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

There are even disciplinc-holding abbots [or dAzkkhus] and doctors in metaphysical discourses who err at this stage, and, not recognizing, wander into the Sangséara.

As for the common worldly folk, what need is there to mention them! By fleeing, through fear, terror, and awe, they fall over the precipices into the unhappy worlds and suffer. But the least of the least of the devotees of the mystic mantrayana doctrines, as soon as he sees these blood-drinking deities, will recognize them to be his tutelary deities, and the meeting will be like that of human acquaintances. He will trust them ; and becoming merged into them, in at-onement, will obtain Buddhahood.® the brain psychic-centre ; they are the excited, or wrathful, reflex forms of the Peaceful Deities (who, when contrasted with their wrathful aspects, include the Knowledge-Holding Deities). (See p. 858 and Addenda, pp. 217-9.)

1 The fear, terror, and awe (or fascination)—on the part of the deceased on beholding the deities—arise only in the case of the ordinary devotee, who, as the text explains, has not had adequate yogic training, ere death, to enable him to recognize the Bardo as such, immediately upon dying, and pass beyond it. For the adept in yoga, who can take the Bardo ‘by the forelock’, as the text puts it (p. 100), mastering Death, and who knows that all apparitional appearances are unreal and powerless, both in this world and in all other worlds, there is no Bardo to experience; his goal is either an immediate and conscious rebirth among men or in one of the paradise realms, or, if he be really ripened— which would be an exceedingly rare circumstance —Nivvana,

2 No sooner does one radiance cease than another dawns; the deceased not having a moment of distraction, his intellect becomes concentratedly (i.e. onepointedly) alert.

8 The blood symbolizes sangsdric existence ; the blood-drinking, the thirsting for, the drinking of, and the quenching of the thirst for, sangsdric existence.

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By having meditated on the description of these blooddrinking deities, while in the human world, and by having performed some worship or praise of them; or, at least, by having seen their painted likenesses and their images, upon witnessing the dawning of the deities at this stage, recognition of them will result, and liberation. In this lieth the art.

Again, at the death of those discipline-holding abbots and

In this lieth the art.

Again, at the death of those discipline-holding abbots and doctors in metaphysical discourses [who remain uninstructed in these Lardo teachings], however assiduously they may have devoted themselves to religious practices, and however clever they may have been in expounding doctrines while in the human world, there will not come any phenomenal signs such as rainbow-halo [at the funeral-pyre] nor bonereliques [from the ashes]. This is because when they lived the mystic [or esoteric] doctrines were never held within their heart, and because they had spoken contemptuously of them, and because they were never acquainted [through initiation] with the deities of the mystic [or esoteric] doctrines ; thus, when these dawn on the Bardo, they do not recognize them. Suddenly [seeing] what they had never seen before, they view it as inimical; and, an antagonistic feeling being engendered, they pass into the miserable states because of that. Therefore, if the observers of the disciplines, and the metaphysicians, have not in them the practices of the mystic for esoteric] doctrines, such signs as the rainbow-halo come not, nor are bone-reliques and seed-like bones ever produced [from the bones of their funeral-pyre]:1 these are the reasons for it. For the devotee who—even at this stage—can be made to realize that these deities are thus but the karmic personifications of his own propensities, born from having lived and drunken life, and who has, in addition, the supreme power to face them unwaveringly (as in Bulwer Lytton’s Zanoni the Neophyte to succeed must face the ‘ Dweller on the Threshold’), meeting them like old acquaintances, and then losing his personality in them, enlightenment as to the true nature of sangsaric existence dawns, and, with it, the All-Perfect Illumination called Buddhahood.

1 The belief, prevalent among almost all peoples since immemorial time, that unusual phenomena commonly mark the death (as the birth) and funeral of a great hero or saint, also prevails among the Tibetans; and the Jamas hold

that such phenomena have a purely rational explanation, such as our text herein suggests. Furthermore, the /dmas maintain that, if a reputed saint be

p. 134

The least of the least of mantrayanic [devotees ],—who may seem to be of very unrefined manners, unindustrious, untactful, and who may not live in accordance with his vows, and who in every way may be inelegant in his habits, and even unable, perhaps, to carry the practices of his teachings to a successful issue,—let no one feel disrespect for nor doubt him, but pay reverence to the esoteric [or mystic] doctrines [which he holdeth]. By that, alone, one obtaineth liberation at this stage.

By that, alone, one obtaineth liberation at this stage.

Even though the deeds [of one paying such reverence] may not have been very elegant while in the human world, at his death there will come at least one kind of sign, such as rainbow-radiance, bone-images, and bone-reliques. This is because the esoteric [or mystic] doctrines possess great gift-waves.’

[Those of, and] above, the mystic mantrayanic devotees of ordinary [psychic development], who have meditated upon the visualization and perfection processes and practised the essences [or essence mantras],? need not wander down this far on the Chényid Bardo. As soon as they cease to breathe, they will be led into the pure paradise realms by the Heroes and Heroines and the Knowledge-Holders.? As a sign of really a saint, among the charred bones from his funeral pyre there will be found some shaped into beautiful forms like images, and that small pearl-like (or, as the text has it, seed-like) nodules will appear in the ashes of the bones cremated.

1 That is to say, the esoteric doctrines being realizable—because based on Truth itself—one who follows or even reverences them is, thereby, automatically brought into rapport with very definite psychic forces.

2 That is to say, those devotees who have practised, in a thoroughly scientific manner, under a competent guru, the intonation of certain sacred mantras called essence mantras. Examples of such mantras are: Om Mani Padme Him (‘ Hail to the Jewel in the Lotus !’ or ‘Hail to Him Who is the Jewel in the Lotus !’); Om Wagi Short Mam (‘Hail to the Lord of Speech! Mam’); Om Vajra Pant Him (‘Hail to the Holder of the Dorje!’): the three essence mantras of ‘The Three Protectors’ of Lamaism; the first being the essence mantra of the Bodhisattva Chenrazee (Skt. Avalokita), ‘The Seer with keen eyes’, The Great Pitier; the second, that of the Bodhisattva Jampalyang (Skt. Maiijughosha), ‘The God of Mystic Wisdom’; and the third, that of the Bodhisattva Chakdor (Skt. Vajra-Pani), ‘The Wielder of the Thunderbolt’.

8 Cf. the following passage, from a prayer on behalf of the dying person, in The Book of the Craft of Dying, Chap. VI, Comper’s ed. (p. 45): ‘When thy soul passcth out of thy body, [may] glorious companics of angels come against thee : the victorious host, worthy judges, and senators of the holy apostles meet

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this, the sky will be cloudless; they will merge into rainbow radiance; there will be sun-showers, sweet scent of incense [in the air], music in the skies, radiances; bone-reliques and images [from their funeral-pyre].