Asura Cave

Asura Cave sits above the village of Pharping, about 16 km south-west of Kathmandu. Nyingma tradition, as Nekhor’s pilgrimage guide gives it, says Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche) practised in two caves here: the sunny upper Asura Cave in the winter months and the lower Yangleshö cave in the hot summer months. At the Asura Cave, by combining the practices of Yangdak Heruka and Vajrakīlaya, he is held to have attained mahāmudrā, the Great Seal. The Le’u Dunma, the Prayer in Seven Chapters, links Yangleshö with the same accomplishment.

The association is old. Jacob Dalton’s Treasury of Lives biography notes that one of the earliest manuscripts about Padmasambhava, a tenth-century text found at Dunhuang (Pelliot tibétain 44), describes him gathering the texts and performing the rites of the Vajrakīlāya tantra at the Asura cave in Yanglesho, before his journey to Tibet in the late eighth century.

Pharping is full of places of practice. Nekhor records that Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche built a monastery and retreat centre at the Asura Cave at the request of the 16th Karmapa, in use since the early 1980s, and that Chatral Rinpoche’s monastery stands beside the Yangleshö cave. Nearby, a small temple protects two rock images of Tara held to be self-arisen.