Tibetan Foothold (9 page)

Dubkay was sitting on the edge of the charpoy holding his wife in his
arms, stroking her hair gently and weeping. In another corner of the tiny room his aunt was inexpertly preparing a bottle-feed for the infant, who lay concealed in a bundle of dirty rags, and the remaining
floor-space
was occupied by standing ayahs who argued and sobbed in the intervals between gazing silently at the dying woman with a sort of fascinated terror.

We saw at once that she
was
dying, though she seemed fully
conscious
. A brief examination showed that her heart was failing, so Juliet proposed that she should be given an injection to stimulate it. To this Dubkay agreed, though in a manner suggesting that he was merely pandering to our whims: but when he translated the proposal to the ayahs they protested violently. However, Juliet then sent me to fetch what was needed from the Dispensary.

When I returned most of the ayahs had gone and His Holiness’s personal physician, attended by a Lama, had just arrived from the Palace. The ‘am-chi’ felt the patient’s pulse at wrist and ankle, laid his ear for a moment on the abdomen and then, murmuring something to Dubkay, withdrew to allow the Lama to perform the necessary rites. An ayah had brought a saucepan of glowing wood-embers from the kitchen and on these incense was sprinkled and the saucepan handed to Dubkay, who held it close to his wife’s face, while the Lama wafted the smoke towards her nostrils. I couldn’t decide whether this was in fact a religious rite or simply a form of smelling-salts. One of the English interpreters from the Palace had now joined us, but though I questioned him on various points he obviously did not wish to discuss the religious aspect of the scene with an outsider. He merely mentioned that for the past few months Rinchin had been having terrifyingly vivid nightmares about the present condition of her family in Tibet, where she had left her parents, her husband, a sister and three young brothers. Seemingly she and the two children had been alone in their home in Lhasa when the Uprising took place and for the children’s sakes she had immediately fled, but had ever since regretted not having waited – either to help the rest of the family to escape or to face the Chinese repression with them.

Suddenly the incense – or something else – took effect and Rinchin,
who had been reclining against a bed-roll, sat bolt upright without assistance and began to talk in a low but very clear voice. At once the ayahs, who had by now reassembled, stopped their agitated chattering and seemed hardly to breathe. Rinchin spoke emphatically for four or five minutes, appearing perfectly lucid, and then lay back again.
Without
looking directly at anyone I could feel the fear in the room – it almost amounted to mass-hysteria – and for the first and only time in my life I experienced that sensation known as ‘hair prickling on the back of the neck’.

I whispered an enquiry to the interpreter and he replied briefly that Rinchin had described her visions and concluded by affirming that a few months ago an Evil Spirit from Tibet had entered into her and she had known then that after the birth she would die.

Now the Lama anointed Rinchin’s ears, eyes and nose with
butterfat
, before going into a trance to attempt to exorcise the Evil Spirit. Within moments he had gone completely rigid as he sat cross-legged, his eyes open but blank and beads of sweat standing out on his face. By this time Juliet had taken the unfortunate baby to our bungalow for a feed and I was left distributing brandy by the spoonful to Rinchin, Dubkay – and myself. Soon the Lama had gone so white and was sweating so hard and looking so odd that I feared he might die first. Two other Lamas now arrived, carrying the
Bardo Thödol
(a Tibetan Buddhist scripture recited for the benefit of the dying and the dead) rolled up in two silver cylinders. These manuscripts were immediately unfolded and the monks began to chant them
sotto voce
in that
indescribable
Tibetan manner which has to be heard to be believed. At this point, since I could do no more for either Rinchin or Dubkay, I left the hut and hurried down the dark mountainside to the bungalow, telling myself that I was hurrying because of bears and that it was absolutely ridiculous to think in terms of death-demons.

An hour later the interpreter came to tell us that Rinchin was dead.

I haven’t been feeling very energetic today. Last night, after diary-writing, Rinchin’s death prompted me to continue my study of Dr Evans-Wentz’s edition of the
Bardo Thödol
– which in the circumstances made such absorbing reading that it was 2.30 a.m. before I put out the light.

This must be one of the world’s most remarkable books. Tradition says that it was compiled during the early centuries of Lamaism – if not actually during the lifetime of Padma Sambhava himself – and to the average reader it certainly gives the impression of having been strongly influenced by the old animist Bön-Po religion. However, Lama Anagorika Govinda points out that it cannot be regarded as propagating Bön ideas, since it firmly declares its adherence to Padma Sambhava, the man responsible for replacing Bönism by Buddhism. Therefore the Bön influence should be interpreted not as a dilution of the original Buddhist doctrine, but as the consequence of Padma Sambhava’s compromise with the local Tibetan deities, whom he appointed as guardians of the new faith. Bönism did have a crude doctrine of rebirth, yet, from what little else is known of it, there were few other points of contact with Buddhism, so this ‘appointment’ of its gods must have been an expedient manoeuvre to reconcile the more fanatical followers of the old faith to the new. Such a manoeuvre was permissible within the framework of orthodox Buddhism, which has always tolerated the reverencing of the gods of earth and space, as guardians of the ‘Dharma’. Yet it is probably true to say that Lamaism, as practised by uneducated lay-people, retains a stronger animist element than any other Buddhist School – particularly, it seems, among the Gelug-pa sect, which might be described as the State Church of Tibet. This is an odd circumstance, because the Gelug-pas (also known as the ‘Yellow-Hats’ and ‘The Virtuous’) are in fact the Reformed Church, established by Tsong-Kapa in the late fourteenth century, and one would have assumed them to be least influenced by the ancient religion. However, there was no reason to fear the rivalry of Bönism by that date, when the surviving Bön-pos had completed the process of so closely remodelling their religion on Buddhist lines
that outsiders found it difficult to distinguish between the two
iconographies
and literatures. Therefore the Gelug-pas could in turn borrow from the Bön-pos without loss of dignity and they chose to reintroduce one of the most powerful Bönist institutions – the State Oracles. Oracle-Temples are now to be found in most Yellow Sect Monasteries and the deities invoked therein are exclusively Bönist.

The Bön-pos, like most other primitive people, had their rituals for the benefit and guidance of the dead, but the
Bardo Thödol,
though incorporating some of these, presents far more complex theories about Life, Death and Rebirth than could have been evolved by a people without any literature of their own. It belongs to the same
eschatological
tradition as Plato’s
Tenth Book of the Republic,
the Egyptian
Book of the Dead
and the medieval
Ars Moricado.
Sir John Woodroffe has described it as a ‘Traveller’s Guide to Other Worlds’, since it recounts, with a considerable knowledge of depth psychology, the experiences of the deceased between death and rebirth. But it can also provide the means of comforting and strengthening those who are on their deathbed and, most important of all, its essential teaching is intended to be assimilated and acted on throughout life, so that the Buddhist ideal of meeting death serenely, lucidly and bravely may be realised when the time comes. In our age the Tibetans are unique as the only people to study the Art of Dying as something equalling in important the Art of Living. This is a corollary to their belief that ‘… the last thought at the moment of death determines the character of the next incarnation’ – a theory recalling the Hebrew teaching, ‘As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.’

However, yesterday’s recitation of the
Bardo Thödol
was merely an example of the popular use to which the book is now put by the majority who, misunderstanding its purpose, use it thus in the belief that such a recitation will effect the ‘liberation’ of the dying person from the cycle of birth and rebirth. One can hardly blame the ordinary monks and lay-people for their superstitious misinterpretations and debasements of the Buddhist doctrine, considering how few people have been admitted throughout the centuries to the circle of initiates. In this respect Southern Buddhist criticisms of Northern Buddhism,
as a type of gnosticism and a deviation from the Pali Canon, seem justified.

In his introduction to
The Tibetan Book of the Dead,
as the English translation of the Bardo Thödol is entitled, Dr Evans-Wentz makes a very interesting comparison between the Bible, the Koran and the
Bardo Thödol
. He observes that whereas the former two books present, as real events, those spiritual experiences which take the form of visions or hallucinations, the
Bardo Thödol
presents them as purely illusionary and symbolic, thereby revealing a much deeper understanding of the human mind than was common in earlier centuries. Yet here again we see the disparity between the esoteric and exoteric interpretations; many now regard these symbolic descriptions of after-death experiences just as credulously as we regarded the Bible two hundred years ago.

Dr Evans-Wentz also remarks on the link between the Tibetan doctrine of rebirth and ‘the purgatorial lore now Christianised and associated with St Patrick’s Purgatory in Ireland, and the whole cycle of Otherworld and Rebirth legends of the Celtic peoples connected with their Fairy-Faith’. In his book
*
Dr Evans-Wentz has suggested that this purgatorial lore, which was centred about a cavern for mystic pagan initiations on an island in Lough Derg, may have inspired the doctrine of Purgatory in the Catholic Church. He mentions that the original cavern was demolished by order of the British Government, in an attempt to destroy pagan superstition. According to Tibetan eschatology rebirth in this world is the equivalent of the Catholic Purgatory and is the normal person’s lot. Only the exceptionally evil man is condemned to Hell and only the exceptionally good man attains Nirvana.

When Juliet went back to the hut last night, after being told of Rinchin’s death, she found it already deserted by everyone except a Lama and she had to return here to find the unhappy Dubkay, who was so crazed with grief that it required two men to hold him down and prevent him from injuring himself. Juliet gave him a sedative which soon sent him
to sleep, but everyone else seemed to remain awake, and all night we could hear women wailing and men beating drums to frighten off the Evil Spirit.

The Tibetan custom is to throw a white cloth over the corpse’s face as soon as death takes place and nobody is allowed to touch the deceased while the complete separation of soul from body is believed to be in progress. This takes from three and a half to four days, unless hastened by a priest known as the
hpho-bo or
‘extractor of the consciousness principle’. But even with the hpho-bo’s assistance it is held that the deceased is not aware of separation from the body until this period has passed. In Rinchin’s case a
hpho-bo
came immediately and he was the Lama seen sitting at the head of the corpse by Juliet.

The
hpho-bo
usually dismisses everyone from the death chamber and has all the doors and windows sealed to ensure the silence necessary for the performance of his ritual. Next he intones a mystic chant and, after ordering the spirit to detach itself from living relatives and material goods and to leave the body, he scrutinises the crown of the head at the sagittal suture, known as the ‘Aperture of Brahma’, and if the scalp is not bald removes a few hairs from immediately over the aperture.

While this ceremony is being conducted a tsi-pa or astrologer-Lama, is elsewhere casting a horoscope to discover who may approach and handle the corpse, how and when it should be disposed of and what rites should be performed to assist the deceased – this depending on the precise nature of the death-demon concerned. Next the corpse is arranged in a sitting position, known as the ‘embryonic posture’, and is placed in one corner of the room. When I went up to the hut this morning Rinchin was arranged thus and two Lamas were reciting the
Bardo Thödol
. A bowl of food stood before the corpse, for it is customary to offer the deceased a share of each meal eaten by the family and by visiting mourners between the times of death and burial. Similarly, during the forty-nine-day period which is believed to elapse between death and rebirth, an effigy of the corpse is kept in the corner of the room formerly occupied by the deceased and is regularly offered food. This effigy is made by dressing some suitable object such as a stool in the dead person’s clothes and inserting a printed paper where the
face should be. On this the inscription reads: ‘I, the world’s departing one, (name), adore and take refuge in my Lama-confessor, and all the deities, both mild and wrathful; and may “the Great Pitier” forgive my accumulated sins and impurities of former lives and show me the way to another good world.’

Dr Evans-Wentz finds the use of this effigy ‘So definitely akin to the effigy of the deceased called “the Statue of the Osiris”, as used in the funeral rites of Ancient Egypt, as to suggest a common origin.’ And Dr L. A. Waddell writes: ‘This is essentially a Bön rite, and is referred to as such in the histories of Guru Padma Sambhava, as having been practised by the Bön, and as having incurred the displeasure of the founder of Lamaism.’ It is rather characteristic of the Tibetans that while doctrines come and go they quietly but firmly adhere to the rites that please them.

We were told this evening that the astrologer had declared 4 a.m. tomorrow to be an auspicious time for the funeral. Then, every week until the forty-nine days are over, Lamas will come to the hut to read the
Bardo Thödol
. At the end of this period the effigy’s face-paper is ‘ceremoniously burned in the flame of a butter-lamp and the spirit of the deceased given a final farewell’, its fate being deduced from the colour of the burning paper and the way in which the flame behaves. Next the effigy is taken apart and the clothes given to the Lamas, who sell them as part of their fee. A year later a feast is held in honour of the deceased and after this the widow or widower is at liberty to marry again.