Tattvasangraha 01

Author(s): Embar Krishnamacharya
Publisher: Central Library

Page 18

FOREWORD
XV
padma means 'lotus' and sambhava means 'birth'. But from the story it appears evident that Padmasambhava was the second son of a Buddhist king, Indrabhůti by name, who reigned over the kingdom of Uddiyâna or Orissa."
This Indrabhati is quite a familiar Buddhist name, for we have discovered a work of Indrabhati which styles itself Uddiyanavinirgata, “coming out of Uddiyana.” Indrabhūti seems to have been a voluminous writer of Tantra, and the Tan. gyur catalogue in several instances designates him as king of Uddiyana.' Unfortunately for us no works of Indrabhūti are now extant in the original Sanskrit except the one mentioned above, Jñánasiddhia by name, which is a work of pure Vajrayana, and Mahâsukhavâda, which formulates the doctrine that emancipation can be obtained only through the medium of the knowledge of the Tathagatas or the five Dhyani Buddhas a truth which cannot be realized without the friendly offices of the Guru. The famous Tibetan scholar Mr. Johan van Manen has pointed out to us in a letter the importance of this work in the history of Buddhist literature. In the Tanggur Catalogue compiled by Cordier, the names of nine scholars are mentioned, each of whom was the guru to his successor, namely, Padmavajra, Anangavajra, Indrabhūti, Bhagavati Lakşmi, Lilavajra, Dårikapâda, Sahajayogini Cinta and Dombi Heruka. If we take about 12 years between each name we get the history of a succession of scholars for about 84 years.
In the year 717 A. D. when the second son Padmasambhava was born to Indrabhůti, he was at least 30 years old, which fixes
1. Uddiyana is identified with Udyana by some scholars. According to
Sylvain Levi it is in Kashgarh. But we are not prepared to believe that a Bengalee king will marry his daughter to a distant Kashgarhian. For
further particulars, see Indian Buddhist Iconography, intro. p. XXVII, 2. Haraprasad Shastri: Bauddha Gari 0 Doha, appendix, p xiv; and
B. Bhattacharyya: Glimpses of Vajrayana (in the Proceedings of
the Madras Oriental Conference ) pp. 134 et seq. 3. This work is in the course of publication in the Gaekwad'Oriental
Series. For a summary of the work, see Glimpses of Vajraydna, pp. 137 et sog.
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