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

‘These Eight Great Tertons shall come ;
‘Mine own incarnations alone are they.’

Padma Sambhava himself is herein represented as declaring that the Zertons, or ‘Takers-out’ of the hidden books, are to

ORIGIN OF THE BARDO THODOL v7

be his own incarnations. According to this account, the Terton of our own book, the Bardo Thodol, is the fifth, named after the place called Karma Land, thus confirming the Block- Print of the Bardo Thodol; and Karma Land is in the northern quarter of Tibet. We have been unable to ascertain the exact time in which this Zerton lived, although he is a popular figure in the traditional history of Tibet. The name Rigzin, given to him in the Block-Print first above quoted, meaning ‘ Knowledge-Holder’, refers to his character as a religious devotee or lama; Karma ling-pa, as given in both accounts, refers also to an ancient Tibetan monastery of primitive Lamaism in the Kams Province, northern Tibet.

According to our view, the best attitude to take touching the uncertain history and origin of the Bardo Théodol is that of a critical truth-seeker who recognizes the anthropological significance of the passing of time, and of the almost inevitable reshaping of ancient teachings handed down at first orally and then, after having crystallized, being recorded in writing. As in the case of the Egyptian Bardo Thodol, popularly known as ‘The Egyptian Book of the Dead’, so in ‘The Tibetan Book of the Dead’, there is, no doubt, the record of the belief of innumerable generations in a state of existence after death. No one scribe could have been its author and no one generation its creator; its history as a book, if completely known, could only be the history of its compilation and recording; and the question, Whether this compilation and recording were done within comparatively recent times, or in the time of Padma Sambhava or earlier? could not fundamentally affect the ancient teachings upon which it is based.

Although it is remarkably scientific in its essentials, there is no need to consider it as being accurate in all its details; for, undoubtedly, considerable corruption has crept into the text. In its broad outlines, however, it seems to convey a sublime truth, heretofore veiled to many students of religion, a philosophy as subtle as that of Plato, and a psychical science far in advance of that, still in its infancy, which forms the study of the Society for Psychical Research. And, as such, it deserves the serious attention of the Western World, nowp. 78 awakening to a New Age, freed, in large measure, from the incrustations of medievalism, and eager to garner wisdom from all the Sacred Books of mankind, be they of one Faith or of another.

XV. THE TRANSLATING AND THE EDITING

XV. THE TRANSLATING AND THE EDITING

Although the translating of this manuscript was done wholly in the presence of the editor in Gangtok, Sikkim, the chief credit should be given to the late Lama Kazi Dawa- Samdup, the translator. The Lama himself aptly summarized the editor’s part in the work by saying that the editor was his living English dictionary. Indeed the editor could have been little more than this, for his knowledge of Tibetan was almost as nothing.

The aim of both the translator and the editor has been to keep as closely to the sense of the text as the idiomatic structures of the Tibetan and English tongues permit. Sometimes the translator, preferring to render into English the real meaning which a /a@ma would derive from certain more or less technically-worded phrases, has departed from a strictly literal translation.

The Tibetan of Tantric texts, such as ours, is especially difficult to turn into good English; and owing to the terseness of many passages it has been necessary to interpolate words and phrases, which are bracketed.

In years to come, it is quite probable that our rendering — as has been the case with the pioneer translations of the Bible—may be subject to revision. A strictly literal rendering of a work so abstruse in its real meanings as this, and written in symbolical language as well, if attempted by Europeans—who, finding it difficult to get out of their Western mentality, too often are Christians first and scholars second when working with non-Christian sacred texts—would, perhaps, be as misleading as some of their renderings of the ancicnt Sanskrit Vedas. Even to a Tibetan, unless he be a /ama and well versed in Tantricism, as the translator was, the Bardo Thodol is almost a sealed book.

His profound /a@maic training, his fervent faith in the higher yogic teachings of The Great Perfectionist School of Guru

p. 79

Padma Sambhava (he being an initiate of the semi-reformed sect known as Kargyutpa, founded by the great yogis Marpa and Milarepa), his practical knowledge of the Occult Sciences as taught to him by his late Guru in Bhutan, and his marvellous command both of English and of Tibetan, lead me to think that rarely, if ever again in this century, is there likely to arise a scholar more competent to render the Bardo Thodol than the late Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup, the actual translator. To him each reader of this book owes a debt of gratitude; for herein he has, in part, opened to the peoples of the West the treasure-house, so long tightly locked, of Tibetan Literature and Northern Buddhism.

As his close disciple for many months, I hereby formally acknowledge that debt of gratitude and respect which is ever due from the disciple to the teacher.

As his close disciple for many months, I hereby formally acknowledge that debt of gratitude and respect which is ever due from the disciple to the teacher.

Though the translation was completed and revised by the translator during the year 1919, whilst he was the Head Master of the Maharaja’s Bhutia Boarding School, chiefly for Sikkimese boys of good Tibetan ancestry, near Gangtok, Sikkim (formerly a part of Tibct), it is unfortunate for us that he is not now in this world to read the printer’s proofs of it as he had hoped to do.

As to the transliterations, it may rightly be objected by philologists that they are in some instances less technically exact than they might be. The editor, however, preferring to preserve the simpler transliterations according to the oldfashioned style—to which ordinary readers are more accustomed—just as the translator dictated them to him, has left them unchanged save for the correcting of a few obvious errors which had crept in.

The editor himself cannot expect, in a book of this nature, that his own interpretations of controversial problems will meet with universal acceptance; nor can he hope to have escaped all error. He trusts, however, that critics, in recognizing the pioneer character of the work, will be prepared to concede to the editor, as to the translator, such measure of indulgence as it may perhaps seem to deserve.

A brief account of the unusual career of the translator will,p. 80 no doubt, be interesting to all who read this book. The late Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup—the honorific term Kazi indicating his superior social standing as a member of a landholding family of Tibetan origin settled in Sikkim—was born on the seventeenth day of June, 1868.

From December of the year 1887 and until October, 1893, as a young man whose learning the British authorities of India had already recognized, he was stationed at Buxaduar, in Bhutan, as Interpreter to the British Government. (In later years he also acted as Interpreter to the Government of Tibet.) It was at Buxaduar that he first met his gurz, commonly known there as The Hermit Guru Norbu (S/ob-dpon-mtshams-pa- Norbu—pronounced Lob-on-tsham-pa-Norbu), a man of vast knowledge and of strict ascetical habits of life; and from him, afterwards, received the mystic initiation.

The late Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup once confided to me that at that time he had made all necessary preparations, as a shishya on probation, to renounce the world completely ; but his father, then an old man, called him home and requested him to perform the usual duties of an eldest son and marry, to perpetuate the family. The son had no option, and he married; two sons and one daughter being born to him.