Turning now to our text itself, we find that structurally it is founded upon the symbolical number Forty-nine, the square of the sacred number Seven ; for, according to occult teachings common to Northern Buddhism and to that Higher Hinduism which the Hindu-born Bodhisattva Who became the Buddha Gautama, the Reformer of the Lower Hinduism and the Codifier of the Secret Lore, never repudiated, there are seven worlds or seven degrees of Maya? within the Sangsara,’ con- stituted as seven globes of a planetary chain. On each globe there are seven rounds of evolution, making the forty-nine (seven times seven) stations of active existence. As in the
1 It is probably unnecessary for the editor to remind his friends who profess the Theravada Buddhism of the Southern School that, in preparing this Intro- duction, his aim has necessarily been to present Buddhism chiefly from the standpoint of the Northern Buddhism of the Kargyutpa Sect (see page 79), by which the Bardo Thédol is accepted as a sacred book and to which the translator belonged. Although the Southern Buddhist may not agree with the Bardo Thédol teachings in their entirety, he will, nevertheless, be very apt to find them, in most essentials, based upon doctrines common to all Schools and Sects of Buddhism ; and he may even find those of them with which he disagrees interesting and possibly provocative of a reconsideration of certain of his own antagonistic beliefs,
2 Maya, the Sanskrit equivalent of the Tibetan Gyama (Sgyiima), means a magical or illusory show, with direct reference to the phenomena of Nature. In a higher sense, in Brahmanism, it refers to the Shakti of Brahman (the Supreme Spirit, the Ain Soph of Judaism).
8 The Sanskrit term Sangsdra (or Samsara), Tibetan Khorva (Hkhorva), refers to the phenomenal universe itself, its antithesis being Nirvana (Tib. Myang-hdas), which is beyond phenomena (cf, pp. 67-8).
The Esotericism 7
embryonic state in the human species the foetus passes through every form of organic structure from the amoeba to man, the highest mammal, so in the after-death state, the embryonic state of the psychic world, the Knower or principle of con- sciousness, anterior to its re-emergence in gross matter, ana- logously experiences purely psychic conditions. In other words, in both these interdependent embryonic processes— the one physical, the other psychical—the evolutionary and the involutionary attainments, corresponding to the forty-nine stations of existence, are passed through.
Similarly, the forty-nine days of the Bardo may also be symbolical of the Forty and Nine Powers of the Mystery of the Seven Vowels. In Hindu mythology, whence much of the Bardo symbolism originated, these Vowels were the Mystery of the Seven Fires and their forty-nine subdivisional fires or aspects. They are also represented by the Svastika signs upon the crowns of the seven heads of the Serpent of Eternity of the Northern Buddhist Mysteries, originating in ancient India. In Hermetic writings they are the seven zones of after-death, or Bardo, experiences, each symbolizing the eruption in the Intermediate State of a particular seven- fold element of the complex principle of consciousness, thus giving the consciousness-principle forty-nine aspects, or fires, or fields of manifestation }.
The number seven has long been a sacred number among Aryan and other races, Its use in the Revelation of John illustrates this, as does the conception of the seventh day being regarded as holy. In Nature, the number seven governs the periodicity and phenomena of life, as, for example, in the series of chemical elements, in the physics of sound and colour, and it is upon the number forty-nine, or seven times seven, that the Bardo Thodol is thus scientifically based.
1 As regards the esoteric meaning of the Forty-nine Days of the Bardo, compare H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine (London, 1888), i. 238, 411 ; ii. 617, 627-8. The late Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup was of opinion that, despite the adverse criticisms directed against H. P. Blavatsky’s works, there is adequate internal evidence in them of their author’s intimate acquaintance with the higher lamaistic teachings, into which she claimed to have been initiated.
8 Introduction
Iv. the Esoteric Significance of the Five Elements
Likewise, in a very striking manner, the esoteric teachings concerning the Five Elements, as symbolically expounded in the Bardo Thédol, parallel, for the most part, certain of the teachings of Western Science, as the following inter- pretation, based upon that made by the translator himself, indicates:
In the First Round of our Planet, one element alone— Fire—was evolved. In the fire-mist, which, in accordance with the sarmic law governing the Sangsara, or cosmos, assumed a rotary motion and became a blazing globular body of undifferentiated primeval forces, all the other elements lay in embryo. Life first manifested itself clothed in robes of fire; and man, if we conceive him as then existing, was incar- nate—as the Salamanders of medieval occultism were believed to be—in a body of fire. In the Second Round, as the Element Fire assumed definite form, the Element Air sepa- rated from it and enwrapped the embryonic Planet as a shell covers anegg. The body of man, and of all organic creatures, thereupon became a compound of fire and air. In the Third Round, as the Planet, bathed in the Element Air and fanned by it, abated its fiery nature, the Element Water came forth from the vaporous air. In the Fourth Round, in which the Planet still is, air and water neutralized the activities of their Parent Fire; and the Fire, bringing forth the Element Earth, became encrusted with it. Esoterically, the same teachings are said to be conveyed by the old Hindu myth of the churning of the Sea of Milk, which was the Fire-Mist, whence came, like butter, the solid earth. Upon the earth, so formed, the gods are credited with having fed; or, in other words, they, hankering after existence in gross physical bodies, became incarnated on this Planet and so became the Divine Progenitors of the human race.
In the Bardo, on the first four days these Four Elements
manifest themselves, or dawn upon the deceased, in their
primordial form, although not in their true occult order.!
? It is held, too, that whereas from the Five Dhyani Buddhas, as in our text,
The Esotericism 9
The Fifth Element, Ether, in its primal form, symbolized as ‘the green light-path of the Wisdom of Perfected Actions’, does not dawn, for, as the text explains, the Wisdom (or Bodhic) Faculty of the consciousness of the deceased has not been perfectly developed.
The Ether Element, like the aggregate of matter (sym- bolical of the fire-mist), is personified in Vairochana, He Who in Shapes makes visible all things. The psychical attri- bute of the Ether Element is—to render the /amaic conception in the language of the psychology of the West—that of the subconsciousness; and the subconsciousness, as a transcen- dental consciousness higher than the normal consciousness in mankind, and as yet normally undeveloped, is—as the vehicle for the manifestation of the Bodhic Faculty—believed to be destined to become the active consciousness of the humanity of the Fifth Round. The memory-records of all past ex- periences throughout the many states of sazgsdric existence being latent in the subconsciousness, as the Buddha’s own teachings imply (see pp. 40-41), the Fifth Round races in whom it becomes active will thus be able to recall all their past existences. In place of faith or mere belief, Man will then possess Knowledge, will come to know himself in the sense implied by the Mysteries of ancient Greece; he will realize the unreality of sangsdric existence, attaining Enlighten- ment and Emancipation from the Sexgsara, from all the Elements ; and this will come as a normal process of human evolution. It is, however, the aim in all schools of Indian and Tibetan Yoga alike—as in the Lardo Thoédol—to outstrip this tedious process of normal evolution and win Freedom even now.
In the body of man as he is—in our present Fourth emanate the five elements—ether, or aggregate of matter (Vairochana), air, or aggregate of volition (Amogha-Siddhi), fire, or aggregate of feelings (Amitabha), water, or aggregate of consciousness (Vajra-Sattva, esoterically as a reflex of Akshobhya), and earth, or aggregate of touch (Ratna-Sambhava)—from the Adi- Buddha (from whom, according to the Adi-Buddha School, the Five Dhyani Buddhas themselves emanate) emanates the sixth element, which is mind (manas). Vajra-Sattva, as an esoteric deity, sometimes occupies (as does Vairochana)—according to the School and ritual—the place of the Adi-Buddha, and is then synonymous with him,
10 Introduction
Round—there are four kingdoms of living creatures: (1) those of the Element Fire, (2) those of the Element Air, (3) those of the Element Water, and (4) those of the Element Earth. Over this collective life of innumerable myriads of lives man is king. If he be a Great King, filled with the transcendent consciousness of the triumphant Yogz (or Saint), to him the countless multitude of his elemental subjects severally reveal themselves in their true nature and place in his hand the Sceptre (symbolized by the Tibetan dovje, or thunderbolt) of Universal Dominion over Matter. Then, indeed, is he Lord of Nature, becoming in his turn Ruler by Divine Right, a Chakravartin, or Universal Emperor, God and Creator.!
V. the Wisdom Teachings
Also involved in symbolical language there are, as funda- mental occult doctrines of the Bardo Thodol, what the trans- lator called The Wisdom Teachings; and these—which are essential Mahayana doctrines—may be outlined as follows:
The Voidness.—In all Tibetan systems of yoga, realization of the Voidness (Tib. Stong-pa-iid—pron. Tong-pa-hid: Skt. Shinyata) is the one great aim; for to realize it is to attain the unconditioned Dharma-K aya, or ‘ Divine Body of Truth’ (Tib. Chos-sku—pron. Ché-Ku), the primordial state of un- createdness, of the supramundane Bodhic All-Consciousness— Buddhahood. Realization of the Voidness (Pali, Su##ata) is the aim of Theravadists too.
The Three Bodies.—The Dharma-K Gya is the highest of the Three Bodies (Tib. Sku-gsum—pron. K a-sum: Skt. Tri-K aya) of the Buddha and of all Buddhas and beings who have Perfect Enlightenment. The other two bodies are the Sambhoga-K aya or ‘Divine Body of Perfect Endowment’ (Tib. Longs-spyod- rzogs-sku—pron. Long-chod-zo-ku) and the Nirmana-K aya or
* Manu, in The Laws (xii. 10-11), says: ‘He, whose firm understanding obtains a command over his words, a command over his thoughts, and a command
over his whole body, may justly be called a Triple-Commander.
‘The man who exerts this triple self-command with respect to all animated creatures, wholly subduing both lust and wrath, shall by those means attain Beatitude.’—(Cf, trans, by Sir William Jones.)
THE WISDOM TEACHINGS i
‘Divine Body of Incarnation’ (Tib. Spral-pahi-sku-—pron. Tul- pat-ku).
The Dharma-Kaya is symbolized—for all human word- concepts are inadequate to describe the Qualityless—as an _infinite ocean, calm and without a wave, whence arise mist- clouds and rainbow, which symbolize the Sambhoga-Kaya; and the clouds, enhaloed in the glory of the rainbow, con- densing and falling as rain, symbolize the Mzrmana-K aya
The Dharma-K aya is the primordial, formless Bohdz, which is true experience freed from all error or inherent or acci- dental obscuration. In it lies the essence of the Universe, including both Saugsaéra and Nirvana, which, as states or conditions of the two poles of consciousness, are, in the last analysis, in the realm of the pure intellect, identical.
In other words, the Dharma-K aya (lit. ‘Law Body’) being
Essential Wisdom (Sodhz) unmodified, the Sambhoga-K aya
(lit. ‘Compensation Body’, or ‘Adorned Body’) embodies,
as in the Five Dhyani Buddhas, Reflected or Modified
Wisdom, and the Virmdnua-Kaya (lit. ‘Changeable Body’,
or ‘ Transformed Body’) embodies, as in the Human Buddhas,
Practical or Incarnate Wisdom.®
1 Sj. Atal Bihari Ghosh (see our Preface, p. x) has added here the following comment: ‘The word Dharma is derived from the verb-root Dhri, meaning ‘to Support’ or ‘to Uphold’, Dkarma is that which upholds or supports the Universe, as also the individual. Dharma is in mankind Right Conduct, the result of True Knowledge. Truth according to Brahmanism is the Brahman, is Liberation—Moksha, Nirvana. Sambhoga is the Life of Enjoyment. Mixmdna is the Process of Building. In the Brahmanic scheme, Dharma is the first thing needed. Then comes Artha (i.e. Wealth, or Possessions), which corresponds with Wirmaza. After this comes Sambhoga ; and the last is Moksha, or Liberation.’
2 ‘Whatever is visible and invisible, whether Sangsara or Nirvana, is at base one (that is, Shinyala|, with two Paths [Avidyd, Ignorance, and Vidya, Knowledge] and two ends [Sangsdra and Mirvana).’ ... ‘The Foundation of all is uncreated and independent, uncompounded and beyond mind and speech, Of It neither the word Mirvana nor Sangsara may be said ’—The Good Wishes of the Adi-Buddha, 1-2 (cf. the late Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup’s transla- tion, TZantnk Texts, vol, vii, London, 1919). The Skinyatd, the Void, synony- mous with the Dharma-Kaya, is thus beyond all mental concepts, beyond the finite mind with all its imaginings and use of such ultimate terms of the dualistic world as Nirvana and Sangsara.
8 Cf. Waddell, op. cit., pp. 127, 347:
Ashvaghosha, the great philosopher of Mahayana Buddhism (see pp. 225-6),