The Bardo Thodol (bar do thos grol, 'Liberation through hearing during the intermediate state'), commonly known in the West as The Tibetan Book of the Dead, is a terma text from a larger corpus of teachings, the Profound Dharma of Self-Liberation through the Intention of the Peaceful and Wrathful Ones, revealed by Karma Lingpa (1326–1386). It is the best-known work of Nyingma literature. In 1927 the text was one of the first examples of both Tibetan and Vajrayana literature to be translated into a European language and arguably continues to this day to be the best known.
The bar do thos grol has become known in the English speaking world as The Tibetan Book of the Dead, a title popularized by Walter Evans-Wentz's edition, after the Egyptian Book of the Dead, though the English title bears no relationship with the Tibetan's, as outlined above. The Evans-Wentz edition was first published in 1927 by Oxford University Press.
According to John Myrdhin Reynolds, Evans-Wentz's edition of the Tibetan Book of the Dead introduced a number of misunderstandings about Dzogchen. In fact, Evans-Wentz collected seven texts about visualization of the after-death experiences and he introduced this work collection as "The Tibetan Book of Death." Evans-Wentz was well acquainted with Theosophy and used this framework to interpret the translation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which was largely provided by two Tibetan lamas who spoke English, Lama Sumdhon Paul and Lama Lobzang Mingnur Dorje. Evans-Wentz was not familiar with Tibetan Buddhism, and his view of Tibetan Buddhism was "fundamentally neither Tibetan nor Buddhist, but Theosophical and Vedantist." He introduced a terminology into the translation which was largely derived from Hinduism, as well as from his Theosophical beliefs. The third revised and expanded Evans-Wentz edition of The Tibetan Book of the Dead contains a psychological commentary by Carl Jung in an English translation by R. F. C. Hull. The same analysis appears in Jung’s Collected Works. Jung applied his extensive knowledge of eastern religions to craft a commentary aimed at western audiences unfamiliar with Tibetan Buddhism which highlights the karmic phenomena described in the Bardo and shows how they parallel unconscious contents (both personal and collective) in the context of analytical psychology.
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