ABSTRACT
Scholars have tended to overlook information about female religious specialists in thousands of biographies written about Tibetan male masters, as well as the multiple authorship of many of these texts. This article discusses normative gender portrayals and women's lives as they are described in the sacred (auto)biography of the nineteenth century Nyingmapa master, Trülzhik Tongdröl Dorje (1862-1922), composed by a contemporary male disciple. In the crazy yogin's life story, we find substantial information about his mother Tashi Tsomo, who the narrator(s) oscillates between glorifying and debasing, but in addition, we discern Tashi Tsomo's direct voice in the detailed descriptions of her suffering, the birth of her son and her role as tantric consort and mother. Tashi Tsomo did not become a religious virtuoso but sought spiritual transformation by nurturing and supporting male talent and the religious authority of her tantric partner and son. Piety and the quest for spiritual deliverance as means for self-affirmation and expression are still not fully understood in feminist scholarship, yet it was Tashi Tsomo's embodiment of Buddhist virtues that exalted her personal traits, the very same that constituted her agency, gave her life meaning and made the biographer describe her as an advanced female bodhisattva.
