The Tibetan Book Of The Dead, Transitions To The Otherworld, Page 5
BON-PO BOOKS OF THE
DEAD
Before the arrival of Buddhism from
India sometime in the seventh century
A.D., Tibetan religious practice was
focused largely on the person of the
king. Since it was held that the welfare
of Tibet depended upon the welfare of
its ruler, special rituals were
performed to protect and prolong the
king's life, and when dead, to guarantee
his safe passage to the heavenly
mountains. According to some of the
early historical sources, the priests
that performed such rituals were
identified by the name "bon- po" and
their beliefs by the term "bon."
Although it is commonly claimed that
this ancient pre-Buddhist class of
Tibetan priests became the Bon religion
of modern times, historical evidence
indicates that Bon developed into an
organized and distinctive religious
tradition only in deliberate opposition
to Buddhism as late as the tenth
century. Thus, more than likely, a
genuine pre-Buddhist Bon religion never
truly existed. In other words, the
development of Buddhism and Bon were
separate but simultaneous processes
within the whole range of Tibetan
religion. Over the centuries the mixture
of indigenous Tibetan beliefs and
practices with those of Buddhism (and
Bon) has succeeded in almost completely
obscuring any distinctions between the
two. What appears to be certain is that
early Tibetan religion revolved
essentially around ideas about the
creative and destructive powers of the
earth and the nature and persistence of
the soul or la (bla) after death.
Certain elements of these ideas have
survived and can be discerned in Bon-po
(or, as the case may be, in Buddhist)
literature, but such ideas themselves
are fundamentally different from the
basic doctrines of the Bon religion that
originally had been instituted only
after the arrival of Buddhism in Tibet
(and that continue to be practiced
today). The Bon texts that are showcased
in this section of the exhibit reflect
the creative tension between the two
opposing traditions of Buddhism and Bon,
and reveal a number of Tibetan ideas on
death and the hereafter that have more
or less survived from ancient times.
next page
return to index