Song for the King: Saraha Doha on Mahamudra (PDF)

Saraha is credited with being the first person to teach Mahamudra meditation which he learned from a female arrow-maker. After realizing Mahamudra Saraha wrote three treatises on Mahamudra-- the longest being the People's Doha, the middle length being the Queen's Doha, and the shortest being the King's Doha. Each treatise is entirely different in style and content. What is most amazing about this text which comes from India around the 10th century is that it very closely resembles the Mahamudra which taught in this present day. Being an ancient text the root text is difficult to follow, but Thrangu Rinpoche's verse by verse explanation makes it very accessible to the modern student.

Thrangu Rinpoche has actually taught all three of these spiritual songs or Dohas of Saraha. The Song for the King is a 184 page commentary on the King's Doha that includes a translation of the root text by Michele Martin. Namo Buddha Publications is presently working on publishing Thrangu Rinpoche's commentary on Saraha's other two dohas.

"A song for the King is the most important work in a generation about the pithiest and deepest of Saraha's great trilogy of Indian Buddhist tantric song. Michele Martin's translation and annotations are lucid and well informed, and Thrangu Rinpoche's learned but accessible commentary allows readers to use Saraha's poem as key to seeing, meditating and acting in the profound Indo-Tibetan tradition of Mahamudra, the great seal of reality." --Roger Jackson

"The oral teaching of Saraha's Song for the King by contemporary master Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche, so smoothly translated here by Peter O'Hearn, is based on a famous sixteen-century commentary by Karma Trinlepa. Thrangu Rinpoche's careful analysis helps the reader to savor both the aesthetic richness and contemplative instructions of Saraha's verses. This eloquent work is a welcome contribution to the literature on Sarah's songs in English." --Kurtis Schaeffer

The PDF is an exact copy of the paperback book and can be viewed on almost any computer or tablet.

You can also purchase a paperback of this book on this website (under Books) for $ 11.00 .