The Tibetan Book of the Dead — ed. W. Y. Evans-Wentz

He was also attached to the Political Staff of His Holiness the Dalai Lama on the latter’s visit to India. At the time of xliv FOREWORD his premature and greatly regretted death Lama Kazi Dawa- Samdup was Lecturer in Tibetan to the University of Calcutta. These, and the other appointments which the translator held, and to which Dr. Evans-Wentz has referred, sufficiently establish his high competency both in Tibetan and English. He had also, I may add, some knowledge of Sanskrit, which I found of much use in discussing with him the meaning of terms used in Tibetan-Buddhist doctrine and ritual. I can, then, speak personally of his attainments, for I saw a good deal of him when he was preparing for me a translation of the Tibetan Shrichakrasambhara Tantra, which I have published as the seventh volume of the series of Tanirik Texts (Luzac & Co.). I can, likewise, from my own knowledge, associate myself with what Dr. Evans-Wentz has said as to this remarkable man. May their joint work have the success it deserves, and so encourage Dr. Evans- Wentz to publish some at least of the other Texts which he tells me he has in store. JOHN WOODROFFE.

Oxrorp,
October 3, 1925.

ik ODpUCTION+

‘The phenomena of life may be likened unto a dream, a phantasm, a bubble, a shadow, the glistening dew, or lightning flash; and thus they ought to be contemplated.’—The Buddha, in The Immutable Sutra.

I. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE BARDO THODOL

AS a contribution to the science of death and of the existence after death, and of rebirth, The Tibetan Book of the Dead,

1 This Introduction is—for the most part—based upon and suggested by explanatory notes which the late Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup, the translator of the Bardo Thédol, dictated to the editor while the translation was taking shape, in Gangtok, Sikkim. The Lama was of opinion that his English rendering of the Bardo Thédol ought not to be published without his exegetical comments on the more abstruse and figurative parts of the text. This, he thought, would not only help to justify his translation, but, moreover, would accord with the wishes of his late guvu (see p. 80) with respect to all translations into a European tongue of works expository of the esoteric lore of the Great Perfectionist School into which that guru had initiated him. To this end, the translator’s exegesis, based upon that of the translator’s guru, was transmitted to the editor and recorded by the editor herein,

The editor’s task is to correlate and systematize and sometimes to expand the notes thus dictated, by incorporating such congenial matter, from widely separated sources, as in his judgement tends to make the exegesis more intelligible to the Occidental, for whom this part of the book is chiefly intended.

The translator felt, too, that, without such safeguarding as this Introduction is intended to afford, the Bardo Thédol translation would be peculiarly liable to misinterpretation and consequent misuse, more especially by those who are inclined to be, for one reason or another, inimical to Buddhistic doctrines, or to the doctrines of his particular Sect of Northern Buddhism. He also realized how such an Introduction as is here presented might itself be subject to adverse criticism, perhaps on the ground that it appears to be the outcome of a philosophical eclecticism. However this may be, the editor can do no more than state here, as he has stated in other words in the Preface, that his aim, both herein and in the closely related annotations to the text itself, has been to present the psychology and the teachings peculiar to and related to the Bardo Thédol as he has been taught them by qualified initiated exponents of them, who alone have the unquestioned right to explain them.

If it should be said by critics that the editor has expounded the Bardo Thédol doctrines from the standpoint of the Northern Buddhist who believes in them rather than from the standpoint of the Christian who perhaps would disbelieve at least some of them, the editor has no apology to offer; for he holds that there is no sound reason adducible why he should expound them in any other manner. Anthropology is concerned with things as they are ; and the hope of

3069 Bp. 2 called, in its own language, Bardo Thédol (‘Liberation by Hearing on the After-Death Plane’),! is, among the sacred books of the world, unique. As an epitomized exposition of the cardinal doctrines of the Mahayana School of Buddhism, it is of very great importance, religiously, philosophically, and historically. As a treatise based essentially upon the Occult Sciences of the Yoga Philosophy, which were fundamental in the curriculum of the great Buddhist University of Nalanda, the Oxford of ancient India, it is, perhaps, one of the most remarkable works the West has ever received from the East. As a mystic manual for guidance through the Otherworld of many illusions and realms, whose frontiers are death and birth, it resembles The Egyptian Book of the Dead sufficiently to suggest some ultimate cultural relationship between the two; although we only know with certainty that the germ of the teachings, as herein made accessible to English readers, has been preserved for us by a long succession of saints and seers of the God-protected Land of the Snowy Ranges, Tibet.

Il. THE SYMBOLISM

Il. THE SYMBOLISM

The Bardo Théodol is unique in that it purports to treat rationally of the whole cycle of sangsaric (i.e. phenomenal) existence intervening between death and birth ;—the ancient doctrine of karma, or consequences (taught by Emerson as compensation), and of rebirth being accepted as the most essential laws of nature affecting human life. Often, however, its teaching appears to be quite the antithesis of rational, because much of it is recorded in an occult cipher. Dr. L. A. Waddell has declared, after careful research, that ‘the Jamas all sincere researchers into comparative religion devoid of any religious bias ought always to be to accumulate such scientific data as will some day enable future generations of mankind to discover Truth itself—that Universal Truth in which all religions and all sects of all religions may ultimately recognize the Essence of Religion and the Catholicity of Faith.

1 Mr. Talbot Mundy, in his interesting Tibetan romance Om, in making reference to this title, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, has taken it to be a very free translation of Bardo Thédol. It should not, however, so be taken; it has been adopted because it seems to be the most appropriate short title for conveying to the English reader the true character of the book as a whole.

p. 3

have the keys to unlock the meaning of much of Buddha’s doctrine which has been almost inaccessible to Europeans.’ !

Some of the more learned Jamas, including the late Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup, have believed that since very early times there has been a secret international symbol-code in common use among the initiates, which affords a key to the meaning of such occult doctrines as are still jealously guarded by religious fraternities in India, as in Tibet, and in China, Mongolia, and Japan.

In like manner, Occidental occultists have contended that the hieroglyphical writings of ancient Egypt and of Mexico seem to have been, in some degree, a popularized or exoteric outgrowth of a secret language. They argue, too, that a symbol-code was sometimes used by Plato and other Greek philosophers, in relation to Pythagorean and Orphic lore; that throughout the Celtic world the Druids conveyed all their esoteric teachings symbolically ; that the use of parables, as in the sermons of Jesus and of the Buddha, and of other Great Teachers, illustrates the same tendency; and _ that through works like Aesop's Fables, and the miracle and mystery plays of medieval Europe, many of the old Oriental symbols have been introduced into the modern literatures of the West.”

1L. A. Waddell, The Buddhism of Tibet or Lamatsm (London, 1895), p. 17.