Page:The Tibetan Book of the Dead (1927).djvu/35

Rh But it is said that the chain of conscious states is not always broken by death, since there is Phowa, or power to project consciousness and enter the body of another. Indian occultism speaks of the same power of leaving one’s body (Svechchhotkrānti), which, according to the Tantrarāja (ch., vv. 45–7, 72–80), is accomplished through the operation (Vāyudhārana) of the vital activity (or Vāyu) in thirty-eight points, or junctions (Marma), of the body. How, it may be asked, does this practice work in with the general doctrine or ‘reincarnation’? We should have been glad if Dr. Evans-Wentz had elucidated this point. On principle, it would seem that in the case of entry into an unborn body such entry may be made into the Matrix in the same way as if it had occurred after a break of consciousness in death. But in the case of entry into beings already born the operation of the power or Siddhi would appear to be by the way of possession (Āvesha) by one consciousness of the consciousness and body of another, differing from the more ordinary case by the fact that the possessing consciousness does not return to its body, which ex hypothesi is about to die when the consciousness leaves it.

If transference of consciousness is effected, there is, of course, no Bardo, which involves the break of consciousness by death. Otherwise, the Text is read.

Then, as the breathing is about to cease, instruction is given and the arteries are pressed. This is done to keep the dying person conscious with a consciousness rightly directed. For the nature of the Death-consciousness determines the future state of the ‘soul-complex’, existence being the continuous transformation of one conscious state into another. Both in Catholic and Hindu ritual for the dying there is constant prayer and repetition of the sacred names.

The pressing of the arteries regulates the path to be taken by the outgoing vital current (Prāṇa). The proper path is that which passes through the Brāhmarandhra, or Foramen of Monro. This notion appears to have been widely held (to quote an instance) even in so remote and primitive a spot as San Cristoval in the Solomon Islands (see Threshold of the