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

Buddhas,

2 The five virulent poisons, which, like drugs, enslave and bind mankind to the sufferings of existence within the confines of the Six Lokas, are: lust, hatred, stupidity, pride or egoism, and jealousy,

8 Text: vang (‘self’) + sNang (‘light’): ‘self-light’ or ‘inner-light’, i.e. thoughts or ideas appearing in the radiance of the consciousness-principle. The Bardo state is the after-death dream state following the waking or living- On-earth state, as explained in our Introduction (pp. 28 ff.); and the wholep. 126 and, merging one’s self therein, in at-one-ment, Buddhahood is attained: through humble faith, the ordinary devotee cometh to know himself, and obtaineth Liberation; even the most lowly, by the power of the pure prayer, can close the doors of the Six ZLokas, and, in understanding the real meaning of the Four Wisdoms united, obtain Buddhahood by the hollow pathway through Vajra-Sattva.!

Thus by being set face to face in that detailed manner,
those who are destined to be liberated will come to recognize
[the Truth] ;* thereby many will attain Liberation.

The worst of the worst, [those] of heavy evil Zarma, having not the least predilection for any religion—and some who have failed in their vows—through the power of karzzzc illusions, not recognizing, although set face to face [with Truth], will stray downwards.

[THE SEVENTH DAY]

On the Seventh Day, the Knowledge-Holding Deities, from the holy paradise realms, come to receive one. Simultaneously, the pathway to the brute world, produced by the obscuring passion, stupidity, also cometh to receive one.* The settingface-to-face at that time is, calling the deceased by name, thus:

aim of the Bardo Thédol teaching is to awaken the Dreamer to Reality—to a supramundane state of consciousness, to an annihilation of all bonds of sangsaric existence, to Perfect Enlightenment, Buddhahood,

1 Vajra-Sattva, as a symbolic deity, the reflex of Akshobhya, is visualized, in Tibetan occult rituals, as being internally vacuous. As such, he represents the Void, concerning which there are many treatises with elaborate commentaries, essentially esoteric. Through Vajra-Sattva there lies a certain pathway to Liberation, he being the embodiment of all the one-hundred and ten deities constituting the mandala of the Peaceful and Wrathful Ones (see p. 1241). To tread this Path successfully, the Neophyte must be instructed by the Hiecrophant.

2 This Truth is that there is no reality behind any of the phenomena of the Bardo plane, save the illusions stored up in one’s own mind as accretions from sangsaric experiences. Recognition of this automatically gives Liberation.

2 This Truth is that there is no reality behind any of the phenomena of the Bardo plane, save the illusions stored up in one’s own mind as accretions from sangsaric experiences. Recognition of this automatically gives Liberation.

° As the gross physical atoms of a life-deserted human-plane body gradually separate and go to their appropriate places, some as gases, some as fluids, some as solids, so on the after-death plane there comes about a gradual dispersion of the psychic or mental atoms of the Bardo thought-body, each propensity—— directed by karmic affinity—inevitably going to that environment most congenial to it. Hence, as our text suggests, the brute-passion stupidity has a natural tendency to gravitate to the brute kingdom and become embodied therein as a disintegrated part of the mentality of the deceased. (See pp. 44 ff.)

PART II] KNOWLEDGE-HOLDING DEITIES 549)

O nobly-born, listen undistractedly. On the Seventh Day the vari-coloured radiance of the purified propensities will come to shine. Simultaneously, the Knowledge-Holding Deities,) from the holy paradise realms, will come to receive one.

From the centre of the Circle [or Mandala], enhaloed in radiance of rainbow light, the supreme Knowledge-Holding [Deity], the Lotus Lord of Dance, the Supreme Knowledge- Holder Whe Ripens Karmic Fruits, radiant with all the five colours, embraced by the [Divine] Mother, the Red Dékini, [he] holding a crescent knife and a skull [filled] with blood,’ dancing and making the mudra of fascination,* [with his right hand held] aloft, will come to shine.

To the east of that Circle, the deity called the Earth-Abiding Knowledge-Holder, white of colour, with radiant smiling countenance, embraced by the White Dékini, the [Divine] Mother, [he] holding a crescent knife and a skull [filled] with blood, dancing and making the maudra of fascination, [with his right hand held] aloft, will come to shine.

To the south of that Circle, the Knowledge-Holding Deity called [He] Having Power Over Duration of Life, yellow in colour, smiling and radiant, embraced by the Yellow Dékinz, the [Divine] Mother, [he] holding a crescent knife and a skull

1 Text: Rig-hdzin (pron. Rig-ein): ‘possessing (or holding) knowledge’.
These deities are purely Tantric. (See p. 731.)

2 The Dakinis (Tib. Mkhah-hgro-ma [or ‘Sky-goer’]: Skt. Da@kint), fairy-like goddesses possessing peculiar occult powers for good or for evil, are, also, purely Tantric; and, as such, they are invoked in most of the chief rituals of Northern Buddhism, (See p. 1223.)

3 Esoterically, the skull (which is human), and the blood (also human) filling it, signify, in one sense, renunciation of human life, the giving up of the Sangsara, self-immolation on the cross of the world ; and in the mass-ritual of Lamaism there are resemblances between the blood (symbolized by a red fluid) in the skull and the wine (as blood) in the chalice of the Christian Communion,

4 A mudra is a mystic sign made by posturing the hand and fingers or the body. Some mudras are used as signs of recognition by members of occult fraternities, after the manner of the Masonic hand-clasp. Others, chiefly employed by yogis as bodily postures, short-circuit or otherwise change the magnetic currents of the body. Placing the tip of one finger against the tip of another in mudra controls, likewise, the bodily forces, or life-currents. The mudra of fascination is of this last sort, being made (with the right hand) by the second finger touching the thumb, the index-finger and the little finger held upright, and the third finger folded in the palm of the hand.

p. 128

[filled] with blood, dancing and making the sudrd of fascination, [with his right hand held] aloft, will come to shine.

To the west of that Circle, the deity called the Knowledge- Holding Deity of the Great Symbol,' red of colour, smiling and radiant, embraced by the Red Dékini, the [Divine] Mother, [he] holding a crescent-knife and a skull [filled] with blood, dancing and making the mudré@ of fascination, [with his right hand held] aloft, will come to shine.

To the north of that Circle, the deity called the Self- Evolved Knowledge-Holder, green of colour, with a half-angry, half-smiling radiant countenance, embraced by the Green Dakini, the [Divine] Mother, [he] holding a crescentknife and a skull [filled] with blood, dancing and making the mudra of fascination, [with his right hand held] aloft, will come to shine.

In the Outer Circle, round about these Knowledge-Holders, innumerable bands of dakinis,—dakinis of the eight places of cremation, @akinis of the four classes, da@kinis of the three abodes, @akinis of the thirty holy-places and of the twentyfour places of pilgrimage,*—heroes, heroines, celestial warriors, and faith-protecting deities, male and female, each bedecked with the six bone-ornaments, having drums and thigh-bone trumpets, skull-timbrels, banners of gigantic human|[-like] hides,? human-hide canopies, human-hide bannerettes, fumes of human-fat incense, and innumerable [other] kinds of musical instruments, filling [with music] the whole world-systems and causing them to vibrate, to quake and tremble with sounds so mighty as to daze one’s brain, and dancing various measures, will come to receive the faithful and punish the unfaithful.+

1 See p. 135°.

? Herein the dakinis are represented like various orders of fairy-like beings, some dwelling in one place, some in another. The eight places of cremation are the eight known to Hindu mythology ; the three abodes are the heart-centre, the throat-centre, and the brain-centre, over which, esoterically speaking, certain dakinis (as the personification of the psychic forces resident in each centre) preside, just as other ¢akints preside over the holy-places and places of pilgrimage,