Nāropā (Prakrit; , Naḍapāda or Abhayakirti) or Abhayakirti was an Indian Buddhist Mahasiddha. He was the disciple of Tilopa and brother, or some sources say partner and pupil, of Niguma. As an Indian Mahasiddha, Naropa's instructions inform Vajrayana, particularly his six yogas of Naropa relevant to the completion stage of anuttarayogatantra. He was also one of the gatekeepers of Vikramashila monastery which is located in Bihar. Although some accounts relate that Naropa was the personal teacher of Marpa Lotsawa, other accounts suggest that Marpa held Naropa's lineage through intermediary disciples only. Names According to scholar John Newman, "the Tibetans give Nāro's name as Nā ro pa, Nā ro paṇ chen, Nā ro ta pa, and so forth. The manuscript of the Paramarthasaṃgraha preserves a Sanskrit form Naḍapāda (Paramarthasaṃgraha 74). A Sanskrit manuscript edited by Tucci preserves an apparent Prakrit form Nāropā, as well as a semi-Sanskritic Nāropāda (Tucci 1930:150 & 152)." "Nāro" appears to be a nickname, meaning "Man:" nāra > vernacular nom. sing. nāro > nāropādāḥ > vernacular nāropā. Tibetan sources also hold that Nāropāda is identical to Yaśobhadra (Tib. sNyan grags bzang po), "the Great Kashmiri" (bṛhatkāśmīra; kha che chen po), the named author of the Vajrapadasārasaṃgraha, which survives in the original Sanskrit. Dates Herbert V. Guenther dated Nāropāda to 1016–1100 CE. These dates are based upon Guenther's misunderstanding of dates appearing in the late Tibetan hagiography he translated. These dates are impossible because, e.g., they would make Nāropāda a young man when Atiśa went to Tibet. Turrell V. Wylie argued Nāropā lived 956–1040 CE. John Newman followed Wylie and offered supporting evidence for dating Nāropāda's death to circa 1040 CE, but pointed out that the date for Nāropāda's birth derives from Tibetan sources that calculate dates in the Tibetan element-animal sexagenary cycle chronology, which was never used in India, and he concludes that Wylie's date for Nāropāda's birth is uncertain. Newman observes: "As a rule we must be very skeptical of the miraculously precise dates late Tibetan sources provide for events that occurred hundreds of years earlier in India." Biography Nāropāda's life story has mainly been represented based upon Tibetan hagiographies (rnam thar), the most detailed of which date to centuries after Nāropāda's lifetime. These hagiographies are filled with miracle stories and they sometimes contradict one another, making the extraction of history from them very difficult. The study of Nāropāda's own writings in their own right –