In the Lower World, at the bottom of the painting, typical punishments in various Hells are depicted, none of which, however, are everlasting. On the left, in the upper corner, where two sinners are immersed in a glacial region, the Eight Cold Hells are suggested. Near the edge of the painting, on the opposite side, a sinner amidst flames suggests the Eight Hot Hells. The commission of any of the ten impious acts, deliberately and from selfish motives, leads to purgation in the Cold Hells; any of the same acts done through anger lead to purgation in the Hot Hells.
Just below the Cold Hells is the Hell of the ‘Spiked Tree’ or ‘Hill of Spikes’ (Tib. Shal-ma-li), in which an evil-doer has been quartered and affixed to the spikes. Beside it, in charge of a hell-fury, is ‘The Doorless Iron House’ (Tib. Lchags-khang-sgo-med). Next to this there are four lāmas held under the mountainous weight of an enormous Tibetan sacred book; they are being punished thus for having in their earth-life hurried through and skipped passages when reading religious texts. The triangle, in which an evil-doer is fixed, symbolizes the terrible Avitchi Hell, wherein one guilty of a heinous sin, such as using sorcery to destroy enemies or deliberate failure to fulfil Tantric vows, endures punishment for ages which are almost immeasurable. Close to the triangle, a hell-fury is pouring spoonfuls of molten metal into a woman condemned for prostitution. The person next to her, bowed under the weight of a heavy rock tied to his back, is being punished in that manner for having killed small living creatures like vermin or other insects. The sinner whom a hell-fury is holding stretched out on a floor of spiked iron while another hell-fury is preparing to hack him to pieces (cf. p. 166) has been found guilty of another of the ten impious acts. So also has been the woman who is about to be sawn in two lengthwise; her sin has been murder. As in Dante’s Inferno, other evil-doers, incapable, as our text explains, of succumbing to the process (cf. p. 166), are being cooked in the iron cauldron at the lower right-hand corner. Three hell-furies (one brown, one yellow, one blue in the original) are to be seen holding by the end of nooses and leading and dragging along (cf. p. 166) to appropriate punishments three of the dead who have just been cast into Hell.
At the top of the picture, in the centre, on an enhaloed lotus and lunar throne, with the moon (white) at his right and the sun (gold) at his left, presiding over all, is Dorje Chang (blue), the Divine Guru of the Red-Hat School of Padma Sambhava; for he is held to be the Ever-living and Spiritual Source whence continue to emanate, as in the days of the Buddha Shakya Muni, all the Esoteric Doctrines underlying the Bardo Thödol, which are referred to on pages 133 to 134 of our translation.[1]
The Indian Wheel of the Law (Dharma-Chakra)
on back of book
From designs sculptured on the Sanchi Topes, dating from about 500 B.C. to 100
A. D.
The Lāmaic Crossed Dorje
on front cover of book
Symbolical of equilibrium, immutability, and almighty power. (Cf. pp. 63, 1161.)
The Tibetan Wheel of the Law (Ch’os-’k’or-bskor)
facing p. 119
The Eight-Spoked Wheel (cf. p. 106), on a lotus throne and enhaloed by Flames of Wisdom, is representative of the Thousand-Spoked Wheel of the Good Law of the Buddha, symbol of the symmetry and completeness of the Sacred Law of the Dharma, or Scriptures. The design at the centre, called in Tibetan rgyan-’k’yil, composed of three whirling segments, symbolizes—as does the svastika at the centre of the Indian Wheel of the Law—the Sangsāra, or ceaseless change or ‘becoming’.
The Dorje, the Lāmaic Sceptre
facing p. 137
A type of the Thunderbolt of Indra, the Indian Jupiter, used in most lāmaic rituals (cf. pp. 10, 1082, 137–8, 142–5), symbolical of dominion over sangsāric (or worldly) existence.
The Mantra of Chenrazee (Avalokiteshvara)
facing p. 167
In Ranja or Lantsa Indian characters of about the seventh century
A.D. Lantsa characters, slightly modified, are used in Tibetan manuscripts, commonly on title-pages. In Tibetan characters the sacred Mantra is ཨོཾམཎིཔདྨེཧཱུྃ, which means literally: ‘Ōm! The Jewel in the Lotus! Hūṃ!’ (Cf. pp. 1342, 1491, 206.)
↑ It should be noted that each of the dead possesses a body suited to the paradise realm or hell-world in which karma brings about birth; and that when any of the after-human-death states of existence ends there is again a death process and a casting off of a body (cf. pp. 155–8, and Book II passim). The Bardo is the intermediate state whence one may be reborn in this world in a human body, or in the ghost-world in a ghost body, or in one of the paradise realms, such as the deva-loka, in a god body, or in the asura-loka in an asura body, or in one of the hells in a body capable of enduring suffering and incapable of dying there until the purgation is complete. Following death in a hell, or in any other of the after-human-death states, the normal process is to be reborn on earth as a human being. The True Goal, as the Bardo Thödol repeatedly explains, is beyond all states of embodiment, beyond all hells, worlds, and heavens, beyond the Sangsāra, beyond Nature; it is called Nirvāṇa (Tib. Myang-hdas). See Addenda, V, pp. 224–32.
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