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

Excepting the first folio and the first half of the second, the space actually occupied by the text on each measures on an average 8% by 24 inches. Most of the folios contain five lines of matter, a few contain four lines. The title-page contains two linesp. 70 in a space 7 by 1 inches; the second page of the first folio along with the first page of the second folio, which give the Obeisances, consist of three lines, occupying a space 4} by 21 inches respectively, and these, like the title-page, are written in gold (now much faded) on a black background. The illustrations are on fourteen of the folios, each illustration being in the centre of the text, on one side of the folio (see Frontispiece), as follows:

On folio 18, Vairochana embraced by his shkaktz, the Mother of the Space of Heaven, seated upon a lion throne, the deities of the First Day ;

On folio 20, Vajra-Sattva, embraced by his shak7z, the Mother Mamaki, surrounded by their four accompanying deities of the Second Day;

On folio 23, Ratna-Sambhava, embraced by his skakdz, the Mother Sangyay Chanma (‘She of the Buddha Eye’), surrounded by their four accompanying deities of the Third Day ;

On folio 26, Amitabha, embraced by his shakiz, the Mother Gokarmo (‘She of White Raiment’), surrounded by their four accompanying deities of the Fourth Day ;

On folio 31, Amogha-Siddhi, embraced by his skakiz, the Faithful Délma (or Skt. Zara), surrounded by their four accompanying deities of the Fifth Day ;

On folio 35, the united mandalas of the deities that dawn on the Sixth Day;

On folio 44, the mandala of the Ten Knowledge-Holding
Deities of the Seventh Day ;

On folio 55, the Buddha Heruka and shkakéz of the Eighth
Day ;

On folio 57, the Vajra Heruka and shakdéi of the Ninth
Day ;

On folio 58, the Ratna Heruka and shakti of the Tenth
Day ;

On folio 59, the Padma Heruka and shakdi of the Eleventh
Day ;

On folio 65, the Karma Heruka and skakti of the Twelfth
Day ;

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On folio 64, the Eight Kerima and the Eight Htamenma of the Thirteenth Day; and the Four Female Door-keepers of the Fourteenth Day ;

On folio 67, the maxzda/a of the animal-headed deitics of the
Fourteenth Day.

Fach deity is depicted in conformity with the description given in the text as to colour, position, posture, mudra@, and symbols.

All of the illustrations in the manuscript thus belong to the Chényid Bardo of the First Book. In our translation, copious annotations contain the textual name of each deity and the Sanskrit equivalent when, as in most cases, there is one.

All of the illustrations in the manuscript thus belong to the Chényid Bardo of the First Book. In our translation, copious annotations contain the textual name of each deity and the Sanskrit equivalent when, as in most cases, there is one.

No attempt has been made to collate our manuscript with other manuscripts of the same text, none having been available. Such manuscripts are, no doubt, numerous in Tibet, and the production of a standard or uniform text would require years of careful labour—a task remaining for scholars of the future. The only comparison of texts attempted was with Dr. Van Manen’s Block-Print, which is probably not more than about twenty to thirty years old. The translator said that, so far as he was aware, Block-Prints of the Bardo Thddol have appeared—at least in Sikkim and Darjeeling—rather recently, although probably known in Tibet itself much longer, blocktype printing having been carried on for unknown centuries in China, and thence brought to Tibet, long before printing was done in Europe.!

1 These Block-Prints are usually composed of separate treatises belonging to the Bardo Thédol cycle. One of such Block-Prints—which was purchased in Gyantse, Tibet, during the year r919, by Major W. L. Campbell, then the British Political Representative in Tibet, Bhutan, and Sikkim, and presented to the editor—contains seventeen treatises, whose Tibetan titles have been rendered, in slightly abbreviated form, by the translator, as follows:

1. ‘The Clear Directions on The Divine Bardo, called ‘‘ The Great Liberation by Hearing”, from ‘*The Profound Doctrine of the Divine Peaceful and’ [Wrathful] Self-Liberation’’’;

a. ‘The Exposition of the Wrathful [or Active] Aspect of the Bardo’;

3. ‘The Good Wishes [or Prayers] Invoking the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas for Assistance’;

4. ‘The Root Verses of the Bardo’;

5. ‘The Prayer to Rescue [One] from the Narrow Places of the Bardo’ ;

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Each Buddhist Sect in Tibet, according to the opinion of the translator, probably has its own version of the Bardo Thodol more or less changed in some details, but not in essentials, from our version, the version used by the reformed Gelugpa, otherwise known as the Yellow-Hat School, being the most altered, with all references to Padma Sambhava, the Founder of the Ningmapa, the Red-Hat School of Lamaism, as well as the names of deities peculiar to the Red-Hats, expurgated.

Major W. L. Campbell, who was the British Political Representative in Sikkim during my residence there, wrote to me, from the Residency in Gangtok, under date of the twelfth of July, 1919, concerning the various versions of the Bardo Théodol, as follows: ‘The Yellow Sect have six, the Red Sect seven, and the Kar-gyut-pas five.’

Our text being of the primitive or Red-Hat School and attributed to the Great Guru Padma Sambhava himself, who introduced Tantric Buddhism into Tibct, has been decmed by us to be substantially representative of the original version, which, on the basis of internal evidence derived from our

6. ‘ The Setting-Face-to Face of the S:dpa-Bardo’ ;

q. ‘The Salvation by Attaching [whereby] the Body Aggregate is Self- Liberated ’—a version of the Tadhol Doctrine—(see pp. 136', 154°, 194 of our text);

8. ‘The Prayer to Protect [One] from the Fears in the Bardo’ ;

g. ‘The Self-Liberating Diagnosis of the Symptoms of Death’—(cf. pp. 86, 89-97 of our text) ;

to. ‘The Setting-Face-to-Face called ‘‘The Naked Vision”, and the Self- Liberation [by that]’;

tr, ‘The Special Teaching showing the Forms of Merit or Demerit, while in the Sidpa Bardo, called ‘‘ The Self-Liberating in the Srdpa-Bardo”’ ;

12, ‘The Addenda [to the above, ‘‘ The Special Teaching ’”’]’ ;

13. ‘Prayer to the Line {of Gurus] of the Divine Self-Liberating Doctrine? ;

14. ‘The Ransoming of the Dying’;

15. ‘Self-Liberation called “ Absolution by Confession”? ;

16. ‘The Best Wish-Granting TYadhol’—another form of the TZadhol
Doctrine ;

17. ‘The Ritual called ‘‘ The Self-Liberation from Habitual Propensities ””’,

Herein, the treatises numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 correspond—in slightly different versions—to the matter contained in our manuscript. The manuscript, moreover, contains much matter in the Appendix not contained in this Block- Print. The Block-Print itself is quite new, but the blocks from which it was printed may be quite old—how old, we have been unable to ascertain,p. 73 manuscript text, was probably, at least in essentials, pre- Buddhistic.

As elsewhere noted, our manuscript is arranged as one work in two parts or books, with thirteen folios of texts of Lardo prayers as an appendix at the end. The Block- Print is arranged as two distinct books and lacks the appendix of prayers. But at the end of the first book of the Block-Print there comes a very important account of the origin of the Bardo Thidol, which is not contained in our manuscript, and this is given in translation in the following Section.

XIV. THE ORIGIN OF THE BARDO THODOL

Thus, from the Block-Print, and also from other Tibetan sources, we learn that the Bardo Thodol text originated, or, what is perhaps more correct, was first committed to writing in the time of Padma Sambhava, in the eighth century A. D.; was subsequently hidden away, and then, when the time came for it to be given to the world, was brought to light by Rigzin Karma Ling-pa. The Block-Print account is as follows :

‘This has been brought from the Hill of Gampodar (Tib.
Gampo-dar), on the bank of the Serdan (Tib. Gser-ldan,
meaning ‘ Possessing Gold’ or ‘Golden’) River, by Rigzin
Karma Ling-pa (Tib. Rigs-hdzin Kar-ma Gling-pa).