THE AUTHENTIC ROOTS AND FRUITS OF THE KĀLACAKRA TANTRA AND ITS AUTHOR MAHASIDDHA NĀROPA: Interview with Niraj Kumar (Dakini Conversations, Ep.7)

For Noble Tāra day today, am delighted to publish the seventh episode of the Dakini Conversations podcast in which I have an in-depth discussion with the leading Indian Kālacakra scholar and translator, Niraj Kumar, who was also recently promoted to Joint Secretary of the Indian Ministry of Culture.   The interview took place on a new moon, while I was staying near the sacred tooth relic temple of the Buddha in Kandy, Sri Lanka and Niraj was in India. The video discussion is available on Youtube (with English captions), with audio-only on Spotify, Amazon and Apple.

Niraj is a commentator on Shakta and Buddhist Tantras, and has been active with various facets of Tibetan and Himalayan Buddhism for more than a decade. His ongoing work is five volume pentalogy on Kalacakra Tantra, the first comprehensive English translation and new commentary of the Sanskrit text, for several centuries after it was said to have been first written down in the 11th century. The Kālacakra Tantra is said to be the climax of the Indian Buddhist Nalanda tradition and the last major Buddhist tantra composed in India.  Niraj Kumar’s first volume on Kālacakra was published in 2022, and the second volume is expected to be released within next couple of months. Niraj is also a pan-Asian thinker and writer on geopolitics in Asia and was instrumental in organizing the First Asia Peace Forum in New Delhi (2015). He is also one of the key architects of ongoing exposition of the sacred relics of Shakyamuni Buddha in Thailand this year.

I first became aware of Niraj Kumar when he personally asked me to present his Kālacakra work at the Vajrayana conference in Bhutan in 2022, which he was unable to attend. Several people also suggested that I interview him about his work on Kalacakra. I then had the good fortune to meet Niraj in India last year (October 2023) for an Indian academic conference at which I was invited to be a keynote speaker. At that time, we exchanged our Kālacakra publications and on finally reading his work, I was amazed and fascinated by the research, ideas and revelations in the Introduction to his book. It was surprising that more people did not know about them and so part of the reason for this interview is to bring some of those ideas out to a larger more general audience [1].

Personal observations/review: the authentic roots and branches of Kālacakra in India with Mahasiddha Nāropa

During our podcast discussion, we speak about Kumar’s Introduction to the first volume, which is full of fascinating research and revelations, including some of the key concepts in the Tantra regarding time (kāla), the three realms (outer, inner and other), the types of breath/energy, and death itself. Most  remarkably indeed the proposed authorship (based on the mention of Mecca/Baghdad and other terms) of the written root text being the great Indian Mahasiddha, Nāropa, who received the transmission of it from his guru Tilopa (who is said to have been taught it in the Kingdom of Shambhala itself).  This is then followed by a discussion of the dating of the composition of the root Kālacakra text itself, which Kumar states seems to be 1027 CE and the oldest extant texts available of the tantra, with one dated in the 13th Century on palm-leaf currently housed at the British Library.  Niraj speaks about and how he tried for 6 months to get access to that text but still has not been able to do so. 

The latter part of our discussion relates to how the main lineages of Kālacakra came into Tibet, with Niraj speaking about Atisha’s role in the first transmission of Kālacakra into Tibet via Nāropa and Geshe Mudrapa Chenpo and the Bodong monastery as a major Kālacakra centre [2}. Then, finishing with an analysis of contemporary practice and application of Kālacakra and how it has degenerated away from the words and advice of the root Tantra text with 20th Century mass empowerments to thousands of ‘unqualified’ people, for predominantly political, social and financial purposes in cohorts with the Chinese communist government (from the time of the 9th Panchen Lama onwards). Kumar also states in his book that the empowerments given by the 14th Dalai Lama are also not ‘correct’ because they were not all given on the full moon, as advised by the root Tantra.

The revelation about Nāropa’s authorship,  in particular, made me weep with joy and astonishment. I already was in awe of these Kagyu forefather, Indian Mahasiddha yogis, who were forced to leave the monasteries by their dakini/female teachers, living in caves in remote places and outcastes from acceptable society. Yet the fact that Nāropa, with no laptops, internet, dictionaries etc., was able to write down and publish on palm-leaf scripts (which is a time-consuming and elaborate process in itself!), one of the most profound texts in the world not only in terms of Buddhist Philosophy but in terms of astronomy, tantra, mathematics, the inner workings of the body and mind and more is hard to mentally fathom.  Add to that the fact that all the 1047 verses of the Kalacakra Tantra are composed in the toughest meter of Sanskrit poetry, Srgdhara, in which each stanza has four lines containing 21 syllables. Adopting 84 syllable meter to connect and theorize different fields like astronomy, philosophy, embryology, alchemy, perfume science, erotics, linguistics, cosmology, metallurgy is an extraordinary feat indeed. Regardless of what one concludes about the source and origin of the Kālacakra Tantra, the point is clear for all to see. The Kālacakra Tantra text and teaching is a work of unparalleled genius, but even saying that is an understatement, it is a work of a Buddha, fully awakened omniscient one!

It is also worth noting that to my knowledge, with all due respect, the 14th Dalai Lama (the most well-known for giving mass Kālacakra empowerments globally to thousands) has never publicly explained the origins and authorship of the Kālacakra Tantra nor who transmitted the lineage to him. Also, I am certainly not aware that his tutor Ling Rinpoche (whom Kumar says gave the 14th Dalai Lama the transmission) is a recognised Kālacakra lineage holder and if he is, it would be good to know which lineage and from whom he received it [3].  According to Kumar, another glaring ommission is the absence of Nāropa in the seventeen Indian panditas of Nālanda listed by the 14th Dalai Lama.

In that respect, although to some of his anonymous critics, Kumar himself does not fit the mould of the western’ university academy”s ideal of a ‘nit-picking’ philologist, to my mind, he represents something far more authentic and precious than that. An Indian man from very humble beginnings in one of the least developed and ‘poorest’ states of India, Bihar  but the precious place where Buddha attained awakening, has managed to not only attain one of the highest government posts in India, but also produced an original work on Kālacakra such as this. Kumar’s  new translation and commentary thus has that authenticity, lived language and experience of an Indian born and brought up in India, fluent in Devanagari script and Sanskrit, who grew up surrounded by the Buddha’s sacred places. These aspects of Kumar, although not something that can be listed in a certificate or CV, are something that (with all due respect) very few, if any, elite ‘privileged’ academicians from Europe or North America could ever hope to imitate or produce, unless they too have lived and been immersed in Indian culture and language within India for many years.

This not so ‘visible’ (but extremely rare and precious) aspect of Kumar’s Herculean effort and contribution to the scholarship and translation on Kālacakra is thus, not only unprecedented and original in Buddhist Tantric research, but an amazing service and contribution indeed to world intellectual literature and knowledge. 

To download a free pdf file of Kumar’s Kalacakra Tantra Volume I book, see here. To read my own original research and translations on Kālacakra in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, see here.

Music? Kālacakra mantra chanted by,  Across the Universe by The Beatles,  Shine On You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd and Kashmir by Led Zeppelin.

May this be of benefit to the Kālacakra lineages, teachings and may we all realise the deity Kālackara innately present within! Oṃ āḥ hūṃ ho haṃ kṣa mala varaya hūṃ phaṭ.

Written and compiled by Adele Tomlin, 17th March 2024.

The Authentic Roots and Fruits of Kālacakra: Niraj Kumar

(Dakini Conversations: Episode 7)

00:00:00 Introduction to Niraj Kumar
00:02:55 Commendation by Niraj about Dakini Translations
00:03:45 Biographical background and humble beginnings in Bihar, India
00:06:04 Interest in Kālacakra
00:08:30 Some of the key concepts of Kālacakra: time as computational and dissipative
00:10:30 Breath, energy and the three realms
00:15:54 Death and destruction according to Kālacakra and ‘cheating death’
00:20:40 An ‘infatuation with machines’: Kālacakra, numbers and machines
00:24:25 The Great Dakini and the machine-like Tantrika
00:26:15 Aryabhata the greatest mathematician of all time and how his work connects to Kālacakra
00:28:50 The time of composition of the text of the Kālacakra Tantra in the 11th Century
00:35:18 The Indian roots of Kālacakra: Mahasiddha Nāropa
00:40:30 The extant earliest textual editions of the root Kalacakra Tantra
00:44:09 The main transmissions of Kālacakra into Tibet
00:45:30 The role of Atisha and Bodong monastery in the first transmissions into Tibet from Naropa
00:50:20 The lost tradition/lineage of Tsami Lotsawa and the Karma Kagyu
00:52:05 Tibetan Ogyenpa, the Mongol court of Kublai Khan and first Tibetan wood block printing of the Kālacakra text
00:55:59 Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje, first original Tibetan thinker and writer on Kālacakra
00:56:30 Go Lotsawa Zhonu Pel’s Kālacakra commentary
01:00:16 The Jonang and the Dro Kālacakra transmission to the Gelugpas
01:02:10 Mipham Rinpoche, the Nyingma master and Kālacakra
01:03:32 Errors in the dating by the Gelugpas of the root Kalacakra Tantra
01:07:00 Contemporary Kālacakra and transmission from the Jonang to Gelugpa
01:11:40 The degeneration of highest yoga tantra in terms of mass empowerments and teachings
01:14:16 The Panchen Lama and the beginning of mass Kalacakra empowerments
01:18:00 The 14th Dalai Lama ‘takeover’ of the Kālacakra transmission and the incorrect timing of some of those empowerments
01:21:40 the question of the origin of Ling Rinpoche’s transmission of Kālacakra that he gave to 14th Dalai Lama
01:23:16 Buton Rinpoche and Kālacakra
01:26:00 The future of Kālacakra in India: going back to the roots of a purer, Indian transmission?
01:28:40 The importance of examining a tantric guru and student and the degeneration of that practice
01:30:07 The importance of authenticity and Kālacakra not a mass marketing brand. Ensuring the transmission and lineage continues in the future.

Here are two short clips from the interview itself:

Endnotes

[1] Since 2018, I have written many new articles on the other Tibetan Buddhist lineages (in particular, the Karma Kagyu) and their strong, historical connection to Kālacakra and have requested several teachers in the Karma Kagyu and Nyingma to give teachings related to it. In fact, Niraj told me last year that he as a ‘huge admirer’ of my work, which he said was ‘genius’ in terms of its content and prolific nature. Niraj’s book thus is a much-needed and very welcome addition to scholarship and intellectual ideas on Kālacakra. In fact, Kumar’s work on  Kālacakra gave inspiration and content for my recent article on the Dalai Lamas/Gelugpas and Kālacakra, and how Kālacakra empowerment was turned (away from its original Indian root tantra one on one roots) into a mass social and political event in the 20th Century (originally with the 9th Panchen Lama and Chinese communist backing).

[2] According to Treasury of Lives: “The seat of what would become the institutionally independent Bodong lineage was the monastery Bodong E, which was founded in 1049 by Geshe Mudrapa Chenpo. What teachings were current there is difficult to know, save that in the twelfth century Kodrakpa Sonam Gyeltsen invited the Nepali yogin Vibhūticandra to Tibet and received from him a new transmission of the six-branch practice of the Kālacakra. Kodrakpa also propagated a lineage of Lamdre which was later subsumed into the Sakya tradition by Sonam Gyeltsen and Ngorchen Kunga Zangpo. Its greatest representative was Bodong Paṇchen Chokle Namgyel, with whom the unique Bodong Tradition is commonly said to have begun. It is important to avoid confusing Bodong Panchen with Jonang Chokle Namgyel, a teacher of Tsongkhapa and proponent of the Zhentong view.”

[3]Nonetheless, the fact that Kumar reveals that the 14th Dalai Lama keeps the mummified corpse of Ling Rinpoche clearly shows how much he revered his tutor. However, in terms of historical and textual legacy Ling Rinpoche is not a person seen as noteworthy or unique at all.