Saraha was a Buddhist monk born in what is now eastern India some time in the 8th c. CE. He studied for a while in a monastery, but left, or was expelled, and became a wandering holy man, unbound by any rule. One of his significant teachers – who also became his consort – was a lower caste woman with a strong spiritual attunement who made arrows. Saraha was deeply struck by her one pointed attention as she did her work. It was from this association that he took the name ‘Saraha’, which means ‘the one who shot the arrow,’ referring metaphorically to the arrow of unity piercing the heart of duality. The following verses are from one of the songs of realisation attributed to him.

The wind lashes calm waters into rollers and breakers;
The king makes multifarious forms out of unity,
Seeing many faces of this one Archer, Saraha.

The cross-eyed fool sees one lamp as two;
The vision and the viewer are one,
You broken, brittle mind!

Many lamps are lit in the house,
But the blind are still in darkness;
Sahaja* is all-pervasive
But the fool cannot see what is under his nose.

Just as many rivers are one in the ocean
All half-truths are swallowed by the one truth;
The effulgence of the sun illuminates all dark corners.

Clouds draw water from the ocean to fall as rain on the earth
And there is neither increase nor decrease;
Just so, reality remains unaltered like the pure sky.

*spontaneous illumination

Translation Kunzang Tenzin