Abstract
The Life of Victorious Lord Pema in Eleven Acts (རྒྱལ་དབང་པདྨའི་རྣམ་ཐར་མཛད་པ་བཅུ་གཅིག་མ།) is an early narrative of Padmasambhava’s career. Attributed to Guru Chowang (1217-1270), The Eleven Acts highlights Padmasambhava’s enlightened activity in India. This talk presents the structure and content of The Eleven Acts, places it in the context of Guru Chowang’s other writings, contrasts it with better-known stories of Padmasambhava, suggests comparisons and precedents for the idea of a life in eleven acts, and begins to chart the history of the work in later Tibetan narrative literature.
About the Speaker
Kurtis Schaeffer is a student of Buddhist literature in Tibet and the Himalayas. He is the translator of The Life of the Buddha (2014) and Buddhist Meditation: Classic Teachings from Tibet (2024), both from Penguin Classics, and the author of Himalayan Hermitess (2004), The Culture of the Book in Tibet (2009), and other books. He is the Frances Myers Ball Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia.
