Padma 'byung gnas

Padmasambhava is a historical-mythological figure of Himalayan Buddhism. The legend regarding his origin recounts that the king of the Buddhist kingdom of Odiyana, in the northwest of what is today Pakistan, threatened the destruction of religions if he did not have a descendant. To avoid this happening, the bodhisattva Avalokite¿vara turned to the Buddha Amit¿bha to find a solution. The latter set to work, ensuring that a lotus flower from the Indus River miraculously gave birth to a boy aged eight. The king of Odiyana, a witness to the miracle, adopted him and called him Padmasambhava, ¿born from the lotus flower¿. Even though the king made him heir to the throne, Padmasambhava renounced the luxury of court life to begin a long pilgrimage acquiring all sorts of religious and worldly knowledge until becoming a powerful tantric master. The fame of Padmasambhava¿s powers reached Tibet, where its emperor, Trisong Detsen, invited him to spread Buddhism in the land of snows. This is how Tibetan tradition presents Padmasambhava as the introducer of tantric Buddhism to Tibet, in the 8th century, as one of the founders of the Nyingma order, the oldest in the country. In this valuable sculpture, Padmasambhava is shown on a pedestal of double lotus, on which we can also read, both on the front and with special emphasis on the back, a series of verses in Tibetan writing.