Teacher: Yeshe Tsogyal (Biography)
Biography | Yeshe Tsogyal Main PageYeshe Tsogyal Biography
No evidence has yet been found that a person named Yeshe Tsogyel lived in Tibet, although this does not rule out the possibility that an aristocrat named Kharchen Za (mkhar chen bza') did exist and served as the basis for the Yeshe Tsogyel legends.
Sources for the life of Yeshe Tsogyel (ye shes mtsho rgyal) do not agree on basic biographical data. She is generally said to have been born in a bird year in the eighth century in the region of Drak (sgrags). The most famous version of her life, by Taksham Nuden Dorje (stag sham nu ldan rdo rje, b. 1655), gives the names of her parents as Pelgyi Wangchuk (dpal gyi dbang phyug) of the Kharchen clan (mkhar chen) and Getso (dge mtsho), a woman of the Nub (gnubs) clan. According to Jamgon Kongtrul ('jam mgon kong sprul, 1813-1899), who cites the Testament of Padma (padma bka' thang), Pelgyi Wangchuk was the brother of Yeshe Tsogyel; their father was named Namkha Yeshe (nam mkha' ye shes) and their mother was Nubma Gewa Bum (gnubs mo dge ba 'bum).
Yeshe Tsogyel is said to have been a wife of the Tibetan King Tri Songdetsen (khri srong lde'u btsan, 742-796), but she is not attested to in imperial records; stone inscriptions that give the names of the King's wives do not include her. In some versions of the Chronicles of Ba, one of the earliest surviving historical records of Tibet, a Kharchen Za Tsogyel (mkhar chen bza' mtsho rgyal) is listed as a wife of Tri Songdetsen, with the explanation that she engaged in meditation and therefore had left no children. However, this passage may have been a later insertion into the text, complicating her identification as a wife of the King.
Yeshe Tsogyel's association with Padmasambhava developed at least by the twelfth century, when Nyangrel Nyima Ozer (nyang ral nyi ma 'od zer, 1124/1136-1192/1204) composed his famous biography of the master, the Copper Palace (bka' thang zangs gling ma). Nyangrel produced the book as a treasure revelation and credited Yeshe Tsogyel as the original author.
According to the Copper Palace, Yeshe Tsogyel was daughter of Kharchen Pelgyi Wangchuk, and was sixteen years old when Padmasambhava took her as a sexual consort to practice in the caves of Chimpu (mchims phu) above Samye Monastery (bsam yas). The Copper Palace also states that when Padmasambhava was initiating his disciples Yeshe Tsogyel received the Vajrakīla transmission. This accords to Vajrakīla literature that date to around the same era in which a Karchen Za Tsogyel holds the transmission of the Kīla teachings. The Copper Palace also has her obtain the power of non-forgetting, enabling her to record all the teachings she heard and thereby conceal them as treasure for later generations. While in the Copper Palace Nyangrel does not list her as a wife of the King, in another composition he does so.
Yeshe Tsogyel continued to appear in treasure literature as the consort of Padmasambhava and the recorder of the treasures, assuming the title of ḍākinī, khandro (mkha' 'gro) in Tibetan. She became significant enough to warrant her own biography at least by the fourteenth century, when the treasure revealer Drime Kunga (dri med kun dga', b. circa 1347) produced one, expanding earlier narratives. As described by Janet Gyatso, the story is rich in supernatural feats, dramatic conversions, and mastery of esoteric teachings. In her study of this work Gyatso suggests that Guru Chowang (gu ru chos dbang, 1212-1270) likely also wrote a biography of Yeshe Tsogyel, from which Drime Kunga drew. In Chonyi Drolma's recent translation of the work we find an account of the marriage saga in which Tri Songdetsen is not mentioned and the consort relationship with Padmasambhava is less emphasized.
Taksham Nuden Dorje's seventeenth-century biography, which has been translated once into French and three times into English, appears to have been based on Drime Kunga and several other common sources. Taksham presented the work as treasure, and credited Gyelwa Jangchub (rgyal ba byang chub) and Namkhai Nyingpo (nam mkha'i snying po) -- two disciples of Padmasambhava -- as authors.
The text presents Yeshe Tsogyel as divine from birth, recognized by her father as superior to all other children. She was violently taken in marriage by a minister of the Kharchu family (mkhar chu) named Śāntipā, one of two suitors who had hoped to possess her. She escaped only to be captured by the other suitor Zurkar Dorje Wangchuk (zur khar rdo rje dbang phyug). As Zurkar and Śāntipā prepared to go to war over Tsogyel, King Tri Songdetsen learned of the situation and demanded her for himself. In her capacity as queen she met Padmasambhava and received teachings, practicing sexual yoga with him at Chimpu. This scandalized the people of Tibet, who demanded the King exile them, which he pretended to do. The couple then traveled across Tibet meditating in caves and singing of their experiences.
Having become a master of the teachings, Tsogyel went to India where she purchased a slave named Atsara Saley (a tsa ra gsal le) to serve as her own consort. She later took a Tibetan boy named Dudul Pawo (bdud 'dul dpa' bo) as a second consort. This rare reversal of gender role in sexual yoga practice presents Yeshe Tsogyel as a female role model of a different sort, one who possesses an agency that is unlike the vast majority of women in Tibetan literature. Elsewhere Padmasambhava famously assures Yeshe Tsogyel that not only do women have the potential to attain buddhahood, but their capacity is in fact superior to that of men:
Tsogyel and five of her disciples went to Wonpu Taktsang where Guru Rinpoche was residing. She prostrated to him, and he said to her "Heroine, Heruka, have you come? How was your journey?" He then made this pronouncement:
Kyemaho!
Oh yoginī who has accomplished the secret mantra,
the human body is the basis for attaining enlightenment.
Male or female, inferior body – it makes no difference. If possessed of the aspiration to enlightenment, a female body is actually superior. (Stag tsang, p. 114)
Nevertheless, the text is replete with examples of more typical Tibetan tropes such as women are lower than men, unable to truly comprehend the dharma, and so forth.
Countless sites across the Himalaya are associated with Yeshe Tsogyel's activity. A small pond in the Drak Valley on the north bank of the Yarlung Tsangpo River named Tsogyel Latso (mtsho rgyal bla mtsho) is said to be her life-lake, meaning the spot that anchors her life force, or la (bla). The nearby cave complex of Drak Yongdzong (bsgrags yong rdzong) has an inner chamber that is said to be identical to her womb. The famous Paro Taktsang Hermitage (spa 'gro stag tshang) in Bhutan, a practice site of Padmasambhava and Yeshe Tsogyel, is said to have been opened when the master arrived there riding on Yeshe Tsogyel in the form of a tigress.
Yeshe Tsogyel has become the ideal representation of female religious accomplishment such that accomplished women are said to be her embodiments. Examples from the twentieth century include Drigung Khandro Choden Zangmo ('bri gung mkha' 'gro chos ldan bzang mo, 1885-1958), Sera Khandro Kunzang Dekyong Wangmo (se ra mkha' 'gro kun bzang bde skyong dbang mo, 1892-1940), and Khandro Tāre Lhamo (mkha' 'gro tA re lha mo, 1938-2000). The male founder of Katok Monastery, Dampa Deshek (dam pa bde gshegs, 1122-1192) is also said to be her reincarnation.
When her work in Tibet was completed Yeshe Tsogyel is said to have departed Tibet for the Copper Colored Mountain, Padmasambhava's pure land.
_________________________________________________
Publication of this biography was made possible with the generous support of Khyentse Foundation.
Alexander Gardner is Director and Chief Editor of the Treasury of Lives. He completed his PhD in Buddhist Studies at the University of Michigan in 2007. Published January 2018
_________________________________________________
Dri med kun dga. N.d. Mkha' 'gro ma'i bka' chen gyi thim yig dang mkha' 'gro mtsho rgyal gyi skyes rabs le'u bdun pa. TBRC W8LS19942.
Drime Kunga and Yeshe Tsogyel. 2017. The Life and Visions of Yeshe Tsogyal: The Autobiography of the Great Wisdom Queen. Chonyi Drolma, translator. Boulder: Snow Lion.
Gyatso, Janet. 2006. "A Partial Genealogy of the Lifestory of Ye shes mtsho rgyal." Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, no. 2, pp. 1-27.
'Jam mgon kong sprul. 2007 (c. 1887) Dbyangs can sprul pa ye shes mtsho rgyal. In Zab mo'i gter dang gter ston grub thob ji ltar byon pa'i lo rgyus mdor bsdus bkod pa rin chen bai DU r.ya'i 'phreng ba, pp. 20a-21a. Delhi: Shechen publications. TBRC W1KG14.
Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Taye. 2011. The One Hundred Tertons. Yeshe Gyamtso, translator. Woodstock: KTD Publications, pp. 44-45.
Stag sham nus ldan rdo rje. 1989 (17th century). Bod kyi jo mo ye shes mtsho rgyal gyi mdzad tshul rnam par thar pa gab pa mngon phyung rgyud mang dri za'i glu phreng / jo mo'i rnam thar skabs don brgyad pa. Chengdu: Si khron mi rigs dpe skrun khang. TBRC W1KG21756.
Taksham Nuden Dorje. 1996. Sky Dancer: the Secret Life and Songs of the Lady Yeshe Tsogyel. Keith Dowman, translator. Ithaca: Snow Lion.
Taksham Nuden Dorje. 1983. Mother of Knowledge: The Enlightenment of Ye-shes mTso-rgyal. Tartang Tulku, translator. Berkeley: Dharma Publishing.
Taksham Nuden Dorje. 1999. Lady of the Lotus Born. Wulston Fletcher and Helena Blankleder, translators. Boston: Shambhala.
Tulku Thondup. 1996. Masters of Meditation and Miracles: The Longchen Nyingthik Lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. Boston: Shambhala, pp. 92-94.
Tsogyal, Yeshe. 1999. The Lotus-Born: The Life Story of Padmasambhava. Translated by Erik Pema Kunsang. Boston: Shambala Publications.
Tsogyal, Yeshe. 1978. The Life and Liberation of Padmasambhava. Translated into French by Gustav-Charles Toussaint; translated into English by Kenneth Douglas and Gwendolyn Bays. Berkeley: Dharma Publishing.
