identity continues is a key question. The dissolution
of the self never means the dissolution of karma.
Some schools speak of four stages of life: birth, the
period between birth and death, death, and the period
between death and rebirth. According to the ABHI-
DHARMAKOS ́ABHASYAand Yogacara literature, one ex-
planation of this process is that in the presence of a life
span the jlvitendriyaholds onto bodily warmth and
consciousness symbiotically and unceasingly until the
“due time.” At that point all three—life, warmth, and
consciousness—abandon the body and death ensues,
described as akin to throwing off a piece of wood,
whereupon karma forces the three to seek another
body. Here it would seem that the physical body is
something other than these three animating functions
and that only in combination is a finite lifetime pro-
duced. Another doctrine posits the antarabhava,an
INTERMEDIATE STATEbetween death and the next life
wherein one is transformed into an entity called a
gandharva,originally a semidivine being associated
with fertility and the god Soma in pre-Buddhist Indian
myths. Possessing subtle versions of all five aggregates
reflective of one’s next birth, for most people in this
state some perception is possible but willpower is lim-
ited to finding an appropriate womb to descend into,
and the common view gives the gandharvaforty-nine
days to accomplish this task. Advanced practitioners
known as nonreturners,however, can attain nirvana
from this state. This conception was readily accepted
into the MAHAYANA, where it gave rise to a variety of
beliefs and practices designed to help the recently de-
ceased alter their destined rebirth.
The gods Yama and MARAreflect another mythical
aspect of the Buddhist concept of death. Son of a gan-
dharva,Yama is depicted in the Rg Vedaas the first
mortal; deciding to remain among the dead, Yama be-
comes the lord of that realm. In the Atharva Vedahe
acquires a messenger, Mrtyu, who later appears in the
KALACAKRAas death lurking within the body of sen-
tient beings. Otherwise, King Yama’s role is generally
restricted to the unseen world of the dead, where he
becomes the judge before whom the deceased must
stand to receive karmic sentencing to determine their
status in the next birth. Yama is thus a negative sym-
bol of samsara itself, and he can be seen holding the
six-realm wheel of life in the VAJRAYANA, which also
includes a deity, Yamantaka, who represents his defeat.
If Buddhists fear Yama in the next world, they fear Ma-
ra, also called the “king of death” (Suttanipata), in this
one. From his attempts to dissuade the bodhisattva
from attaining enlightenment via the enticement of
lust and the fear of attack, Mara symbolizes personal
death, the death of Buddhism as a religion, and the
evils of destruction and uncontrolled desire. Derived
from a verb meaning to die or kill (mr), there are var-
ious forms of Mara, residing within the aggregates, in
the kles ́as(defilements), in one of the heavens of the
desire-realm (kamaloka), and so on. Although in one
sense Mara is death itself, he is most commonly de-
picted as a deity who is resentful of the dharma and
devoted to hindering the spiritual progress of the prac-
titioner.Death as a theme of praxis
Meditations on death run throughout the Buddhist
tradition. This comes from the fact that the Buddha
identified death as the ultimate and therefore most po-
tentially instructive form of duhkha.Death as a theme
in focused RITUALor MEDITATIONis similarly called
the key to the “gate of deathlessness.” From very early
there have been two famous forms of death-praxis,
known as death-mindfulness(maranasmrti) and med-
itation on pollution(as ́ubhabhavana). These are men-
tioned in various places in the Pali canon, but their
fullest descriptions are found in the Visuddhimaggaby
BUDDHAGHOSA.
Mindfulness of death is aimed at fostering existen-
tial acceptance of the reality of death and allowing that
realization to influence one’s life fully. The Buddha was
appalled at how common it was for people to go
through life as if they were not going to die, and this
form of meditation uses eight topics for the practi-
tioner to contemplate:- death as executioner,
- death as ruinous of all forms of happiness and
success, - death as inevitable for everyone regardless of
their power, - death as coming about by an infinite number of
causes, - death as close at hand,
- death as signless, or coming without warning
signs, - death as the end of a life span that is in fact short,
- death as a constant in life.
This practice aims at liberating individuals from nat-
ural attachments to their own existence, and thus leadsDEATH