Padmasambhava and the Copper-Colored Mountain

Following his sojourn in Tibet, Padmasambhava is said to have departed for the Glorious Copper-Colored Mountain (zangs mdog dpal ri), a site that he transformed into a tantric Buddhist paradise where he resides to the present day. In this talk Ben Bogin sketches a cultural history of the Copper-Colored Mountain through narratives of Padmasambhava’s journey there in the Chronicles (bka’thang) of his life, biographical accounts of travels there by treasure-revealers (gter ston) spanning from the thirteenth to the twentieth century, prayers of aspiration for rebirth there, and visual representations of the mountain and the Palace of Lotus Light at its summit.