Himalayan Art Resources

Indian Adept: Kanha of the East Page

Kanha Masterworks

Subjects, Topics & Types:
- Kanha Biography (below)
- Margapala Lineage Painting Sets
- Confusions: Krishnacharin, Kishnacharya
- Others...

Video: Kanha & Krishnacharya

Kanha of the East, 8th century (Tibetan: nag po pa shar chog pa): one of the principal students of mahasiddha Virupa along with Dombi Heruka. Kanha was a lineage teacher of the Margapala (Path Together with the Result) teachings preserved in the Sakya School. Kanha is famous for teaching the gradual method Margapala while Dombi Heruka was responsible for carrying on the sudden method Margapala. (See the list of teachers).

Kanha, Black One, an Indian yogi of the 8th century was responsible along with other Indian teachers, before and after, for the spread of Tantric Buddhism to the Himalayas and Tibet. Originally a practitioner of the Shaiva religion of Hinduism, he was converted by the famous teacher Virupa of the equally famous Nalanda University, destroyed the year that Oxford University of England was founded in 1096.

"With the profound advice, release my mind,
Performing the benefit of others
With the practice of vows;
To Kanha I bow. (Chogyal Pagpa).

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Jeff Watt 7-2003 [updated 10-2017, 4-2019, 1-2020]