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

Swedenborg, who also speaks of an intermediate state, says that, except for those immediately translated to Heaven or Hell, the first state of man after death is like his state in the world, so that he knows no other, believing that he is still in the world notwithstanding his death.!

Two illustrations may be given of the doctrine of the continuity and the similarity of experience before and immediately after death. In India, on the one hand, there are reports of hauntings by unhappy ghosts or Prezas, which hauntings are said to be allayed by the performance of the Preta Shraddha rite at the sacred town of Gaya. On the other hand, I have heard of a case in England where it was alleged that a haunting ceased on the saying of a Requiem Mass. In this case, it was supposed that a Catholic soul in Purgatory felt in need of a rite which in its earth-life it had been taught to regard as bringing peace to the dead. The Hindu ghost craves for the Hindu rite which gives to it a new body in lieu of that destroyed on the funeral pyre. These souls do not (in an Indian view) cease to be Hindu or Catholic, or lose their respective beliefs because of their death. Nor (in this view) do those who have passed on necessarily and at once lose any habit, even though it be drinking and smoking. But in the after-death state the ‘whisky and cigars’ of which we have heard are not gross, material things. Just as a dream reproduces waking experiences, so in the after-death state a man who was wont to drink and smoke imagines that he still does so. We have here to deal with ‘dream-whisky’ and ‘ dreamcigars’ which, though imaginary, are, for the dreamer, as real as the substances he drank and smoked in his waking state.”

1 De Coelo, ed. 1868, 493-7.

2 The editor has heard of a European planter who, having died in the jungles of the Malabar country of South-west India, was buried there by the people. Some years afterwards, a friend of the planter found the grave carefully fenced in and covered with empty whisky and beer bottles. At a loss to understand such an unusual sight, he asked for an explanation, and was told that the dead sahib’s ghost had caused much trouble and that no way had been e€ 2

XXXVI FOREWORD

At a loss to understand such an unusual sight, he asked for an explanation, and was told that the dead sahib’s ghost had caused much trouble and that no way had been e€ 2

XXXVI FOREWORD

Subsequently, the deceased becomes aware that he zs ‘ dead’. But as he carries over with him the recollection of his past life, he, at first, still thinks that he has such a physical body as he had before. It is, in fact, a dream-body, such as that of persons seen in dreams, It is an imagined body, which, as the Text says, is neither reflected in a mirror nor casts a shadow, and which can do such wonders as passing through mountains and the like, since Imagination is the greatest of magicians. Even in life on earth a man may imagine that he has a limb where he has none. Long after a man’s leg has been amputated above the knee he can ‘feel his toes’, or is convinced that the soles of his feet (buried days before) are tickling. In the after-death state the deceased imagines that he has a physical body, though he has been severed therefrom by the high surgery of death. In such a body the deceased gocs through the experiences next described.

In the First Bardo the deceased glimpses the Clear Light, as the Dharma-K aya, called by Professor Sylvain Lévy the ‘Essential Body’. This, which is beyond form (Avipa), is the Dharma-Dhatu, or Matrix of Dharma-substance, whence all the Blessed Ones, or Zathagatas, issue. This is the body of a Buddhain Wirvana. The second body, or Sambhoga-K aya, has such subtle form (Ranpavan) as is visible to the Bodhisattvas, and is an intermediate manifestation of the Dharma-Dhatu. In the third body, or Wzrmdana-K aya,the Void, or State of Buddhahood, is exteriorized into multiple individual appearances more material, and, therefore, visible to the gross senses of men, such as the forms in which the manifested Buddhas (for there are many and not, as some think, only one, or Gautama) have appearcd on carth. If the deccased recognizes the Clear Light of the First Bardo, he is liberated in the discovered to lay the ghost until an old witch-doctor declared that the ghost craved whisky and beer, to which it had long been habituated when in the flesh and which were the real cause of its separation from the fleshly body. The people, although religiously opposed to intoxicants, began purchasing bottled whisky and beer of the same brands which the sath was well known to have uscd, and, with a regular ritual for the dead, began sacrificing them to the ghost by pouring them out upon the grave. Finding that this kept the ghost quict they kept up the practice in sclf-defence.—W. Y. E-W.

PATHS [O) LIBERATION XXXVii

Finding that this kept the ghost quict they kept up the practice in sclf-defence.—W. Y. E-W.

PATHS [O) LIBERATION XXXVii

Dharma-Kaya. Inthe Second Bardo Liberation is into the Sambhoga-K aya (the passage touching the Paradise Realms is not, I think, meant to conflict with this); and in the Third Lardo Liberation is experienced in the Nivmana-K aya. During the Second and Third Bardo the deceased is in the Maytk-world (or world of forms), and if Liberation is then attained it is with form (Aapavan). The deceased being thus in the world of duality, we find that from this point onwards there is a double parallel presentation to his consciousness. There is firstly a Virvauic line, comprising the Five Dhyani Buddhas of the Sambhoga-K aya,symbolized by various dazzling colours, with certain Divinities, peaceful and wrathful, emanating from them; and, secondly, a Saxgsaric line, consisting of the Six Lokas. These latter, with one exception (if it be one and not due to corruption of text, viz. the association of the smoky or black light of Hell with the blue Vajra-Sattva), have the same colour as their Nzrva@uic counterparts, but of a dull hue. With the Zokas are given their ‘Poisons’, or the sinful characteristics of their inhabitants. The ‘soul-complex’ is then adjured, on the one hand, to seek Liberation through the compassionate grace of the Vzrvauic line of Buddhas and Devatas (Divinities), and, on the other hand, to shun the particular Loka (World) which is concomitantly presented to his mental vision. With these Buddhas, Devatds, and Lokas are associated certain Nidanas (Causal Connexions), Skandhas (Constituent Factors), material elements, and the colours of the latter. This account appears to have suffered from corruption of the Text. Thus the Vidazas and Skandhas are not complete. Logically, Viana Skandha should go first with Vatrochana, and Nama-ripa with Vajra-Sattva. Only four out of the five elements are mentioned. Ether, which is omitted, should be associated with Vatrochana and Vijiana. The colours of the elements accord with those given in the Hindu Zaztras except as regards ‘air’, to which is assigned a green colour, appropriate for Asuric jealousy, though it is not that of the Hindu colouration, which is smoky grey. Again, the order of the Six Lokas is not the usual one, viz. first the better Lokas, of Devas, Asuras,

XXXViIil FOREWORD

and Men, and then the Lokas of Ghosts (Pretas), Brutes, and Hell. Each Zoka is characterized by its ‘ poison’ or besetting sin, but, of these, five only are mentioned. The editor has, however, referred to corruption in the Text in some of these matters, and others I have noted on a careful analysis of the translated Text.