The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation or the Method of Realizing Nirvana Through Knowing the Mind

by Walter Evans-Wentz; additional psychological commentary by C.G. Jung.

Geoffrey Cumberlege at the Oxford University Press / London, 1954. First edition.

Light green cloth over boards, gold stamped Buddhist imagery on cover, titling and decoration stamped in gold on spine. 261 pp + lxiv  /  5"x9" B&W and color illustrations.Tissue insert to Frontispiece, gilded top page edges

   Walter Evans-Wentz was a distinguished American anthropologist and pioneer in the study of Tibetan Buddhism. In this fourth volume of his series dedicated to Tibetan Buddhism, he introduced Guru Padmasambhava's tantric teachings to English-speaking readers. The book features translations of original texts along with comprehensive explanatory and commentarial content, including a contribution from the renowned psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung. 

Condition Notes:  Overall Good Condition. Ex-Library.

*  Covers: Moderate shelfwear and abrasion to all surfaces. Light bumping to corners. Quarter inch tear at top spine cap; library markings. External gutters show moderate wear with no splits.

*  Binding is solid, Front cover sheet has a tear that exposes the webbing, but does not damage the overall

    solidity of the binding.

*   Endpapers are plit along the length of inside cover sheet, library markings,  Front cover sheet shows glue markings from a no

    longer present library card pocket.

*  Text Block: Solid and square. Text appears to have no markings other than library markings at front and back. Typography

     is sharp and elegant. Pages are a beautiful shade of the lightest ivory. Library note in pencil on front endpaper "Lit. gift Evans-Wentz"

 

    The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation, which was unknown to the Western world until its first publication in 1954, speaks to the quintessence of the Supreme Path, or Mahāyāna, and fully reveals the yogic method of attaining Enlightenment. Such attainment can happen, as shown here, by means of knowing the One Mind, the cosmic All-Consciousness, without recourse to the postures, breathings, and other techniques associated with the lower yogas. The original text for this volume belongs to the Bardo Th dol series of treatises concerning various ways of achieving transcendence, a series that figures into the Tantric school of the Mahāyāna. Authorship of this particular volume is attributed to the legendary Padma-Sambhava, who journeyed from India to Tibet in the 8th century, as the story goes, at the invitation of a Tibetan king. Padma-Sambhava's text per se is preceded by an account of the great guru's own life and secret doctrines. It is followed by the testamentary teachings of the Guru Phadampa Sangay, which are meant to augment the thought of the other gurus discussed herein. Still more useful supplementary material will be found in the book's introductory remarks, by its editor Evans-Wentz and by the eminent psychoanalyst C. G. Jung. The former presents a 100-page General Introduction that explains several key names and notions (such as Nirvāna, for starters) with the lucidity, ease, and sagacity that are this scholar's hallmark; the latter offers a Psychological Commentary that weighs the differences between Eastern and Western modes of thought before equating the "collective unconscious" with the Enlightened Mind of the Buddhist.