The All-Pervading Melodious Drumbeat

There is no calculating the number of incorrigible people whom he vanquished, one and all, by killing, banishing, rendering, paralyzing and the like. All the lotsawas and learned scholars who turned the wheel of dharma had to resign before the mighty Ralo – Taranatha * The Wondrous Faith *

RA YESH SENG was the eldest son of Ra Lotsawa’s nephew. He lived in Tibet’s western province of Tsang around the late twelfth or early thirteenth century and is traditionally renowned as the first patriarch of what came to be known as the “Western tradition” of Ra Lotsawa’s spiritual lineage.

BRYAN J. CUEVAS is the author of Travels in the Netherworld- Buddhist Popular Narratives of Death and the Afterlife in Tibet, among other works. He is John F. Priest Professor of Religion and Director of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at Florida State University.