If thou art frightened by the pure radiances of Wisdom and attracted by the impure lights of the Six Lokas, then thou wilt assume a body in any of the Six Lofas and suffer sang- saric miseries; and thou wilt never be emancipated from the Ocean of Sangsara, wherein thou wilt be whirled round and round and made to taste of the sufferings thereof.
O nobly-born, if thou art one who hath not obtained the select words of the guru, thou wilt have fear of the pure radiances of Wisdom and of the deities thereof. Being thus frightened, thou wilt be attracted towards the impure sangsdaric objects. Act not so. Humbly trust in the dazzling pure radiances of Wisdom. Frame thy mind to faith, and think, ‘The compassionate radiances of Wisdom of the Five Orders of Buddhas! have come to take hold of me out of compassion; I take refuge in them.’
Not yielding to attraction towards the illusory lights of the Six Lokas, but devoting thy whole mind one-pointedly towards the Divine Fathers and Mothers, the Buddhas of the Five Orders, pray thus: ‘Alas! when wandering in the Saxgsara through the power of the five virulent poisons,’ On the bright radiance-path of the Four Wisdoms united, May [I] be led by the Five Victorious Conquerors, May the Five Orders of Divine Mothers be [my] rear- guard; May [I] be rescued from the impure light-paths of the Six Lokas; And, being saved from the ambuscades of the dread Bardo, May [I] be placed within the five pure Divine Realms.’
By thus praying, one recognizeth one’s own inner light; * 1 Text: Bde-var-gshegs-pa (pron. De-war-sheg-pa): Skt. Sugata: literally mean- ing ‘Those who have passed into Happiness (or attained Mirvana)’—i.e. Buddhas, 2 The five virulent poisons, which, like drugs, enslave and bind mankind to the sufferings of existence within the confines of the Six Lokas, are: lust, hatred, stupidity, pride or egoism, and jealousy, 8 Text: vang (‘self’) + sNang (‘light’): ‘self-light’ or ‘inner-light’, i.e. thoughts or ideas appearing in the radiance of the consciousness-principle. The Bardo state is the after-death dream state following the waking or living- On-earth state, as explained in our Introduction (pp. 28 ff.); and the whole 126 BARDO OF KARMIC ILLUSIONS [Boox 1 and, merging one’s self therein, in at-one-ment, Buddhahood is attained: through humble faith, the ordinary devotee cometh to know himself, and obtaineth Liberation; even the most lowly, by the power of the pure prayer, can close the doors of the Six ZLokas, and, in understanding the real meaning of the Four Wisdoms united, obtain Buddhahood by the hollow path- way through Vajra-Sattva.!
Thus by being set face to face in that detailed manner, those who are destined to be liberated will come to recognize [the Truth];* thereby many will attain Liberation.
The worst of the worst, [those] of heavy evil Zarma, having not the least predilection for any religion—and some who have failed in their vows—through the power of karzzzc illusions, not recognizing, although set face to face [with Truth], will stray downwards.
[THE SEVENTH DAY] On the Seventh Day, the Knowledge-Holding Deities, from the holy paradise realms, come to receive one. Simultaneously, the pathway to the brute world, produced by the obscuring passion, stupidity, also cometh to receive one.* The setting- face-to-face at that time is, calling the deceased by name, thus: aim of the Bardo Thédol teaching is to awaken the Dreamer to Reality—to a supramundane state of consciousness, to an annihilation of all bonds of sangsaric existence, to Perfect Enlightenment, Buddhahood, 1 Vajra-Sattva, as a symbolic deity, the reflex of Akshobhya, is visualized, in Tibetan occult rituals, as being internally vacuous. As such, he represents the Void, concerning which there are many treatises with elaborate commentaries, essentially esoteric. Through Vajra-Sattva there lies a certain pathway to Liberation, he being the embodiment of all the one-hundred and ten deities constituting the mandala of the Peaceful and Wrathful Ones (see p. 1241). To tread this Path successfully, the Neophyte must be instructed by the Hiecrophant.
2 This Truth is that there is no reality behind any of the phenomena of the Bardo plane, save the illusions stored up in one’s own mind as accretions from sangsaric experiences. Recognition of this automatically gives Liberation.
° As the gross physical atoms of a life-deserted human-plane body gradually separate and go to their appropriate places, some as gases, some as fluids, some as solids, so on the after-death plane there comes about a gradual dispersion of the psychic or mental atoms of the Bardo thought-body, each propensity—— directed by karmic affinity—inevitably going to that environment most congenial to it. Hence, as our text suggests, the brute-passion stupidity has a natural tendency to gravitate to the brute kingdom and become embodied therein as a disintegrated part of the mentality of the deceased. (See pp. 44 ff.)
PART II] KNOWLEDGE-HOLDING DEITIES 549) O nobly-born, listen undistractedly. On the Seventh Day the vari-coloured radiance of the purified propensities will come to shine. Simultaneously, the Knowledge-Holding Deities,) from the holy paradise realms, will come to receive one.
From the centre of the Circle [or Mandala], enhaloed in radiance of rainbow light, the supreme Knowledge-Holding [Deity], the Lotus Lord of Dance, the Supreme Knowledge- Holder Whe Ripens Karmic Fruits, radiant with all the five colours, embraced by the [Divine] Mother, the Red Dékini, [he] holding a crescent knife and a skull [filled] with blood,’ dancing and making the mudra of fascination,* [with his right hand held] aloft, will come to shine.
To the east of that Circle, the deity called the Earth-Abid- ing Knowledge-Holder, white of colour, with radiant smiling countenance, embraced by the White Dékini, the [Divine] Mother, [he] holding a crescent knife and a skull [filled] with blood, dancing and making the maudra of fascination, [with his right hand held] aloft, will come to shine.
To the south of that Circle, the Knowledge-Holding Deity called [He] Having Power Over Duration of Life, yellow in colour, smiling and radiant, embraced by the Yellow Dékinz, the [Divine] Mother, [he] holding a crescent knife and a skull 1 Text: Rig-hdzin (pron. Rig-ein): ‘possessing (or holding) knowledge’. These deities are purely Tantric. (See p. 731.)
2 The Dakinis (Tib. Mkhah-hgro-ma [or ‘Sky-goer’]: Skt. Da@kint), fairy-like goddesses possessing peculiar occult powers for good or for evil, are, also, purely Tantric; and, as such, they are invoked in most of the chief rituals of Northern Buddhism, (See p. 1223.)
3 Esoterically, the skull (which is human), and the blood (also human) filling it, signify, in one sense, renunciation of human life, the giving up of the Sangsara, self-immolation on the cross of the world; and in the mass-ritual of Lamaism there are resemblances between the blood (symbolized by a red fluid) in the skull and the wine (as blood) in the chalice of the Christian Communion, 4 A mudra is a mystic sign made by posturing the hand and fingers or the body. Some mudras are used as signs of recognition by members of occult fraternities, after the manner of the Masonic hand-clasp. Others, chiefly employed by yogis as bodily postures, short-circuit or otherwise change the magnetic currents of the body. Placing the tip of one finger against the tip of another in mudra controls, likewise, the bodily forces, or life-currents. The mudra of fascination is of this last sort, being made (with the right hand) by the second finger touching the thumb, the index-finger and the little finger held upright, and the third finger folded in the palm of the hand.
128 BARDO OF KARMIC ILLUSIONS [Book!
[filled] with blood, dancing and making the sudrd of fascina- tion, [with his right hand held] aloft, will come to shine.
To the west of that Circle, the deity called the Knowledge- Holding Deity of the Great Symbol,' red of colour, smiling and radiant, embraced by the Red Dékini, the [Divine] Mother, [he] holding a crescent-knife and a skull [filled] with blood, dancing and making the mudré@ of fascination, [with his right hand held] aloft, will come to shine.
To the north of that Circle, the deity called the Self- Evolved Knowledge-Holder, green of colour, with a half- angry, half-smiling radiant countenance, embraced by the Green Dakini, the [Divine] Mother, [he] holding a crescent- knife and a skull [filled] with blood, dancing and making the mudra of fascination, [with his right hand held] aloft, will come to shine.
In the Outer Circle, round about these Knowledge-Holders, innumerable bands of dakinis,—dakinis of the eight places of cremation, @akinis of the four classes, da@kinis of the three abodes, @akinis of the thirty holy-places and of the twenty- four places of pilgrimage,*—heroes, heroines, celestial warriors, and faith-protecting deities, male and female, each bedecked with the six bone-ornaments, having drums and thigh-bone trumpets, skull-timbrels, banners of gigantic human|[-like] hides,? human-hide canopies, human-hide bannerettes, fumes of human-fat incense, and innumerable [other] kinds of musical instruments, filling [with music] the whole world-systems and causing them to vibrate, to quake and tremble with sounds so mighty as to daze one’s brain, and dancing various measures, will come to receive the faithful and punish the unfaithful.+ 1 See p. 135°.
? Herein the dakinis are represented like various orders of fairy-like beings, some dwelling in one place, some in another. The eight places of cremation are the eight known to Hindu mythology; the three abodes are the heart-centre, the throat-centre, and the brain-centre, over which, esoterically speaking, certain dakinis (as the personification of the psychic forces resident in each centre) preside, just as other ¢akints preside over the holy-places and places of pilgrimage, 8 That is, hides of ra@kshasas, an order of giant demoniacal beings having human form and possessed of certain s¢ddhis (i. e. supernormal powers).
* Tibetan /amas, in chanting their rituals, employ seven (or eight) sorts of PART IT] WISDOM RADIANCES 129 O nobly-born, five-coloured radiances, of the Wisdom of the Simultaneously-Born,! which are the purified propensities, vibrating and dazzling like coloured threads, flashing, radiant, and transparent, glorious and awe-inspiring, will issue from the hearts of the five chief Knowledge-Holding Deities and strike against thy heart, so bright that the eye cannot bear to look upon them.
At the same time, a dull blue light from the brute world will come to shine along with the Radiances of Wisdom. Then, through the influence of the illusions of thy propensities, thou wilt feel afraid of the radiance of the five colours; and [wishing to] flee from it, thou wilt feel attracted towards the dull light from the brute-world. Thereupon, be not afraid of that brilliant radiance of five colours, nor terrified; but know the Wisdom to be thine own.
Within those radiances, the natural sound of the Truth will reverberate like a thousand thunders. The sound will come with a rolling reverberation, [amidst which] will be heard, ‘Slay! Slay!’ and awe-inspiring mantras? Fear not. Flee not. Be not terrified. Know them [i.e. these sounds] to be [of] the intellectual faculties of thine own [inner] light.
musical instruments: big drums, cymbals (commonly of brass), conch-shells, bells (like the handbells used in the Christian Mass Service), timbrels, small clarionets (sounding like Highland bagpipes), big trumpets, and human thigh- bone trumpets. Although the combined sounds of these instruments are far from being melodious, the /@mas maintain that they psychically produce in the devotee an attitude of deep veneration and faith, because they are the counter- parts of the natural sounds which one’s own body is heard producing when the fingers are put in the ears to shut out external sounds. Stopping the ears thus, there are heard a thudding sound, like that of a big drum being beaten; a clashing sound, as of cymbals; a soughing sound, as of a wind moving through a forest—as when a conch-shell is blown; a ringing as of bells; a sharp tapping sound, as when a timbrel is used; a moaning sound, like that of a clarionet; a bass moaning sound, as if made with a big trumpet; and a shriller sound, as of a thigh-bone trumpet.
Not only is this interesting as a theory of Tibetan sacred music, but it gives the clue to the esoteric interpretation of the symbolical natural sounds of Truth (referred to in the second paragraph following, and elsewhere in our text), which are said to be, or to proceed from, the intellectual faculties within the human mentality.
1 That is, the Wisdom which is born simultaneously with the achievement of Recognition; the Simultaneously-Born Wisdom, 2 See Addenda, pp. 220-2.
3069 tS} 130 BARDO OF KARMIC ILLUSIONS [Book I Be not attracted towards the dull blue light of the brute- world; be not weak. If thou art attracted, thou wilt fall into the brute-world, wherein stupidity predominates, and suffer the illimitable miseries of slavery and dumbness and stupidness;* and it will be a very long time ere thou canst get out. Be not attracted towards it. Put thy faith in the bright, dazzling, five-coloured radiance. Direct thy mind one-pointedly towards the deities, the Knowledge-Holding Conquerors. Think, one- pointedly, thus: ‘These Knowledge-Holding Deities, the Heroes, and the Dakinis have come from the holy paradise realms to receive me; I supplicate them all: up to this day, although the Five Orders of the Buddhas of the Three Times have all exerted the rays of their grace and compassion, yet have I not been rescued by them. Alas, for a being like me! May the Knowledge- Holding Deities not let me go downwards further than this, but hold me with the hook of their com- passion, and lead me to the holy paradises.’
Thinking in that manner, one-pointedly, pray thus: ‘O ye Knowledge-Holding Deities, pray hearken unto me; Lead me on the Path, out of your great love.
When [I am] wandering in the Sangsdara, because of intensi- fied propensities, On the bright light-path of the Simultaneously-born Wisdom May the bands of Heroes, the Knowledge-Holders, lead me; May the bands of the Mothers, the Dakinis, be [my] rear- guard; May they save me from the fearful ambuscades of the Bardo, And place me in the pure Paradise Realms.’
Praying thus, in deep faith and humility, there is no doubt that one will be born within the pure Paradise Realms, after } Ch py r26:: ? The deceased, having by now fallen to lower and lower stages of the Bardo, looks to the heaven-worlds (which are worlds of embodiment within the Sangsara) rather than to Nirvana (which is non-Sangsaric) asa place of refuge. Although, theoretically, Mirvdva is ever realizable from any stage of the Bardo, practically, for the ordinary devotee, it is not, meritorious karma being inadequate; hence the /dma or reader officiating aims at making the best of the situation in which, it is assumed, the deceased inevitably finds himself, PART IT] THE WRATHFUL DEITIES 131 being merged, in rainbow-light, into the heart of the Know- ledge-Holding Deities.
All the pandit classes, too, coming to recognize at this stage, obtain liberation; even those of evil propensities being sure to be liberated here.
Here endeth the part of the Great 7Aédol concerned with the setting-face-to-face of the Peaceful [Deities] of the Chinyid Bardo and the setting-face-to-face of the Clear Light of the Chikhai Bardo.
att DAWNING OF THE WRATHFUL DEITIES, PROM THE EIGHTH TO THE FOURTEENTH DAY] [INTRODUCTION] Now the manner of the dawning of the Wrathful Deities is to be shown.
In the above Bardo of the Peaceful [Dcities] there were seven stages of ambuscade. The setting-face-to-face at cach stage should have [caused the deceased] to recognize either at one or another [stage] and to have been liberated.
Multitudes will be liberated by that recognition; [and] although multitudes obtain liberation in that manner, the number of sentient beings being great, evil karma power- ful, obscurations dense, propensities of too long standing, the Wheel of Ignorance and Illusion becometh neither ex- hausted nor accelerated. Although [all be] set face-to-face in such detail, there is a vast preponderance of those who wander downwards unliberated.
Therefore, after the cessation [of the dawning] of the Peace- ful and the Knowledge-Holding Deities, who come to welcome one, the fifty-eight flame-enhaloed, wrathful, blood-drinking deities come to dawn, who are only the former Peaceful Deities in changed aspect—according to the place [or psychic- centre of the Bardo-body of the deceased whence they proceed]; nevertheless, they will not resemble them."
1 Up to this time, the fifty-two Peaceful and Knowledge-Holding Deities, emanations from the heart and throat psychic-centres of the Bardo-body of the deceased, have dawned. The Wrathful Deities now about to dawn issue from 2 BARDO OF KARMIC ILLUSIONS [Book t This is the Bardo of the Wrathful Deities; and, they being influenced by fear, terror, and awe,! recognition becometh more difficult. The intellect, gaining not in independence, passcth from one fainting state to a round of fainting states. [Yet], if one but recognize a little, it is easier to be liberated [at this stage]. Ifit be asked why? [the answer is]: Because of the dawning of the radiances—[which produce] fear, terror, and awe—the intellect is undistractedly alert in one-pointedness; that is why.?
If at this stage one do not meet with this kind of teaching, one’s hearing [of religious lore]—although it be like an ocean [in its vastness]|—is of no avail. There are even dis- ciplinc-holding abbots [or dAzkkhus] and doctors in meta- physical discourses who err at this stage, and, not recognizing, wander into the Sangséara.
As for the common worldly folk, what need is there to mention them! By fleeing, through fear, terror, and awe, they fall over the precipices into the unhappy worlds and suffer. But the least of the least of the devotees of the mystic mantrayana doctrines, as soon as he sees these blood-drinking deities, will recognize them to be his tutelary deities, and the meeting will be like that of human acquaintances. He will trust them; and becoming merged into them, in at-one- ment, will obtain Buddhahood.® the brain psychic-centre; they are the excited, or wrathful, reflex forms of the Peaceful Deities (who, when contrasted with their wrathful aspects, include the Knowledge-Holding Deities). (See p. 858 and Addenda, pp. 217-9.)
1 The fear, terror, and awe (or fascination)—on the part of the deceased on beholding the deities—arise only in the case of the ordinary devotee, who, as the text explains, has not had adequate yogic training, ere death, to enable him to recognize the Bardo as such, immediately upon dying, and pass beyond it. For the adept in yoga, who can take the Bardo ‘by the forelock’, as the text puts it (p. 100), mastering Death, and who knows that all apparitional appear- ances are unreal and powerless, both in this world and in all other worlds, there is no Bardo to experience; his goal is either an immediate and conscious rebirth among men or in one of the paradise realms, or, if he be really ripened— which would be an exceedingly rare circumstance —Nivvana, 2 No sooner does one radiance cease than another dawns; the deceased not having a moment of distraction, his intellect becomes concentratedly (i.e. one- pointedly) alert.
8 The blood symbolizes sangsdric existence; the blood-drinking, the thirsting for, the drinking of, and the quenching of the thirst for, sangsdric existence.
PART | THE BSOTERIC DOCTRINES 133 By having meditated on the description of these blood- drinking deities, while in the human world, and by having performed some worship or praise of them; or, at least, by having seen their painted likenesses and their images, upon witnessing the dawning of the deities at this stage, recogni- tion of them will result, and liberation. In this lieth the art.
Again, at the death of those discipline-holding abbots and doctors in metaphysical discourses [who remain uninstructed in these Lardo teachings], however assiduously they may have devoted themselves to religious practices, and however clever they may have been in expounding doctrines while in the human world, there will not come any phenomenal signs such as rainbow-halo [at the funeral-pyre] nor bone- reliques [from the ashes]. This is because when they lived the mystic [or esoteric] doctrines were never held within their heart, and because they had spoken contemptuously of them, and because they were never acquainted [through initiation] with the deities of the mystic [or esoteric] doctrines; thus, when these dawn on the Bardo, they do not recognize them. Suddenly [seeing] what they had never seen before, they view it as inimical; and, an antagonistic feeling being engendered, they pass into the miserable states because of that. Therefore, if the observers of the disciplines, and the metaphysicians, have not in them the practices of the mystic for esoteric] doctrines, such signs as the rainbow-halo come not, nor are bone-reliques and seed-like bones ever produced [from the bones of their funeral-pyre]:1 these are the reasons for it. For the devotee who—even at this stage—can be made to realize that these deities are thus but the karmic personifications of his own propensities, born from having lived and drunken life, and who has, in addition, the supreme power to face them unwaveringly (as in Bulwer Lytton’s Zanoni the Neophyte to succeed must face the ‘ Dweller on the Threshold’), meeting them like old acquaintances, and then losing his personality in them, enlightenment as to the true nature of sangsaric existence dawns, and, with it, the All-Perfect Illumination called Buddhahood.
1 The belief, prevalent among almost all peoples since immemorial time, that unusual phenomena commonly mark the death (as the birth) and funeral of a great hero or saint, also prevails among the Tibetans; and the Jamas hold that such phenomena have a purely rational explanation, such as our text herein suggests. Furthermore, the /dmas maintain that, if a reputed saint be 134 BARDO OF KARMIC ILLUSIONS [Book I The least of the least of mantrayanic [devotees ],—who may seem to be of very unrefined manners, unindustrious, untactful, and who may not live in accordance with his vows, and who in every way may be inelegant in his habits, and even unable, perhaps, to carry the practices of his teachings to a successful issue,—let no one feel disrespect for nor doubt him, but pay reverence to the esoteric [or mystic] doctrines [which he holdeth]. By that, alone, one obtaineth liberation at this stage.
Even though the deeds [of one paying such reverence] may not have been very elegant while in the human world, at his death there will come at least one kind of sign, such as rain- bow-radiance, bone-images, and bone-reliques. This is because the esoteric [or mystic] doctrines possess great gift-waves.’
[Those of, and] above, the mystic mantrayanic devotees of ordinary [psychic development], who have meditated upon the visualization and perfection processes and practised the essences [or essence mantras],? need not wander down this far on the Chényid Bardo. As soon as they cease to breathe, they will be led into the pure paradise realms by the Heroes and Heroines and the Knowledge-Holders.? As a sign of really a saint, among the charred bones from his funeral pyre there will be found some shaped into beautiful forms like images, and that small pearl-like (or, as the text has it, seed-like) nodules will appear in the ashes of the bones cremated.
1 That is to say, the esoteric doctrines being realizable—because based on Truth itself—one who follows or even reverences them is, thereby, auto- matically brought into rapport with very definite psychic forces.
2 That is to say, those devotees who have practised, in a thoroughly scientific manner, under a competent guru, the intonation of certain sacred mantras called essence mantras. Examples of such mantras are: Om Mani Padme Him (‘ Hail to the Jewel in the Lotus!’ or ‘Hail to Him Who is the Jewel in the Lotus!’); Om Wagi Short Mam (‘Hail to the Lord of Speech! Mam’); Om Vajra Pant Him (‘Hail to the Holder of the Dorje!’): the three essence mantras of ‘The Three Protectors’ of Lamaism; the first being the essence mantra of the Bodhisattva Chenrazee (Skt. Avalokita), ‘The Seer with keen eyes’, The Great Pitier; the second, that of the Bodhisattva Jampalyang (Skt. Maiijughosha), ‘The God of Mystic Wisdom’; and the third, that of the Bodhisattva Chakdor (Skt. Vajra-Pani), ‘The Wielder of the Thunderbolt’.
8 Cf. the following passage, from a prayer on behalf of the dying person, in The Book of the Craft of Dying, Chap. VI, Comper’s ed. (p. 45): ‘When thy soul passcth out of thy body, [may] glorious companics of angels come against thee: the victorious host, worthy judges, and senators of the holy apostles meet PART II] PATHS OF LIBERATION 135 this, the sky will be cloudless; they will merge into rainbow radiance; there will be sun-showers, sweet scent of incense [in the air], music in the skies, radiances; bone-reliques and images [from their funeral-pyre].
Therefore, to the abbots [or discipline-holders], to the doctors, and to those mystics who have failed in their vows, and to all the common people, this 7ddol is indispensable.} But those who have meditated upon the Great Perfection and the Great Symbol? will recognize the Clear Light at the moment of death; and, obtaining the Dharma-Kaya, all of them will be such as not to need the reading of this Thodol. By recognizing the Clear Light at the moment of death, they also will recognize the visions of the Peaceful and the Wrathful during the Chényid Bardo, and obtain the Sambhoga-Kaya; or, recognizing during the Szdpa Bardo, obtain the Virmana-K aya; and, taking birth on the higher planes, will, in the next rebirth, meet with this Doctrine, and then enjoy the continuity of karma.® with thee: the fair, white, shining company of holy confessors, with the victorious number of glorious martyrs, come about thee: the joyful company of holy virgins receive thee: and the worthy fellowship of holy patriarchs open to thee the place of rest and joy, and deem thee to be among them that they be among, everlastingly.’
1 The /émas maintain that, while mere goodness and book knowledge are desirable in devotees seeking Liberation, spiritual wisdom coupled with un- shakable faith, and the setting aside of all intellectualisms, are indispensable. One of the precepts of the great Tibetan yogis, taught to all neophytes, is: ‘ Difficult indeed is it to obtain Liberation through intellectual knowledge alone; through faith, Liberation is easily obtained.’
2 ¢The Great Perfection’ refers to the fundamental doctrine concerning the gaining of Perfection or Buddhahood as taught by the School of Guru Padma Sambhava. ‘The Great Symbol (Tib. Chhag-chhen: Skt. Maha Mudra)’ refers to an ancient Indian system of yoga, related to the same School, but more especially practised nowadays by the followers of the semi-reformed Kargyutpa sect, founded in the latter half of the eleventh century a.p. by the learned Tibetan yog? Marpa, who, having sojourned in India as the disciple of the pandtt Atisha and of Naropa, Atisha’s disciple, introduced the Great Symbol into Tibet. Milarepa, the most beloved of all Tibetan yog?s, who was Marpa’s successor, developed the practice of the Great Symbol and made it the foundation teaching of the Sect. (See pp. 78-9.)
3 If there be recognition of Reality when it first dawns, i.e. if the Dreamer in sangsaric existence be awakened into the divine state of the Sambhoga-Kaya during the Chényid Bardo, the normal cycle of rebirth is broken; and the Awakened One returns voluntarily and fully conscious to the human world as 136 BARDO OF KARMIC ILLUSIONS [Book 1 Therefore, this 7Zcdol is the doctrine by which Buddhahood may be attained without meditation; the doctrine liberating by the hearing [of it] alone; the doctrine which leadeth beings of great evil Aarvma on the Secret Path; the doctrine which produceth differentiation instantaneously [between those who are initiated into it and those who are not]: being the profound doctrine which conferreth Perfect En- lightenment instantaneously. Those sentient beings who have been reached by it cannot go to the unhappy states.
This [doctrine] and the Zahdol [doctrine]', when joined to- gether being like unto a mandala of gold inset with turquoise, combine them.
Thus, the indispensable nature of the 7ddol being shown, there now cometh the setting-face-to-face with the dawning of the Wrathful [Deities] in the Bardo.
[THE EIGHTH DAY] Again, calling the deceased by name, [address him] thus: O nobly-born, listen undistractedly. Not having been able to recognize when the Peaceful [Deities] shone upon thee in the Lardo above, thou hast come wandering thus far. Now, on the Eighth Day, the blood-drinking Wrathful Deities will come to shine. Act so as to recognize them without bcing distracted.
a Divine Incarnation, to work for the uplifting of mankind. If recognition be delayed till the Sidpa Bardo, and the Mirmana-Kaya be attained, that is but a partial awakening, not an unclouded realization of Reality, the Szdpa Bardo being a much lower plane than the Chéuyid Bardo; but even then there will be won the great boon of spiritually enlightened birth on one of the higher planes— deva-loka, asura-loka, or the human-/oka—and, upon being born anew in the human world, the devotee will take up, in virtue of acquired propensities gained in the previous earth-life, the study of the mystic mantraydua doctrines and yogic practices from the point where it was broken off by death—this being the continuity of karma, * Text: Btags-grol (pron. Tah-dol), a small Tibetan work, consisting wholly of mantras, used as an accompaniment to the Bardo Thédol. If the deceased dies knowing the Tahdol mantras, they, being powerful talismans, give him safe passage through the Bardo and a happy rebirth. Very often a copy of the Tahdol (or perhaps merely some of its mantras copied on small strips of paper and wound together in a tiny roll) is tied to the corpse and burned or buried with it—just as a copy of the Egyptian Book of the Dead was ordinarily interred with a mummy.
cru wae aS ety MANE DOT amt THE GREAT MANDALA OF THE KNOWLEDGE-HOLDING AND WRATHFUL DEITIES Described on pages xix-%%, 127-8, 217-20 THE DORJE THE LAMAIC SCEPTRE Described on page xxiii PART 11} DAWNING OF HERUKA ORDER 137 O nobly-born, the Great Glorious Buddha-Heruka,! dark- brown of colour; with three heads, six hands, and four feet firmly postured; the right [face] being white, the left, red, the central, dark-brown; the body emitting flames of radiance; the nine eyes widely opened, in terrifying gaze; the eyebrows quivering like lightning; the protruding teeth glistening and set over one another; giving vent to sonorous utterances of ‘a-la-la’ and ‘ha-ha’, and piercing whistling sounds; the hair of a reddish-yellow colour, standing on end, and emitting radiance; the heads adorned with dried [human | skulls, and the [symbols of the] sun and moon; black serpents and raw [human] heads forming a garland for the body; the first of the right hands holding a wheel, the middle one, a sword, the last one, a battle-axe; the first of the left hands, a bell, the middle one, a [human] scalp, the last one, a plough- share; his body embraced by the Mother, Buddha-Kroti- shaurima,”? her right hand clinging to his neck and her left putting to his mouth a red shell [filled with blood], [making] a palatal sound like a crackling [and] a clashing sound, and a rumbling sound as loud as thunder; [emanating from the two deities] radiant flames of wisdom, blazing from every hair-pore fof the body] and each containing a flaming dorje; [the two deities together thus], standing with [one] leg bent and [the other] straight and tense, on a dais supported by horned eagles,® will come forth from within thine own brain and shine vividly upon thee. Fear that not. Be not awed. Know it to be the embodiment of thine own intellect. As it is thine own tutelary deity, be not terrified. Be not afraid, for in reality it is the Bhagavan Vairochana, the Father-Mother. Simultaneously with the recognition, liberation will be ob- tained: if they be recognized, merging [thyself], in at-one-