The eighty-four mahāsiddhas

The 'eighty-four mahāsiddhas' ('great accomplished ones') are a traditional set of tantric adept-figures—often unconventional saints from many walks of life—celebrated in the late Indian and Tibetan Vajrayāna for their realization and miracles. They function as a hagiographic category and a shared inheritance of legend rather than a roster of recoverable biographies; a few names (e.g. Nāropa, Tilopa, Saraha) attach to somewhat more historical figures, but the set as such is tradition. Included as a descriptor, not as individual bios.