Rahu: "Daemonic Buddhism" in Tibet

Cameron Bailey, MA (Florida State U); Ashley Wells, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

A Tibetan bhavacakra or "Wheel of Existence" symbolic of cycling in samsara (wiki)

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This is a profile of the Tibetan Buddhist protector deity Rahula or Rahu (Tibetan Khyab 'jug chen po), particularly the ritual magic and mythic complex that surrounds this deity's cult.

Rahula, however, is a case study to make a larger theoretical point, namely, that the cult of Rahula, as it developed in Tibet, was part of a broader Buddhist campaign to demonize the landscape of [Bon shamanic, pre-Buddhist] Tibet for missionary activity and political purposes, in what might be called the "mandalization" of Tibet.

While this took place in Tibet approximately from the 12th century through the 17th, Buddhism -- since its inception and as it developed in India -- rested firmly on the foundation of a cosmology teeming with spirits (Greek daimons, umbrella term for a host of different kinds of beings).

That is to say, conceptions of daemons like Rahu(la) have historically been intimately connected with Buddhist doctrine and philosophy.

Daimon cults are somehow an amalgamation or epiphenomenon in Buddhism. And Rahula as a case study represents a peculiar case of Tibetan elaboration on an Indian antecedent.

Rahu (eclipse maker) in Thailand (wiki)

Rahula, or Rahu in Indian conceptions, has been an abstract cosmological force synonymous with malignancy. While all the other planets (Sanskrit graha, Tibetan gza’) are deemed to be gods, Rahu alone is a demon [asura, titan, rakshasa, yaksha, ogres, "jealous gods"], in fact the only demon to have tasted the elixir of immortality.

Thus, he is regarded as a particularly fierce enemy of the gods (devas, angels, demigods, lit. "shining ones"). By the early second millennium in Tibet, Rahu had become a high-level Buddhist dharma protector (Dharmapala, specifically of the Dzogchen tradition of Nyingma philosophy) and an emanation of the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī (or often Vajrapaṇi).

He has historically been heavily associated with destructive rites, war magic, and weather-making magic.

There are a number of specific questions concerning this deity to be answered:

• How do the mythology and astrological functions of Rahu in Tibet relate to Indian antecedents?
• Why might Buddhists have transformed a relatively minor figure from Hindu mythology in such a significant way?
• Who were some of the Tibetan figures involved in valorizing this deity?
• What larger social and political climate in Tibet might have contributed to this transformation?
• How might Rahu's mythology relate to Buddhist philosophy, specifically Dzogchen thought?

The Raven and the Serpent: "The All-Pervading Rahula" Daemonic Buddhism in India and Tibet
INTRODUCTION

The present study of the deity Rahu(la), a well-known figure in Indian myth and cosmology who, in later traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, is developed into a major dharmapāla (“defender of the Buddhist teachings”).

Why was it that this originally non-Buddhist character, best known for his mythic cosmological role in causing solar and lunar eclipses, in a little over a thousand years after his first appearance in a datable written account (specifically the famous Mahābhārata epic of Hindu literature) becomes associated with the highest reaches of Tibetan philosophy.

Deities like Rahu, prevalent specifically in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism and generally across the Buddhist world, are in fact indispensable elements within the tradition, and around which fundamental Buddhist soteriological [study of doctrines of salvation] assumptions were built. More

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