Yeshe Tsogyal — “Victorious Ocean of Wisdom” — is the great female master and enlightened consort of [padmasambhava], revered as the “Mother of Tibetan Buddhism”: a fully realized woman who attained complete enlightenment, recorded and concealed her master’s teachings, and stands as the supreme female exemplar of the Vajrayana path. She is herself regarded as an emanation of the wisdom-goddess.
The Enlightened Consort
Yeshe Tsogyal was, by tradition, a princess (or a queen of King Trisong Detsen) of eighth-century Tibet who became the chief consort and foremost disciple of the great Guru Padmasambhava. Under his guidance she practiced the deepest tantric disciplines with extraordinary devotion and attained full enlightenment in a single lifetime — a supreme accomplishment, and a powerful affirmation that a woman could achieve the highest realization. She is revered as an emanation of [green-tara] or of the wisdom-dakini, the feminine principle of enlightenment made manifest.
The Keeper of the Treasures
Yeshe Tsogyal’s role in the founding of Tibetan Buddhism was indispensable. Gifted with a perfect, infallible memory, she heard and retained all of Padmasambhava’s teachings, and she recorded them and, together with him, concealed them as the terma — the hidden treasures — to be discovered by future masters in the ages when they would be needed. Without her, the vast treasury of Padmasambhava’s teaching might have been lost; she is the scribe and the guardian of the dharma he brought to Tibet, the one who ensured its survival across the centuries.
The Mother of Tibetan Buddhism
Yeshe Tsogyal endured great hardships and trials on her path — her life-story, itself a discovered terma, recounts her sufferings and her triumphs — and she became a fully accomplished master and teacher in her own right, with her own disciples. As the “Mother of Tibetan Buddhism,” the enlightened consort and equal of Guru Rinpoche, and the supreme female exemplar of the Vajrayana, she is deeply revered throughout the Himalayan tradition, an inspiration above all to women practitioners. In Yeshe Tsogyal, Tibetan Buddhism honoured the enlightened feminine and the keeper of the teaching — the great woman master who attained full awakening, recorded and hid the treasures of the dharma, and stands as the Mother of the Buddhism of the snowy land.