Luipada
Luipa or Luipada was a mahasiddha siddhacharya from Eastern India. He was a Buddhist saint from the Kãivartā community. He was a writer of a number of Buddhist texts and one of the early poets of Charyapada, a late Apabhraṃśa collection of poems.
Nomenclature and etymology
Although the Tibetan translation for Lui is "the fish-gut eater", the root of the word is probably Sanskrit lohita which means "red" and the names like Luidhar, Luichandra and Luiya mentioned in the Dharmamangals of the late medieval period originated from the same root.Ayyappapanicker & Akademi amplify the view of prior scholarship in that the nomenclature "Luipa" is related to the Brahmaputra River:
Hagiographical accounts
Luipa appears in The Legends of Eighty-four Siddhas, a Tibetan namtar detailing the lives of Indian mahasiddhas. It was written by the Tibetan monk Mondup Sherab and was probably a translation of the Chaturashiti-Siddha-Pravritti, based on what was narrated to him by Abhayadatta Sri of Champaran. In the Chaturasiti-Siddha-Pravritti, Luipa is said to be the second son of a very rich king of Singhaladvipa, believed to be Sri Lanka. However, several other regions were also known as Singhaladvipa, and one of them was Oddiyana, which other sources mentioned as the place of birth of Luipa.Luipa's father chose him as his successor, but he left his kingdom to achieve bodhi, i.e. enlightenment. Luipa first headed for Ramesvaram and then went to Vajrasana, known today as Bodh Gaya, the place where Gautama Buddha achieved enlightenment. There Luipa received his first teaching from a dakini. Later, when he reached Saliputra, or Magadha, a Loka-Dakini advised him to get rid of the slightest pride of his royal blood to achieve enlightenment by leaving aside all prejudices regarding the purity of foods. Following her advice, Luipa consumed only the guts of the fishes thrown away by the fishermen on the Ganges for twelve years. This practice led to him being known as Lui, one who eats fish-guts.
Luipa also appears in the Chaturashiti-Siiddha-Pravritti, where he meets the king of Magadha, Indrapala and his Brahmin minister. These two became his disciples and were known as Darikapa and Dengipa. Luipa initiated them into the mandala of Cakrasaṃvara.
In Buton Rinchen Drub's History of Buddhism, Luipa is mentioned as the son of King Lalitachandra of Oddiyana. When the prince met Śabara, a disciple of Saraha, he was immensely impressed by this great adept and begged him for instruction. He received initiation into the tantra of Cakrasaṃvara. The initial part of his penance was completed when he joined a circle of twenty-four Dakas and Dakinis in a ganachakra in a charnel ground which climaxed in consumption of the corpse of a sage. With a final blessing from his Guru he left Oddiyana and became a mendicant sage. The period ended when, feeling the need for sustained one-pointed meditation practice, he sat down to meditate beside a pile of fish-guts by the banks of the River Ganges in Bengal, where he remained till he had attained mahamudra-siddhi, the highest level of spiritual attainment in Vajrayana Buddhism.
The Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism records that Luipa was a kayastha or scribe by occupation, at the court of Dharmapala, the emperor of Varendra in northern Bengal. While begging for alms at Dharmapala's palace Savaripa recognized the scribe Luipa as a suitable recipient for his Samvara lineage; his extraordinary talent was evident in the versified letters he wrote to the king's correspondents, a task requiring a pointed concentration.
The account of Luipa found in the work of Taranatha, a scholar from the Jonang school of Tibetan Buddhism, differs significantly from that found in Buton's work. Here, Luipa was a scribe to the King of Oddiyana and was initiated into the Vajravārāhī mandala.
Poetry of Luipa rendered into English
The following poetic extract of Luipa is from his work, Kāā Tarubara, the first pada of the Charyapada and rendered into English by Mahendra Bora and cited in Ayyappapanicker & Akademi :It is also notable to refer here that Luipa has also contributed to the 29th song/Raga/Hymn of the Charyapada, the first discovered manuscript of Bangla Literature. This song is reads:-
Date of Luipa
The most significant information available from the legends of the Sakya school is that Luipa worked at the court of the Maharaja of Varendra, Dharmapala. If this king is same as Pala Emperor Dharmapala, then this identification places Luipa as a younger contemporary of Dharmapala. If Luipa was initiated in his youth, his date of initiation must be at the end of the eighth century or the beginning of the ninth century.In the Abhisamaya-Vibhanga of the Tengyur, Atiśa is mentioned as a co-author of the text along with him but it seems that actually Atisha had either completed his text or wrote a Vibhanga on his Abhisamaya. So, it is more probable that he belonged to the 10th century.
From Luipa's date, his guru Śabara's time can be fixed, along with the dates of his disciples Darikapa and Dengipa, and also Dombi Heruka, whom Luipa taught. Since Kilapa was probably one of his descendants, his date can also be fixed.