Creator's Description: the story of Padmasambhava taming non-human females at the Asura Cave at Pharping is well known. Much less widely known is the wider tradition of asura's caves as the entrances to Pātāla, the magical underworlds of asuras and nāgas, a colorful and often eroticized and popular belief which played a prominent role in early Indian and Chinese Buddhist tantras. This paper surveys these now largely forgotten beliefs, and then proceeds to raise (but not answer) the question: might further widely attested kriyātantra themes, such as treasure recovery, kÄ«las, and water magic, have influenced the popular mythology of Padmasambhava?