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

Meru; the smallest, eighteen times one’s own body, will come filling the world-systems. They will come having thcir upper teeth biting the nether lip; their eyes glassy ; their hairs tied up on the top of the head ; big-bellied, narrow-waisted ; holding a [karmic] record-

1 Text : Mgon-po-Nag-po (pron. Gon-po-Nag-po): Skt. Kala-Nath, commonly known in India as Maha-Kala. At this stage, all the illusory forms of the Peaceful Deities blend and appear as this one deity,

2 Text: Gshin-rje-hi-chés-kyt-rgyal-po (pron. Shin-jei-ché-kyi-gyal-po): Skt. Dharma-Rdaja + Yama-Raja. As described here and in the Second Book of the Bardo Thédol (sce p. 167!) this illusory deity commonly assumes many and varied forms capable of merging into a single form.

p. 148

board! in the hand; giving utterance from their mouth to sounds of ‘Strike! Slay!’, licking [human] brain, drinking blood, tearing heads from corpses, tearing out [the] hearts: thus will [they] come, filling the worlds.

O nobly-born, when such thought-forms emanate, be thou not afraid, nor terrified; the body which now thou possessest being a mental-body of [karmic] propensities, though slain and chopped [to bits], cannot die. Because thy body is, in reality, one of voidness, thou needest not fear. The [bodies of the] Lord of Death, too, are emanations from the radiances of thine own intellect ; they are not constituted of matter; voidness cannot injure voidness. Beyond the emanations of thine own intellectual faculties, externally, the Peaceful and the Wrathful Ones, the Blood-Drinking Ones, the Various-Headed Ones, the rainbow lights, the terrifying forms of the Lord of Death, exist not in reality: of this, there is no doubt. Thus, knowing this, all the fear and terror is self-dissipated; and, merging in the state of at-one-ment, Buddhahood is obtained.

If thou recognizest in that manner, exerting thy faith and affection towards the tutelary deities and believing that they have come to receive thee amidst the ambuscades of the Bardo, think, ‘[1] take refuge [in them]’; and remember the Precious Trinity, exerting towards them [the Trinity] fondness and faith. Whosoever thine own tutelary deity may be, recollect now ; [and] calling him by name, pray thus:

Whosoever thine own tutelary deity may be, recollect now ; [and] calling him by name, pray thus:

' Text: khram-shing (pron. htam-shing), referring to a board—cither a floggingboard such as that on which culprits are stretched and flogged in Tibet, or else, as here, a board written over with karmic records of the deceased’s life. Khram is the name given to a scroll of records or an inventory like a rent-roll; shing alone means ‘wood’, Hence we may render the two words as ‘ wood-register’ or ‘record-board’. In the great Tibetan Arthurian-like saga called in Tibetan Ge-sar-bsgrungs (pron. Ke-sar-doong), or Kesar Saga (of unknown author, but probably dating from the eighth or ninth century a.p.), which is so much the popular saga of Tibet that many Tibetans know it by heart, a boy, thirteen years of age, who, when wishing to join in a battle, is held back by fond relatives, brushes them aside, saying, ‘ The place of illness, the place of death, and the place of cremation are in accordance with the [karmic] register of the Lords of Death’; and here the Tibetan word for register is khram.

The verification of our rendering of this passage is important because, like other passages in the Bardo Thédol, particularly the closely-related passage describing the Judgement, coming in the Second Book (pp. 165-9), it has striking correspondence with parts of the Egyptian Book of the Dead,

PART TI] PRAYERS FOR LIBERATION 149

‘Alas !], wandering am I in the Bardo; run to my rescue ;
Uphold me by thy grace, O Precious Tutelary!’

Calling upon the name of thine own gura, pray thus:

‘[Alas!] wandering am I in the Bardo; rescue me!
[O] let not thy grace forsake me!’

Have faith in the Blood-Drinking Deities, too, and offer up
this prayer:
‘Alas! when [I am] wandering in the Sangsara, through
force of overpowering illusions,
On the light-path of the abandonment of fright, fear, and awe,
May the bands of the Bhagavans, the Peaceful and Wrathful
Ones, lead [me] ;
May the bands of the Wrathful Goddesses Rich in Space
be [my] rear-guard,
And save me from the fearful ambuscades of the Bardo,
And place me in the state of the Perfectly-Enlightened
Buddhas.
When wandering alone, separated from dear friends,
When the void forms of one’s own thoughts are shining here,
May the Buddhas, exerting the force of their grace,
Cause not to come the fear, awe, and terror in the Bardo.
When the five bright Wisdom-Lights are shining here,
May recognition come without dread and without awe ;
When the divine bodies of the Peaceful and the Wrathful
are shining here,
May the assurance of fearlessness be obtained and the
Bardo be recognized.
When, by the power of evil karma, misery is being tasted,
May the tutelary deities dissipate the misery ;
When the natural sound of Reality is reverberating [like]
a thousand thunders,
May they be transmuted into the sounds of the Six
Syllables."

When, by the power of evil karma, misery is being tasted,
May the tutelary deities dissipate the misery ;
When the natural sound of Reality is reverberating [like]
a thousand thunders,
May they be transmuted into the sounds of the Six
Syllables."

1 These are of the essence mantra of Chenrazee (Avalokiteshvara), being Ow- Ma-ni-Pad-me-Him (pron. Om-Ma-ni-Pay-mé-Hing). (See p. 1342.) Chenrazee being the patron-god, or national tutelary deity, of Tibet, and this being his mantra, its repetition, both in the human world and on the Bardo plane, is credited with bringing to an end the cycle of rebirth and thereby giving entrance

p. 150

When unprotected, Zarma having to be followed here,

I beseech the Gracious Compassionate [One]! to protect me ;

When suffering miseries of karmic propensities here,

May the blissfulness of the Clear Light dawn ;

May the Five Elements? not rise up as enemies ;

But may I behold the realms of the Five Orders of the
Enlightened Ones.’

Thus, in earnest faith and humility, offer up the prayer ; whereby all fears will vanish and Buddhahood in the Sambhaga- Kaya will undoubtedly be won: important is this. Being undistracted, repeat it in that manner, three or [even] seven times.

into Mrvdua; hence its importance in the Bardo prayer. In the Tibetan work called Mani-bkah-hbum (pron. Ma-nt-kah-boom), i.e. ‘ History of the Mani (or Mantra of Chenrazee)’ this #antra is said to be ‘the essence of all happiness, prosperity, and knowledge, and the great means of liberation’ ; also it is said that the dm closes the door of rebirth among the gods, md, among the asuras (or titans), ##, among mankind, pay, among sub-human creatures, mé, among pretas (or unhappy ghosts), and hing, among the inhabitants of Hell. Accordingly, each of the six syllables is given the colour of the light-path corresponding to the six states of existence, thus: 6, the white light-path of the deva-loka (or world of the gods); md, the green light-path of the asura-loka (or world of the titans) ; »?, the yellow light-path of the manaka-loka (or human world); pay, the blue light-path of the “#ryaka-loka (or brute world); sé, the red light-path of the preta-loka (or ghost world) ; and hing, the smoke-coloured or black lightpath of the naraka-loka (or Hell world).

There is an old Tibetan folk-tale concerning a religious devotee who tried to incline his irreligious mother to devotional observances and merely succeeded in habituating her to the recitation of this santva. Her bad karma predominating over her good karma, at death she passed into the Hell-world, whereupon her son, being proficient in yoga, went to her rescue; and she, upon seeing him, was able, in virtue of having recited the santra on earth, to recite it in Hell, and instantaneously she and all who heard it were liberated from Hell: for, as the tale at its end teaches, ‘Such is the power of the mantra’.