Page:The Tibetan Book of the Dead (1927).djvu/66

16 reflex of the Dhyānī Buddha Akṣḥobhya), the ‘Triumphant One of Divine Heroic Mind’.

The Earth-Element of the Third Day, producing the chief solid constituents of the human form, and of all physical forms, gives rise to the passion of Egoism, and the aggregate is Touch; and these, when divinely transmuted, become the Wisdom of Equality, personified in Ratna-Sambhava, the ‘Gem-born One’, the Beautifier.

The Fire-Element of the Fourth Day, producing the animal-heat of embodied human and animal beings, gives rise to the passion of Attachment, or Lust, and the Aggregate of Feelings. Herein the transmutation gives birth to the All-Discriminating Wisdom, which enables the devotee to know each thing separately, yet all things as one; personified in the Dhyānī Buddha Amitābha, ‘He of Boundless Light’, the Illuminator, or Enlightener.

The Element Air, of the Fifth Day, produces the breath of life. Its quality, or passions, in man is Envy, or Jealousy. Its aggregate is Volition. The transmutation is into the All-Performing Wisdom, which gives perseverance and unerring action in things spiritual, personified in Amogha-Siddhi, the ‘Almighty Conqueror’, the Giver of Divine Power.

As explained above, in, the last Element, Ether, which produces the mind, or Knower, and the desire-body of the dwellers in the Intermediate State, does not dawn for the deceased, because—as the text tells us—the Wisdom Faculty of the Consciousness, that is to say, the supramundane Buddha (or Bodhic) consciousness, has not been developed in the ordinary humanity. To it is related—as in our text—Vajra-Sattva and the Mirror-like Wisdom and the Aggregate of Bodhic Wisdom, Vajra-Sattva being then synonymous, esoterically, with Samanta-Bhadra (who, in turn, is often personified in Vairochana, the Chief of the Five Dhyānī Buddhas), the Ādi-Buddha, the Primordial, the Unborn, Unshaped, Unmodified Dharma-Kāya.

When the perfection of the Divine Body-Aggregate is attained by man, it becomes the unchanging, immutable Vajra-Sattva. When the perfection of the Divine