The Tibetan book of the dead: Its history and controversial aspects of its contents.

The Tibetan Book of the Dead (TBD) was gradually developed within the Dzokchen tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, not a single ancient text. Comparing its descriptions of death and afterlife with reports from Tibetan délok, near-death experiencers, mediums, and children who remember past lives shows some consistent features but also key inconsistencies. These inconsistencies likely reflect the unique Dzokchen tradition's concepts rather than universal experiences. Scholars should therefore be cautious about uncritically adopting the TBD's contents.

Study at a glance

Abstract

In recent decades, the Tibetan Book of the Dead (TBD) has attracted much attention from Westerners interested in Eastern spirituality and has been discussed in the literature on dying and near-death experiences. However, the history of the TBD has practically been ignored in that literature up to now. This history has been elaborated in detail by Tibetologist Bryan Cuevas (2003). To bring this history to the attention of scholars in the field of near-death studies, I present in this paper a summary of the TBD's development based primarily on the work of Cuevas (2003). The summary shows that the TBD was gradually elaborated within a specific Tibetan Buddhist context, the Dzokchen tradition. In comparing features of first-hand reports of the death and dying process as reported in the TBD with those reported in four other categories -- Tibetan délok, near-death experiencers, mediums, and children who remember previous lives -- I find that some features are consistent but that other key features are not. Because it seems likely that inconsistent features of the TBD reflect idiosyncratic dying and afterlife concepts of the Dzokchen tradition, scholars in the field of near-death studies and others should be careful about adopting the contents of the TBD without question.