Śavaripa

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शवरिप

Śavaripa 

Born in:

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India

ཤ་བ་རི་པ་

Buddhist Digital Resource Center

Śavaripa was a hunter. In order to convince him to abandon his wrong livelihood, the bodhisattva of compassion Avalokiteśvara took the form of a hunter himself and killed one hundred deer (which he magically created) with a single arrow. When Śavaripa asked to learn this skill, the bodhisattva told him that he must first give up eating meat. Avalokiteśvara eventually taught Śavaripa how to meditate on love and compassion, granting Śavaripa and his wife a vision of hell, where they saw themselves burning for the sin of killing animals. When Śavaripa asked how they could be saved from this fate, the bodhisattva taught him about the law of karma and that through protecting rather than taking life, he could achieve liberation. Śavaripa meditated for

twelve years and entered the bodhisattva path, awaiting the advent of Maitreya. (Source: Lopez Jr., Donald S. Seeing the Sacred in Samsara: An Illustrated Guide to the Eighty-Four Mahāsiddhas. Boulder: Shambhala Publications, 2019: p. 53.)