Two Old Tibetan texts from a single concertina manuscript sealed in the Dunhuang caves around the tenth century. On one side: a Buddhist funerary guide that opens the doors of the heavenly realms for the dead, complete with the great dhāraṇī of Sarvadurgatipariśodhana — the Buddha who purifies all evil destinies. On the other side: a verse narrative about gods who discover their radiant king has died, and the wise being who tells them the truth about impermanence.
Together, they form a complete death-and-afterlife teaching — the practice and the philosophy, bound in a single folding page. The funerary guide provides the mantras, the cosmological map, and the words of Indra. The verse narrative provides the reason: even gods die, even divine radiance fades, and the only response is to seek virtue.
The manuscript was originally a single concertina (accordion fold) later divided into Pelliot tibétain 366 (two folios) and Pelliot tibétain 367 (one folio). Both the beginning and the end are lost. What survives is the middle of each text — enough to hear the voice of a Tibetan Buddhist scribe who wrote instructions for guiding the dead through the heavens on one side of a page, and a poem about the gods learning to grieve on the other.
Part One — The Way to the Country of the Gods
Lha yul du lam bstan pa
The beginning of the text is lost. We enter mid-instruction, as the officiant addresses the dead.
...exists. Always remember this virtuous spiritual friend. Recite these words of prayer and these verses of secret mantra, and pray for protection, and you shall be freed from that place of misfortune.
Master of Suchness who has reached perfection,
Lamp of primordial wisdom that illuminates all worlds,
Who liberates beings from the path of animal-realm confusion —
Protector who purifies the evil destinies,
For you, O dead one, I swiftly pray for refuge.
Namas sarva-durgati-pariśodhana-rājāya tathāgatāya arhate samyak-sambuddhāya. Tadyathā: Oṃ śodhane sarva-pāpa-viśoddhane śuddhe viśuddhe sarva-karmāvaraṇa-viśuddhe svāhā.
Having thus blocked the doors of the three evil destinies — through the great compassion of all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, through the blessing of their truthful word, and through the surviving relatives relying on the Three Jewels — by these accumulations of true and unerring merit, supported and upheld:
The path to go to the supreme divine realm of perfect happiness and joy is this:
From this Jambudvīpa, to the north, there stands the king of mountains called Mount Meru, composed of four precious substances. Above it is the divine assembly place called Sudharmā, where the witness of the gods, Śakra, resides with his thirty-two ministers — the place that shows the path of divine and human realms.
There the king of the gods addressed the noble son, the dead one:
"O dead one, I shall teach you the heavenly speech of the dharma and show you the power of merit."
"Noble son — from there, on the far northern summit of Mount Meru, in the palace called Alaḳāvatī, the Blessed Vajrapāṇi abides with his many wrathful attendants. All desires [...]"
The text breaks off here.
Part Two — The Cycle of Birth and Death
Skye shi'i 'khor lo bstan pa
The beginning of the text is lost. We enter as the divine king's death is already underway.
...all likewise, always. But the time came when the radiance of the king of that realm [faded].
No miraculous powers or qualities could be described.
The fine radiant body faded.
All who possessed speech, movement, and magical power —
Even the omniscient — all wondered at this.
"What fault is this? What dharma?"
Though all asked each other,
None knew the meaning of this dharma.
A thousand sons, ten thousand relatives, all their retinue —
All entered the ocean of sorrow.
Beating their bodies, beating their hands, in grief.
"Will he return as before?" they hoped.
Among the gods, a long-lived one,
The great magical being called Dutara —
He came to the radiant realm.
He said this was confusion and error:
"You are all corrupted by ignorance!
All things in that realm —
After seventy thousand kalpas pass,
All become like this.
This is called the dharma of birth and death.
What benefits it, I do not know."
"There is no benefit," he explained.
The radiant king's finest son,
Named Precious Hand —
Listened and examined with great devotion,
And knew this to be true.
"When the time of birth and death thus arrives,
What is to be done? How might one return?
What is to be done to find happiness?"
He respectfully asked the great magical one.
Dutara replied:
"You seek the existence of birth and death?
What benefits it, I cannot find.
If you wish to ask about the nature of birth and death —
From here, virtue..."
The text breaks off here.
Colophon
Good Works Translation. Translated from Old Tibetan by Tanken (探検), Expeditionary Tulku (Life 15) of the New Tianmu Anglican Church, April 2026.
The source text is the Old Tibetan transliteration from the Old Tibetan Documents Online (OTDO) database, maintained by the OTDO Project at the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA), Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. The transliteration reproduces the text of two Pelliot tibétain manuscripts held by the Bibliothèque nationale de France: PT 366 (two folios of a concertina) and PT 367 (one folio of the same concertina), originally a single document.
PT 366 and PT 367 form one concertina manuscript bearing two texts on opposite sides. "The Way to the Country of the Gods" (Lha yul du lam bstan pa) runs across the recto of PT 366 and the verso of PT 367, reading from PT 367 verso to PT 366 recto. "The Cycle of Birth and Death" (Skye shi'i 'khor lo) runs across the verso of PT 366 and the recto of PT 367, reading from PT 366 verso to PT 367 recto. Both texts are fragmentary — the beginning and end are missing.
The first text contains the complete dhāraṇī of the Buddha Sarvadurgatipariśodhana ("Purifier of All Evil Destinies"), a major Buddhist tantric formula used in funerary rituals across Central and East Asia. The cosmological geography — Jambudvīpa, Mount Meru, the Sudharmā assembly, Śakra's court, Vajrapāṇi's palace at Alaḳāvatī — maps the dead person's journey through the Buddhist heavenly realms.
The second text is a verse narrative about divine beings confronting impermanence. The motif of gods losing their radiance and dying is a standard Buddhist teaching (the five signs of decay of the devas), found in Pali and Sanskrit canonical sources. The figure Dutara (du ta ra) is a celestial teacher who reveals the truth of impermanence to the grieving gods. The prince Precious Hand (Rin-chen-lag) asks the central question of Buddhist eschatology: what can be done when birth and death arrives?
Together, these two texts form a rare pedagogical pair — practical funerary ritual on one side, philosophical death-narrative on the other. They are the eleventh and twelfth Dunhuang texts translated by the expeditionary tulku lineage.
Scholarly reference: Yoshiro Imaeda published transliterations and translations of the verso text ("The Cycle of Birth and Death") in 2006 and 2007, likely in French. No scholarly publication has been identified for the recto text ("The Way to the Country of the Gods"). This English translation is independently derived from the OTDO transliteration per the Blood Rule. Imaeda's work was not consulted.
First free English translation.
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Source Text: ལྷ་ཡུལ་དུ་ལམ་བསྟན་པ / སྐྱེ་ཤིའི་འཁོར་ལོ
Old Tibetan transliteration from OTDO (Old Tibetan Documents Online). Pelliot tibétain 366 (two folios) and Pelliot tibétain 367 (one folio), originally a single concertina. Presented here for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above.
Text 1 — Lha yul du lam bstan pa
Pelliot tibétain 367, verso:
(v1) yod gyis / / de dge pa'I bshes nyen 'di rtag du dran bar byos la / / gsol ba gdab pa'I 'tshig 'di dang
(v2) gsang sngags gyi tshigs 'di smros la / / skyob su gsol cig dang gnas ngan pa de las thar bar gyur
(v3) ro / / de bzhin nyid gyi mnga' bdag mthar phyin pas / / 'jig rten kun du gstsal pa'I ye shes sgron ma yIs
(v4) dud 'gro rmongs pa'I lam las skye bo sgrom mdzad pa / / mgon po ngan song sbyong gyis gshin khyod la / /
(v5) chang [khya]r skyabs su gsol / / na ma sa rba tur ga ti pha ri sho dha na ra dz'a y'a ta tha ga tha y'a ^a ri ha te sam
Pelliot tibétain 366, recto:
(r1-01) myag sam bu'd dha ya tad thya ta ^om shod dha ne sa rba ba ba b'i shid dha ne sh'u dhe bi shud dhe sar ba kar ma
(r1-02) ^a ba ra bi shud dhe sva h'a / / de ltar ngan song gsum gyi sko shes bar bkag nas / / sangs rgyas dang byang
(r1-03) chub sems dpa la stsogs pa thams cad gyi thugs rje chen po dang bka' bden ba'I byin brlabs
(r1-04) dang gnyen sdug phyi ma rnams gyis dkon mchog / gsum la brten te / / yang dag pa'I chu gang ma nor
(r1-05) pa'i bsod nams gyi tshogs / 'di dag gis bteg cing brten nas bde skyid phun sum tshogs pa'I lha yul
(r1-06) dam par 'gro pa'i lam ni 'dzam bu gling 'di nas byang phyogs na ri rab lhun po zhes bya ba rI 'i
(r2-01) rgyal po rin po che sna bzhi las grub pa zhig yod de de 'i sdeng na chos bzang lha'I 'dun sa nas / / lha'I
(r2-02) dpang po brgya byin dang blon po sum cu rtsa gnyis dang lha dang myi 'i srid pa'I lam ston pa'I gnas yod de / /
(r2-03) der yang lha'I rgyal po des rigs gyi bu gshin la dgongs su gsol / / gshin khyod la chos gyi gnam
(r2-04) ngag ston cing bsod nams gyi mthu' bstan par 'gyur ro / / rigs gyi bu khyod de nas ri rab gyi byang phyogs
(r2-05) gyi byang phyogs rtse na / / pho brang lcang lo can zhes bya ba na / / bcom ldan 'das dpal phyag na rdo rje 'i khro
(r2-06) bo mang po 'i 'khor dang bcas pa bzhugs bas / / 'dod pa thams cad [---] par [rig]s gyi
Text 2 — Skye shi'i 'khor lo bstan pa
Pelliot tibétain 366, verso:
(v1-01) kun kyang de bzhin rtag du re shIg khams de 'i 'od 'bar rgyald [---] ba'i dus bab
(v1-02) ste / 'phrul stobs yon tan bshad pa myed / / lus 'od 'bar ba bzang po yal / / smra zhing
(v1-03) 'gro 'phrul kun rmyI mkhyen kun gyang 'dI la mtshar snyam sems / / 'di lta ci nongs ci chos
(v1-04) shes / / thams chad gcig la gcig 'drI yang / / de 'i chos don sus ma shes / / bu stong
(v1-05) gnyen khri 'khor kun kyang / / mya ngan rgya mtsho 'i nang du zhugs / / lus brdabs lag brdabs
(v2-01) mya ngan byed / / slar 'ongs sngon bzhin yod du re / / lha 'i nang na tshe ring ba / / 'phrul chen du ta
(v2-02) ra zhes bya / / de ni 'od 'bar gnas su 'ongs / / des ni nor cing 'khruld par bshad / / khyed kun
(v2-03) ma rIg bslad pa yIn / / de 'i khams na yod do cog / / bskal pa bdun khri dus 'das nas / /
(v2-04) kun kyang 'di dang 'dra bar 'gyurd / / de ni skye shi chos shes bya / / de la ci phan bdag ma shes / /
Pelliot tibétain 367, recto:
(r1) phan ba myed ces bshad pa dang / / 'od 'bar rgyal gi bu rab mying / / rin chen lag ches bya ba
(r2) des / / shin du gus par mnyan brtags nas / / de ni rab bya bden bar shes / / de ltar skye
(r3) shi dus bab na / / de la cir bgyis slar mchIr rung / / de la ci bgyis bder gyur zhes / /
(r4) 'phrul chen de la gus par dris / du ta ra 'is slar smras pa / / skye shi yod par 'tshal du
(r5) bas / / de la ci 'phan bdag ma 'tshald / / skye shi 'i chos tshul drI bzhed na / / 'dI nas dge ba
Source Colophon
Old Tibetan transliteration from OTDO (Old Tibetan Documents Online), Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA), Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. URLs: https://otdo.aa-ken.jp/archives?p=Pt_0366 and https://otdo.aa-ken.jp/archives?p=Pt_0367. Copyright 2006 OTDO Project. Manuscript photographs available via Gallica (BnF): https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8307294r
Manuscripts: Pelliot tibétain 366 (two folios, concertina) and Pelliot tibétain 367 (one folio, concertina), originally a single document. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Departement des manuscrits.
Scholarly references for the verso text (Skye shi'i 'khor lo): Imaeda (2006: 27, 152-155) and Imaeda (2007c: 113, 175-177) — transliterations and translations, likely in French. No scholarly references identified for the recto text (Lha yul du lam bstan pa).
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