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

This is called the Body of Bliss (Sambhogakdya)....

‘The Dhaymakdaya can manifest itself in various corporeal forms just because it is the real essence of them’ (cf. p. 2287).

' Cf. A. Avalon, Tantrik Texts, vii London and Calcutta, 1919), pp. 36 n., 41 n.

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Source of all Truth, the All-Good Father of the Lamaistic Faith. In this same highest Buddha realm Lamaism places Vajra-Dhara (Tib. Rdorje-Chang—pron. Dorje-Chang), ‘The Holder of the Dorje (or Thunderbolt)’ ‘the Divine Expounder of the Mystic Doctrine called Vajra Yana (Tib. Rdorje Theg-pa— pron. Dorje Theg-pa) or Mantra Yana’; and also the Buddha Amitabha (Tib. Hod-dpag-med—pron. Wod-pag-med ; or, as in the text, page 1131), the Buddha of Boundless Light, Who is the Source of Life Eternal. In the Sambhoga-K aya are placed the Five Dhyani Buddhas (or Buddhas of Meditation), the Lotus Herukas, and the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities, all of whom will appear in the Bardo visions. With the Nirmdana-Kaya is associated Padma Sambhava, who, being the first teacher in Tibet to expound the Bardo Thédol, is the Great Guru for all devotees who follow the Bardo teachings.

The opinion commonly held by men not initiated into the higher /amaic teachings, that Northern Buddhism recognizes in the Primordial or Adi-Buddha a Supreme Deity, is apparently erroneous. The translator held that the Adi-Buddha, and all deities associated with the Dharma-K aya, are not to be regarded as personal deities, but as Personifications of primordial and universal forces, laws, or spiritual influences, which sustain—as the sun sustains the earth’s physical life— the divine nature of all sentient creatures in all worlds, and make man’s emancipation from all sazgsaric existences possible:

‘In the boundless panorama of the existing and visible universe, whatever shapes appear, whatever sounds vibrate, whatever radiances illuminate, or whatever consciousnesses cognize, all are the play or manifestation of the 7r7-Kaya, the Three-fold Principle of the Cause of All Causes, the Primordial Trinity. Impenetrating all, is the All-Pervading Essence of Spirit, which is Mind. It is uncreated, impersonal, self-existing, immaterial, and indestructible.’

(Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup.)

Thus, the 777-Kaya symbolizes the Esoteric Trinity ofp. 14 the higher Buddhism of the Northern School; the Exoteric Trinity being, as in the Southern School, the Buddha, the Dharma (or Scriptures), the Saxgha (or Priesthood). Regarded in this way—the one trinitarian doctrine as esoteric, the other as exoteric—there are direct correspondences between the two Trinities. Detailed and comprehensive understanding of the Tri-K aya Doctrine, so the /amas teach, is the privilege of initiates, who, alone, are fitted to grasp and to realize it.

Detailed and comprehensive understanding of the Tri-K aya Doctrine, so the /amas teach, is the privilege of initiates, who, alone, are fitted to grasp and to realize it.

The translator himself regarded the 7ri-Kaya Doctrine as having been transmitted by along and unbroken line of initiates, some Indian, some Tibetan, direct from the days of the Buddha. He considered that the Buddha, having re-discovered it, was merely its Transmitter from preceding Buddhas; that it was handed on orally, from guru to guru, and not committed to writing until comparatively recent times, when Buddhism began to decay, and there were not always sufficient living gurus to transmit it in the old way. The theory of Western scholars, that simply because a doctrine is not found recorded before a certain time it consequently did not exist previously, he—as an initiate—laughed at; and the rather strenuous efforts of Christian apologists to claim for the Z7vi-Kaya Doctrine a Christian origin he held, likewise, to be wholly untenable. He had been a close and sympathetic student of Christianity ; and, as a young man, he had been much sought after by Christian missionaries, who looked upon him, with his remarkable learning and superior social standing, as an unusually desirable subject for conversion. He carefully examined their claims, and then rejected them, on the ground that, in his opinion, Christianity, as presented by them, is but an imperfect Buddhism, that the Asokan Buddhist missionaries to Asia Minor and Syria, as to Alexandria,' must have profoundly influenced Christianity through some such probable connecting link as the Essenes, that, if Jesus were an historical character, He, being—as the Lama interpreted the Jesus of the Mez Testament clearly to be—a Bodhisattva (i.e. a Candidate for Buddhahood), was, undoubtedly, well acquainted with

1 Cf. V. A. Smith, Early History of India (Oxford, 1914), p. 184.

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Buddhist ethics, and taught them, as in the Sermon on the Mount.

The Doctrine of the Three Bodies conveys the esoteric teachings concerning the Path of the Teachers, their descent from the Higher to the Lower, from the threshold of Wirvaua to the Sangsara; and progression from the Lower to the Higher, from the Sangsara to Nirvana, is symbolized by the Five Dhyani Buddhas, each personifying a universal divine attribute. Contained in the Five Dhyani Buddhas lies the Sacred Way leading to At-one-ment in the Dharma- Kaya, to Buddhahood, to Perfect Enlightenment, to Vzrvana — which is spiritual emancipation through Desirelessness.

Contained in the Five Dhyani Buddhas lies the Sacred Way leading to At-one-ment in the Dharma- Kaya, to Buddhahood, to Perfect Enlightenment, to Vzrvana — which is spiritual emancipation through Desirelessness.

The Five Wisdoms.—As the All-Pervading Voidness, the Dharma-K aya is the shape (which is shapelessness) of the Body of Truth; the Thatness constituting it is the Dharma-Dhatu (Tib. Chos-kyt-dvyings—pron. Ché-kyi-ing), the Seed or Potentiality of Truth ; and this dawns on the First Day of the Bardo . as the glorious blue light of the Dhyani Buddha Vairochana, the Manifester, ‘He Who in Shapes Makes Visible’ [the universe of mattcr]. The Dharma-Dhatu is symbolized as the Aggregate of Matter. From the Aggregate of Matter arise the creatures of this world, as of all worlds, in which animal stupidity is the dominant characteristic ; and the mara (or illusion of shape) constitutes in all realms of the Sangsadra —as in the human kingdom where manas (or mind) begins to operate—the Bondage, emancipation from which is Vzrvdua. When in man, made as perfect as human life can make him, the stupidity of his animal nature and the illusion of shape, or personality, are transmuted into Right Knowledge, into Divine Wisdom, there shines forth in his consciousness the All-Pervading Wisdom of the Dharma-Dhatu, or the Wisdom born of the Voidness, which is all-pervading.

As the Aggregate of Matter, dawning in the Bardo of the First Day, produces physical bodies, so the Water-Element, dawning on the Second Day, produces the life-stream, the blood; Anger is the obscuring passion, consciousness is the aggregate, and these, when transmuted, become the Mirrorlike Wisdom, personified in Vajra-Sattva (the Sambhoga-K ayap. 16 reflex of the Dhyani Buddha Akshobhya), the ‘Triumphant One of Divine Heroic Mind’.

The Earth-Element of the Third Day, producing the chief solid constituents of the human form, and of all physical forms, gives rise to the passion of Egoism, and the aggregate is Touch; and these, when divinely transmuted, become the Wisdom of Equality, personified in Ratna-Sambhava, the ‘Gem-born One’, the Beautifier.

The Fire-Element of the Fourth Day, producing the animalheat of embodied human and animal beings, gives rise to the passion of Attachment, or Lust, and the Aggregate of Feelings. Herein the transmutation gives birth to the All-Discriminating Wisdom, which enables the devotee to know each thing separately, yet all things as one; personified in the Dhyani Buddha Amitabha, ‘ He of Boundless Light’, the Illuminator, or Enlightener.

The Element Air, of the Fifth Day, produces the breath of life. Its quality, or passions, in man is Envy, or Jealousy. Its aggregate is Volition. The transmutation is into the All-Performing Wisdom, which gives perseverance and unerring action in things spiritual, personified in Amogha-Siddhi, the ‘Almighty Conqueror’, the Giver of Divine Power.