Thirty-Seven Bardo Tsakalis (Initiation Cards)
Block printed on paper, burnished surface
Bkra Shis Lhunpo Monastery
Museum #: 91.001.004
By Cathleen Cummings
26 May, 1998
These tsakalis (initation cards) were used in the initiations performed
by a Lama or monk in the process of reciting the Bardo Thodol (Great
Liberation Through Hearing in the Between, known in the West as the
Tibetan Book of the Dead) on behalf of a deceased person.
Tsakalis are carried by a monk or Lama to the home of a dying or
deceased person to whom the Bardo will be recited. At the start of this
recitation, the Lama summons the consciousness of the deceased with a name-card
or picture-card, often a block-printed drawing of a worshipper upon which
the deceased's name is written. The name-card symbolically represents the
deceased so that the Lama may give him instructions and describe the Bardo
stages, thus preparing the deceased for the Bardo visitations. The tsakalis
are then used by the Lama to guide that consciousness through the realms
of the Bardo, the "Between state" or intermediate plane of existence
that each person experiences following the end of this life and the next
rebirth.
The tsakalis are held up during certain points in the reading of
the text when specific initiations for the dead person are performed. The
central part of the ritual begins as the Lama describes the sixth day of
the Bardo visions. This occurs within the fourteen-day period that
forms the second of the three stages of the Bardo, called the Chonyid Bardo,
in which visionary deities appear before the deceased. On the sixth day
of the Chonyid Bardo the Six Buddhas of the six realms of existence, emanations
of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, appear before the deceased. At this stage
the Lama describes the Buddha that presides over each realm and the particular
sufferings to be found in each. The deceased's name-card is moved through
and symbolically liberated from each of these six realms which are then
ritually closed off after the deceased passes through it, protecting him
from rebirth there.
In total, fourteen initiations are performed in the recitation of the Bardo
Thodol, through which knowledge about all of the visionary deities of the
Bardo and the symbolic significance of their groupings are explained. Amongst
these initiations are those to the five Buddhas, with consecrated water
used for abhiseka rites, and the offering of bowls of rice. By reciting
the Bardo and performing the initiations in this way the Lama spiritually
enables the deceased to face the Bardo deities and understand their true
nature; this understanding is the key to liberation for the deceased.
Tsakalis are utilized in other death and dying rituals not related
to recitation of the Bardo, at the end of which the name-card of the deceased
may be burned to indicate the consumption of the last tie to this incarnation.
Similar cards are also used for a variety of other initiations which a practitioner
is given as he progresses in his studies.
This set of tsakalis includes images of the Buddhas of the Six Realms
of Existence, and of the mandalas of these Six Realms. Other cards depict
ritual implements such as the dorje, or show groups of some
of the Wrathful deities that appear during the Bardo visions.
References:
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