The classic text describing Tibetan Buddhist beliefs about death and
the afterlife, presented in a high-quality, Chinese-bound format.
First revealed by a Tibetan monk in the fourteeenth century, Bardo
Thodol--known more commonly as The Tibetan Book of the
Dead--describes the experience of human consciousness in the bardo, the
interval between death and the next rebirth. The teachings are designed
to help the dying regain clarity of awareness at the moment of death,
and by doing so achieve enlightened liberation. Popular throughout the
world since the 1960s and overwhelmingly the best-known Buddhist text in
the West, this classic translation by Kazi Dawa Samdup is divided into
21 chapters, with sections on the chikhai bardo, or the clear light
seen at the moment of death*; chönyid bardo*, or karmic apparitions; the
wisdom of peaceful deities, Buddhas, and Bodhisattvas; the 58
flame-enhaloed, wrathful, blood-drinking deities; the judgement of those
who the dying has known in life through the "mirror of karma"; and the
process of rebirth. The text also includes chapters on the signs of
death and rituals to undertake for the dying.