Dakini Yid Thogma (Yithrogma) is Praised and Plants the Medicinal Seeds
Dakini Yid Thogma (aka Yid’phrogma, Yid-Hphrog-Ma, orYithrogma) was a wandering yogini who played a crucial role in the development of Tibetan medicine. After many years of wandering and practicing, eventually she goes to many sacred places plantings the seeds of the medicinal plants that are the basis for Tibetan medicine. Along with her knowledge of herbs and medicinal plants, and the brewing of beer, she abided in the inner yogas.
So potent was her awakening, that many male practitioners honored her and practiced with her. Like all women practitioners, that she was a blessing power to all who encountered her.
Here is how one Rishi praised Yid Thogma, as he was making offerings to her during a ritual:
Now I shall offer the woman who is free from attachment, with the marks of the Ye-shes Dakinis wisdom dakinis, Kun-tu bZan-mo (Kuntuzangmo), the Excellent Mother of All the Buddhas . . .
The Rishi continued:
‘Kun-tu bZan-mo, Great Mother of the Buddhas,
Woman free from attachment, who has wisdom,
The goddess who is the origin of the indescribable Bliss of Emptiness,
Appearing as Yid-hphrog Lha-mo:
I bow before the bDud-rtsi-ma, the principal of the eight goddesses of medicine.
When they parted company, she put all of her belongings into a box that had been intended as her coffin (she escaped death several times) and using two sticks of sandalwood that the Rishi had offered her as oars, she rowed off to another island which was on the way to the Land of the Nagas and Naginis.
There, she met a brahmin who cut open her body when they first met. Here is a description of her inner landscape, her subtle body:
Inside her trunk [the trunk of her body) the palace of the Medicine Buddha became visible, and the lineage of the brahmins, the goddesses of medicine, and the lineage of teachings. There the Medicine Buddha was teaching the gods and goddesses and brahmins, the attendant disciples, Buddhist and non-Buddhist. Many Buddhas and Bodhisattvas were offering to him [the Medicine Buddha), four great kings guarding the palace, Brahma, Indra and demons were offering and officiating.
Sublime!
Then the Brahmin praised Yid-hprong-ma:
Beautiful charming woman, free from attachment,
Excellent Mother who gave birth to the Buddha,
Reincarnation of the mind of the Medicine Buddha,
Woman, I bow before you, mDans-ldan-ma.
Then, Yid-hprog-ma offered him a skullful of rice beer with a hundred tastes and they made more offerings, exchanged gifts, practiced sadhana.
She eventually made her way to the Land of the Nagas and Naginis and planted the seeds of the medicinal plants that are the basis of Tibetan medicine, benefitting future generations, including us.
~ excerpted from Tibetan Medicine by Ven. Rechung Rinpoche (University of California Press, 1973, pages 156-160)
