Tucci, Giuseppe. Tibetan Painted Scrolls.Rome: La Libreria
Dello Stato, 1949. Reprint, 3 vols., Bangkok, Thailand: SDI,
1999.
Tucci, Giuseppe. The Religions of Tibet,tr. Geoffrey Samuel.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.
RONALDM. DAVIDSONTIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD
The Tibetan Book of the Deadis the title created by
Walter Yeeling Evans-Wentz (1878–1965), its first
Western-language editor, for a collection of Tibetan
ritual and literary texts concerned with DEATH, INTER-
MEDIATE STATES(Sanskrit, antarabhava; Tibetan, bar
do), and REBIRTH. In Tibetan the collection is actually
titled Bar do thos grol chen mo(Great Liberation upon
Hearing in the Intermediate State) and belongs to a
much larger body of ritual and yogic literature called
Zhi khro dgongs pa rang grol(Self Liberated Wisdom of
the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities). Tradition attributes
authorship of this cycle of funerary literature to the
eighth-century Indian yogin PADMASAMBHAVA, who is
believed to have concealed it as a religious “treasure”
(Tibetan, gter ma) so that it could later be revealed at
a more appropriate time. The basic texts of this hid-
den treasure were excavated by an obscure fourteenth-
century “treasure-revealer” (Tibetan, gter ston) named
Karma Gling pa. His “Tibetan Book of the Dead” tra-
dition originated and was initially fostered in the
southeastern Tibetan region of Dwags po and attracted
followers from both the RNYING MA(NYINGMA) and
BKA’ BRGYUD(KAGYU) orders. Its rituals were refined
and institutionalized sometime in the late fifteenth
century in nearby Kong po, from where it was even-
tually transmitted throughout other parts of Tibet,
Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal, India, and later Europe and the
United States.
The literature of the Tibetan Book of the Deadcon-
tains esoteric yoga teachings and liturgical directives
focused on a MANDALAof one hundred peaceful and
wrathful deities (Tibetan, zhi khro rigs brgya) and in-
cludes detailed religious instructions to be employed
at the moment of death and during the perilous inter-
mediate state leading to a new existence. Its combina-
tion of ideas and practices are founded upon older
conceptions originating in late Indian Buddhist tantra
and in Tibetan Buddhist and non-Buddhist indigenous
formulations that began to emerge in Tibet around the
eleventh century. The literature’s fundamental con-
ceptual premises are derived essentially from the reli-
gious doctrines of the Great Perfection (Tibetan, rd-
zogs chen) tradition, an innovative Tibetan system
standardized in the late fourteenth century and pro-
moted especially by followers of the Rnying ma and
non-Buddhist BONorders. According to this tradition,
dying persons and those already deceased are presented
during their last moments and in the interim period
between lives with a series of diminishing opportuni-
ties for recognizing the true nature of reality. It is held
that if the dying and deceased are capable of perceiv-
ing correctly the confusing and often terrifying death
and postmortem visions as mental projections reflec-
tive of previous habitual thoughts and KARMA(AC-
TION), then enlightened liberation can be attained,
leading directly to buddhahood. Failure to recognize
the nature of these visions, however, leads eventually
to rebirth and further suffering in the cycle of existence
(SAMSARA). Traditionally, to help the dying and the
dead regain clarity of awareness at the moment of
death and in the intermediate state, a LAMA(Tibetan,
bla ma) or lay religious specialist will recite guiding in-
structions and inspirational prayers from the ritual cy-
cle of the Tibetan Book of the Dead.The Evans-Wentz edition of the Tibetan Book of the
Dead,first published in 1927, was compiled from orig-
inal Tibetan translations drawn up by the Sikkimese
teacher Kazi Dawa Samdup (1868–1922). The book in-
cludes translations of only a small number of texts be-
longing to the literary tradition of the Bar do thos grol
chen mo.The formal arrangement of this small group
of texts as a unified and coherent “book” is mislead-
ing and obscures the fact that in Tibet there exists a
variety of arrangements of this large ritual and literary
cycle, each reflecting a different lineage of transmis-
sion and the localized interpretations of specific reli-
gious communities.
Popular enthusiasm for the Tibetan Book of the Dead
has grown to such proportions that it now stands ar-
guably as the most famous Tibetan book in the West.
The Evans-Wentz edition has gone through numerous
reprints in America and Europe, and it has inspired
since 1927 several new translations from the original
Tibetan texts.See also:TibetBibliographyBlezer, Henk. Kar glin ̇Z ́i khro: A Tantric Buddhist Concept.Lei-
den, Netherlands: Research School CNWS, 1997.TIBETANBOOK OF THEDEAD