[the Alternative Choosing: Supernormal Birth; Or Womb-Birth]

If, however, O nobly-born, thou hast, because of the influence of karma, to enter into a womb, the teaching for the selection of the womb-door will be explained now. Listen.

Do not enter into any sort of womb which may be come by. If compelled by tormenting furies to enter, meditate upon Hayagriva.

Since thou now possessest a slender supernormal power of

one after another.?, Choose accordingly.

There are two alternatives: the transference [of the conscious-

the impure sanxgsaric womb-door, to be accomplished as follows:

is. The Lepchas, descendants of the primitive races of Sikkim, who still form a large part of the rural population, are as thoroughly animistic in their worships as the American Red Men; and, largely through their influence, the evocation of the dead has become rather widespread among the Sikkimese Buddhist lay- folk, many of whom are of both Tibetan and Lepcha blood. Similarly, in Buddhist Bhutan, such spirit-evocation iscommon, In both countries, however, the /amas strenuously, though rather ineffectually, oppose it.

It is said that the retardation of a Bardo-bound spirit may be for any time from five hundred to one thousand years; and, in exceptional cases, for ages. All the while, escape from the Bardo being prevented, the deceased can neither pass on to a paradise realm nor be reborn in the human world. Ultimately, however, the womb will be entered and the Bardo come to an end.

' Text: rtsal (pron, sal): ‘powers’; elsewhere in our text dvang-po (pron. wang-po) being rendered as ‘ faculties’.

# In a series of visions, the Knower will become aware of the lot or destiny associated with each womb or place of birth seen. Here again we are reminded of the episode in the tenth book of Plato’s Republic, describing a band of Greek heroes in the Otherworld choosing their bodies for the next incarnation.