Variants of the Rudra Subjugation Myth: Contrasting Themes in the Legends of Mahākāla and Vajrabhairava

Tibetan Graduate Studies Seminar

Cameron Bailey's talk on wrathful deities and their myths While the Rudra/Maheśvara subjugation myth is well known in Tantric Studies there exist a great number of variant retellings of it in the Tibetan literary record which have largely been overlooked by scholarship. This presentation will discuss two cycles of less-well known versions of this centrally important tantric charter myth, one from the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, centring on a form of Mahākāla and the other from the Sarma tradition, focused on Vajrabhairava. I argue that these two versions of the myth in fact present very different, even radically opposing, theological worldviews.