Tibetan Book of the Dead (Bardo Thödol)
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Anonymous or composite
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~67,400 words · 320 passages
Cite this work
- APABardo Thodol. (n.d.). Tibetan Book of the Dead (Bardo Thödol). SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/bardo-thodol/the-tibetan-book-of-the-dead-bardo-thodol
- MLABardo Thodol. "Tibetan Book of the Dead (Bardo Thödol)." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/bardo-thodol/the-tibetan-book-of-the-dead-bardo-thodol.
- ChicagoBardo Thodol. Tibetan Book of the Dead (Bardo Thödol). SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/bardo-thodol/the-tibetan-book-of-the-dead-bardo-thodol.
What it is about
The Tibetan 'Bardo Thodol', a manual for attending the dying and the dead through the forty-nine days between one life and the next.
Context and history
The Tibetan title means 'liberation by hearing in the intermediate state': the text was read aloud beside the body, so that the consciousness of the dead might hear it and recognise what it was seeing. It describes three successive bardos, with the lights, the peaceful deities and then the wrathful ones, and repeats at every step the same instruction: what you see is your own mind, and it need not frighten you. Tradition ascribes it to Padmasambhava in the eighth century and has Karma Lingpa find it in the fourteenth; the name 'Tibetan Book of the Dead' is the English editor Evans-Wentz's, who published it in 1927 with a theosophical preface and notes that project onto it ideas the text does not state. Jung later wrote an influential psychological commentary, and that too brings its own vocabulary. What is here is a Buddhist liturgical text, not a treatise on death in general.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
‘The Dharma-Kaya of thine own mind thou shalt see; and seeing That, thou shalt have seen the All—The Vision Infinite, the Round of Death and Birth and the State of Freedom.’—Milarepa. Jetstin Kahbum, xii (Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup’s Translation. ) [BOre kK 1} (Eee a7 LBARDO MAND THE CHONYID BARDO|\ HERBIN LIETH THE SETTING-PACE-TO-FPACE HO. THE REALITY “IN THE “INTERMEDIATE SPATE: THE GREAT DELIVERANCE BY HEAR-ING WHILE ON THE AFTER-DEATH PLANE, FROM ‘THE PROFOUND DOCTRINE OF THE EMAN-CIPATING OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS BY MEDITAo1GON UPON THE PEACEFUL AND WRATHFUL WEITIES’* 1 Text: ZAB-CHOS ZHI-KHRO DGONGS-PA RANG-GROL LAS BAR-DOHI THOS-GROL CHEN-MO CHOS-NYID BAR-DOHI NGO-SPROD BZHUGS-SO (pronounced: ZAB-CHO SHI-HTO GONG-PA RANG-DOL LAY BAR-DOI THO-DOL CHEN-MO CHO-NYID BAR-DOI NGO-TOD ZHU-SO). DEATH’S MESSENGERS *Atx they who thoughtless are, nor heed, What time Death’s messengers appear, Must long the pangs of suffering feel In some base body habiting. But all those good and holy men, What time they see Death’s messengers, Behave not thoughtless, but give heed To what the Noble Doctrine says; And in attachment frighted see Of birth and death the fertile source, And from attachment free themselves, Thus birth and death extinguishing. Secure and happy ones are they, Released from all this fleeting show; Exempted from all sin and fear, All misery have they overcome.’ Anguttara-Nikaya, iii. 35° (Warren's Translation), BOOK 1] INFKODUCTORY SECTIONS 85 [THE OBEISANCES] To the Divine Body of Truth,! the Incomprehensible, Boundless Light ; To the Divine Body of Perfect Endowment,? Who are the Lotus and the Peaceful and the Wrathful Deities ; 3 To the Lotus-born Incarnation, Padma Sambhava,* Who is the Protector of all sentient beings ; To the Gurus, the Three Bodies,’ obeisance. [THE INTRODUCTION] This Great Doctrine of Liberation by Hearing, which conferreth spiritual freedom on devotees of ordinary wit while in the Intermediate State, hath three divisions: