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Sarahpa


Saraha (Hindi: सरह), Sarahapa (Hindi: सरहपा, Odia: ସରହପା), Sarahapāda (Hindi: सरहपाद), or in the Tibetan language The Arrow Shooter, (circa 8th century CE) was known as the first sahajiya and one of the Mahasiddhas. The name Saraha means "the one who has shot the arrow.". According to one, scholar, "This is an explicit reference to an incident in many versions of his biography when he studied with a dakini disguised as a low-caste arrow smith. Metaphorically, it refers to one who has shot the arrow of non duality into the heart of duality." He is also often referred to as The Great Brahmin.

Saraha is considered to be one of the founders of Buddhist Vajrayana, and particularly of the Mahamudra tradition.

Saraha was originally known as Rāhula or Rāhulbhadra and was born in Roli, a region of the city-state of Rajni in eastern India, into a Brahmin family and studied at the Buddhist monastic university Nalanda. According to Sankrityayan and Dvijram Yadav, Saraha was born in Raggyee village of ancient Bhagalpur, the then Capital of Anga Desh.

Saraha is known for being a wandering yogi and avadhuta engaging in behaviors that overturned the social norms of caste, social class, and the oppressive normative gender roles and hierarchies of the time. Two of Saraha's important teachers and consorts were women who were technically lower than him from the stand point of caste, class. and gender. Yet, each of these nameless women met Saraha as an equal on the path of spiritual practice and each of them had realization that led Saraha further in his own spiritual development.


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