Ref: Report of identificatipon of holy historical sites with Archaeological value connected with Padmasambhava or Guru Rinpoche’s (Tibetan Guru) early years in villages in Lakhisarai District before going to Tibet.   

Padmasambhava’s early years in Lakhisarai Dist in Bihar India.

Padmasambhava, or Guru Rimpoche, as the Tibetans lovingly call him, is the subject of intense debate on whether he was a mythical or historical figure. The latter part of his life is well documented by Tibetans. I mean the part of his life he spent in Tibet. What makes his life story sound mythical is the fact that till date the places connected to his early life in India haven’t yet been discovered. Until my brother Ajay Singh studied books pertaining to him, there was a lot of conjecture pertaining to his life in India. Three facts are clear. Padmasambhava was born on an Island in a lake that went by the name of Dhanakosha. He was adopted by the king of Urgain, or Orgen, sometimes mentioned as Oddiyana. Most of his Indian activities and miracles took place in villages near the country of Zahor where he made the princess his first consort. A Shaivite king tried to drown him in the Ganges, but a young Padmasambhava flew out of the water like a mighty Garoor or vulture. He was known as Kheu Khalding Tsal. Tibetans seem to have wondered around India wondering where these places could be and did some wild guessing. Educated Tibetans crossed over to India in the latter part of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century and seem to have read Samuel Beals translation of Huen Tsangs book “Si-Yu-Ki Buddhist Records of the western world.” In this book, ‘Oddiyana’ is the second place Huen Tsang visits in his epic journey to India. His original pronunciation is ‘O-cha-na’ which Beal deciphered as Oddiyana. Tibetans took it for granted that was the elusive Urgain or Orgen mentioned in the Tibetan seven line prayer. Oddiyana was never discovered as such a name never existed. So people thought it was somewhere in the Swat valley or in the state of Orissa in India. Similarly they searched for Lake Dhanakosha in and around the area of Swat valley. Wild guess work was done and Lake Rewalsar was chosen as the lake in which the king of Zahor tried to burn Padmasambhava. They did this because the lake fell in the district of Mandi which had a verbal resemblance to Mandarva who was Padmasambhavas first consort and the daughter of the king of Zahor. Zahor remained elusive, and even wild guess work failed to pinpoint any place with a similar name. Guesswork continued and Maratika cave in Nepal was chosen as the cave in which Padmasambhava and Mandarva practiced longevity for three months and attained the rainbow body. In short wild guessing by Tibetans made Padmasambhava an unbelievable character who seemed to be flying around all over north India parallel to the Himalayan foothills. Due to all this guess work the Tibetan world failed to identify the eight manifestations of the great Guru. Until my brother took pains to study Tibetan texts everything was conjecture. Ajay Singh brilliantly identified Uren village as the elusive Urgain or Orgen or the non existent Oddiyana, Dhanauri lake as the elusive lake where Padmasambhava was born, Sahur village as the elusive Zahor which even wild Tibetan guess work failed to identify, and Balguddar village where the Hindu king tried to drown Padmasambhava in the Ganges where he flew out of the river like a mighty vulture. This is exactly what Balguddar means. Studying the area between these villages the entire Padmasambhava and Mandarva story falls into place. We will start with Uren village.