Yeshe Tsogyal
? · Drak / Yarlung region
trad. 8th–9th c. CE; the namtar (hagiography) far exceeds any recoverable historical kernel
Yeshe Tsogyal is revered in the Nyingma tradition as the foremost Tibetan disciple and consort of Padmasambhava during the imperial period (traditionally the late 8th to 9th century), and as a master who is said to have helped conceal many of the 'treasure' teachings (terma) for later discovery. The historical kernel is very thin: a woman of this name may have lived in the early diffusion of Buddhism in Tibet, but essentially all that is told of her comes from much later hagiographies (namtar), which present her near-miraculous life, attainments, and travels as devotional tradition rather than documented fact. She is presented here as a figure of tradition, central and revered, with the legend and the slender kernel kept distinct. Following the site's house style, she is treated aniconically.
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Drak / Yarlung region
What they did here
TRADITION: remembered in the later life-stories as a Tibetan woman of the imperial period, said to have been a consort at the court of King Trisong Detsen and then a principal disciple of Padmasambhava; the historical detail is not independently recoverable.
About Drak / Yarlung region
The Drak and Yarlung area of south-central Tibet is the heartland of the old Tibetan kings and an early centre of Tibetan Buddhism. In the Nyingma tradition it is connected with Yeshe Tsogyal, the eighth-century consort and disciple of Padmasambhava, who is traditionally counted among the foremost early holders of his teachings.
Works
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