Mahasiddha Savaripa – The Hunter

In the forest of the unknown roams a deer,

A deer called Alienation.

Stretching out the great arc of the means of knowledge and of the clear vision,

Making fly the only arrow, of the ultimate truth,

The deer dies – yes, the thought dies!

Then her flesh becomes the feast of non-duality.

Aroma is the taste of pure bliss

And the goal, the Magnificent Attitude, is thus achieved.

In the wild mantra mountains, lived a hunter named Savaripa. His karma was cursed because his survival depended on killing other living deeds. He is in a vicious circle, hurting according to the law of karma, those who kill animals and consume their meat, are doomed to be reborn as hunters. He killed to survive and survived to kill.

But one day, Lokesvara, the Bodhisattva of compassion, seeing Savaripa’s hard life, wants out of pure compassion to help him break this vicious circle of his life, and thus appears to him in the form of another hunter, while Savaripa is in the forest.

“Who are you?” asked Savaripa in disbelief.

“I’m a hunter like you” answers the Bodhisattva.

Savaripa further asked the so-called hunter, how many deer he could kill with a single arrow, and he replied that about three hundred. He was a little dismayed by the answer, as he was very proud of his ability as a hunter, he invited Lokesvara to compete with him the next morning.

When he met again, Lokesvara hunted a hundred deer with a single arrow, and asked Savaripa to take one home. He, trying to pick up the deer, failed, and at that moment the pride to melt on the spot, and begged the Bodhisattva to teach him to archery like him.

The Bodhisattva promised to teach him if Savaripa gave up eating meat for a month.

During this time Savaripa and his wife became vegetarians, giving up the habit of eating meat and killing animals, as a result, the Bodhisattva told him that besides giving up this habit he must also learn to meditate on love and compassion for all living creatures. The hunter accepted this without any hesitation, so that after a month he received the initiation into the basic principles of buddha doctrine.

Thus Lokesvara taught him about the karmic effects of virtue and vice, about the ten virtuous actions and their opposites. After that Savaripa received from Lokesvara a permanent sadhana, being sent to meditate on mount Danti. After twelve years, during which Savaripa meditated on sublime objectless and unconditional compassion, he entered into a state devoid of thoughts and reached the supreme realization mahamudra.

After this realization, his guru praising him told him that he would have to return to the world: “You must remain bound by the wheel of life and death for the sake of those bound to it. Your goal must be to release an infinite number of people.”

Listening to his advice, Savaripa returned to his country, transmitting his teaching to those with good karma, through song and dance, sound and symbol. It is said that his mission will not end until the next Buddha or Maitreya will bring and preach on Earth, the Gospel of the New Eras.

Here ends the story of Svaripa, the hunter who became a vegetarian and touched nirvana through the practice of continuous meditation on sublime compassion.

From the point of view of spiritual practice, the path of Savaripa is based on a hinayana teaching, clear and simple, respectively on the doctrine of karma. Lokeswara’s perceptions that induce the thoughtless trance of sublime compassions belong to the non-dualistic Tantrum, and the result is the transcendent nirvana (mahanirvana) and not the nirvana of the dissolution of the hinayana. After attaining this supreme nirvana, Savaripa’s sadhana consisted of imitating Lokesvara, swearing that he would not enter the Nirvana of total dissolution until all the facts could accompany him.

It represents the purest ideal of a Bodhisattva, being often found in a tantric context.

The Great Savaripa is supposed to have been born at the end of the eighth century and died in the mid-ninth century, in a tribe of aboriginal hunters Sabara, a tribe that was known for his Siddhasi, and who lived in Eastern India, close to the mantra mountain range.

Savaripa’s spiritual line is Saraha’s, as he was saraha’s main Samvara-Guru of the younger Saraha. His lineage also includes Saraha Nagarjuna, Savaripa and then Luipa, who is the main disciple of Savaripa.