Nāropa

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ནཱ་རོ་པ་

Nāropa(1012/1016 - 1100) 

Notes on dates:

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The dates for Nāropa here are from BDRC, https://www.tbrc.org/#!rid=P3085. However, other sources suggest earlier dates, with a date of birth of 956(?) and a date of death of 1040. Regarding the date of birth, see Newman, John. "The Epoch of the Kālacakra Tantra." Indo-Iranian Journal 41 (1998): 319-349.: 347, note 10.[1]. Regarding the date of death, see Wylie, T. "Dating the Death of Naropa." L. Hercus et al., eds. Indological and Buddhist Studies. Volume in Honour of Professor J.W. de Jong on his Sixtieth Birthday. Canberra, 1982.

Buddhist Digital Resource Center

An Indian scholar and tantric master who holds an important place in the lineages of tantric Buddhism in Tibet. According to his traditional biography, Nāropa was a brāhmana born in Bengal, who traveled to Kashmir as a child. He was forced to marry at the age of seventeen, but the marriage ended by mutual consent after eight years. According to some sources, Nāropa’s wife (or sister according to other sources) was Niguma, who became a famous tantric yoginī. Nāropa was ordained as a Buddhist monk, entering Nālandā monastery in 1049. His talents as a scholar eventually led him to be selected to serve as abbot and as a senior instructor known by the name Abhayakīrti. In 1057, while at the monastery, he encountered an old hag (in reality a ḍākinī), who told him that he had understood the words of the texts he had studied but not their inner meaning. She urged him to go in search of her brother Tilopa. As a result of this encounter, Nāropa left the monastery to find Tilopa and become his disciple. Over the course of his journey, he encountered Tilopa in various forms but was unable to recognize him. Tilopa eventually revealed himself to Nāropa, subjecting him to a famous series of twelve greater and twelve lesser trials, involving serious physical injury and mental anguish. Tilopa eventually transferred his realization to Nāropa by striking him on the head with his shoe. Nāropa later compiled Tilopa’s instructions and transmitted them to his own disciples. (Source: "Nāropa." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 576. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)