This lucid translation of a rare Tibetan text makes available for the first time to Western readers the remarkable life story of Princess Madarava. As the principal consort of the eighth century Indian master Padmasambhava before he introduced tantric Buddhism to Tibet, Mandarava is the Indian counterpart of the Tibetan consort Yeshe Tsogyal. Lives and Liberation recounts her struggles and triumphs as a Buddhist adept throughout her many lives and is an authentic deliverance story of a female Buddhist master. Those who read this book will gain inspiration and encouragement on the path to liberation.

Author Biography

Lama Chonam, Choying Namgyal, was born in the Golog area of eastern Tibet in 1964. His root teacher, Khenpo Munsel, was a direct disciple of Khenpo Ngagchung and was himself one of the great authentic Dzogchen masters of the twentieth century. Lama Chonam escaped Tibet in 1992 and later came to the United States, where he resides today. Over the past sixteen years Lama Chonam has been teaching Tibetan language and the Buddhadharma. He is one of the founders of the Light of Berotsana Translation Group. Sangye Khandro has been a Buddhist since 1971 and a translator of the Dharma since 1976. She has helped to establish numerous centers in the US and has served as translator for many prominent masters in all four lineages. Sangye has been the spiritual companion of the Venerable Gyatrul Rinpoche for nearly thirty years and has continued to help serve the centers established by her root teacher, Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche, with whom she studied and practiced for many years. Sangye Khandro is one of the founders of the Light of Berotsana Translation Group. Janet Gyatso is a specialist in Buddhist studies with concentration on Tibetan and South Asian cultural history and the Hershey Professor of Buddhist Studies at Harvard University. Gyatso was president of the International Association of Tibetan Studies from 2000 to 2006, and co-chair of the Buddhism Section of the American Academy of Religion from 2004 to 2010. She teaches lecture courses and advanced seminars on Buddhist history, ritual, and ideas, and on Tibetan literary practices and religious history. In both teaching and writing she draws on cultural and literary theory, and endeavors to widen the spectrum of intellectual resources for the understanding of Buddhist and Tibetan history. She is the faculty director of the Harvard Buddhist Studies Forum. She is also a member of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences' Committee on the Study of Religion, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, and Committee on Inner Asian and Altaic Studies. She will chair the Committee on Women, Sexuality, and Gender in Religion at the Divinity School in 2012 and is involved in the development of a new track for the training of Buddhist lay ministers and leaders in the master of divinity program. Gyatso taught at Amherst College before coming to Harvard as the Divinity School's first Hershey Professor of Buddhist Studies.