The 84 Mahasiddhas were accomplished practitioners who lived outside the monasteries in India and practiced Mahamudra without the constraints of vows and certain behaviors in the 8th to 12th century in India. 

The stories are fascinating because the practitioners were ordinary men and women who had many different backgrounds and were kings, bakers, laborers, and ordinary persons in life, but each was able to reach enlightenment.

Keith Dowman translated their songs of realization and related their experiences and teachings to the modern practice of Mahamudra.

This book is especially interesting because Robert Beer, an extraordinary painter did painting of many of these mahasiddhas.