Tibetan Book of the Dead
Also known as: Bardo Thodol, Bar do thos grol, Great Liberation Through Hearing in the Intermediate State, Great Liberation by Hearing
A Nyingma Buddhist guide to the states between death and rebirth, offering instructions meant to liberate the consciousness by recognizing luminous awareness and navigating visions of peaceful and wrathful deities over forty-nine days.
Description
The Tibetan Book of the Dead (Bardo Thodol) presents ritual instructions and visionary maps for the intermediate states (bardos) of dying, reality, and becoming. Read aloud by a lama or relative, its guidance aims to help the deceased recognize the Clear Light, avoid fearful projections, and choose a favorable rebirth—or achieve liberation. Over a cycle traditionally reckoned as up to forty-nine days, the consciousness encounters the Five Tathāgatas and a vast mandala of forty-two peaceful and fifty-eight wrathful deities, alongside judgment imagery, karmic mirrors, and seductive lights of the six realms. The text belongs to a larger Padmasambhava cycle revealed by the tertön Karma Lingpa, combining meditation instructions, funerary rites, and warnings against the illusory nature of perceptions in the bardos.
Historiography
Attributed to Padmasambhava and Yeshe Tsogyal, the work entered history as a 14th-century terma revealed by Karma Lingpa, embedded within the Zhitro (Peaceful and Wrathful) cycle. It circulated widely in Nyingma funerary practice and commentarial traditions, with lineage manuals and liturgies elaborating ritual details. In the 20th century, Evans-Wentz’s English editions popularized it globally (with Jung’s psychological framing), while later translations (e.g., Gyurme Dorje) sought philological fidelity to Tibetan sources and clarified its ritual context.
Date Notes
Tradition holds the text was composed/hidden by Padmasambhava and Yeshe Tsogyal in the 8th–9th c. CE and discovered as a treasure (terma) by Karma Lingpa in the 14th c.
Archetypes
Symbols
Major Characters
- Padmasambhava
- Śākyamuni Buddha
- Avalokiteśvara
- Yama
Myths
- The Clear Light and the Moment of Death
- The Peaceful and Wrathful Deities of the Bardos
- Judgment and Selection of Womb-Door
- Liberation through Hearing
Facts
- Belongs to the Nyingma Zhitro cycle centered on peaceful and wrathful deities.
- Traditionally read aloud to the dying or deceased to prompt recognition and liberation.
- Organized around three bardos: dying (Chikhai), reality (Chonyid), and becoming (Sidpa).
- Encounters unfold across up to forty-nine days, linked to karmic momentum.
- Contrasts luminous wisdom lights with alluring but dangerous lights of the six realms.
- Evans-Wentz’s early 20th-century editions shaped Western reception and terminology.
- Later translations emphasize ritual use and precise Tibetan terminology.
- Combines meditation instruction, funerary liturgy, and visionary cartography.
- As a terma, it is said to have been hidden by Padmasambhava and revealed by Karma Lingpa.
- Iconography of the Five Tathāgatas frames many visions in the Chonyid Bardo.
- Judgment imagery includes a karmic mirror and weighing of deeds by Yama’s agents.