Charyapada

The Charyapada (IAST: Caryapāda, Bengali: চর্যাপদ) is a collection of mystical poems, songs of realization in the Vajrayana tradition of Buddhism from the tantric tradition in Assam, Bengal, Bihar and Odisha.

It was written between the 8th and 12th centuries in various Abahattas that were ancestral to modern Assamese, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Odia, Magahi, Maithili, Kurmali and many other Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, and it is said to be the oldest collection of verses written in those languages. Charyāpada written in the script resembles the most closest form of Bengali–Assamese languages used today. Intellectuals claim that Kurmali may be the nearest form of language used in Charyapada. Charyapada are used and understood by the common Kurmis. This was the regional form of Kurmali Language. A palm-leaf manuscript of the Charyāpada was rediscovered in the early 20th century by Haraprasad Shastri at the Nepal Royal Court Library. The Charyapada was also preserved in the Tibetan Buddhist canon.

As songs of realization, the Caryāpada were intended to be sung. These songs of realisation were spontaneously composed verses that expressed a practitioner's experience of the enlightened state. Miranda Shaw describes how songs of realization were an element of the ritual gathering of practitioners in a ganachakra:

The feast culminates in the performance of tantric dances and music, that must never be disclosed to outsiders. The revellers may also improvise "songs of realization" (caryagiti) to express their heightened clarity and blissful raptures in spontaneous verse.