Origin of the Mahamudra Teachings
Among the gifts from the East to the West, none is more significant in terms of philosophy and religious history than this book. Even for those studying the discipline of yoga—the art of mastering the mind—rarely is there a work more precious than this one. It contains the essence of profound Eastern esoteric teachings, not as mere relics from a once-flourishing but long-lost culture, but as a living tradition passed down in secret through the generations to this very day.
The teachings of Mahamudra contained in this book were transmitted to a select few disciples by the ancient Indian Brahmanism and Buddhism long before Christianity entered Europe. According to Tibetan traditions originating from India, the Buddhist sage Master Saraha (whose exact historical dates are difficult to determine) may have expounded this method in the first century BCE, by which time it was already an ancient teaching, passed down directly from sages of remote antiquity. Thereafter, it was transmitted unbroken through successive masters, forming a long and glorious lineage. Master Saraha was but one among those masters.
It is said that this teaching was transmitted orally through a single lineage, from the great disciple of the Buddha, the Bodhisattva Nāgārjuna (circa 344–46 CE), and his disciples. By the 11th century CE, when the founder of the Kagyu school, the Venerable Marpa, traveled from the snowy plateaus of Tibet to the plains of India in search of sacred wisdom, the Indian Buddhist master Nāropa imparted this teaching to him.
He studied the Mahamudra teachings under the venerable Tilopa, who was the most renowned master of the mid-tenth century. According to the Kagyu tradition, Tilopa received these teachings directly from the supreme Buddha Vajradhara. Vajradhara, a secret name, signifies profound mystical authority.
The transmission of the Kagyu lineage, as explained, truly contains the essence of the tradition's reliance on the Vajradhara lineage, the mind-to-mind transmission from Tilopa, enabling its successive entrustment to become the foundational teaching of the new lineage of Kagyu masters in Tibet. Since this teaching lineage was already widespread in India long before Tilopa, such an explanation may be more accurate. Even the late Kachö Dawa Sangdu Lama was not without an inclination toward this understanding.
The Kagyu lineage masters regard the Buddha as the supreme teacher in the human realm, and Vajradhara as the ultimate root guru in the celestial realms. The transmission lineage is described in detail in *The Life of the Tibetan Yogi Milarepa*. Among its English translations, the most extensively annotated version is particularly suitable for studying alongside the essential teachings of Mahamudra. Milarepa was the principal disciple of Marpa. According to his biography, through practicing the Mahamudra teachings, he attained Buddhahood in a single lifetime. Today, yogis across various traditions in the West regard him as one of the greatest yogis recorded in history.
Examining the Blue Annals (one of the most reliable historical records of Tibet), the highest philosophical school of Mahamudra in Tibet includes three Tibetan translations of Mahamudra teachings, all originating from Indian manuscripts. The first was transmitted by the master Naropa. The second is divided into two parts: the upper part was transmitted by the Indian scholar Kāṇha when he entered Tibet, while the lower part was transmitted by the Nepalese Buddhist Asu during his brief stay in U Province. Additionally, there is a later version translated into Tibetan by Nāropa of Nyari in Tibet, who traveled to India and met with Kāṇha.
The first reformer of esoteric Buddhism, Master Atisha (Sanskrit name: Dipamkara Shrijnana), entered Tibet from India in the year 1038 AD. He vigorously advocated the importance of the Mahamudra philosophy in the study of yoga, thus becoming the foremost teacher in Tibet. It is believed that he, like Master Milarepa in the early centuries that followed, was a great master skilled in elucidating and implementing the merits of the Mahamudra teachings. Later, Master Tang produced another Tibetan translation, though it seems Tang did not fully exert himself in spreading the teachings. Master Marpa also retranslated the text into Tibetan from the original Indian source (likely Sanskrit). Among other yoga practitioners who translated the Mahamudra teachings were the three great masters: Mahavairocana Raksita, Naropa, and Rechung (the biographer of Master Milarepa). As for our revised edition, it was compiled by the White Lotus Guru in the 17th century. At that time, there were numerous Tibetan translations, many of which were riddled with errors. The guru meticulously verified each one before undertaking the compilation. The section on the reasons for composing this treatise states: The compiler, finding that the text contained many unauthorized alterations and passages falsely claimed to be extracted from various sutras and treatises, removed them all during editing, as most were deemed unreliable.
The supreme teachings, crystallized within the original texts, have been passed down from master to disciple since prehistoric times, continuing to the present day—a tradition that is highly credible and well-attested.