Padmasambhava is one of the most important figures in Tibetan Buddhism, yet he remains one of the least understood. To his millions of followers, the ‘Precious Guru’ is the union of the Buddhas of the past, present, and future, transcending time and space. In ritual, his numerous forms are the focus of countless advanced tantric practices and popular prayers alike. In Buddhist historiography, he is the direct emanation of Buddha Amitābha in the form of a tantric adept from Uḍḍiyāna, who came to Tibet to tame its unruly territorial deities and peoples, and who continues to bless them with the ongoing transmission of vast quantities of teachings as ‘Treasures’ ( gter ma). To some of his Tibetan Bonpo critics, he was a charlatan who morally subverted Buddhism in India and undermined the ancestral faith of Tibet. For Western academics, Padmasambhava is so highly mythologised that it is difficult to discern very much about a historical person behind the myths. Our approach is suitably wide and interdiciplinary for such a vast topic. It includes Padmasambhava in history, in society, in religion, in myth, and in ritual; with a study of the tantric cultures of Kashmir and Uḍḍiyāna in the relevant periods and the interactions of those regions with the Tibetophone world.
Convenors:
Cathy Cantwell, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford
Robert Mayer, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford
Yunyao Zhai, Department of South Asian Studies, Harvard University
Video recordings:
Robert Mayer, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford
