Skip to content
The ConsciousLibrary

Library Padmasambhava

The Great Liberation by Hearing in the Intermediate State (Bardo Thödol, 'Tibetan Book of the Dead') — Padmasambhava

Traditional attribution · Essential works

The Great Liberation by Hearing in the Intermediate State (Bardo Thödol, 'Tibetan Book of the Dead')

ཟབ་ཆོས་ཞི་ཁྲོ་དགོངས་པ་རང་གྲོལ་ལས་བར་དོ་ཐོས་གྲོལ་ཆེན་མོ། (zab chos zhi khro dgongs pa rang grol las bar do thos grol chen mo)

Padmasambhava (Orgyen Dorje Chang) con Yeshe Tsogyal, tangka tibetano del siglo XVII
byPadmasambhava

A set of ritual texts read aloud beside the dying and the dead to guide them through the intermediate states (bar do) between death and rebirth: the clear light at the moment of dying, the visions of the peaceful and wrathful deities and the search for a new birth. It belongs to the cycle 'The Self-Liberation of the Intention of the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities', revealed in the fourteenth century by Karma Lingpa. Since the 1927 English version it has been the most widely read Tibetan text in the West.

Not available

No edition of this work is currently on sale in a store we have been able to verify.

Editions and translations · 9

EnglishDeutschEspañol

Authorship note

A 'treasure' text (gter ma): Nyingma tradition holds that Padmasambhava taught it in the eighth century, that Yeshe Tsogyal wrote it down in code and that it was hidden to be revealed centuries later by a discoverer (gter ston). For historical criticism it is a composition from the revealer's period. Revealed by Karma Lingpa (1326–1386) on Mount Gampodar; the Western title 'Tibetan Book of the Dead' was coined by W. Y. Evans-Wentz (1927).

Editions and translations

Editions in your language first, without hiding the others. Each with its cover and its store.

English

  • The Tibetan Book of the Dead: First Complete Translation — Padmasambhava

    The Tibetan Book of the Dead: First Complete Translation

    Penguin Classics, 2006

    Translation: Gyurme Dorje (ed. Graham Coleman y Thupten Jinpa)

    ISBN 9780140455298

    Primera traducción completa del ciclo; ed. de lujo 2007: 9780143104940.

  • The Tibetan Book of the Dead: The Great Liberation through Hearing in the Bardo — Padmasambhava

    The Tibetan Book of the Dead: The Great Liberation through Hearing in the Bardo

    Shambhala, 2000

    Translation: Francesca Fremantle y Chögyam Trungpa

    ISBN 9781570627477

    Primera edición 1975.

  • The Tibetan Book of the Dead, as Popularly Known in the West: Liberation through Understanding in the Between — Padmasambhava

    The Tibetan Book of the Dead, as Popularly Known in the West: Liberation through Understanding in the Between

    Bantam Books, 1994

    Translation: Robert A. F. Thurman

    ISBN 9780553370904

  • The Tibetan Book of the Dead

    Oxford University Press, 1927

    Translation: Kazi Dawa-Samdup (ed. W. Y. Evans-Wentz)

    Primera versión occidental; prólogo psicológico de C. G. Jung desde la ed. alemana de 1935.

Deutsch

  • Das tibetanische Totenbuch

    Rascher, 1935

    Translation: Louise Göpfert-March (a partir de Evans-Wentz)

    Con el comentario psicológico de C. G. Jung.

Español

  • El libro tibetano de los muertos — Padmasambhava

    El libro tibetano de los muertos

    Edaf, 2001

    ISBN 9788441401761

  • Bardo Thodol — Padmasambhava

    Bardo Thodol

    José J. de Olañeta, 2013

    ISBN 9788497168458

  • El libro tibetano de los muertos — Padmasambhava

    El libro tibetano de los muertos

    Kier, 2014

    Translation: Versión española de la edición de W. Y. Evans-Wentz

    ISBN 9789501729702

  • El libro tibetano de los muertos — Padmasambhava

    El libro tibetano de los muertos

    Editorial Kairós

    Translation: Versión española de la traducción de Robert A. F. Thurman

    ISBN 9788472453319

    Reed. Plutón Ediciones 2012 (9788418211492).

Other works by Padmasambhava

Sources

  • Cuevas, Bryan J. The Hidden History of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Nueva York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Affiliate link: if you buy through it, the library may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. When an edition's real cover is not available, we show an illustrative library cover.