What is Nāropa?
Nāropa (c. 1016–1100 CE by traditional Tibetan dating) was an Indian Buddhist mahāsiddha, a term for an accomplished Vajrayāna adept. He rose to the position of abbot at Nālandā, one of the great monastic universities of eleventh-century India, then left to study under the wandering teacher Tilopa. The practices he received, including the Six Yogas of Nāropa, were carried to Tibet by the translator Marpa and became the founding curriculum of the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism.
Nāropa and adjacent figures
Nāropa is not the original author of the Six Yogas in the way Patañjali compiled the Yoga Sūtras. The underlying practices descend from the broader Indian mahāsiddha tradition, through figures like Saraha, Lūipā and Virūpa. Nāropa gave that existing material the synthetic form Marpa could carry north. He is also not the founder of the Kagyu institution. The school's sub-schools were organised three generations later, by Gampopa's students. His teacher Tilopa holds a distinct role: the lineage treats Tilopa as the first human holder of Mahāmudrā, said to have received it from the primordial Buddha Vajradhara rather than from any human teacher. Nāropa is the figure who received that transmission and made it pedagogically transferable.
From Nālandā to Tilopa
Nāropa's birthplace is disputed in the sources: accounts variously name Bengal, Pataliputra and Kashmir. What is consistent is that he entered Nālandā as a student, studied both sutra and tantra, and rose to abbot. By any institutional measure this was the peak of a scholar's life. The rupture came while he was studying one day. A ḍākinī appeared and asked whether he understood the words of the Dharma. He said yes. She asked whether he understood the meaning. He said yes again. At this she wept, and told him the only person who truly understood the meaning was her brother, Tilopa. Nāropa abandoned the abbot's seat and went to find him. The Tibetan hagiographies treat this as the structural pivot of his life: the trained scholar recognises that scholarly attainment is exactly what stands between him and the recognition the texts describe, and walks away from the institution that rewarded him for it.
Tilopa (traditionally dated 988–1069) is treated by the lineage as the first human holder of the Mahāmudrā instruction, said to have received it from the primordial Buddha Vajradhara rather than from any human teacher. He lived as a wandering siddha on the margins of monastic life: at one point a sesame-pounder by the road, at another a bonded labourer in a brothel-keeper's household. When Nāropa found him, Tilopa refused to teach directly and put him through what the hagiographies call twelve major and twelve minor trials.
The twelve trials and the Six Yogas
The trials are the narrative heart of every Tibetan retelling. Tilopa tells Nāropa to leap from a rooftop, to beg at a wedding feast, to steal soup from a monastery, to bring a particular princess. Each task ends in physical injury and social disgrace. After each, Tilopa appears, heals him and continues. The pattern is consistent: one residue of religious self-image after another is stripped away, the abbot's dignity, the scholar's clean record, the householder's social standing. After the twelfth major trial, Tilopa struck Nāropa in the face with a sandal and pointed out the nature of mind directly. The lineage calls this recognition Mahāmudrā.
The Six Yogas of Nāropa (Nāro chos drug in Tibetan) are the Vajrayāna practices he transmitted to Marpa: gtum mo (inner heat), sgyu lus (illusory body), rmi lam (dream yoga), 'od gsal (clear light), bar do (navigation of the intermediate state), and 'pho ba (consciousness transference). Mahāmudrā is the ground; the Six Yogas are the curriculum for stabilising that recognition through the states where ordinary awareness tends to lose it: sleep, dream, dying and the period after death. Marpa the Translator (c. 1012–1097) made three or four extended trips across the Himalayas to study with Nāropa. His student Milarepa (c. 1052–1135) spread the lineage across Tibet; through Milarepa it reached Gampopa and then the four major Kagyu sub-schools.
The lineage in the index
The English-language index does not hold a row under Nāropa's own name. His influence runs through the Karma Kagyu material his line eventually produced. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche's *Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism* is the foundational English-language Kagyu text. Trungpa founded Naropa University in Boulder in 1974 and named it after him. The Vajradhātu lineage from which Pema Chödrön descends is the direct line. Pema Chödrön's *When Things Fall Apart*, her course on awakening compassion, her teaching on uncertainty as practice and her conversation on becoming more alive refigure the lojong curriculum the Karma Kagyu carries. The Six Yogas themselves are not in view in these texts, but the groundlessness Pema names as the practice's ground is the experiential face of the Mahāmudrā recognition Nāropa transmitted. Tenzin Palmo's *Cave in the Snow* records her twelve-year retreat in the Drukpa Kagyu lineage, a different sub-school but the same lineage thread back through Marpa, Nāropa and Tilopa. It remains the most direct first-person account of long-form Tibetan retreat practice in the index.
