Padmasambhava, or Guru Rinpoche, was the Indian master said to have established Buddhism in Tibet in the eighth and ninth centuries. This book includes four accounts of his life by prominent Tibetan scholars, and includes supplications and Buddhist poetry praising him, as well as a substantial introduction and appendixes by Ngawang Zangpo.

In traditional Tibetan history, Guru Rinpoche is known as having fostered radical changes to Tibet, marking historic transformations in the country's religious and political position, founding its first monastery Samye and being involved in ordaining its first monks. To Tibetan Buddhists, Guru Rinpoche is also a buddha and serves as the center of practice traditions. These four biographies show both a historical figure in a particular geopolitical landscape and a realized being born in the middle of a lotus, hence his epithet, the Lotus Born.