Amr.tasiddhi A Posteriori : An Exploratory Study on the Possible Impact of the Amr.tasiddhi on the Subsequent Sanskritic Vajray¯ana Tradition

: Recent research into source materials for hat.hayoga (Birch, Mallinson, Sz á nt ó ) has revealed that the physical techniques and esoteric anatomy traditionally associated with ´Saiva practitioners likely found a genesis within Vajray¯ana Buddhist communities. The physiology and practices for longevity described in the 11th-or-12th-century Amr.tasiddhi are easily traced in the development of subsequent physical yoga, but prior to the discovery of the text’s Buddhist origin, analogues to a hat . hayoga esoteric anatomy found in Vajray¯ana sources have been regarded as coincidental. This paper considers both the possibility that the Amr.tasiddhi , or a tradition related to it, had a lasting impact on practices detailed in subsequent tantric Buddhist texts and that this hat.hayoga source text can aid in interpreting unclear passages in these texts.


Introduction
This paper will outline an investigation of the possible impact of the hat . hayoga "source text" upon two late Vajrayāna mūla tantras, namely, the 12th-century Sam . varodayatantra (SUT) and the 13th-century Can . d . amahāros . an . atantra (CMT). The hat . hayoga source text is the 11th-century Amr . tasiddhi. This paper will also note some precedents of and parallels with the physiological model found in the Amr . tasiddhi in earlier and contemporaneous Vajrayāna texts.
I was first exposed to the Amr . tasiddhi in 2016 when James Mallinson regularly came to Oxford to work through it with Péter-Dániel Szántó and I joined in the readings. It was almost immediately evident that the text had Buddhist influences (for example, its opening maṅgala verse is an invocation to the Buddhist goddess Chinnamastā), and Mallinson subsequently released an article 1 detailing some of these Buddhist elements. Mallinson and Szántó will publish a full edition of the text and translation in 2020.
The text first received treatment in contemporary scholarship in Kurtis Schaeffer's pioneering article 2 in which he pointed out that it is difficult to identify the text as Buddhist, Nātha, or anything else. Schaeffer also highlighted the importance of the text in Tibet. Mallinson especially,3 but Jason Birch and others in the last two decades have illustrated the impact of the text upon the development of hat . hayoga. The goal of this paper is to begin to investigate the impact the Amr . tasiddhi may have had on subsequent developments in Sanskritic Buddhism.
For the purposes of this paper there are two key ideas in the Amr . tasiddhi I will discuss, which, when combined, would eventually become the fundamental physiological theory of hat . hayoga. The first 1 idea is that if one is able to preserve the store of bindu, or amr . ta, that is, semen, in the cranial vault, that one may extend one's own life. This bindu drips, drop by drop, over a lifetime, and once it is exhausted, the individual dies. In females it is present as well, although as female sexual fluid or menstrual blood, not seminal fluid. The second idea is that through prān .ā yāma and physical manipulation of the body, a yogin can force wind through the nād .ī s, the subtle channels of the body, into the central channel and upwards, and reverse the downward course of the ever-dripping bindu for the specific purpose of prolonging one's own life. This is the amr . tasiddhi, the accomplishment of immortality.

Precedents in Vajrayāna
There is a long, well-documented history of alchemy and practices for longevity in Vajrayāna prior to the Amr . tasiddhi, 4 but the text's particular model does not appear to exist in tantric Buddhism, at least not in any of the materials that we are aware known of. That is, the model of a store of life-sustaining substance in the cranium, and the ability to move subtle wind through the channels of the body to propel this substance upwards for the purpose of life-extension or death-prevention. There are, however, similar physiological systems within Vajrayāna prior to the Amr . tasiddhi. The examples presented in this section are not intended to be exhaustive (and indeed they are not), but to showcase the existence of such systems in Vajrayāna prior to or within the 11th century.
The concept of something called bindu is found in the 8th-century Guhyasamājatantra as a point upon which a yogin places a seed-syllable visualized in meditation. 5 There is also a mention of bindu as a drop of seminal fluid produced through sexual union. 6 In the Guhyasamājottara, the 18th chapter of the Guhyasamājatantra, and likely a late 8th-century addition to the original tantra, we see bindu as an object of the mind during prān .ā yāma, a drop or point of prān . a called "prān . abindu". 7 Here bindu is an object in meditation, the point one places one's own seed mantra upon, not a physical substance; however, it is noteworthy that centuries later, at the time of the Amr . tasiddhi's production, the famed Nāropā locates this bindu in the forehead. 8 The Laghukālacakratantra, or simply Kālacakra, produced circa 1030 CE (so more or less contemporaneous with the Amr . tasiddhi), includes four, individual bindus located in respective cakras, which lead to wrong speech and behavior but, when purified, result in a perfected body. This purification happens through binduyoga, where a drop of semen is sent upwards and then diffuses throughout the body, leading to bliss. 9 As regards the nād .ī s, a fully developed system of 32 channels, with sun and moon corresponding to the primary right and left channels, respectively, exists in Vajrayāna as early as the late 9th-century 4 For an overview of alchemical practices in both South Asia and Sanskritic Buddhism in general see White, David Gordon. The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London. 1996. For practices related directly to the Laghukālacakratantra and speculation regarding the wider tradition it draws from, see (Wallace 2001 . "Exhaling, one should set the great jewel of five colors in the form of a ball (pin . d . arūpena) on the tip of the nose. This is called 'restraint of the breath' (prān .ā yāma). Having visualized one's own mantra as located in the heart, he should fix [the mantra] on the prān . abindu." 8 niścārya pin . d . arupena | iha pin . d . am . savyāvasavyaman . d . alānām ekatvam . madhyamāyām avadhūtyām . prān . avāyoh . | "'Breathing out in the form of a ball.' Here, the ball is the Prān . a wind of the man . d . alas/areas of the right and left [channels], that is unified in the central channel (madhyamā), the Avadhūtī." bindugatam . bindusthānam . lalāt . am . tatra nyasen nirodhayet | "'at the bindu'. In other words, it must be arrested in the location of the bindu, the forehead." Sekoddeśat .ī kā, commentary on GSU 147c and 148d, respectively. 9 C.f. (Wallace 2001, p. 22, 200) and the Vimalaprabhā commentary on Kālacakratrantra 4.110.
Hevajratantra. 10 With the Kālacakra we see the number of channels suddenly explode to number into the hundreds. The Kālacakra also employs a six-limbed yoga (s . ad . aṅgayoga), detailed in a sort-of commentary on the tantra, the 11th-century S . ad . aṅgayoga, which comments on a number of texts to explicate its system. Here, in this six-limbed yoga, the goal is upasiddhi, a partial awakening, leading to mahāmudrā, the perfected state 11 As mentioned before, the deeply complicated subtle body detailed in the Kālacakra mentions bindu, although not quite in the same way as the Amr . tasiddhi. The tantra prescribes methods of prān .ā yāma, but to put wind into the central channel for the goals of perfection and awakening, not to prolong the yogin's life. 12 There is an equating of bindu with seminal fluid and a connection with the moon, but this connection is explained by both the Kālacakra and the S . ad . aṅgayoga as having to do with a co-mingling of fluids in the uterus leading to the development of a fetus, which is part of a larger journey of perfection in which a yogin is influencing his rebirth, or so it seems. 13 Bindu can be used by the yogin in his own mental transformation towards perfection in the Kālacakra, but what the bindu actually does is not made clear. 14 Somehow an arresting of the semen at the glans of the penis will bring about awakening if, for whatever reason, a perfected yogin does not reach the ultimate goal at the moment he should-"If he does not get this desired perfection of mantrins through pratyāhāra and so on (that is, through the s . ad . aṅgayoga), he can accomplish it forcefully (hat . hena) by a repetition of sound by arresting the bindu in the vajra-jewel in the lotus." 15 Hat . ha and the involvement of the seminal fluid are a last resort, employed when all else fails.
It is noteworthy that in texts prior to the timing of the Amr . tasiddhi, as well as contemporaneous with it, the concept of using force to bring about physical effects is frowned upon in Vajrayāna. Jason Birch and James Mallinson have catalogued over a dozen important Vajrayāna texts that censure using hat . hayoga. Nearly all these texts are earlier than the 11th-century Amr . tasiddhi, although a few are contemporaneous with it; for example, the previously-mentioned S . ad . aṅgayoga. 16 So we have a subtle physiology, that is to say a "yogic body", and there is manipulation of vāyus around the body, and, in the case of the Kālacakra and its subsequent tradition, a stoppage of the flow of seminal amr . ta/bindu through the body. But even with all this, we do not have the models of life-extending bindu, or techniques to send the substance back up into the cranial vault. That is, we have models where bindu functions as a means to an end, but there are no models where bindu is the end itself, so to speak. However, variations of this model exist in Vajrayāna after the Amr . tasiddhi, in both 10 ta eva lalanārasane candrasūryau prajñopāyau-corresponding Yogaratnamālā comm. To Hevajratantra I.i.21. "So the moon corresponds with lalanā (the left channel) and wisdom and the sun corresponds with rasanā (the right channel) and means." 11 pratyāhārādibhih . syāt kuliśakamalajenāmr . tenopasiddhih . | Kālacakratantra 4.113.i.cd "Near realization (upasiddhi) [is possible] through pratyahāra and so on, as well as through the amr . ta that arises from the Vajra (kuliśa) lotus." The gloss of kuliśakamalajenāmr . tena in the S . ad . aṅgayoga makes clear the identity of amr . ta as seminal fluid. tathā dhyānam . prān .ā yāmaś ca dhāran .ā ca | kuliśakamalajenāmr . tenācyutenopasādhanam . nītārthena | "Thus, [near-realization also concerns] contemplation, restraint of the breath and retention (of semen). "The near-realization", according to the deep meaning, is carried out "by means of the ambrosia", viz., the non-emitted [bodhicitta] (acyuta) "that rises from the adamantine lotus"." Translated in (Sferra 2000, p. 256). 12 prān .ā yāmenaśuddhah .ś aśiravirahitah . pūjyate bodhisattvaih . | mārakleśādināśam . viśati daśabalam . dhāran . ayā balena | Kālacakratantra 4.118.ii "Purified through restraint of the breath, and thus devoid of the moon and sun, he is honored by the Bodhisattvas. By dint of retention, he comes into conjunction with the ten forces, corresponding to the destructions of the four Māras, of the afflictions, etc." Translated in (Sferra 2000, p. 264). Corresponding S . ad . aṅgayoga commentary-prān .ā yāmená suddha iti ha yadā raviśaśimārgarahito yogī bhavati sadā madhyamāvāhas tadā prān .ā yāmenaśuddhah . san pūjyate bodhisattvaih . praśasyata ity arthah . | mārakleśādināśam . viśati daśabalam itiśūnyatābimbam . grāhyagrāhakacittam . viśati | dhāran .ā yā baleneti prān . aysa gatāgataks . ayen . aikalolībhavati | "This means here, when the yogin becomes devoid of the sun and moon ways and his [breath] always flows in the central channel, then, being "purified through restraint of the breath, he is honored," viz. praise, "praised by the Bodhisattvas. He comes into conjunction when the ten forces, corresponding to the destruction of the Māras, of the affliction, etc." In other words, the mind, as both perceivable and perceiver, enters into the image of voidness. "By dint of retention," viz., by force of eliminating the coming and going of the breath, he reaches a state of complete unification (ekalolībhavati)." Translated in (Sferra 2000, p. 269). 13 For a description of this process, see (Wallace 2004, pp. 57-64). 14 (Sferra 2000, p. 261 the SUT and the CMT. That is to say, this model of an ever-dripping, life-extending seminal bindu that can lengthen life and empower the yogin if he manages to get it back into his cranium, through some means. Yet, there is no smoking gun, an "ity am . rtasiddhih . " or obvious direct quotation. But I believe the accumulation of the uncanny connections is enough to make the case that, even if the texts were not drawing directly from the Amr . tasiddhi itself, they were likely drawing from the same socio-religious paradigm from which the Amr . tasiddhi was produced. Francesco Sferra tells us that the S . adaṅgayoga is actually a "collage of quotations" 17 drawn from a number of works, giving us the impression that this text, and by extension possibly the Amr . tasiddhi (as well as the Kālacakra), are products of a larger movement within late, esoteric, Sanskritic Buddhism. 18

The Sam . varodaya and Can . d . amahāros . an . a Tantras
Circumstantial evidence links the Sam . varodaya and Can . d . amahāros . an . a tantras to the overall movement towards physical yoga in Vajrayāna, as reflected in the Kālacakra tradition, but none of it ties either tantra specifically to the Amr . tasiddhi.

Subtle Physiology Similarities with Amr . tasiddhi
In both the SUT and CMT, we see discussions detailing moving vāyu around the body, with the fifth chapter of the SUT and the 22nd chapter of the CMT devoted to the subject, but as mentioned before, prān .ā yāma is integral to Kālacakra literature as well. There is also an association in the SUT and CMT of the sun and moon with various nād .ī s, 19 but this idea is also found in Kālacakra literature, as is the concept of these internal celestial bodies eclipsing one another.
But there are similarities in the two tantras that do not seem to be found anywhere in Vajrayāna prior to the period of the Amr . tasiddhi's creation. We find a development of a kun . d . alinī analog in the Amr . tasiddhi's 13th chapter. Here the wind itself ascends the body of the yogin through the female central channel (madhyamā) and pierces (vedha) its way to the top through a series of knots (granthi), culminating in breaking through the door of Brahmā (brahmādvāram). This makes yoga successful (yogah . prasidhyati), along with the completion of the Great Seal (mahāmudrā) and the Great Lock (mahābandha). 20 In the SUT's 31st chapter there is a similar scenario, where a dormant female energy that lies at a knot around the base of the spine, is moved to action and ultimately ascends the body of the yogin. However, this female energy in the SUT is identified as "yoginī", 21 which is neither the name given in the Amr . tasiddhi for the central channel itself, which is madhyamā, nor the kun . d . alinī of hat . hayoga. 17 "Anupamaraks . ita, who is quoted by Nāropā (956-1040), lived between the end of the X and the beginning of the XI century. His main work, the S . Y, cannot be considered original. Apart from the nine initial stanzas composed by the author, this text consists of a well arranged collage of quotations drawn from other works and connected sporadically through short sentences. Furthermore, the central corpus of these quotations is also present in a later work, the SUT . by Nāropā, who quotes one of the introductory verses by Anupamaraks . ita." (Sferra 2000, p. 43). For Sferra's treatment of this milieu see (Sferra 2005). 18 This particular physiological model, that is, of the manipulation of winds through channels in the body into the central channel and then upwards to propel bindu to the cranium (and sometimes beyond) has been related to me by a number of Newar Vajrācārya and Buddhācārya (a subdivision ofŚākyas who are caretakers of the Svayambhū Mahācaitya) informants as the means by which a person both stays alive and potentially extends one's own life. Newar Buddhism is, of course, the only remaining Sanskritic Buddhism. 19 The equating of the sun and moon with semen and menstrual blood respectively also pervades the Can . d . amahāros . an . atantra, since the co-mingling of the two leads to the production of a fetus in a way paralleling that in the Kālacakratantra. The mixture of these two fluids (or vaginal fluid rather than menses) is the standard biological explanation for the generation of a fetus in premodern Sanskrit texts. 20 See  This yoginī is of four types according the the SUT-padminī, hastinī,śaṅkhinī, or citrin .ī . These names are found in a number of lists ranging from Vajrayāna yoginīs (four female members of the jñānacakra in the 12th-or-13th-century D .ā karn . avatantra chapter 15), to kinds of women in kāmaśāstra (the first chapter of the Anaṅgaraṅga is devoted to detailing these four types of women). A few hat . hayoga texts include members of this list as names of channels (śaṅkhinī appears in the list of the 14 channels in the 13th-century Vasis . t . hasam . hitā 2.21-23, the 14th-centuryŚivasam . hitā 2.14-15 and the 17th century Hat . haratnāvalī 4.34-35. Saivasam . hitā 2.18 also names citrā as a channel.
A unique similarity with the Amr . tasiddhi is found in the 22nd chapter of the CMT, the vāyuyogapat . ala.
Here we see a placement of the five winds that mirrors the Amr . tasiddhi, with prān . a at the heart, apāna in the anus, samāna around the navel, udāna around the throat, and vyāna pervading the body. 22 The only other place we see this particular organization of the five vāyus predating the Amr . tasiddhi is in the 6th-centuryŚaiva Niśvāsatattvasam . hitā Nayasūtra; 23 however, it is possible that such an organization has been overlooked elsewhere. The CMT could have taken this organization from the earliest mantramārga text, although it seems that a tradition within Vajrayāna, one which the Amr . tasiddhi may be connected to, is a more probable source. The Padmāvatī commentary of the CMT links a breathing yoga to obtainment of five abhijñas, or superknowledges of a Buddha, but there is nothing regarding life-extension.

Storage of Bindu in the Cranial Vault
We also find mention in both the SUT and CMT of a store of amr . ta 24 above the ghan . t . ikārandhra, that is, the hole just behind and above the uvula. The model in the SUT is clear. "In the Sam . bhogacakra [which is situated] in the throat, there is a red lotus of sixteen petals; in the middle of the lotus is the character OM . ; above the character, amr . ta flows incessantly through the way of the "hole in the uvula"; 25 that is, the ghan . t . ikārandhra. This model, of an endless flow of amr . ta is certainly prevalent later on in hat . hayoga, such as in the khecarīmudrā where the yogin bends his tongue back to catch the dripping liquid. 26 The CMT presents this model of a store of amr . ta in the cranium above the ghan . t . ikārandhra in a peculiar way. Following coitus, the yogin is told he "should inhale [his ejaculate] through a pipe in his nose to increase his power." 27 The Padmāvatī commentary of the CMT tells us "sometimes he should draw [male and female sexual fluids] from the Lotus (i.e., a female sexual organ) with his mouth, place them in a vessel, insert a straw (nālikām . ), take note of his breath, and ingest it through his nostril, that is to say the aperture [beyond] the uvula"; the ghan . t . ikārandhra. 28 After giving an alternate way 22 hr . di prān . o vasen nityamapāno gudaman . d . ale | samāno nābhideśe tu samodānaśca kan . t . hake || vyāno vyāpiśarīre ca pradhānāh . pañca vāyavah . | Amr . tasiddhi 6.7-6.8ab. "Prān . a always resides in the heart, apāna in the anus, samāna in the region of the navel, and udāna is always in the throat, and vyāna pervades the body. These are the five main winds."hr . di prān . o gude 'pānah . samāno nābhideśake | udānah . kan . t . hadeśe tu vyānah . sarvaśarīragah . || Can . d . amahāros . an . atantra 22.1 "Prāna is in the heart, apāna is in the anus, samāna is in the region of the navel, udāna is in the area of the throat, and vyāna is in the all the body." 23 hr . dgude nābhikan . t . hau ca sarvasandhau tathaiva ca | prān .ā dyās sam . sthitā hyete rūpam .ś abdañ ca meśr . n . u || Niśvāsatattvasam . hitā Nayasūtra 4.119. "Beginning with prān . a, these are situated [with prān . a] in the heart, [apāna] in the anus, [samāna] in the navel, [udāna] in the throat, and [vyāna] in every joint." The Niśvāsatattvasam . hitā shared several similarities with early Vajrayāna (C.f. Goodall 2015, pp. 31-32). In fact, the verse just preceding Nayasutra 4.119 prescribes the use of dhāran .ī s along with pratyāhāra and prān .ā yāma, among other techniques. The issue at stake here is the particular arrangement of the winds, that is, which corporeal location each corresponds to. The five (prāna, apāna, udāna, samāna, and vyāna) also find the pattern of corresponding to the wind names Nāga, Kurma, Kr . kara, Devadatta, and Dhanañjaya before the Amr . tasiddhi (for example, the pre-10th-centuryŚaiva Svacchandatantra 7.17) and after the Amr . tasiddhi (for example, the 18th-century hat . hayogic Gheran . d . asam . hitā 5.61). The Gheran . d . asam . hitā also has the arrangement of the five winds found in the Amr . tasiddhi (GhS 5.62), but this is a direct quotation of the Amr . tasiddhi, and within a tradition locating authority in the older text. For more arrangements of the five winds (although not the model found in the Niśvāsatattvasam . hitā, Amr . tasiddhi, and Can . d . amahāros . an . atantra detailed above) see Zysk, Kenneth G. "The Bodily Winds in Ancient India Revisited." In The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, vol. 13, pp. S105-15. 2007. For a further description of the record of the five winds in the Niśvāsatattvasam . hitā and yoga texts in general see (Mallinson and Singleton 2017, pp. 187-98). 24 Mallinson notes a handful ofŚaiva texts with the model of a store of amr . ta in the cranial vault in (Mallinson 2007, p. 28, n. 123 (Tsuda 1974, p. 326). 26 For a detailed description of this practice see (Mallinson 2007 (Grimes and Szántó 2018, p. 686). The practice may be intellectually connected to the idea of circulation to nasally ingest these substances, the commentary tells us why one should do this-"by constantly performing these procedures, there will be a great increase in the yogī's strength, inasmuch as he will stop wrinkling, greying, and [even] death." 29 When considering the model we find in the Amr . tasiddhi, this procedure suddenly seems less strange. Bearing in mind the model of a store of life-extending amr . ta above the aperture behind the uvula, I suggest the technique the CMT prescribes is alchemical, performed, as it says, to stop aging and even death. The Kālacakratantra itself details a number of elixirs to eliminate wrinkles and gray hair; however, there is no mention anywhere of sending seminal fluid into the cranial vault by nasal means for the purpose of death-prevention.

Amr . tasiddhi as a Textual Interpretation Aid
It looks as if the Amr . tasiddhi may potentially help clear up textual puzzles in subsequent Vajrayāna works. In the SUT, the description of bindu ascending the body through a progression of corporeal locations corresponding to vowel characters reaches its climax by saying that on the day of the full moon, the yoginī (the apparent kun . d . alinī analog who/which has presumably been travelling upwards with the bindu) is to the left and the right of mada (intoxication, intoxicating, or even semen, among other meanings). 30 Now this makes no sense. What is mada doing here? The Tibetan translator changed the meaning to mūrdhan (forehead or head), 31 which thematically makes sense, since the bindu is in the cranium at this point, but the Sanskrit manuscript witnesses all read mada. The SUT has a chapter on mada, devoted to spirituous liquors and their production, so there is precedent with the term in the text, but not in a way that makes sense here. We can of course guess that the meaning of mada is essence or seminal fluid, but the text does not give us precedence to do so.
The seventh chapter of Amr . tasiddhi can strengthen the case of this interpretation, however. It glosses bindu by equating it with several apparent synonyms. "This is bindu, this is candra, this is bīja, this is mada, this is tattva, this is jīva, this is the essence of everything." 32 So here we have mada used in the SUT as the thing in the midst of the ascended yoginī at the aperture of the head following a of vital winds in the practice of prān .ā yāma through the nostrils into and out of the body, in addition to replenishing vital energies stored in the cranial vault. However, such a theory is entirely speculative. 29 A similar practice involving a straw sending a mixture of seminal fluid and menses into a person's naval cavity is found in Vagīśvarakīrti's 11th-century Mr . tyuvañcanopadeśa (Teaching on the Cheating of Death), although in a different context than the one found in the CMT. Whereas the purpose of the practice detailed in the CMT is for a living yogin, the procedure detailed in the Mr . tyuvañcanopadeśa is intended to revive a recently-deceased corpse. mr . tasam . jīvanam api kva cid dr . s . t . am upāyatah . | r . tumatkanyānarayoh .ś r .ṅ khalāyāh . samutthitaih . || 74 ||śon . itonmiśraśukrākhyadhātubhir nātiśītalaih . | sadyo yad vā mr . tasyaiva patitair dhātubindubhih . || 75 || ghr . tāktanalikārandhranirgamena praveśitaih . | vahedātmīyanāsāgraput . onnītaput . e kramāt || 76 || punarujjīvanam . dr . s . t . am . nirodhaś cātraśasyate | pratyaks . adr . s . t . asāmarthyo yogo 'yam . bahusam . matah . || 77 || "The revival of the dead is even seen by an appropriate means, through the elements which arise due to the union of a man and a menstruating young woman. Namely this occurs with the ingredients being semen mixed with uterine blood, which is not too cold (i.e., fresh), or with drops of those same substances (or "of that same substance") which have fallen from the dead body itself. By [those drops] entering the space through a straw smeared in ghee (presumably as a lubricant to get up to the nasal cavity) he should send it in stages into the nostril [of the dead], [having already] drawn it up into the cavity of his own nose. The revival is seen, and the restraint is here detailed. The effectiveness of this practice, respected by many, is clearly observed." Mr . tyuvañcanopadeśa 3.74-77. I translated nirodha as restraint, because it perhaps refers to the necromancing yogin holding the substances up his own nose, before deploying them into the nose of the deceased. Two translations have been done of this work, one in English and another in German. The English, translated by Michael Walter under the title "Cheating Death," is not reliable (although it is useful as a summary and outline of the text), and it appears in Tantra  who has the nature of the characters AM . and AH . left and right of mada." Translated in (Tsuda 1974, p. 328 description of bindu's ascent, and we have the Amr . tasiddhi telling us that mada can mean bindu. I do not think it is a stretch to interpret the SUT's mystery mada as bindu. In fact, mada is also mentioned at the beginning of this overall section in the SUT when we are told that a subtle, four-petalled lotus is located in the mahāsukhacakra in the head and that it is the place of mada. Again, the place of intoxication makes no sense in this context. We can see that mada must refer to bindu, and the Amr . tasiddhi gives us support. Just below this, mahāsukhacakra is said to be a 32-petalled lotus from which the syllable HAM . flows downwards-"ham . kāro'adhomukham . sravati." 33 We are told that this 32-petalled lotus is bījabhūta, made of seed. Here, again, the Amr . tasiddhi can potentially clear things up if we take take bījabhūta to mean this 32-petalled lotus is made of bindu; however, it is also possible bīja refers to the downward-flowing HAM . , since bīja, or more frequently svabīja, has the esoteric sense of referring to a seed syllable.

Final Remarks
Based strictly on the materials reviewed here, namely the Sam . varodaya and Can . d . amahāros . an . a tantras, it does not appear that the Amr . tasiddhi was important in subsequent Sanskritic 34 Vajrayāna textual traditions. While the physiology the yogic text employs does include innovations which seem to be found in these two tantras, the lack of any quotations or references to the text itself makes the possibility of drawing a direct connection very unlikely.
Techniques for placing bindu back into the cranium, whether through the circulation of wind detailed in the Amr . tasiddhi, or snorting it through a straw as in the Can . d . amahāros . an . atantra illustrate common physiological models, but not a textual connection. The shared organization of the five winds in this tantra and in the Amr . tasiddhi is striking, 35 but again, this may be attributed to something wider than a single-possibly originally fringe-yogic text. The ability of the Amr . tasiddhi to clarify the otherwise-confusing usage of mada in the Sam . varodayatantra also lends support for the existence of a shared intellectual landscape regarding subtle physiologies and how the body might be manipulated 33ś irasi mahāsukhacakre caturdalapadmam . suks . mam | madasthānam . sarvasyādhārarūpatvāt || 19 || bodhiman . d . asvabhāvam . bījabhūtam . bāhye dvātrim .ś addalapadmam | tanmadhye ham . kāro'dhomukham . sravati || 20 || Sam . varodayatantra 31.19-20 "A subtle, four-petalled lotus is [located] in the mahāsukhacakra in the head. It is the place of mada due to its being the supportive form of everything. Outside [of it] is a thirty-two petalled lotus made up of bīja [and] having the nature of the seat of awakening. In the middle of it is a HAM . syllable that flows downwards." Translated in (Tsuda 1974, p. 328). Alexis Sanderson pointed out to me that "adhomukham . " could mean "facing downwards" here, in the sense that the imagined character of the seed syllable is turned upside down, but added either reading is possible, and an obvious one is not clear. (Personal communication on 29 September 2019) The reading of an upside-down seed syllable is supported a few lines later in the 25th verse of the same chapter-hr . daye dharmacakram as . t . adalam . viśvapadmam . madhye hūm . kāram adhomukhasthitam | "An eight-pedalled viśva lotus (lotus with pedals facing both up and down, recognizable from Buddhist iconography as the throne sat upon by Buddhas) is in the heart. In the middle [of the lotus] is situated a HŪM . syllable facing downwards." The flowing from HAM . could still be downwards, regardless of which direction the seed syllable is facing, so the ambiguity remains. 34 Since they are recorded entirely in Tibetan, and not translations from Sanskrit or any Sanskritic tradition, I have not included mention of the biographies ofŚāriputra (1335-1426 CE), the East Indian abbot of Mahābodhi temple in Bodh Gayā during a period typically viewed as being after Buddhism had disappeared from within the borders of modern India. His life is detailed in-depth in Arthur McKeown's 2019 Guardian of a Dying Flame, Harvard Oriental Series 89. At a point withiń Sāriputra's exoteric biography, recorded in the margins of the manuscript McKeown examined, are details of practices similar to those in the Amr . tasiddhi intended to extend life, taught to the abbot by his teacher Gholenāth (whom he wrote a biography of). Coincidentally, it is today the position of the Nāth sampradāya that hat . hayoga originated with their order. By extension, due to its being a foundational text for hat . hayoga, there would be teachings of the Nāths originating in the Amr . tasiddhi, meaning that ifŚāriputra had a Nāth guru, it is possible he received teachings from, or at the very least, connected with a tradition placing authority on the Amr . tasiddhi.Śāriputra also reportedly authored a biography of Gorakhnāth (Goraks . a), one of the nine Nāths of the Nāth sampradāya who is credited with founding the order. There is another possible connection betweenŚāriputra and the Amr . tasiddhi-the Mahābodhi temple abbot also penned a biography of Virūpaks . a, the mahāsiddha praised in the opening of the Amr . tasiddhi. In this biographyŚāriputra details a sādhana taught to Virūpaks . a by Chinnamastā herself, the Buddhist goddess praised in the Amr .  35 Since its only chronologically antecedent location is an earlyŚaiva text! for longevity. As mentioned in the opening, Mallinson has made clear the importance of the Amr . tasiddhi on subsequent hat . hayoga traditions. The present inquiry could be expanded to ask, not only why the text did not gain traction within Sanskritic Vajrayāna traditions, but also why it was nevertheless so successful in the so-called "Hindu" hat . hayoga ones.
Far more study needs to be done on the milieu from which all these ideas were generated. For example, the Sam . varodayatantra has a chapter on "rasāyana" that is as yet unedited. There is a project underway by a group of Japanese scholars to slowly edit the Padminī commentary of the Sam . varodayatantra and I am myself in the process of editing and translating the Padmāvatī commentary of the Can . d . amahāros . an . atantra. The D .ā karn . avatantra, which is contemporaneous with the Sam . varodaya and Can . d . amahāros . an . a tantras, apparently has lengthy discussions of physical manipulation of the subtle body, however, with the exception of its apabhram .ś a songs, it remains unedited. David Grey and others are in the process of editing and translating the Sanskrit text. There is also a need for a comprehensive collation of materials preserved in Tibetan, Javanese, Khmer, and other translations, as the Buddhist yogic tradition was never confined to India and it continues to this day.
Funding: This research received no external funding.