Mahāsiddha महासिद्ध
See: 84 Mahāsiddhas
A mahā-siddha གྲུབ་ཐོབ་ཆེན་པོ grub thob chen po droop-tohp chen-poh (महासिद्ध - mahāsiddha), meaning great accomplished one or perfected adept, refers to an esoteric tantric yogi or yogini in Vajrayana རྡོ་རྗེ་ཐེག་པ rdo rje theg pa dor-jeh tek-pah (वज्रयान - vajrayāna) Buddhism ནང་པའི་ཆོས nang pa'i chos nahng-peh chuh (बौद्धधर्म - bauddhadharma) who has attained supreme spiritual realization and siddhis through the mastery of Tantra རྒྱུད rgyud gyoo (तन्त्र - tantra). As an archetypal spiritual title and historical movement rather than a single individual, the term has no year of birth or year of death, having flourished primarily in India རྒྱ་གར rgya gar gyah-gar between the 8th century and 12th century and subsequently transmitted to Tibet བོད bod pö. Traditionally enumerated as the Eighty-Four Mahasiddhas གྲུབ་ཐོབ་བརྒྱད་ཅུ་རྩ་བཞི grub thob brgyad cu rtsa bzhi droop-tohp gyeh-choo tsah-zhee (चतुरशीतिसिद्धाः - caturaśītisiddhāḥ) as recorded in the Caturasiti-siddha-pravrtti གྲུབ་ཐོབ་བརྒྱད་ཅུ་རྩ་བཞིའི་ལོ་རྒྱུས grub thob brgyad cu rtsa bzhi'i lo rgyus droop-tohp gyeh-choo tsah-zhee loh-gyoo (चतुरशीतिसिद्धप्रवृत्ति - caturaśītisiddhapravṛtti, Toh 2292), these unconventional adepts—including figures from all walks of life such as kings, outcasts, hunters, and scholars like Saraha ས་ར་ཧ sa ra ha sah-rah-hah (सरह - saraha), Virupa བིར་ཝ་པ bir wa pa beer-wah-pah (विरूप - virūpa), Tilopa ཏི་ལོ་པ ti lo pa tee-loh-pah (988–1069), Naropa ནཱ་རོ་པ nA ro pa nah-roh-pah (1016–1100), and Padmasambhava པདྨ་འབྱུང་གནས pad+ma 'byung gnas peh-mah joong-neh (पद्मसंभव - padmasaṃbhava)—bypassed rigid monastic convention in favor of direct contemplative experience. Grounded in bodhicitta བྱང་ཆུབ་ཀྱི་སེམས byang chub kyi sems jahng-choop kyee sem (बोधिचित्त - bodhicitta), compassion སྙིང་རྗེ snying rje nying-jeh (करुणा - karuṇā), and the profound wisdom ཤེས་རབ shes rab sheh-rahp (प्रज्ञा - prajñā) of emptiness སྟོང་པ་ཉིད stong pa nyid tohng-pah nyee (शून्यता - śūnyatā), a mahāsiddha utilizes skillful means ཐབས thabs tahp (उपाय - upāya), meditation སྒོམ sgom gohm (भावना - bhāvanā), and spontaneous songs of realization doha དོ་ཧ do ha doh-hah (दोहा - dohā) to transmute the three poisons དུག་གསུམ dug gsum dook-soom (त्रिविष - triviṣa) and negative karma ལས las leh (कर्म - karma), fully realizing innate Buddha-nature བདེ་གཤེགས་སྙིང་པོ bde gshegs snying po deh-shek nying-poh (तथागतगर्भ - tathāgatagarbha), transcending samsara འཁོར་བ 'khor ba kor-wah (संसार - saṃsāra), and attaining complete awakening བྱང་ཆུབ byang chub jahng-choop (बोधि - bodhi) and nirvana མྱ་ངན་ལས་འདས་པ mya ngan las 'das pa nyah-ngen leh deh-pah (निर्वाण - nirvāṇa) within a single lifetime.