Tibetan Book of the Dead

About the Author

Padmasambhava, or Padmakara (“the Lotus Born”), was a sage-guru credited with transmitting Tantric Buddhism to Tibet and neighboring countries in the eighth century. He is a legendary figure in Tibetan Buddhist history, and much of his biographical information is mythic in nature. According to legend, the Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) once said, “But … years from now, in the midst of an immaculately pure lake in the northwest land of Uddiyana, one will appear who is wiser and more powerful than myself. Born from the center of a lotus blossom, he will be known as Padmasambhava and will reveal the teachings of the Secret Mantras to deliver all beings from misery.” The Tibetan king Trisong Detsen (740–798) invited Padmasambhava to defeat and pacify the local demons and evil deities who resisted the Buddhist teachings. Padmasambhava miraculously transformed them to the protectors and guardians of the Dharma, illustrating how Buddhism synthesized the native religions and became localized.

The story of Padmasambhava begins with his birth in the Milk Ocean Land in present-day Pakistan; he is said to have been born within the lotus flower upon the waters of the lake. In various portraits of him, his left hand holds a skull cup and his right hand holds a thunderbolt, connoting compassion. He is credited with building the Samyé, the first monastery of Tibet, and Nyingma, the first major school of Tibetan Buddhism, and is said to have hidden a number of religious treasures in caves, fields, and forests of the Himalayan areas to be found by future tertons, or spiritual treasure-finders. According to Tibetan tradition, the Bardo Thodol, or the Tibetan Book of the Dead, was one such hidden treasure. The life events of Padmasambhava’s life are reenacted throughout the year by Tibetans. On the tenth of every lunar month, one of his twelve feats is narrated, and at the Nyingma monasteries, people perform rituals and dances in his honor.