The Tibetan Book of the Dead · 16 of 34

The Wrathful Deities: The Eleventh Day

[THE ELEVENTH DAY]

Yet, though set face-to-face thus, if, through power of evil propensities, terror and awe being produced, not recognizing them to be tutelary deities, one flee from them, then, on the Eleventh Day, the blood-drinking Lotus Order will come to receive one. Thereupon the setting-face-to-face is, calling the deceased by name, thus:

O nobly-born, on the Eleventh Day, the blood-drinking [deity] of the Lotus Order, called the Bhagavān PadmaHeruka, of reddish-black colour; [having] three faces, six hands, and four feet firmly postured; the right [face] white, the left, blue, the central, darkish red; in the first of the right of the six hands holding a lotus, in the middle [one], a tridentstaff, in the last, a club; in the first of the left [hands], a bell, in the middle [one], a [human] scalp filled with blood, in the last, a small drum; his body embraced by the Mother PadmaKrotishaurima, her right hand clinging to his neck, her left offering to his mouth a red shell [full of blood]; the Father and Mother in union; will issue from the western quarter of thy brain and come to shine upon thee. Fear that not. Be not terrified. Be not awed. Rejoice. Recognize [them] to be the product of thine own intellect; as [they are] thine own tutelary deity, be not afraid. In reality they are the FatherMother Bhagavān Amitābha. Believe in them. Concomitantly with recognition, liberation will come. Through such acknowledging, recognizing them to be tutelary deities, in at-onement thou wilt merge [into them], and obtain Buddhahood.