The Tibetan Book of the Dead: Or The After-Death Experiences on the Bardo Plane, according to Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup's English Rendering

377 Pages·2000·17.91 MB·English

by  W. Y. Evans-Wentz

THE TIBETAN
BOOK OF THE DEAD
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(reading left to right)
THE TRANSLATOR AND THE EDITOR IN GANGTOK, SIKKIM
Described on page xxvii
FOLIOS 35A AND 67A OF THE BARDO THODOL MS.
Described on page xxvii
THE TIBETAN
BOOK OF THE DEAD
OR
The After-Death Experiences
on the Bardo Plane, according
to Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup's
English Rendering
Compiled and edited by
W. Y. Evans-Wentz
with a new
Foreword and Afterword by
Donald S. Lopez, Jr.
OXPORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
2OOO
OXPORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Oxford New York
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Copyright © 1960, 2000 by W. Y. Evans-Wentz
First published by Oxford University Press, London, 1927
Second Edition, 1949
Third Edition, 1957
First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1960
New Foreword and Afterword copyright © 2000
by Donald S. Lopez, Jr.
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.,
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Karma-glin-pa, 14th cent.
[Bar do thos grol. English]
The Tibetan book of the dead; or, The after-death experiences on the Bardo plane,
according to Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup's English rendering / compiled and edited by
W.Y. Evans-Wentz; with a new foreword and afterword by Donald S. Lopez, Jr.
p. cm.
Includes Index.
ISBN 0-19-513311-0 —ISBN 0-19-513312-9 (pbk.)
1. Intermediate state—Buddhism—Early works to 1800. 2. Death—Religious
aspects—Buddhism—Early works to 1800. 3. Funeral rites and ceremonies,
Buddhist—China—Tibet—Early works to 1800. I. Title,
BQ4490.K3713 2000
294.3'423—dc21 00-022529
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 42
Printed in the United States of America
on acid free paper
IN MEMORY OF
MY DECEASED FATHER AND MOTHER
I DEDICATE
THIS BOOK TO MY TEACHERS
BOTH SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS
IN EUROPE AND AMERICA
AND THROUGHOUT
THE ORIENT
'Thou shall understand that it is a science most profitable, and
passing all other sciences, for to learn to die. Fora man to know
that he shall die, that is common to all men ; as much as there is
no man that may ever live or he hath hope or trust thereof; but
thou shall find full few that have Ihis cunning to learn to die. . . .
1 shall give tlicc the mystery of this doctrine; the which shall
profit Ihec greatly to the beginning of ghostly health, and to
a stable fundament of all virtues.'— Orologium Safientiae.
' Against his will he dieth that hath not learned to die. Learn
to die and thou shall learn to live, for there shall none learn to
live that hath not learned to die.'—Tour* of ail Tonics: and
Ttachtth a Man for to Die.
The Book o/ifie Craft of Dying (Comper's Edition).
' Whatever is here, that is there ; what is there, the same is
here. He who seeth licrc as different, mectcth death after death.
' By mind alone this is to be realized, and [then] there is no
difference here. From death to death he goeth, who seeth as if
there is difference here.'—Kalha Upanishad, iv. lo-n (Swami
Sliarvananda's Translation).
FOREWORD
Donald S. Lopez, Jr.
A certain trepidation attends the decision to accept an invitation
to write a foreword to new editions, published in 2000, of the four
books of W. Y. Evans-Wentz: The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Tibet's
Great Yogi Milarepa, Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines, and The Ti-
betan Book of the Great Liberation. The four books in their old edi-
tions are already burdened with numerous prefaces, commen-
taries, and introductions, causing one to wonder what another
preface could possibly add. It seems inevitable that the four books
of Evans-Wentz will continue to outlive yet another generation
of commentators, such that anything that a scholar might add
today will only serve as material for a scholar some fifty years
from now, who will demonstrate the biases and misunderstand-
ings of a preface written fifty years ago, a preface that merely of-
fers evidence of the fin de siecle Zeitgeist of those who once called
themselves postmoderns.
The four books of Evans-Wentz are surely ground-breaking
works, the first to bring translations of Tibetan Buddhist texts to
the English-speaking public. Evans-Wentz was equally avant
garde in his method, collaborating closely with Tibetan scholars,
a practice that would not become common for another four
decades, after the Tibetan diaspora began in 1959. Yet, for the
scholar of the present day, looking back now more than seventy
years to the publication of the first volume of the series, The Ti-
betan Book of the Dead, in 1927, the Tibetan tetralogy of W. Y.
Evans-Wentz, although a product of our century, seems to have
originated in another age. All four books assume the undifferen-
tiated dichotomy of the materialist West and the mystic East, an
East that holds the secret to the West's redemption. Few of the
concerns of scholars—such as language or culture or history—are
to be found in the books. Instead, the volumes are presented as