# The Tibetan Book of the Dead

The Tibetan Book of the Dead
Oxford University Press
London Edinburgh Glasgow Copenhagen New York Toronto Melbourne Capetown Bombay Calcutta Madras Shanghai Humphrey Milford Publisher to the University
THE TRANSLATOR (right) AND THE EDITOR
IN GANGTOK, SIKKIM
Described on page xvii
FOLIOS 35a AND 67a OF THE BARDO THÖDOL MS.
Described on page lxvii
The Tibetan Book of the Dead
or
The After-Death Experiences on the Bardo Plane, according to Lāma Kazi Dawa-Samdup’s English Rendering
By W. Y. Evans-Wentz M.A., D.Litt., B.Sc. Jesus College, Oxford; Author of ‘The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries’
With Foreword by Sir John Woofroffe
Oxford University Press
London: Humphrey Milford
1927
IN MEMORY OF MY DECEASED FATHER AND MOTHER I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO MY TEACHERS BOTH SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS IN EUROPE AND AMERICA AND THROUGHOUT THE ORIENT
​‘Thou shalt understand that it is a science most profitable, and passing all other sciences, for to learn to die. For a man to know that he shall die, that is common to all men; as much as there is no man that may ever live or he hath hope or trust thereof; but thou shalt find full few that have this cunning to learn to die…. I shall give thee the mystery of this doctrine; the which shall profit thee greatly to the beginning of ghostly health, and to a stable fundament of all virtues.’—Orologium Sapientiae.
‘Against his will he dieth that hath not learned to die. Learn to die and thou shalt learn to live, for there shall none learn to live that hath not learned to die.’—Toure of all Toures: and Teacheth a Man for to Die.
The Book of the Craft of Dying (Comper’s Edition).
‘Whatever is here, that is there; what is there, the same is here. He who seeth here as different, meeteth death after death.
‘By mind alone this is to be realized, and [then] there is no difference here. From death to death he goeth, who seeth as if there is difference here.’—Katha Upanishad, iv. 10–11 (Swami Sharvananda’s Translation).
Preface
In this book I am seeking—so far as possible—to suppress my own views and to act simply as the mouthpicce of a Tibetan sage, of whom I was a recognized disciple.
He was quite willing that I should make known his interpretation of the higher lāmaic teachings and of the subtle esotericism underlying the Bardo Thödol, following the private and orally transmitted instructions which he as a young man had received when living the life of an ascetic with his late hermit-guru in Bhutan. Being himself a man who possessed a considerable amount of Western learning, he took great trouble to enable me to reproduce Oriental ideas in a form which would be intelligible to the European mind. If, in amplification, I have frequently referred to Occidental parallels of various mystic or occult doctrines current in the Orient, I have done so largely because in my wanderings there, chiefly in the high Himalayas and on the Tibetan frontiers of Kashmir, Garhwal, and Sikkim, I had come across learned philosophers and holy men who have found or thought they had found beliefs and religious practices—some recorded in books, some preserved by oral tradition alone—not only analogous to their own, but so closely akin to those of the Occident as to imply some historical connexion therewith. Whether the supposed influence passed from East to West or from West to East, was not so clear to their minds. A certain similarity does, however, seem to attach to the culture of these geographically divided provinces.
I have spent more than five years in such research, wandering from the palm-wreathed shores of Ceylon, and thence through the wonder-land of the Hindus, to the glacier-clad heights of the Himalayan Ranges, seeking out the Wise Men of the East. Sometimes I lived among city dwellers, sometimes in jungle and mountain solitudes among yogīs, sometimes in ​monasteries with monks; sometimes I went on pilgrimages, as one of the salvation-seeking multitude. The Introduction—which in its unusual lengthiness is intended to serve as a very necessary commentary to the translation—and the annotations to the text record the more important results of this research, more especially in relation to Northern or Mahāyāna Buddhism.
Nevertheless, I have been really little more than a compiler and editor of ‘The Tibetan Book of the Dead’. To the deceased translator—who combined in himself a greater knowledge of the Occult Sciences of Tibet and of Western Science than any Tibetan scholar of this epoch—the chief credit for its production very naturally belongs.
In addition to that greatest of all debts which the student ever owes to his preceptor, I acknowledge my indebtedness to each of my many good friends and helpers who have personally aided me herewith. Some of them are of one Faith, some of another; some are far away in Japan and in China, some in the land of my birth, America; many are in Ceylon and in India; a few are in Tibet.
Here in England I think first of all of Dr. R. R. Marett, Reader in Social Anthropology in the University of Oxford, and Fellow of Exeter College, who ever since I first came up to Oxford, in the year 1907, has faithfully guided my anthropological research. Sir John Woodroffe, late a Judge of the High Court, Calcutta, now Reader in Indian Law in the University of Oxford, and the foremost authority in the West on the Tantras, has read through our translation, chiefly in relation to the character of the work as a ritual more or less Tantric, and offered important advice. I am also very grateful to him for the Foreword.
To Sj. Atal Bihari Ghosh, of Calcutta, Joint Honorary Secretary with Sir John Woodroffe of the Āgamānusandhāna Samiti, as to Sir E. Denison Ross, Director of the School of Oriental Studies, London Institution, and to Dr. F. W. Thomas, Librarian of the India Office, London, I am under a special ​obligation for important constructive criticism on the book as a whole. To Major W. L. Campbell, British Political Representative in Tibet, Bhutan, and Sikkim during my sojourn in Gangtok, I am indebted for much encouragement and scholarly aid, and for the gift of two valuable paintings prepared by his orders in the chief monastery of Gyantse, Tibet, to illustrate the symbolism of the Bardo Thödol text, and herein reproduced. To his predecessor and successor in the same post, Sir Charles Bell, I am also a debtor for important advice at the outset of my Tibetan research, when in Darjeeling. To Mr. E. S. Bouchier, M.A. (Oxon.), F. R. Hist. S., author of Syria as a Roman Province, A Short History of Antioch, &c., my heartiest thanks are due for the assistance which he has so kindly rendered in reading the whole of this book when in proof.
Sardar Bahadur S.W. Laden La, Chief of Police, Darjeeling, who sent me to Gangtok with a letter of introduction to the late Lāma Kazi Dawa-Samdup, the translator of the Bardo Thödol; Dr. Johan Van Manen, Secretary of the Asiatic Society, Calcutta, who lent me Tibetan books which proved very helpful while the translation was taking shape, and who afterwards contributed advice concerning translations; and Dr. Cassius A. Pereira, of Colombo, Ceylon, who criticized parts of the Introduction in the light of Theravāda Buddhism, are among many others to whom my thanks are due.
Thus, under the best of auspices, this book is sent forth to the world, in the hope that it may contribute something to the sum total of Right Knowledge, and serve as one more spiritual strand in an unbreakable bond of good will and universal peace, binding East and West together in mutual respect and understanding, and in love such as overleaps every barrier of creed and caste and race.
W. Y. E-W.
Jesus College, Oxford, Easter, 1927.
I. RENUNCIATION
‘Get thee away from life-lust, from conceit, From ignorance, and from distraction’s craze; Sunder the bonds; so only shalt thou come To utter end of Ill. Throw off the Chain Of birth and death—thou knowest what they mean. So, free from craving, in this life on earth, Thou shalt go on thy way calm and serene.’—The Buddha.
Psalms of the Early Buddhists, I. lvi (Mrs. Rhys Davids’ Translation).
II. VICTORY
‘But anguish crept upon me, even me, Whenas I pondered in my little cell: Ah me! how have I come into this evil road. Into the power of Craving have I strayed! Brief is the span of life yet left to me; Old age, disease, hang imminent to crush. Now ere this body perish and dissolve, Swift let me be; no time have I for sloth. And contemplating, as they really are, The Aggregates of Life that come and go, I rose and stood with mind emancipate! For me the Buddha’s words had come to pass’.—
Mittakalī, a Brāhmin Bhikkhunī. Psalms of the Early Buddhists, I. xliii (Mrs. Rhys Davids’ Translation).
Contents
Book I
The Chikhai Bardo and the Chönyid Bardo
Part I The Bardo of the Moments of Death
Part II
The Bardo of the Experiencing of Reality
Book II The Sidpa Bardo
Part I The After-Death World
Part II The Process of Rebirth
The Appendix
Addenda
Illustrations
From a photograph of the Translator and the Editor in Tibetan dress, taken in Gangtok, Sikkim, during the year 1919.
A photographic reproduction (about two-thirds of the original size). In the original the illuminations are in colour (now much faded) painted on the folios (cf. p. 68).
The painting on the upper folio illustrates, with the colours, emblems, and orientation in strict accord with the traditions of Tibetan monastic art, the description in the text of the united maṇḍalas, or divine conclaves, of the Peaceful Deities of the First to the Sixth Day of the Bardo that dawn thus in one complete conclave on the Sixth Day (cf. pp. 118–26). In the central circle (Centre) is the Dhyānī Buddha Vairochana, embraced by his shakti, or divine spouse, the Mother of Infinite Space. In the next circle, each likewise embraced by his shakti, are the four Dhyānī Buddhas, who, with Vairochana, constitute the maṇḍala of the Five Dhyānī Buddhas. In the outermost circle are typical Bodhisattvas and other deities who accompany the Five Dhyānī Buddhas (cf. pp. 118–20); and in the four small outer circles the four female Door-Keepers of the complete conclave (cf. p. 120).
The painting on the lower folio similarly illustrates, in colours, emblems, and orientation, the united maṇḍalas of the Wrathful Deities of the Eighth to the Fourteenth Day that dawn thus in one complete conclave on the Fourteenth Day (cf. pp. 143–6). In the cruciform design at the centre are the three-headed Herukas of the Buddha, Vajra, Ratna, Padma, and Karma Order, each with his shakti, that dawn, maṇḍala by maṇḍala, from the Eighth to the Twelfth Day (cf. pp. 136–41). The outer circle contains representations of the various animal-headed deities that dawn on the Thirteenth and the Fourteenth Day (cf. pp. 141–6). In the four small outer circles are the Four Yoginis of the Door (cf. pp. 145–6).
The translation of the text on the two folios is indicated by special markings on pages 120 and 144.
A reproduction (slightly reduced) of a copy of a Tibetan printed Chang-ku paper.
Innermost circle (representing the Centre of the orientation): at the centre, Vairochana (white) and shakti, on lion throne (cf. pp. 105–6); at the top, Samanta-Bhadra (blue) and shakti; in subordinate circle on the left, Chenrazee (above), Mañjushrī (below, on left), Vajra-Pāni (below, on right); in subordinate circle on the right, Tsoṅ Khapa, a famous Tibetan guru (above), and his two chief shiṣḥyas (or disciples), Gendundub (below, on left), and Gyltshabje (below, on right).
Lower circle (East): at the centre, Vajra-Sattva (blue), the reflex of Akṣḥobhya, and shakti, on elephant throne; Pushpā (above); Lāsyā (below); and Bodhisattvas (on left and right). Cf. pp. 108–9.
Left circle (South): at the centre, Ratna-Sambhava (yellow) and shakti, on horse throne; Dhūpa (above); Mālā (below); and Bodhisattvas (on left and right). Cf. pp. 110–11.
Upper circle (West): at the centre, Amitābha (red) and shakti, on peacock throne; Āloka (above); Gīta (below); and Bodhisattvas (on left and right). Cf. p. 113.
Right circle (North): at the centre, Amogha-Siddhi (green) and shakti, on harpy throne; Naivedya (above); Gandha (below); and Bodhisattvas (on left and right). Cf. pp. 115–6.
Occupying the four corners of the great circle are the four chief Door-Keepers (cf. p. 120) of the Maṇḍala, each pair on a fire-enhaloed lotus throne: upper left, Yamāntaka (yellow) and shakti, the Door-Keepers of the South; upper right, Hayagrīva (red) and shahti, the Door-Keepers of the West; lower right, Amṛitā-Dhāra (white) and shakti, the Door-Keepers of the North; lower left, Vijaya (green) and shakti, the Door-Keepers of the East. At the bottom, in the centre, Padma Sambhava, the Great Human Guru of the Bardo Thödol Doctrine, in royal robes and pandit head-dress, holding a skull filled with blood, symbolical of renunciation of life, in his left hand, and a dorje, symbolical of mastery over life, in his right. At his feet lie ​offerings: (1) the Tri-Ratna or Three Jewels of the Buddhist Faith, (2) a pair of elephant tusks, and (3) a branch of red coral. To the right of the Guru stands the Buddha of the Human Loka (yellow), Shakya Muni, holding a bhikkhu-staff and a begging-bowl; to the right, the Buddha of the Brute Loka (blue) holding a book, symbolizing language and expression, or divine wisdom, which brute creatures lack.
In the four corners are the four other Buddhas of the Six Lokas (cf. p. 121): upper left, the Buddha of the Deva Loka (white), holding a guitar, symbolizing excellence in arts and sciences and the harmony of existence in the world of the devas; upper right, the Buddha of the Asura Loka (green), holding a sword symbolizing the warlike nature of asuras; lower left, the Buddha of the Preta Loka (red), holding a box filled with all desirable objects to satisfy the cravings of the pretas; lower right, the Buddha of Hell (smoke-coloured), holding fire for consuming and water for purifying.
Among other embellishments added by the artist are a sacred mirror (symbolizing form or body, which it reflects) near the trees on the left, and a sacred conch-shell trumpet of victory over the Sangsāra (symbolizing sound) near the tree on the right; and, between the two Buddhas at the bottom, in two caves, yogīs, or holy men, in the Tibetan wilderness.
Second circle: the Eight Kerimas (cf. pp. 142–3).
Third circle: the Eight Htamenmas (cf. p. 143) and the Four Female Door-Keepers (cf. pp. 143–4).
Outermost circle: the Twenty-Eight Various-Headed Mighty Goddesses (cf. pp. 144–5), four of whom are the Four Yoginīs of the Door (cf. pp. 145–6).
At the bottom, in the centre (Centre) the supreme Knowledge-Holding Deity, the Lotus Lord of Dance (red, for the five colours of text) and shakti. In the four corners, his four companion deities: lower left (East), the Earth-Abiding Knowledge-Holder (white) and shakti; upper left (South), the Knowledge-Holder Having Power Over Duration of Life (yellow) and shakti; upper right (West), the Knowledge-Holding Deity of the Great Symbol (red) and shakti; lower right (North), the Self-Evolved Knowledge-Holder (green) and shakti. Each pair of deities of this maṇḍala, that dawns intermediately (i.e. between the maṇḍalas of the Peaceful Deities and the maṇḍalas of the Wrathful Deities) on the Seventh Day (cf. pp. 126–8), are in peaceful aspect, on an enhaloed lotus and lunar throne, performing a mystic dance which is Tantric.
A photographic reproduction (about one-fourth of the original size) of a monastic painting in colour, on heavy cotton cloth, made on the instructions of the editor, in Gangtok, Sikkim, by a Tibetan artist named Lharipa-Pempa-Tendup-La, to illustrate the Judgement (see p. 37).
Occupying the central position is Dharma-Rāja, the King of Truth, or Administrator of Truth and Justice, otherwise called Yama-Rāja, the King and Judge of the Dead. He is the wrathful aspect of Chenrazee, the National Divine Protector of Tibet. The third eye of spiritual insight is in his forehead. He stands enhaloed in flames of wisdom, on a solar throne supported by a lotus throne, treading under foot a mārā form, symbolic of the māyā (i.e. illusionary) nature of human existence. His head-dress is adorned with human skulls, and a serpent forms his necklace. His necklet is a human hide, the head of which protrudes from behind his right side, and a hand and foot hang down over the centre of his breast. A girdle of human heads surrounds his waist. His pavilion and the walls of his Court ​are adorned with the skull-symbols of death. His sword is the sword of spiritual power. The mirror in his left hand is the Mirror of Karma, in which are reflected every good and evil act (cf. p. 166) of each of the dead who are being judged, one by one. There is written on the mirror, in Tibetan, ‘Hri,’ the bij, or chief, mantra of Chenrazee.
Directly in front of Dharma-Rāja is the Monkey-Headed One, Sprehu-gochan (Tib. Sfre-hu-mgo-chan), otherwise called Shinje (cf. pp. 36–7), holding the scales, on one side of which are heaped-up black pebbles, the evil deeds, and, on the other, heaped-up white pebbles, the good deeds. On the right of Shinje stands the Little White God, emptying a sack of white pebbles; on the other side, the Little Black God, emptying a sack of black pebbles (cf. p. 166).
Guarding the weighing are the Bull-Headed One, Wang-gochan (Tib. Glang-mgo-chan), holding another mirror of karma, and the Serpent-Headed One, Dul-gochan (Tib. Sbrul-mgo-chan), holding a scourge and a noose.
A yellow deity, on the right of Dharma-Rāja, holding a writing-tablet and a stilus, and a brown deity, on the left, holding a sword and a noose, are the two Advocates. The yellow advocate is the defender, the brown advocate is the accuser. The six deities, five of whom are animal-headed, sitting in the Court of Judgement, three on either side, like a jury of subordinate judges, supervise the proceedings in order to ensure regularity of procedure and impartial justice (cf. pp. 35–7). The first above on the right holds a mirror of karma and a skull-cup of blood, the second a battle-axe and a skull-cup of blood, the third a noose. The first above on the left holds a battle-axe and skull-cup of blood, the second a small vase of blossoms in his right hand, the third a dorje and a skull-cup of blood.
Near the gate on the left and the gate on the right stands one of the avenging furies who act as warders. There are ten Tibetans in the foreground of the Court awaiting judgement. The one with a conical head-dress (in red) is a red-cap lāma; the one with a round head-dress (in yellow) is a government official. The others are ordinary people. The three gates, through which the condemned enter the Hells below, are guarded by three animal-headed porters, each holding a noose.
Issuing from the Court, at either side of the Judge, are the Six Karmic Pathways, leading to the Six Buddhas of the Six Lokas, in whom the Pathways end, each Pathway and Buddha in appropriate colour (cf. p. 124 and Illustration IV). Traversing the Pathways are twelve of the dead who have recently been judged. The highest one, upon the left, on the white light-path approaching the Buddha of the Deva Loka, is a yellow-cap lāma; next to him is a government official ​on the yellow light-path approaching the Buddha of the Human Loka; the highest upon the right, on the green light-path approaching the Buddha of the Asura Loka, is a red-cap lāma.
In the Lower World, at the bottom of the painting, typical punishments in various Hells are depicted, none of which, however, are everlasting. On the left, in the upper corner, where two sinners are immersed in a glacial region, the Eight Cold Hells are suggested. Near the edge of the painting, on the opposite side, a sinner amidst flames suggests the Eight Hot Hells. The commission of any of the ten impious acts, deliberately and from selfish motives, leads to purgation in the Cold Hells; any of the same acts done through anger lead to purgation in the Hot Hells.
Just below the Cold Hells is the Hell of the ‘Spiked Tree’ or ‘Hill of Spikes’ (Tib. Shal-ma-li), in which an evil-doer has been quartered and affixed to the spikes. Beside it, in charge of a hell-fury, is ‘The Doorless Iron House’ (Tib. Lchags-khang-sgo-med). Next to this there are four lāmas held under the mountainous weight of an enormous Tibetan sacred book; they are being punished thus for having in their earth-life hurried through and skipped passages when reading religious texts. The triangle, in which an evil-doer is fixed, symbolizes the terrible Avitchi Hell, wherein one guilty of a heinous sin, such as using sorcery to destroy enemies or deliberate failure to fulfil Tantric vows, endures punishment for ages which are almost immeasurable. Close to the triangle, a hell-fury is pouring spoonfuls of molten metal into a woman condemned for prostitution. The person next to her, bowed under the weight of a heavy rock tied to his back, is being punished in that manner for having killed small living creatures like vermin or other insects. The sinner whom a hell-fury is holding stretched out on a floor of spiked iron while another hell-fury is preparing to hack him to pieces (cf. p. 166) has been found guilty of another of the ten impious acts. So also has been the woman who is about to be sawn in two lengthwise; her sin has been murder. As in Dante’s Inferno, other evil-doers, incapable, as our text explains, of succumbing to the process (cf. p. 166), are being cooked in the iron cauldron at the lower right-hand corner. Three hell-furies (one brown, one yellow, one blue in the original) are to be seen holding by the end of nooses and leading and dragging along (cf. p. 166) to appropriate punishments three of the dead who have just been cast into Hell.
Emblems
From designs sculptured on the Sanchi Topes, dating from about 500 B.C. to 100 A. D.
Symbolical of equilibrium, immutability, and almighty power. (Cf. pp. 63, 116$^1$.)
The Eight-Spoked Wheel (cf. p. 106), on a lotus throne and enhaloed by Flames of Wisdom, is representative of the Thousand-Spoked Wheel of the Good Law of the Buddha, symbol of the symmetry and completeness of the Sacred Law of the Dharma, or Scriptures. The design at the centre, called in Tibetan rgyan-’k’yil, composed of three whirling segments, symbolizes—as does the svastika at the centre of the Indian Wheel of the Law—the Sangsāra, or ceaseless change or ‘becoming’.
A type of the Thunderbolt of Indra, the Indian Jupiter, used in most lāmaic rituals (cf. pp. 10, 108$^2$, 137–8, 142–5), symbolical of dominion over sangsāric (or worldly) existence.
In Ranja or Lantsa Indian characters of about the seventh century A.D. Lantsa characters, slightly modified, are used in Tibetan manuscripts, commonly on title-pages. In Tibetan characters the sacred Mantra is ཨོཾམཎིཔདྨེཧཱུྃ, which means literally: ‘Ōm! The Jewel in the Lotus! Hūṃ!’ (Cf. pp. 134$^2$, 149$^1$, 206.)
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