62 
H. P. Qastrl —Buddhism in Bengal. [No. J, 
and nights he was kept without food under strict watch : still he was 
found to be in good health. Finding that notwithstanding these tortures 
the sage grew brighter and more powerful than before, the king let him 
go. He was received by the people with the greatest veneration, as one who 
had attained sidclhi (supernatural powers and perfections.) 
Being reverently asked who he was, he gave his name as Virupa. 
In Gauda he initiated the fortunate five in some of the secrets of his mystic 
cult. Many among them gained what is called the ordinary sidclhi. In 
Bengal, during his stay of about four months, he remained accessible to 
the public ; afterwards he,disappeared, none knew to what_ place he went. 
Probably he proceeded to China from Bengal. This Acarya (religious 
teacher) was called Qri Dliarma-pala. He was not the same as Sthavira 
Dharma-pala, the Updclhydya of Nalanda. 
His disciple was Kala Virupa, or Virupa, the black, born of Brahman 
parents in Odiyana, in the West. The Brahman Astrologers predicted 
that he would be guilty of the commission of the most heinous crimes. At 
the age of seven he, being turned out of his home, that he might not commit 
the crimes, wandered from place to place for many years. 
His mother, too, after the death of her husband, father-in-law and 
mother-in-law, became homeless and destitute. She wandered from place 
to place, till, arriving in Orissa, she became a wine-seller. 1 Her son Kala 
also happened to arrive at the same place, and during the night came 
to her house. Not knowing that she was his mother, while under the 
influence of wine, he committed one of the four great sins that was 
predicted of him. Then being very thirsty he drank some beer, mistaking 
it for water, from an earthen mug. His thirst remaining still unquenched 
he grew furious with rage, and threw the vessel outside. It struck 
the head of a calf and killed the little creature. Hearing the dying cry 
of the calf he came out of the house, and with a view to conceal the act 
he rolled it down towards the lane, and thereby crushed an old Brahman 
that happened to pass by. 
In the morning. he found that the wine-selling woman was his mother, 
and that in one night he had committed all the four great crimes 2 that 
were predicted of him, and which were the most heinous among the sixteen 
great sins mentioned in the Vedas as destroying Brahmanhood. 
Reflecting on the gravity of his sins, he became very penitent and fled 
for his life and in order to perform penance, from Orissa. He made pilgrim¬ 
ages to almost all the sacred places of the Brahmans and the Buddhists. 
But being told that his purification was not complete, he proceeded 
to the country of Kogkana to meet the great Buddhist sage of Jalan¬ 
dhar!, then residing there. The sage gave him a mystic Mantra to 
propitiate the Tantrik deity Vajra-yogini, and told him that thereby he 
1 In Tib. Chaug-htshon-ma, a woman that sells wine, generally a prostitute. 
2 1. Drinking wine in a prostitute’s place. 2. Incest with his mother. 3. 
Killing a cow (calf). 4. Killing a Brahman. 
