QUERY: Naljorpa--Information About?

[Al de Baran]

I am trying to find historical / scholarly information about the Naljorpas and their tradition. Like many, I suppose, I first read about them in Alexandra David-Neel's Mystery and Magic in Tibet. I am surprised, however, that that seems to be the main source--in English, at least--of information about these practitioners, their beliefs and traditions. Google Scholar yields little to nothing of value. Are there perhaps alternative English / transliterated spellings "Naljorpa" that I am missing?

Can anyone here point me to the sort of information I am seeking--books, articles, etc.? I read English and French. I would be most grateful for any assistance or suggestions. Thank you.

[dzogchungpa]

I am trying to find historical / scholarly information about the Naljorpas and their tradition. Like many, I suppose, I first read about them in Alexandra David-Neel's Mystery and Magic in Tibet. I am surprised, however, that that seems to be the main source--in English, at least--of information about these practitioners, their beliefs and traditions. Google Scholar yields little to nothing of value. Are there perhaps alternative English / transliterated spellings "Naljorpa" that I am missing?

Can anyone here point me to the sort of information I am seeking--books, articles, etc.? I read English and French. I would be most grateful for any assistance or suggestions. Thank you.

Naljorpa means yogi in Tibetan.

[jet.urgyen]

I am trying to find historical / scholarly information about the Naljorpas and their tradition. Like many, I suppose, I first read about them in Alexandra David-Neel's Mystery and Magic in Tibet. I am surprised, however, that that seems to be the main source--in English, at least--of information about these practitioners, their beliefs and traditions. Google Scholar yields little to nothing of value. Are there perhaps alternative English / transliterated spellings "Naljorpa" that I am missing?

Can anyone here point me to the sort of information I am seeking--books, articles, etc.? I read English and French. I would be most grateful for any assistance or suggestions. Thank you.

i remember a teacher told me that naljorpa was the word that people used to refer to a male ngagpa, mantrika.

[Al de Baran]

Thanks very much for the replies so far. I am really surprised at how little written information there seems to be on this subject.

[Johnny Dangerous]

Thanks very much for the replies so far. I am really surprised at how little written information there seems to be on this subject.

You can just read Hagiography/stories about nearly any famous Tibetan Yogi...you could start with the MIlarepa books put out by Shambhala I suppose. Naljorpa (as dzogchungpa said) just means "yogi", so you can read lots, and lots, and lots of Tibetan Buddhist sources and be reading about Yogis. In fact, it would be hard to read much Tibetan Buddhist literature and not come across stories of Yogis.

If there's something more specific you're looking for, see if you can whittle it down.

[dzogchungpa]

A really nice book with some good stories about various Tibetan yogis is "Blazing Splendor: The Memoirs of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche" but, of course, there are many, many books that discuss them.

[PSM]

Maybe also Dudjom Rinpoche's Big Red Book, given the prevalence of lay yogis in the Nyingma tradition.

[conebeckham]

རྣལ་འབྱོར་པ is the Tibetan for "Naljorpa," which is usually translated as "Yogi."

A literal translation is "one who is in union ('byor.pa) with the natural state (rnal)."

The entire purpose of Tibetan Buddhist practice is to attain this state, for the benefit of self and others. To obtain Buddhahood, the irreversible fruition of all good qualities, and the cessation of all negative factors.

In a sense, pretty much every book about Buddhism can be said to be about "Naljor," or "Yoga."

More specifically, people often use the word "yogi" or "Naljorpa" to distinguish someone who practices physical exercises related to Buddhist practice. These are known by a variety of names, but are most famously called "Trulkhor" འཕྲུལ་འཁོར.

These days, there's quite a bit of information about these practices you can find, but you can't really learn any of this, or any "Vajrayana" Buddhist method, without a qualified Guru. There are a lot of suspect presentations, including things like the "Five Tibetan Rites," etc.

It really is a vast subject; if you have more specific interests, perhaps we could point you to better references. Evans-Wentz (and A. David-Neel) are pretty outdated, IMO, and they viewed these traditions through a biased lens. In the last 30 years or so, much more accurate and "objective" material has been published, and much more balderdash, as well.....

[Palzang Jangchub]

རྣལ་འབྱོར་པ is the Tibetan for "Naljorpa," which is usually translated as "Yogi."

A literal translation is "one who is in union ('byor.pa) with the natural state (rnal)."

FWIW, the Sanskrit word yogī can be literally translated as "one who is connected/joined with ____," so the 'byor translation in Tibetan is very spot on. An English cognate of yogi is "yoke."

[Al de Baran]

Thanks once again for the additional replies. I suppose what interests me, and the main dividing line, is the idea of the traveling holy man/sorcerer who is not affiliated with a temple, such as the one Alexandra David-Neel describes. But I suspected that, as a fairly ignorant newcomer to this subject, a lot of the difficulties I was having in finding information were related to terminology. The responses here have confirmed this, which I appreciate.

[dzogchungpa]

It is interesting to note that Ngawang Zangpo translates "naljor" as "welcome of our/the genuine state" in his recent translations in "The Complete Nyingma Tradition from Sutra to Tantra" series.

[humble.student]

The disproportionate interest in this term in the older French literature merely reflects the disproportionate influence of the works of Mme Blavatsky, most notably, but also those by A. David-Neel, and later, a positive review of Marco Pallis' book by René Guénon, who singled out this term for special mention.