Saraha, Sarahapa, Sarahapāda (or, in the Tibetan language མདའ་བསྣུན་, [danün], Wyl. mda' bsnun The Archer), (circa 8th century CE) was known as the first sahajiya and one of the Mahasiddhas. The name Saraha means "the one who has shot the arrow.". According to one, scholar, "This is an explicit reference to an incident in many versions of his biography when he studied with a dakini disguised as a low-caste arrow smith. Metaphorically, it refers to one who has shot the arrow of non duality into the heart of duality." Saraha is considered to be one of the founders of Vajrayana Buddhism, particularly the Mahāmudrā tradition. Saraha was originally known as Rāhula or Rāhulbhadra and was born in Roli, a region of the city-state of Rajni in eastern India, into a Shakya family and studied at the Buddhist monastic university Nalanda. The Arrow Making Dakini Saraha is normally shown seated and holding an arrow (Skt. śaru). It is from a mature nameless woman, often called the Arrow Smith Dakini or the Arrow Making Dakini, who was Saraha's teacher and consort, that the typical iconography of Saraha holding an arrow emerges. Some versions of their meeting say that Saraha saw the Arrow Making Dakini in a vision and thus was wandering here and there, searching her out. Some say they met at a crossroads, while other versions say that it was in a busy marketplace where she was selling her arrows. Whether they meet in a marketplace or a crossroads, it is this woman's intense concentration and spiritual instructions to Saraha that are transformative. When he finds her, Saraha inquires about what she is doing. Her reply to him is pith and direct: "The Buddha's meaning can be known through symbols and actions, not through words and books." The Arrow Making Dakini then explained the symbolic meaning of the arrow to him using the elusive tantric twilight language that is common to Dakini teachings. It is said, that in this moment, Saraha fully realized the state of mahamudra and at that moment he said the single syllable "da." This is a play on the sound of this word, which can mean either "arrow" or "symbol" (dadar or mda' dar in Tibetan). Saraha then recognized the wisdom Dakini in front of him, abandoned his studies and monastic vows, and moved to a cremation ground with her to practice As an homage to the