When the death-symptoms, as described in the first sections of our text, are completed, a white cloth is thrown over the face of the corpse ; and no person then touches the corpse, in order that the culminating process of death, which ends only upon the complete separation of the Bardo body from its earth-plane counterpart, shall not be interfered with. It is commonly held that normally the process takes from three and one-half to four days, unless assisted by a priest called the Zpho-bo (pron. pho-o) or ‘extractor of the consciousness- principle’; and that, even if the priest be successful in the extracting, the deceased ordinarily does not wake up to the fact of being separated from the human body until the said period of time has expired.
The %pho-b0, upon his arrival, takes a seat on a mat or chair at the head of the corpse; he dismisses all lament- making relatives from the death-chamber and orders its doors and windows to be closed, so as to secure the silence necessary for the right performance of the Zpo-bo service. This consists of a mystic chant containing directions for the spirit of the deceased to find its way to the Western Paradise of Amitabha, and thus escape—if karma permits—the undesirable Inter- mediate State. After commanding the spirit to quit the body and its attachment to living relatives and goods, the /ama examines the crown of the head of the corpse at the line of the sagittal suture, where the two parietal bones articulate, called the ‘ Aperture of Brahma’ (Skt. Brakma-randhra), to determine if the spirit has departed thence, as it should have done; and, if the scalp be not bald, he pulls out a few of the hairs directly over the aperture. If through accident or
The Death Ceremonies 19
otherwise there be no corpse, the /ama mentally concentrates upon the deceased, and, visualizing the body of the deceased, imagines it to be present; and, calling the spirit of the deceased, performs the ceremony, which usually lasts about one hour.
Meanwhile, the ¢s¢-pa, or astrologer-/ama, has been engaged to cast a death-horoscope, based upon the moment of death of the deceased, to determine what persons may approach and touch the corpse, the proper method of disposing of the corpse, the time and manner of the funeral, and the sort of rites to be performed for the benefit of the departed. Then the corpse is tied up in a sitting posture, much the same as that in which mummies and skeletons have been found in ancient graves or tombs in various parts of the world, and sometimes called the embryonic posture, symbolical of being born out of this life into the life beyond death. The corpse, so postured, is then placed in one of the corners of the death- chamber which has not been assigned to the household daemon.
Relatives and friends, having been notified of the death, gather together at the house of the deceased; and there they are fed and lodged until the corpse is disposed of. If doubt exists concerning the complete separation of the conscious- ness-principle (or spirit) of the deceased from the body, there is not likely to be any disposal of the corpse until three and one-half to four days after the time of the death. So long as the entertaining of the mourners continues—usually for not less than two, but more often for three days—the spirit of the deceased is offered a part of all food, both solid and liquid, of each meal. This food is placed in a bowl in front of the corpse; and then, after the spirit of the deceased has extracted from the food thus offered the subtle invisible essences, the food is thrown away. After the corpse has been removed from the house for final disposal, an effigy of the deceased is put in the corner of the room which the corpse had occupied ; and before this effigy food continues thus to be offered until the forty-nine days of the Bardo have expired.
Whilst the funeral rites—including the reading of the Bardo Thidol—are being performed, in the house of the deceased or
20 Introduction
at the place of death, other /amas chant by relays, all day and night, the service for assisting the spirit of the deceased to reach the Western Paradise of Amitabha, In Tibetan, this service (which the 4pho-0 also chants) is called De-qwa-chan- kyi-mon-lam. Wf the family be well-to-do, another service of like nature may be performed at the temple wherein the deceased used to worship, by all of the monks of the temple assembled.
After the funeral, the /amas who read the Bardo Thodot return to the house of death once a week until the forty-ninth day of the Intermediate State has ended. It is not un- common, however, for them to intermit one day of the first week and of each of the succeeding periods in order to shorten the service, so that they return after six, five, four, three, two, and one day respectively, thereby concluding the reading in about three weeks.
From the First to the Fourteenth Day, as the arrangement of Book One of our text suggests, the Chonyid Bardo is to be read and re-read, and from the Fifteenth Day onwards the Sidpa Bardo. In poorer families the rites may cease after the Fourteenth Day ; for families in better circumstances It is usual in Sikkim to continue the rites at least until the expira- tion of the twenty-one-day period and sometimes during the whole period of the Forty-nine Days of the Bardo. On the first day of the funeral rites, if the deceased were a man of wealth or position, as many as one hundred Jamas may assist ; at the funeral of a poor man only one or two lamas are likely to be present. After the Fourteenth Day, as a rule for all alike, only one /ama is retained to complete the reading.
The effigy of the body of the deceased is made by dressing a stool, block of wood, or other suitable object in the clothes of the deceased; and where the face should be there is inserted a printed paper called the mtshan-spyang or spyang-pu (pronounced chang-ku), of which the following reproduction of a specimen is typical :}
‘ Our reproduction, made by special permission given to the editor by Dr.
L. A. Waddell, is from pl. xxi, Gasetteer of Sikhim, edited by H. H. Risley (Calcutta, 1894), section on Lamaism in Sikhim by L. A. Waddell.
in ian ns WAR aah; | pats {
The Effigy of the Dead Person
(1. Mirror, 2. Conch, 3. Lyre. 4. Vase with flowers. 5. Holy Cake.)
22 Introduction
In this spyang-pu, the central figure represents the deceased with legs bound and in an attitude of adoration, surrounded by symbols of ‘ the five excellent sensuous things’: (1) a mirror (the first of the three objects on the left and numbered 1), symbolical of the body, which reflects all phenomena or sensations, and of sight as well; (2) a conch (numbered 2) and a lyre (numbered 3), symbolical of sound; (3) a vase of flowers (numbered 4), symbolical of smell; (4) holy cakes in a receptacle like that employed at the Roman Catholic Eucharist (numbered 5), symbolical of essence or nutriment, and of taste ; (5) the silk clothes of the central figure and the over- hanging royal canopy, symbolical of dress and ornamental art, and of the sense of touch. It is before such a paper figure, inserted in the effigy as a head and face, that the food offerings to the spirit of the deceased continue to be made, and to which, when visualized by the /a@ma as the deceased in person, the Bardo Thédol is read.
Having begun my Tibetan researches fresh from three years of research in the ancient funeral lore of the Nile Valley, I realized as soon as I gained knowledge of the Tibetan funeral rites—which are very largely pre-Buddhistic—that the efhgy of the dead, as now used in Tibet and Sikkim, is so definitely akin to the effigy of the deceased called ‘the statue of the Osiris (or deceased one)’, as used in the funeral rites of ancient Egypt, as to suggest a common origin. Furthermore, the spyang-pu taken by itself alone, as the head-picce for the effigy, has its Egyptian parallel in the images made for the Ka or spirit. These sometimes were merely heads, complete in themselves, to replace or duplicate the head of the mummy and to furnish additional assistance to the Ka when seeking— as the Knower in the Bardo seeks—a body to rest in, or that which our text calls a prop for the body (see p. 182). And even as to ‘the statue of the Osiris’ the ancient priests of Egypt read their Book of the Dead, so to the Tibetan effigy the Jamas now read the Bardo Thédol—both treatises alike being nothing more than guide-books for the traveller in the realm beyond death.
Again, the preliminary rituals of the Egyptian funeral were
The Death Ceremonies 23
designed to confer upon the deceased the magic power of rising up in the ghost-body or Ka possessed of all sense faculties, the service having consisted of ‘the opening of the mouth and eyes’ and the restoration of the use of all other parts of the body. Likewise, the /amas’ aim, at the outset, is to restore complete consciousness to the deceased after the swoon-state immediately following death, and to accustom him to the unfamiliar environment of the Otherworld, assum- ing that he be, like the multitude, one of the unenlightened, and thus incapable of immediate emancipation.
In conformity with our own view, that that part of the Tibetan funeral rites directly concerned with the effigy and the spyang-pu has come down to our day as a survival from pre-Buddhist, probably very ancient, times, Dr. L. A. Waddell writes of it as follows: ‘ This is essentially a B6n rite, and is referred to as such in the histories of Gurz Padma Sambhava, as being practised by the Bén [i.e. the religion prevalent in Tibet before the advent of Buddhism, and, in its transcen- dentalism, much like Taoism], and as having incurred the displeasure of the Guru Padma Sambhava, the founder of Lamaism.’
Of the spyang-pu itself, Dr. Waddell adds: ‘Its inscrip- tion [as in our copy above] usually runs :
‘T, the world-departing One,... (and here is inserted the name of the deceased), adore and take refuge in my /a@ma- confessor, and all the deities, both mild [translated by us as “peaceful” ] and wrathful;1 and [may] “the Great Pitier”? forgive my accumulated sins and impurities of former lives, and show me the way to another good world!’
At the left shoulder of the central figure of the spyang-pu, as in our copy, and sometimes down the middle in other
1 ¢Of the hundred superior deities, forty-two are supposed to be mild, and fifty-eight of an angry nature.’—L. A. Waddell.
2 ¢ An aboriginal or Chinese deity now identified with Avalokita, with whom he has much in common.’—L, A. Waddell.
3 Our translation is based upon that made by Dr. Waddell; cf. Gazetteer of Sikhim, pp. 387-8.
24 Introduction
copies, are inscribed phonetic symbols referring to the six worlds of sangsdaric existence, translated as follows :
S = sura, ot god, referring to the deva-world ;
A = asura, or titan, referring to the asura-world ;
Na = xara, or man, referring to the human-world ;
Tri = ¢risan, or brute animal, referring to the brute-world ;
Pre = preta, or unhappy ghost, referring to the preta-world ;
and Hung (from hunu, meaning ‘ fallen’) = hell, referring to the hell-world.?
At the termination of the funeral rites the spyang-pu or face-paper is ceremoniously burned in the flame of a butter- lamp, and the spirit of the deceased given a final farewell. By the colour of the flame and the way in which the flame acts the after-death fate which the deceased has met with is determined.
The ashes of the cremated spyang-pu are collected in a plate, and then, upon being mixed with clay, are made into miniature stupas called sa-¢schha, usually in moulds leaving impressions either of symbolical ornamentation or of sacred letters. One is kept for the family altar in the home of the deceased, and the rest are deposited in a sheltered place at a cross-roads or on a hill-top, usually under a projecting ledge of rock, or in a cave if there happens to be a cave.
With the burning of the paper, the rest of the effigy of the deceased is taken apart, the clothes going to the /amas, who carry them off and sell them to the first purchaser, keeping the proceeds as part of their fee. When one year has elapsed after the death, a feast in honour of the deceased is usually given and the service of the Medical Buddhas is performed.? Thereafter, a widow of the deceased is free to remarry.®