ON THE HISTORY AND PSYCHOLOGY OF THE 'DAS-LOGshe cannot get up or if she is awake she wishes to go back to sleep. On
the following day her handmaiden, a child named Bsod-nams-tshe-ring,
says, "Mistress! You have shadows around your eyes and your nose is
sunken. Isn't it best that I go to the village and tell your husband to
come here?" Karma-dbang-'dzin thinks that if she cannot stand a little
illness she will never be able to withstand the rigors of religious
endeavor and she tells the servant to wait until morning. By midafter-
noon, however, she gets the shivers and is terribly thirsty. She tries to
quench her thirst, but the water pours out of her nose. Then the signs of
the dissolution of the four elements begin. She begins to lose the use of
her senses, her sight diminishes and she cannot recognize her friends;
her hearing fails and although she knows that things are being said, she
cannot catch the words, and so forth. Visions of her next life begin to
appear. She is, however, mentally aware of her surroundings. She rec-
ollects her loved ones and cannot dismiss them from her thoughts. She
remembers all her sins, regrets them and cries.^20Bla-ma Byams-pa-bde-legs (XI: 12-17)
In the Fire-Male-Monkey year, in the first month, while in meditative
retreat, he is stricken with a bad illness. He loses his body warmth and
spits bloody phlegm. Doctors attend him and curative rites are per-
formed, but to no avail. He becomes worse. "On the fifteenth, an inaus-
picious day with the reigning lunar mansion in the descent, and when
demonic delusions abound, the sky was clear, and there were stiipa-
shaped rainbow clouds and a cloth-like road which everyone saw. A
rain of flowers fell and there came forth the delicious smell of incense.
I performed reverential petitions to A-khu Rinpoche and did medita-
tion. In the retreat I did whatever I could within my experience, but I
could not control my body and the stages of dissolution appeared in
succession.Other 'das-log simply report that they sicken and "die." When it is mentioned at
all the disease is said to be caused by phlegm. Compared with bile and wind-
caused diseases, these are generally considered to be much harder to cure and
more life-threatening. Additionally, phlegm is a cooling agency, and hence
might account for the corpse-like condition of the soma (I am indebted to E.V.
Daniel for this observation).
What seems evident in the statements of the 'das-log is the fact that they are
under various kinds of stress. Both Karma-dbang-'dzin and Gling-bza' Chos-
skyid grieve over their frustrations of having been forced to lead the lives of
ordinary worldly women, when their earlier inclinations would have them fulfill-
ing a religious role. This situation is exacerbated in Gling-bza's case, and as we
shall see, in Karma-dbang-'dzin's, by their relationships with their kinsmen,