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FOREWORD
first regular monastery in Tibet modelled after the Odantapuri Vihåra in Maghadha, in the year 749 A. D.,' that he remained there thirteen years and subsequently died in 762 A. D. Waddell states that Guru Padmasambhava was called to Tibet in the years 747 A. D. It is quite likely therefore that S'ântarakṣita paid his first visit to Tibet some five years earlier, or in the year 743 A. D. Guru Padmasambhavn, being the brother-in-law of S'Antarakṣita, must have been his contemporary, and if we assume that Padmasambhava went to Tibet at the age of 30, his date of birth falls somewhere in 717 A. D. Now S'ântarakşita was born in the reign of Gopala,' the first king of the Påla Dynasty of Bengal who reigned up to 705 A. D. The latest date of his birth falls therefore in 705 A. D. which will award 57 years' span of lite to S'ântarakṣita.
The date of Padmasambhava's birth leads us to another chain of scholars. The legendary origin of Padmasambhava, as given by Waddell® is stated below. The story goes that in olden age there lived a blind king named Indrabhůti (also oBodhi) in Uddiyana in India, who suffered two calamities: he lost his son and his kingdom was afflicted by a severe famine. Touched by the fervent prayers of the people Amitabha Buddha of Boundless Light restored sight to the monarch and incarnated himself as a boy. King Indrabhati miraculously regained his sight and saw in a lake nearby lying on a lotus a lovely boy who was brought to the palace.
As the lad grew up he became prone to meditation and expressed his desire to be a recluse. The guardian persistently refused to grant his desire whereupon the boy killed some of Indrabhūti's subjects who had been inimical to Buddhism in their previous births, and this resulted in his being driven out of the kingdom. The miraculous appearance of Padmasambhava on a lotus cannot be anything else than an example of popular etymology, because
be Vidyabhusbana : Indian Logic. p. 323; also s. C. Des in JASB (1881)
p. 226; Waddell's Lamaism p. 28. 2. S. C. Das in JBTS, Vol I. p. 1. 3. Lamaism, p. 379 et seq.
