Buddhist Masters Of Enchantment: The Lives And Legends Of The Mahasiddhas

Buddhist Masters of Enchantment: The Lives and Legends of the Mahasiddhas

A beautifully illustrated collection of the stories of the Mahasiddhas, the magicians and saints who founded the lineages of the Tantric tradition.A highly readable translation of legends from the Tibetan oral tradition.Recounts stories of the masters who embodied various paradigms for psychic and spiritual awakening.There is no better illustration of the nature of Tantric Buddhism than the lives of the masters who founded it. Extraordinary men and women who attained enlightenment and magical powers by disregarding convention and penetrating to the core of life, the Mahasiddhas show us a way through human suffering into a spontaneous and free state of oneness with the divine.Keith Dowman's highly readable translation of these legends from Tibetan oral tradition is enhanced by the beautifully realized illustrations of the Tantric saints by artist Robert Beer.Amazon.com ReviewIn Buddhist Masters of Enchantment, Robert Beer, having studied with the greatest living painters of the Tibetan tradition, offers up mesmerizing polychrome images of legendary tantric masters. The illustrations accompany a modern translation of a centuries-old text that in the hands of Tibetan Buddhist initiate Keith Dowman reads as enchantingly as the Brothers Grimm. Buddhist Masters of Enchantment is a rich achievement, worthy of the great mahasiddhas it depicts, men and women who attained spectacular powers of enlightenment within their lifetimes. --Brian BruyaReview"These are extraordinary, riveting tales. . . a book of high merit and high adventure, a marvel of inspired creation. . . stories through whose cosmic transparency shines the illimitable Buddha-nature."(Small Press)"Robert Beer is a master. His own story of being rescued by Tibetan art is almost as amazing as the stories of the Mahasiddhas."(Frank Olinsky, Tricycle Magazine)About the AuthorKeith Dowman has spent 30 years traveling widely in India and Nepal and is an initiate of the Nyingmapa school of Tibetan Buddhism. He is the author of The Divine Madman and Power Places of Kathmandu. Robert Beer studied Tibetan thangka painting in India and Nepal with Khamtrul Rinpoche, the greatest living thangka painter of his time, and with Jampa-la, the state painter of Tibet. He currently lives with his family in Oxford.