Songs of realization

Songs of realization (Tibetan: "nams mgur") are sung poetry forms characteristic of the tantric movement in both Hinduism and in Vajrayana Buddhism. Various forms of these songs exist, including caryagiti (Sanskrit: "caryāgīti"), or 'performance songs' and vajragiti (Sanskrit: "vajragīti", Tibetan: "rDo-rje gan-sung" ), or 'diamond songs', sometimes translated as vajra songs and doha (Sanskrit:"dohā"), also called doha songs, distinguishing them from the unsung Indian poetry form of the doha. According to Roger Jackson, caryagiti and vajragiti "differ generically from dohās because of their different context and function", the doha being primarily spiritual aphorisms expressed in the form of rhyming couplets whilst caryagiti are stand-alone performance songs and vajragiti are songs that can only be understood in the context of a ganachakra or tantric feast. [cite book|last=Jackson |first=Roger|title=Tantric Treasures:Three Collections of Mystical Verse from Buddhist India|publisher=Oxford University Press |location=USA|date=2004|pages=p.10|url=http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=06K69W9V7c4C&] Many collections of songs of realization are preserved in the Tibetan Buddhist canon, however many of these texts have yet to be translated from the Tibetan language. [cite book|last=Shaw|first=Miranda|title=Passionate Enlightenment::Women in Tantric Buddhism|publisher=Princeton University Press|date=1995|pages=p.225 n.97|isbn=0-691-01090-0]

Although many of the songs of realization date from the mahasiddha of India, the tradition of composing mystical songs continued to be practiced by tantric adepts in later times and examples of spontaneously composed verses by Tibetan lamas exist up to the present day, an example being Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso. [cite web|url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC9M2XogJ6I|title=Songs of Realization|last=Gyamtso|first=Khenpo Tsultrim |accessdate=2008-09-14] The most famous Tibetan composer of songs of realization is Milarepa, the 11th century Tibetan yogi whose "mgur bum", or 'The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa' remains a source of instruction and inspiration for Tibetan Buddhists, particularly those of the kagyu school.

Caryagiti songs

A renowned collection of Buddhist carygiti, or mystical songs, is the Charyapada, a palm-leaf manuscript of the 8th-12th century text having been found in the early 20th century in Nepal. Another copy of the Charyapada was preserved in the Tibetan Buddhist canon. Miranda Shaw describes how caryagiti were an element of the ritual gathering of practitioners in a tantric feast:

The feast culminates in the performance of tantric dances and music that must never be disclosed to outsiders. The revelers may also improvise "songs of realization" ("caryagiti") to express their heightened clarity and blissful raptures in spontaneous verse. [cite book|last=Shaw|first=Miranda|title=Passionate Enlightenment::Women in Tantric Buddhism|publisher=Princeton University Press|date=1995|pages=p. 81|isbn=0-691-01090-0]

Doha songs

Ann Waldman describes this poetry form:

the "doha", a song of realization that acknowledges an encounter with a master teacher, traditionally a guru or lama, and explores a particular wisdom or teaching transmitted through a kind of call-and-response duet format. [cite book|last=Waldman|first=Anne|title=Buddhist Women on the Edge:Contemporary Perspectives from the Western Frontier|editor=Marianne Dresser|publisher=North Atlantic Books|date=1996|pages=p.264|chapter=Poetry as Siddhi|isbn=9781556432033|url=http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=gJN25nZ4xRoC&]

ee also

*Lawapa

References

Bibliography

Collections of songs of realization:
*
*cite book|last=Dowman |first=Keith|title=Masters of Mahamudra: Songs and Histories of the Eighty-four Buddhist Siddhas|publisher=SUNY Press|location=New York|date=1986|url=http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=EONQw5zYm10C&
* "Milarepa: Songs on the Spot", translated by Nicole Riggs, Dharma Cloud Press, 2003, ISBN 0-9705639-30"
* "Milarepa, The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa", translated by Garma C.C. Chang, City Lights Books, 1999, ISBN 1-57062-476-3
*"The Yogi's Joy: Songs of Milarepa" Sangharakshita, Windhorse Publications, 2006, ISBN 1-899579-66-4
*"Drinking the Mountain Stream: Songs of Tibet’s Beloved Saint", Wisdom Publications, ISBN 0-86171-063-0
*cite book|last=Rinpoche|first=Thrangu |title=Songs of Naropa:Commentaries on Songs of Realization|publisher=Rangjung Yeshe Publications|date=1997|isbn=9789627341284|url=http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3QuwJwz6nNAC&
* Guenther, Herbert V. "The Royal Song of Saraha: A Study in the History of Buddhist Thought." a.) University of Washington Press, 1970. ISBN 0295785527 b.) New paperback edition, Shambhala Publications, 1973. ISBN 0394730070
* Guenther, Herbert V.; "Ecstatic Spontaneity: Saraha’s Three Cycles of Doha" Asian Humanities Press, 1993. ISBN 0895819333

External links

* [http://www.kagyuoffice.org/karmapa.background.16thkarmapasongs.html Songs of the 16th Karmapa (1940 - 1962)]
* [http://www.nalandabodhi.org/songsandpoems.html Index to Songs, Poems and Prayers, by author]
* [http://www.thdl.org/collections/journal/jiats/index.php?doc=jiats03rev_sujata.xml Review of Tibetan Songs of Realization: Echoes from a Seventeenth-Century Scholar and Siddha in Amdo]
* [http://www.bps.lk/wheels_library/wh_095_097.html Text of 'Sixty Songs of Milarepa']
* [http://www.quietmountain.org/links/teachings/yogi_chen/87.htm Text, The Essential Songs of Milarepa]
* [http://www.shambhala.org/ntc/offerings/iron-hook-devotion.htm The Iron Hook of Devotion: A Melodious Feast Song]
* [http://www.kagyu-asia.com/l_tilo_t_song_mahamudra.html The Song of Mahamudra by Tilopa]