Ünyön Künga Zangpo (
Tibetan: དབུས་སྨྱོན་ཀུན་དགའ་བཟང་པོ།;
Wylie: dbus smyon kun dga' bzang po; 1458-1532) was a famous yogin of the
Kagyu
The ''Kagyu'' school, also transliterated as ''Kagyü'', or ''Kagyud'' (), which translates to "Oral Lineage" or "Whispered Transmission" school, is one of the main schools (''chos lugs'') of Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan (or Himalayan) Buddhism. ...
sect of
Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism is a form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet, Bhutan and Mongolia. It also has a sizable number of adherents in the areas surrounding the Himalayas, including the Indian regions of Ladakh, Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, D ...
. While Künga Zangpo is a personal name that he received at the time of his monastic ordination, the moniker Ünyön ("ü-nyön"), meaning "Madman from the
Ü egion
Aigio, also written as ''Aeghion, Aegion, Aegio, Egio'' (, ; ), is a town and a former municipality in Achaea, West Greece, on the Peloponnese. Since the 2011 local government reform, it is part of the municipality Aigialeia, of which it is the se ...
" was a title he earned through his distinctive
tantric asceticism.
The term "the three madmen" (སྨྱོན་པ་གསུམ།; smyon pa gsum) is sometimes used to refer to the Madman of Ü along with his two "madman" contemporaries: the
Madman of Tsang, and
Drukpa Kunley, "the Madman of the Drukpa
agyu".
Further reading
A
hagiographic
A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an wiktionary:adulatory, adulatory and idealized biography of a preacher, priest, founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religi ...
text describing the complete life of the Madman of Ü, composed by his disciples, has been translated into English.
[DiValerio, David. ''The Life of the Madman of Ü'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). .]The Treasury of Livesbiography o
Unyon Kunga Zangpoby David DiValerio
References
{{reflist
Tibetan Buddhist spiritual teachers
1458 births
1532 deaths