yavat kayavijnanasya kayah | attah punar esam asrayo mana ity apy ete . . . pancavijnanakaya indriyadvaya srayah |. 34 . Abhidharmakos a-bhasya, p. 65.1224; these dharmas are dened in . Abhidharmakosa-bhasya II.30, p. 58. 35 . Abhidharmakos a-bhasya, p. 65.1819. 36 Ratnagotravibhaga, pp. 66.1867.1. 37 Bodhisattvabhumi, Dutt (1966), p. 2.49. 38 a E.g., Pancakrama II.65 (Skyamitras section): Chin kang ting ching yu chieh shih pa hui chich kuei, T.869.18.286c; Prajnaparamita-nayasatapancasatkatka, fol. 273a3; . a Jnnamitras work is included in the early ninth century dKar chag ldan dkar ma, Lalou (1953), no. 523; for a discussion of its importance, see Kanaoka (1966). I have discussed the Vilsavajra references in Davidson (1981), pp. 78; see also Davidson a (forthcoming a). We might also note that the Laghusamvara Tantra, fols. 216a4, . 232a56, references several other works: the Tattvasamgraha, the Guhyatantra, the . Paramadya, and the Vajrabhairava Tantra. This latter is the most intriguing, yet is not as clear as we might like. For a recent translation of ve tantras designated as Vajrabhairava, see Siklos (1996). 39 E.g., Sarvabuddhasamayoga, fol. 152b6; Guhyasamaja VII.2127, X.14, XI.3, etc. with XV.1518, 3948 being particularly interesting; Laghusamvara, fols. 224a4b5, . 237a47, 239b14, etc. 40 Subahupariprccha, fols. 138b6139a4; cf. fols. 130b5131a4 and Subahupariprccha. tantrapindartha, fols. 52b653a2. .. 41 Some of these issues are discussed in Davidson (forthcoming a). 42 For an introduction to this issue, see Granoff (2000), esp. pp. 412419. 43 The exception to these statements is the curious non canonical recension of the Sarvabuddhasamayoga, the Sarvabuddhasamayoga-tantraraja, which is much shorter than the canonical version. The prima facie supposition that the shorter text is earlier may be called into question by the presence of the four kinds of bliss, fol. 3a6, germane to our discussion. A comparison of the texts shows many sections, included within differing chapters, that indicate a common basis for the Tibetan translations of those verses or sections; cf., especially, the mandala arrangement and .. justication found in the second chapter of the shorter non canonical recension, fols. 7b412a7, against virtually the same material found in Chapter ve of To. 366, fols. 155b3159a4. The chapter order and naming, though, is completely different, and we might suspect an earlier version that had no chapter divisions in the manner of the received versions. The shorter text, while one third to one half the size of the longer version, has eleven cahpters (kalpa), where To. 366 has ten. Neither of the two canonical commentaries pertain to the shorter version, and it appears to me an eleventh century or later reworking of the longer text in one of the older tantric centers of Central Tibet. However, all these issues need further examination. 44 I must alert the reader that these comments apply only to the literature cited; I have yet to systematically peruse the vyakhya tantras, such as the Sandhivyakarana, . for the term. Yet this may not be so great a chronological liability, as Matsunaga (1964) has proposed that at least some of these ancillary scriptures were composed by the members of the Arya-lineage. I would also argue that if the term were important system, the later meditation manuals would certainly cite it. to the Guhyasamaja The most complete traditional discussion of the Guhyasamaja systems I have seen is the 1634 discussion by A-mes-zhabs, dPal gsang ba dus pai dam pai chos

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byung bai tshul legs par bshad pa gsang dus chos kun gsal pai nyin byed. For the Phags-lugs syllabus, pp. 24.137.3. 45 It may be observed that the Tibetan translators of Pancakrama II.18, have rendered sahasa (ferocity) with the Tibtan rendering of sahaja, lhan cig skyes pa; as noted by Snellgrove (1987), vol. 1, p. 301, this is not a sensible translation in any semantic value for the term sahaja, and we must wonder about the manuscript transmission. 46 The Caryamelapakapradpa, for example, quotes from the Guhyasiddhi (fols. 91b45, 94b12, 103b4) and Nagarjuna (fol. 83b7), although this is apparently not from the Pancakrama. For the complicated relationship between the Pancakrama and other texts, see the Mimaki and Tomabechi edition, Introductory Remarks, x, n. 15, xvi-xvii. I wish to thank Christian Wedemeyer for calling my attention to the importance of the Caryamelapakapradpa. 47 E.g., the Caryamelapakapradpa, fols. 100b4103a4; Pradpodyotana, pp. 6271 uses the term in the context of the highly erotic seventh chapter of the Guhyasamaja, but employs mandalacakra elsewhere, p. 225. .. 48 Laghusamvara Tantra, fol. 213a5. While the Vasantatilaka is not directly concerned . with the question of sexual practice, the general usage of sahaja observed in the text, and one quote from the Mulatantra inVanaratnas commentary (pp. 4041) . appears to reinforce this analysis: mulatantre pi yoginyah sahajah siddha iti vacanat. . As in the case of the Guhyasamaja literature, I have not perused the explanatory tantras for references, and a reference in Anangas Dakinjalasamvarahrasya, p. 3, . . indicates his interpretation of part of the Abhidhanottara with the hermeneutics of sahaja, even if the term has not been used in the scripture. 49 Srcakrasamvarapancakramavrtti, fol. 231a23: man ngag de rnams kyi stobs kyis . . dpei lhan cig skyes pai me tog lta bui bde ba chen poi rang rig gnyis su med pai ye shes nyams su myong bar gyur ro |. 50 For this terminology and discussion, see Alakakalaas commentary to the s Yoginsancara Tantra, pp. 1011. 51 See the various discussions in the Vasantatilaka commentary, Rahasyadpika; Vasantatilaka pp. 8, 9, 11, 15, 17, 259, 42, 59, 68, 77 839. 52 Cf. To. 1436, 1457, 1471, etc. 53 See dPal gsang ba dus pai dam pai chos byung bai tshul legs par bshad pa gsang dus chos kun gsal pai nyin byed, pp. 37.440.3. I no longer believe the tradition, represented in Davidson (1981), p. 9, n. 23, that Buddhaguhya was the a disciple of Buddhajnnapda. a 54 Dvikramatattvabhavana-mukhagama, fol. 7b2: gsal zhing rab dga nam mkha dra | rang byung lhag pai lha chen po | lhan cig skye pai ye shes kyis | bla mai kha las rtogs par bya |; fol. 12a56: di ni lhan cig skyes pa yi | ye shes ba zhig dbang byas nas | rim pa gnyis pa bsgom pai thabs | mi shigs thig le bsgom pao |. 55 Dvikramatattvabhavana-mukhagama, fol. 13a2; see also fols. 11a23 and 13b1. Vitapda identies the three forms of ecstasy with the three bodies of the Buddha; a Sukusuma-nama-dvikramatattvabhavana-mukhagama-vrtti 127a4. We also may notice . that he employs sahajananda at least once (fol. 121a7), but does not use the term when explaining sexual practice. 56 Samksiptabhisekavidhi, p. 418, vv. 1011. Brog-mi Shkya ye-shes is reputed a . . . to have worked with a Vgvarak in the early eleventh century, and I would a s rti tentatively identify the two individuals bearing this name; see the bLa ma brgyud pai rnam par thar pa ngo mtshar snang ba, p. 15.3. 57 Dvikramatattvabhavana-mukhagama, fol. 1b4; cf. Ruegg (1981), p. 101. 58 This section of the Dvikramatattvabhavana-mukhagama, cols. 1b42b5 would be much more obscure without the much later commentary of Vitapda, the Sukusumaa nama-dvikramatattvabhavana-mukhagama-vrtti, fols. 89a694b1. .

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59 Sukusuma-nama-dvikramatattvabhavana-mukhagama-vrtti, fol. 90a6: rnam mkhai . shing ldan zhes bya ste | cii phyir zhe na | rtsa ba med par shing rnams la khris shing steng du dris pa (sic for dril pa) lta bur gnas pao |. 60 Mirashi (1976), pp. xlvii, 68. 61 . Prajnaparamita-nayasatapancasatkataka, fol. 273a3274a2; Kosalalam. karatattvasamgrahatka fols. 1b52a5. Until 1991, the identication of Odiyna . . . a with Swat could still have been questioned, albeit for increasingly obscure reasons. However, Kuwayama (1991) forever settled the question with the publication of a rereading of the Gardez inscription. The inscription, dated by Kuwayama to either 753 or 765 CE, indicated the dedication of a Ganea statue by Khimgla of . s . a Odynashi. This dening moment was unfortunately obscured by Kuwayamas bland . a .a title, Linscription du Ganea de Gardez et la chronologie des Turki-Shi. . s .a 62 a Buddhajnnapda emphasizes his teachers as his sources in Dvikramatattvabhavanaa mukhagama, fols. 12b5, 13a2, 14a7. However, he also indicates other Mahayoga Tantras, fol. 16b6. 63 This straightforward equation is provided by Vitapda, Sukusuma-namaa dvikramatattvabhavana-mukhagama-vrtti, fols. 124a7b1. . 64 The text is Hevajra Tantra, vol. 2, p. 28; translation is mine. For Snellgroves somewhat obscure translation, see Hevajra Tantra, vol. 1, pp. 756; cf. Farrow and Menon (1992), pp. 9299, who have numbered the verses differently. 65 Shendge (1967), pp. 129130. 66 E.g., Tattvacaturupades aprasannadpa, fol. 160b2; Sahajayogakrama, fol. 195a1; Sahajasadyogavr ttigarbhaprakasa, fol. 197a2. . 67 Vyaktabhavanugatatattvasiddhi, p. 169. 68 For example, Vanaratna in his late Rahasyadpika, Vasantatilaka pp. 25.1, 27.618, etc., glosses sahajasiddha as svabhavasiddha, etc.; cf. Anandacaks u-tka, fol. 158b2; . . Sahajanandapradpapanjika, fols. 166a1, 167a1, 168a37, etc. 69 a As has already been noted, the date of Buddhajnnapda is predicated on his a teacher, Haribhadra, who indicated that his long commentary, the Aloka, had been written during the reign of Dharmapla (ca. 775812 CE). Other arguments for the a later date of the Hevajra Tantra are based on an argumentum ex silencio, which is the weakest of historical arguments, even though it is the only one we have in this case. I have uncovered no author or text from the eighth and early ninth centuries as indicated in internal afrmation (like Haribhadras), on mutual reference, or on translation into Tibetan or Chinese that species the Hevajra. We must recall that Tibetans continued to make translations into the third quarter of the ninth century; see Chos byung me tog snying po sbrang rtsii bcud, p. 448.79: O-bran bLo-gros dbang-phyug received the Thumbseal of Yamari, etc. from the Indian Candrak rti and translated it. These two were the conclusion of the Early Translation Period. on bran blo gros dbang phyug la rgya gar tsan dra gir tis gsin rje gshed theb rgya can la sogs pa gnangs ste bsgyur ro | de gnyis gsangs sngags snga gyur gyi gzhug mar song ste |. This nal translation effort probably would have occurred in the third quarter of the ninth century (ca. 850875 CE), after the collapse of the Royal Dynasty in the 840s. It would be tempting to identify this Candrak with rti the Arya school master, but we have no reason to do so other than the chronology may be approximately correct. Even as late as the tenth century list of tantras by Devaputra, the Hevajra is not mentioned; Hackin (1924), pp. 58. The name Hevajra undoubtedly comes from the eighth century employment of this expostulation (Hey, Vajra!) in various texts, such as the Sarvabuddhasamayoga, fol. 169b6 (we also nd He! Samvara!, fol. 170a1), the Laghusamvara, fol. 221a2, etc. However, we are . . faced with an enormous volume of Hevajra commentaries and related material by the early eleventh century. While I have no doubt (as opposed to others who have

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voiced reservations) that in the culture of scriptural proliferation that marked Indian Buddhism, and given the remarkable religious imagination of Indians, this could be achieved in a few decades. Nonetheless, I prefer a date in the last quarter of the ninth or rst quarter of the tenth centuries. Be that as it may, there is no evidence for an earlier date than the late ninth century and none in support of Snellgroves eighth century date. 70 An excellent examination of bodhicitta in important esoteric systems in Namai (1997). 71 This description of mahamudra is found in the Manjusrmulakalpa, pp. 29ff. 72 Jnanodaya Tantra, pp. 78; Sekoddesatka, p. 27; see also the discussion on sahajananda in the Jnanatilakayogintantraraja-paramamahadbhuta fols. 120a4b5. 73 Vanaratnas commentary to the Vasantatilaka, p. 2.1619. 74 For the most extensive early discussion of this practice, see the twelfth century Sras don ma, pp. 135.5168.4. These varieties of yoga will be explained in some detail in a work under preparation by the author on the esoteric Lam-bras practices. For the Indic basis of the two different practices, Hevajra Tantra, Snellgroves Introduction, p. 38. 75 Anandacaks u-tka, fol. 158b2; Sahajanandapradpapanjika, fols. 166a1, 167a1, . . 168a37, etc. Davidson (forthcoming b) summarizes what we know of this enigmatic gure. 76 I have seen occasional mention of a sahajakaya in late authors concerned with the Samvara system, but am uncertain as to the ultimate source of the doctrine. The . Kalacakra Tantra, Banerjee (1985), develops the themes of sahaja in the following verses, which I list for those who would desire to pursue the matter, now that the Vimalaprabha is accessible: II.27, 161, III.123124, IV.98, 120, 123, 128, 199200, 214, 224, 228, V.53, 578, 62, 69, 70, 73, 76, 89, 114, 118, 123, 164, 174, 178, 190, 233. Kalacakra scholars have led on principles of dating esoteric scriptures; see Orono (1997) for a survey of the issues. 77 Pod ser, pp. 461479 constitutes a text (Phyag rgyai lam skor) and Indrabhutirelated traditions. I discuss this text and its information in Davidson (forthcoming b). 78 This material is from the Sahajasiddhi-paddhati, fols. 6a67b2; I plan to bring out all of this hagiographical material in the near future, for its importance has been obscured by Tibetan historians. 79 This summary is found Sahajasiddhi-paddhati, fols. 4a56a5. 80 Davidson (1999) discusses the attitudes of esoteric authors towards the questions of epistemological validity, to which this refers. 81 Sahajasiddhi, To. 2260, fols. 1b42a1: kun groi lhan cig skyes zhi ba | rtag tu byung zhing rang la gnas | dus kun du ni mi zad pa | rtog pas brtags pa spangs pa nyid | rang dang phyi rol nang na gnas | phyi dang nang las ma skyes pa | zung jug tshig gi don de ni | rgyu dang mi rgyu gnas pa las | dus kun du ni yang dag gnas | gzhung las ma gtogs rnyed mi gyur | 82 Sahajasiddhi, To. 2260, fols. 2a42b2: la la bdag ni lhan cig skyes | kha cig rmongs pas dbang phyug ste | bdag bcas ma yin bdag med pa | rtog pa gnyis ni spangs pa nyid | de ni zung jug go phang du | rgyal bas lhan cig skyes par gsungs | de nyid srog chags rnams kyi srog | de nyid mchog tu mi gyur ba | de nyid kun la khyab pa yi | lus kun la ni rnam par gnas | bud med byis pa ba lang rdzi | kla klo dang ni rigs ngan dang | chu yi nang gnas sems can dang | lha dang gnod sbyin klur bcas pai | de rnams lhan cig skyes mis shes | gro bai grong khyer dag tu khyam | 83 Sahajasiddhi, To.2260, fols. 3a14: kha cig dngos grub dbang gnyis skyes | byis pa yun ring rgan sogs kyis | bad pa yis ni thob mi gyur | rgyu dang bcas pai skad cig ma | khrul dang rnam par khrul dra ma | kha cig longs spyod rdzogs

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pai gzhung | de ni lhan cig skyes brjod min | lte bai dbus su khor lo mchog | de dbus gzi brjid gzugs can ni | sgrub pa po yis rtag bsgoms pa | de ni lhan cig skyes brjod min | spyi bor gnas pai khor lo che | de la reg dang bde ba bab | bya bai rab tu sbyor bas thob | de ni lhan cig skyes brjod min | srog gi rlung ni gog pa ru | bad pa yis ni gang zhig byed | sna yi rtse mor rab gzhug bya | de gog pa yis gang thob pa | de ni lhan cig skys brjod min | thur sel rlung ni gog pa yis | lus ni gdung ba byas nas su | yang nas yang du goms par byed | de ni lhan cig skyes mi brjod | 84 Sr-Birua-caurasi, fols. 138a6, 138b3; the correct title for this work is provided in the Peking edition, Pe. 3129, bsTan-gyur, rgyud grel, tshi, fol. 149a1, but the sDe-dge edition has been articially Sanskritized, probably in the printing process. 85 Sahajasiddhi, fol. 2b5: dbu mai dod lugs gzhung gi tshul | de ni rtsod kun la mos |. 86 Bla ma rgya gar bai lo rgyus, SKB III.170.3.54.2. Maitr da hagiography has pa been discussed in Tatz (1987), who, however (pp. 700701) does not believe the expulsion story, even though it is reported in good sources. 87 Sr Hevajrapanjika Muktikaval, fols. 257a4b4. 88 Mahamaya Tantra, p. 15.18. 89 Vyaktabhavanutagatattvasiddhi, p. 169.15; cf. p. 176-177; this latter discussion was . sufciently representative to be included in Subhasita-samgraha, Le Museon, n.s. 5 . (1904), p. 23, there attributed to Sarahapda. The Dvikramatattvabhavana-mukhagama, a fol. 13a3, also ties the aesthetic elements to great bliss.

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dKar chag ldan dkar ma. Pho brang stod thang ldan dkar gyi chos gyur ro cog gi dka chag. To. 4364. Lalou, Marcelle (1953). Les Textes bouddhiques au temps du Roi Khri-sron-lde-bcan, Journal Asiatique 241(3): 313353. dPal gsang ba dus pai dam pai chos byung bai tshul legs par bshad pa gsang dus chos kun gsal pai nyin byed. A-mes-zhabs Ngag-dbang kun-dga bsod-nams (15971662); written 1634 (1985). Rajpur, U.P.: Sakya Centre. Dvikramatattvabhavana-mukhagama. Asc. Buddhar nna. To. 1853. bsTan-gyur, s ja rgyud, di, fols. 1b117b2. Guhyasamaja Mahaguhyatantraraja. Matsunaga, Yukei, ed. (1978). Guhyasamaja Tantra. Osaka: Toho Shuppan, Inc. Guhyasiddhi. Asc. Padmavajra. In Rinpoche, Samdhong and Dwivedi, Vrajvallabh, eds. (1987). Guhyadi-As.tasiddhi-Sangraha. Rare Buddhist Text Series 1. Sarnath, . Varanasi: Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, pp. 562. Hevajra Tantra. Snellgrove, David L., ed. and trans. The Hevajra Tantra: A Critical Study, London Oriental Series, vol. 6. London: Oxford University Press. 2 Vols. Jnanasiddhi. Asc. Indrabhuti. Edited with Guhyasiddhi, above; Guhyadi-As.tasiddhi. Sangraha, pp. 93157. Jnanatilakayogintantraraja-paramamahadbhuta. To. 422, bKa-gyur, rgyud-bum, nga, fols. 96b6136b4. Jnanodaya Tantra. Rinpoche, Samdhong and Dwivedi, Vrajvallabh, eds. (1988). Rare Buddhist Text Series 2. Sarnath, Varanasi: Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies. Kalacakra Tantra. Banerjee, Biswanath, ed. (1985). A Critical Edition of Sr Kalacakratantra-Raja (Collated with the Tibetan Version). Calcutta: The Asiatic Society. a . Kosalalamkaratattvasamgrahatka. Asc. Skyamitra. To. 2503. bsTan-gyur, rgyud, . . yi, fols. 1b1245a7, ri, fols. 1b1202a5. Laghusamvara. (Tantraraja-Sr-Laghusamvara) To. 368. bKa-gyur, rgyud-bum, ka, . . fols. 213b1246b7. Lam bras slob bshad (19831984). Dehra Dun: Sakya Centre. 31 Vols. Lankavatara Sutra. Nanjio, Bunyiu, ed. (1956). Bibliotheca Otaniensis, vol. 1. Kyoto: Otani University Press. Madhyantavibhaga. Pandeya, R. C., ed. (1971). Madhyanta-Vibhaga-Sastra. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Mahamaya Tantra. Rinpoche, Samdhong and Dwivedi, Vrajvallabh, eds. (1992). Mahamayatantra with Gunavat by Ratnakarasanti. Rare Buddhist Text Series . 10. Sarnath: Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies. . ` Mahayanasutralamkara. Sylvain Lvi, ed. (1907). Bibliotheque de lEcole des Hautes e Etudes, 159e fascicule. Paris: Libairie Honor Champion. e Manjusrmulakalpa. Vaidya, P. L., ed. (1964). Mahayanasutrasamgraha. Part II. Buddhist Sankrit Texts No. 18. Darbhanga: Mithila Institute. Ntisara. Mitra, Rajendralal, ed. Revised with English Translation by Sisir Kumar Mitra (1982). The Ntisara or the Elements of Polity by Kamandaki, Bibliotheca Indica No. 309. Calcutta: The Asiatic Society. Pancakrama. Asc. Ngrjuna. Mimaki, Katsumi and Tomabechi, Toru, eds. (1994). a a Pancakrama: Sanskrit and Tibetan Texts Critically Edited with Verse Index and Facsimile Edition of the Sanskrit Manuscripts, Bibliotheca Codicum Asiaticorum 8. Tokyo: The Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies for Unesco. Pod ser. Grags-pa rgyal-mtshan (11471216), with many additions. LL XI. Pradpodyotanatkasatkotvyakhyana, Tibetan Sanskrit Works Series, No. 25. Patna: . . . . Kashi Prasad Jayaswal Research Institute. a Prajnaparamita-nayasatapancasatkatka. Asc. Jnnamitra. To. 2647. bsTan-gyur, . rgyud, ju, fols. 272b7294a5.

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Ratnagotravibhaga. Johnston, E. H., ed. (1950). Ratnagotravibhaga Mahayanot taratantrasastra. Patna: Bihar Research Society. a Sahajananda-pradpa-panjika. Asc. Prajngupta. bsTan-gyur, rgyud, ja, fols. 160a1 208b1. Sahajasadyogavr ttigarbhaprakasa. Asc. Thagana. To. 1247. bsTan-gyur, rgyud nya, . fols. 196a3201a4. Sahajasiddhi. Asc. Domb heruka. Edited with Guhyasiddhi, above; Guhyadi-As.tasiddhi. . Sangraha, pp. 185191. Ed. and trans. Shendge (1967), below. Sahajasiddhi. Asc. Indrabhuti. To. 2260. bsTan-gyur, rgyud, zhi, fols. 1b14a3. Sahajasiddhi-paddhati. Asc. Lha-lcam rje-btsun-ma dpal-mo (?*Dev .trikr bhat.a as ). To. 2261. bsTan-gyur, rgyud, zhi, fols. 4a325a1. Sahajayogakrama. Asc. Ratnkaranti. To. 1246. bsTan-gyur, rgyud, nya, fols. a sa 194b6196a3. Samksiptabhisekavidhi. In Sakurai, Munenobu (1996). Indo Mikkyogirei Kyenkyu. . . . Kyoto: Hozogan, pp. 407421. Sarvabuddhasamayoga, or Sarvabuddhasamayoga-dakinjala-sambara-nama-uttara. . tantra (canonical recension) To. 366. bKa-gyur, rgyud-bum, ka, fols. 151b1193a6. Sarvabuddhasamayoga-tantraraja (non canonical recension) (1981). The mTshamsBrag Manuscript of the rNying-ma rgyud bum. Thimphu, Bhutan: National Library. Vol. tsha, fols. 1b126a7. Sa skya bka bum. Bsod Nams Rgya Mstho, ed. (1968). The Complete Works of the Great Masters of The Sa Skya Sect of The Tibetan Buddhism. Tokyo: Toyo Bunko. 14 Vols. . . Sekoddesatka. Carelli, Mario E., ed. (1941). Sekoddesatka of Nadapada (Naropa), . Gaekwads Oriental Series, No. 90. Baroda: Oriental Institute. Sra don ma. Asc. Sa-chen Kun-dga snying-po. LL XII.11-446. Sr-Birua-caurasi. Asc. Virupa. Artically Sanskritized to Sr-Virupapada-caturas ti; . cf. Pe. 3129, bsTan-gyur, rgyud grel, tshi, fol. 149a1; To. 2283. bsTan-gyur, rgyud, zhi, fols. 138a4139a6. Srcakrasamvarapancakramavrtti. Asc. Ghantpda. To. 1435. bsTan-gyur, rgyud. . . . .a a wa, fols. 227b3233a4. Sr-Hevajrapanjika Muktikaval. Asc. Ratnkaranti. To. 1189. bsTan-gyur, rgyud, a sa ga, fols. 221a1297a7. Subahupariprccha. T. 895.18.719a746b, translated by Shan-wu-wei in 726 CE; To. . 805. bKa-gyur, rgyud-bum, wa, fols. 118a140b. Subahupariprccha-tantrapindartha. Asc. Buddhaguhya. To. 2671. bsTan-gyur, rgyud, . .. thu, fols. 38a354b7. . Subhasita-samgraha. Bendall, Cecil, ed. le Museon n.s. 4 (1903): 375402, Le Museon . n.s. 5 (1904): 546, 245274. Sukusuma-nama-dvikramatattvabhavana-mukhagama-vrtti. Asc. Vitapda. To. 1866. a . bsTan-gyur, rgyud, di, fols. 87a3139b3. Tattvacaturupadesaprasannadpa. Asc. Tillipa. To. 1242. bsTan-gyur, rgyud, nya, fols. 155b1162a3. Vairocanabhisambodhitantrapin dartha. Asc. Buddhaguhya. To. 2662, bsTan-gyur, .. rgyud, nyu, fols. 165a. Vasantatilaka. Rinpoche, Samdhong and Dwivedi, Vrajvallabh, eds. (1990) . s. Vasantatilkaa of Caryavrat Srkr. nacarya with Commentary: Rahasyadpika by Vanaratna, Rare Buddhist Text Series 7. Sarnath: Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies. Vyaktabhavanutagatattvasiddhi. Asc. Yogin Cint. Included in Guhyasiddhi, above, a pp. 169179. Yoginsancara Tantra. Pandey, Janardan Shastri, ed. (1998). Yoginsancaratantram with Nibandha of Tathagataraksita and Upadesanusarinvyakhya of Alakakalasa,

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Orono, Giacomella (1997). Apropos of Some Foreign Elements in the Klacakraa tantra, in Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the 7th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Graz 1995, eds. Helmut Krasser et al. Vienna: Verlag der Osterreichischen Academie der Wissenschaften, vol. 2, pp. 717724. Ruegg, David Seyfort (1981). The Literature of the Madhyamaka School of Philosophy in India. A History of Indian Literature, vol. VII, fasc. 1. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. Shaeffer, Kurtis R. (2000). The Religious Career of Vairocanavajra A TwelfthCentury Indian Buddhist Master from Daksina Koala, Journal of Indian Philosophy s . . 28: 361384. . Shahidullah, Mohammed (1928). Les Chants Mystiques de Kanha et de Saraha: Les Doha-Kosa et Les Carya. Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve. . . . Shastri, Hara Prasad (1916). Hajar Bacharer Purana Bangala Bhasay Bauddha Gan ya a O Doha. Calcutta: Bang Shitya Parisat. . Shendge, Malati J. (1967). Srsahajasiddhi, Indo-Iranian Journal X: 126149. Siklos, Bulcsu (1996). The Vajrabhairava Tantras: Tibetan and Mongolian Versions, English Translation and Annotations. Buddhica Britannica Series Continua VII. Tring, U.K.: Institute of Buddhist Studies. Snellgrove, David L. (1954). The Tantras, in Buddhist Texts Through the Ages, ed. Edward Conze. Oxford: Bruno Cassierer, pp. 221268. Snellgrove, David L. (1957). Buddhist Himalaya: Travels and Studies in Quest of the Origins and Nature of Tibetan Religion. Oxford: Bruno Cassier. Snellgrove, David L. (1987). Indo-Tibetan Buddhism: Indian Buddhists and Their Tibetan Successors. Boston: Shambhala. 2 Vols. Sternbach, Ludwik (1973). Subhsita-samgraha-s, A Forgotten Chapter in the Histories a. . of Sanskrit Literature, Indologica Taurinensia 1: 169255. Tatz, Mark (1987). The Life of the Siddha-Philosopher Maitr gupta, Journal of the American Oriental Society 107: 695711. Ui, Hakuju et al., eds. (1934). A Complete Catalogue of the Tibetan Buddhist Canons (BKah-hgyur and Bstan-hgyur). Sendai: Tohoku Imperial University. . . .

ABBREVIATIONS

LL SKB To. T.

Lam bras slob bshad. Sa skya bka bum. Sde dge canon numbers found in Tohoku catalogue of Ui (1934). Takakusu Junjiro and Watanabe Kaikyoku, eds. (19241935) Taisho shinshu daizokyo. Tokyo: Daizokyokai

Department of Religious Studies Faireld University North Benson Road Faireld, Connecticut 06430-5195