Fourteenth century Tibetan treasure revealer credited with discovering the Karling Zhitro cycle, the Self-Liberation of the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities, from which come the funerary texts the West knows as the Tibetan Book of the Dead. In Nyingma tradition the cycle is a terma, a teaching concealed by Padmasambhava in the eighth century for later discovery, and Karma Lingpa is its destined finder.
Facts
Open Questions
Lifespan or FloruitNo source independent of Nyingma tulku-lineage tradition records when Karma Lingpa was born. The commonly repeated date of 1326 comes from later biographical and lineage compilations rather than from any record contemporary with him, consistent with his own description as a fourteenth century figure known chiefly through his discovery of the Karling Zhitro cycle at around age fifteen; the value is recorded here as the traditional date, not a confirmed one. Lifespan or FloruitNo source independent of Nyingma tulku-lineage tradition records when Karma Lingpa died. The commonly repeated date of 1386 comes from the same later biographical tradition that supplies his birth year, with no independent corroboration; it is recorded here as the traditional date, not a confirmed one. Attestation
HistoricityThe lineage histories agree on his existence, family and treasure cycle, but his precise dates are uncertain and much of the received biography is later reconstruction by lineage holders. Traditions Revering This Figure Origins
Place of OriginDakpo region, southeastern Tibet 1 Life
Lifespan or Floruit Publications
Notable PublicationRevealer of the Karling Zhitro treasure cycle, source of the funerary texts known in the West as the Tibetan Book of the Dead 2 Learn More
The Treasure Revealer of Dakpo
Karma Lingpa belongs to the distinctive Tibetan institution of the terton, the treasure revealer. In Nyingma understanding, Padmasambhava, the eighth century master who established Buddhism in Tibet, concealed teachings, termas, in rocks, lakes and the minds of future disciples, timed to surface when the world would need them. The terton is the person karmically appointed to find one. Tradition records Karma Lingpa as the son of the master Nyida Sangye, born in the Dakpo region of southeastern Tibet in the fourteenth century, and says he drew his treasure, while still a young man, from a mountain in the region.
That treasure was the cycle called the Self-Liberation of the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities through Contemplating the Zhitro, the Karling Zhitro, a body of tantric ritual and instruction centered on the hundred peaceful and wrathful deities encountered in visionary experience. The transmission histories say he passed the cycle under seal to his son Nyida Choje, through whom it spread across central and eastern Tibet in the following century. Beyond the lineage records, the biographical trace is thin: dates are approximate, the details vary between histories, and modern scholars such as Bryan Cuevas have shown how much of the received life is reconstruction by later lineage holders. What is certain is the cycle itself, which became one of the most widely used funerary liturgies in the Tibetan world.
From Terma to the Tibetan Book of the Dead
Inside the Karling Zhitro sits a cluster of texts called the Bardo Thodol, Liberation through Hearing in the Intermediate State. They are instructions read aloud to the dying and the dead, guiding the consciousness through the bardos, the intervals between death and rebirth, where the peaceful and wrathful deities appear and where recognition of their true nature can free the wanderer. In Tibet these texts were one strand of a much larger ritual cycle, used by lamas within a full liturgical and contemplative apparatus, and many Tibetan funerary traditions used other cycles entirely.
The West met them through a historical accident. In 1919 an Oxford connected theosophist, Walter Evans-Wentz, acquired a manuscript of the texts in Darjeeling and published a translation in 1927 under a title borrowed from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which the Tibetan corpus does not carry and does not resemble. The book became a twentieth century phenomenon, read by Jung, adapted by Timothy Leary as a psychedelic manual, and reissued in ever new translations, a career Donald Lopez has traced in detail. The atlas keeps the two things distinct: a fourteenth century Nyingma treasure cycle with its own ritual life, and a Western classic built from one part of it. Karma Lingpa stands at the head of both stories, the revealer whose treasure traveled further than any terton could have foreseen.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Fourteenth century Nyingma terton; his Karling Zhitro treasure cycle, held to have been concealed by Padmasambhava, became one of the most widely used funerary liturgies in the Tibetan world.
Belongs to Tradition
Sources
Open Questions (1 open question)
When was Karma Lingpa born, and when did he die?
No source independent of Nyingma tulku-lineage tradition records when Karma Lingpa was born or died. The commonly repeated dates of 1326 and 1386 come from later biographical and lineage compilations rather than from any record contemporary with him.
What would resolve this A Tibetan document contemporary with Karma Lingpa, distinct from the later tulku-lineage biographies that supply his conventional dates, naming a year for his birth or death.
Tibetan Buddhist studies, history of the Nyingma tertön traditionBryan J. Cuevas, The Hidden History of the Tibetan Book of the Dead
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.