was born of a wealthy family in the eleventh century (1039). At his father's death, the inheritance was entrusted to Mela's uncle and aunt, who deprived the family of its property and reduced his mother and sister to servitude. In order that the family might achieve vengeance for this misfortune, Mala was sent to study with a famous lama in the hope of his learning the arts of black magic. He went to several teachers who were adepts in the use of spells and charms. Legend says that he learned to create hailstorms and that, as a result of this, crop damage and misfortune came to many of his relations and to the villagers through his powers. But he was not happy. After working with various teachers, he finally apprenticed himself to Marpa, called the Translator. Here his real work began. After years of study and almost unendurable hardships, he was initiated through the efforts and help of Damenma, the wife of Marpa. He retired then to caves in the mountains to meditate in solitude. His friends were the glaciers, the winds, and the snows. He conversed with the Dakinis or "sky-goers" and with the demons and beasts. Periodically, he came down to the villages and preached by way of song to the lamas and their disciples. He called himself "Old Man, Storehouse of Songs." These songs were collected, and they comprise the mGur-Bum or The Hundred Thousand Songs. The Tibetans quote or recite them at every opportunity.
The songs describe his life in the solitude of the mountains, his yogic achievements in self-discipline, and his attainment of freedom and enlightenment. Mila practised tum-mo (psychic heat), a form of yoga which made him impervious to extreme heat or cold; therefore, he speaks of his "single cotton garment burning like fire." His followers were called "the Cotton-clad Ones."
In Tibetan paintings, as well as in the images, he is usually shown seated on a leopard skin, his right hand cupped behind his ear, as if listening to the voices of solitude. Incidents from his life and preaching are depicted in these paintings. The frontispiece illustration, a bronze image of Mila, is a charming representation of the poet-saint, robed in the single cotton garment, smiling serenely, sitting on a leopard skin in a typical yoga pose. His right hand is cupped behind his ear, and on his forehead is the urna, the sign of wisdom and of yogic illumination.
Mila died in 1122 at the ripe old age of eighty-three. His body was cremated and the relics distributed. Some were taken by the Dakinis, the sky-goers, to the celestial regions, and others by his disciple Rechung, who gave them to various temples.
Mila belonged to the Kargyupa sect. The members of this sect regard the Adi-Buddha (First Buddha), Vajradhara, as the prime inspirer of their order. Tilopa, an Indian teacher born about the middle of the tenth century, claimed to have received the doctrine from Vajradhara. Tilopa is regarded as the founder of this sect. Its principal tenet, the Mahamudra (Great Symbol) philosophy, emphasizes the theory of Shunyata (the Void), which holds that the phenomenal world or world of form and the noumenal world or world of ideas are not dual, but one. Next in succession to Tilopa came Naropa, also of India. After him came the Tibetan Marpa, called the Translator, whose works are greatly esteemed in Tibet. Mila studied with Marpa and became fourth in the apostolic line of succession. Gampopa became the successor of Mila.
Some of Mila's songs are vivid descriptions of the snow mountains and glaciers; some tell of his conversations and discussions with various demonesses who try to put obstacles in the way of his meditations. There are philosophical poems on the Six Ways to Liberation, the Six Kernels of the Doctrine, the Void, and other metaphysical themes. His method of song was equally understandable to the intellectual and to the simple villager. For this reason, his appeal is universal. His poems are also much appreciated in China and Mongolia, where translations exist.
Before the time of Mila, the literature of Tibet consisted mostly of religious and historical works. The Kesar Saga, an epic of pre-Buddhist Tibet, tells of the exploits of the hero, King Kesar of Ling. The Blue Annals or Blue Treasury, as it is sometimes called, is a record of Tibetan history and religion. The history by Pu-ton is also well known.
The manuscript which we have used for the present translation is one presented to Columbia University by the Tibetan Trade Commission on its visit to New York in 1946. This copy contains both the Nam rtar and the mGur-Bum. The Nam rear is that part of the manuscript which contains, in the main, stories of incidents in Mela's life with some interspersed poems. The other part, the mGur-Bum, contains the so-called Hundred Thousand Songs. The Columbia University manuscript has red edges: usually an indication that the printing has been done in the Holy City of Lhasa. Many of the larger monasteries in Tibet have their own printing establishments. The famous ones are those at Lhasa, Earthing, Dirge, and Coin.
Buddhist terminology often makes these manuscripts very difficult to render into English. Since the poems are primarily of a religious nature aimed at teaching Buddhist concepts, we have tried to remain as faithful as possible to their message. However, we have tried to give explanations of the important esoteric concepts in a series of notes. In order to demonstrate the process of translation, we have also appended a short poem showing the methods employed in achieving the English interpretations.
We have given here a brief summary of Mela's life and have chosen about twenty-four of his poems for their intrinsic beauty and philosophical concepts. They show the many facets of this versatile poet's extraordinary genius. The translations have followed as closely as possible the religious ideas of the songs. There is no special written music for them, but we have heard some chanted by Chang Chen-chi, a Chinese scholar who lived in Tibet for eight years. These chants were noted and transcribed by Alva Coil Venison into Western musical notation. The text for the songs has been adapted from our translations. When they are chanted in Tibetan, the songs exert a fascinating and powerful charm which the printed word alone does not convey.
The author wishes to thank Professor Peter Binge-Stan of Pace College, New York City, for editorial suggestions and for the introduction that he has contributed. Chang Chen-chi, formerly of Nanking University, China, and of Kong-Kan Monastery, Tibet, has given valuable assistance in the more obscure philosophical interpretations of certain of Mela's poems. He is especially qualified to do this, since he is a well-known translator of sacred texts. Alva Coil Venison, composer, contributed the transcriptions of the two Tibetan chants.
The purpose of this book is to make known the genius of the greatest saint and poet in the history of Tibet.
Antoinette I. Gordon
INTRODUCTION
by Peter Ingested
MALA AS POET: The title of Mela's poems, The Hundred Thousand Songs, indicates in its poetic exaggeration that, to the Tibetans, the songs contain all earthly and celestial wisdom. Actually Mela's known poems are about two hundred to two hundred and fifty. In the Lhasa edition which we are using, the poems are printed as three hundred and nineteen folios each divided into two sections, A and B. In the Chinese and Mongolian recensions the number of folios varies. This collection of poems has been a source of learning and delight for hundreds of years to all Tibetans, children and adults alike.
Mala raised the Tibetan vernacular to a literary level as Dante raised the Florentine dialect, and Martin Luther the Saxon, to vehicles of highest literary expression. As a matter of fact, he has a position in Tibet similar to those which Dante and Luther have in their own cultures. Mila not only refined the Tibetan vernacular but became saint, scholar, and national hero at the same time. He is the Tibetans' ideal type. He is said to have achieved what every Tibetan longs to achieve: Buddahood in one lifetime. It is fortunate that this great yogin was gifted with a genius for formulating his experiences and expressing his innermost thoughts in poetry. In this manner, learning, philosophy, and beauty were made accessible to many generations of Tibetans who did not study in the monasteries but absorbed their culture through oral tradition. The poems of Mila were recited or sung by traveling singers, much in the manner of the songs of the traveling balladeers of medieval Europe.
Since Milarepa was primarily a mystic, he did not write for
