Editing Mahasiddha (section)

{{Short description|Master practitioner of yoga and tantra}}
[[File:Indian Adept (siddha) - (multiple figures)18th century Boston MFA.jpg|thumb|255px|Four Mahasiddhas (18th century, Boston MFA). [[Saraha]] in top left, Dombhi Heruka top right, [[Naropa]] bottom left, and [[Virupa]] bottom right.]]

'''Mahasiddha''' ([[Sanskrit]]: ''mahāsiddha'' "great adept; {{bo|t=གྲུབ་ཐོབ་ཆེན་པོ|w=grub thob chen po|s=druptop chenpo}}) is a term for someone who embodies and cultivates the "[[siddhi]] of perfection". A [[siddha]] is an individual who, through the practice of [[sādhanā]], attains the realization of [[siddhi]]s, psychic and spiritual abilities and powers.

Mahasiddhas were practitioners of [[yoga]] and [[tantra]], or ''tantrika''s. Their historical influence throughout the [[Indian subcontinent]] and the [[Himalayas]] was vast and they reached mythic proportions as codified in their [[songs of realization]] and [[hagiography|hagiographies]], or [[Namtar (biography)|namtar]]s, many of which have been preserved in the [[Tibetan Buddhist canon]]. The Mahasiddhas are identified as founders of [[Vajrayana]] traditions and [[lineage (Buddhism)|lineages]] such as [[Dzogchen]] and [[Mahamudra]], as well as among [[Bon|Bön]],<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Bstan-vdzin-rnam-dag |title=Masters of the Zhang Zhung Nyengyud: pith instructions from the experiential transmission of Bönpo Dzogchen |last2=Ermakova |first2=Carol |last3=Ermakov |first3=Dmitry |last4=Bstan-vdzin-rnam-dag |date=2011 |publisher=Heritage Publ |isbn=978-81-7026-268-8 |edition=Repr |location=New Delhi}}</ref> [[Nath|Nāth]],<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=White |first=David Gordon |title=The alchemical body: Siddha Traditions in medieval India |date=1998 |publisher=University of Chicago press |isbn=978-0-226-89499-7 |location=Chicago |pages=78–87}}</ref> and Tamil [[Siddhar|siddhars]], with the same Mahasiddha sometimes serving simultaneously as a founding figure for different traditions.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" />

[[Robert Thurman]] explains the symbiotic relationship between Tantric Buddhist communities and the Buddhist universities such as [[Nalanda]] which flourished at the same time.{{efn|{{harvp|Gray|2007|pp=ix-x}}: "The Tantric communities of India in the latter half of the first Common Era millennium (and perhaps even earlier) were something like 'Institutes of Advanced Studies' in relation to the great Buddhist monastic 'Universities'. They were research centers for highly cultivated, successfully graduated experts in various branches of Inner Science (adhyatmavidya), some of whom were still monastics and could move back and forth from university (vidyalaya) to 'site' (patha), and many of whom had resigned vows of poverty, celibacy, and so forth, and were living in the classical Indian [[sannyasa|sannyāsin]] or sādhu style. I call them the '[[Psychonaut|psychonauts]]' of the tradition, in parallel with our 'astronauts', the materialist scientist-adventurers whom we admire for their courageous explorations of the 'outer space' which we consider the matrix of material reality. Inverse astronauts, the psychonauts voyaged deep into 'inner space', encountering and conquering angels and demons in the depths of their subconscious minds."}}