138 
L. A. Waddell —Buddhist Pictorial Wheel of Life. [No. 
XII. A human corpse being carried o R=Ga-shi* or ‘decay 4-death’ 
(Skt. Jardmarand) with attendant sufferings and associated 
re-hirtlis which are thus made to he the ultimate results of 
ignorance. 
I leave to Sanskrit and Pali scholars the detailed analysis and com¬ 
parison of these lamaic pictures and their paraphrases. 
The six regions of re-birtli (‘gro-bai rigs,’ Skt. Gdti) are shown in 
the middle whorl. They are demarcated from 
birth 3 re ^° nS 16 ' each other by rainbow-coloured cordons repre¬ 
senting the atmospheric zones that separate the 
different worlds. No place is allotted to the other phases of existence 
believed in by the lamas, viz., the everlasting existence in the Western 
Paradise of Bevachen , and of the celestial Buddhas and demoniacal 
projectors of lamaism, and the expressed absence of such expressions 
of the current modern beliefs favours the claim of the picture to con¬ 
siderable antiquity. Some of the older pictures in Tibet agree with the 
doctrine of the southern Buddhists,f in omitting from their theory of 
metempsychosis, the world of the Asuras, enumerating only the remain¬ 
ing five worlds of re-birth. 
Classed in the order of their superiority, the six worlds are :— 
ls£. The heaven of the gods of the Hindus or Lhd ( = Sanskt. 
Sura or Deva) the highest world. 
2nd. The world of the ungodly spirits or Lhamayin (= Skt. Asura.) 
The world of man or mi. (= Skt. Nara ). 
The world of the Beasts or du-do. (= Skt. Tiryyali). 
The world of the Tantalized ghosts or Yi-dag ( = Skt. Preta). 
Hell or Nyal-kham, (Skt. Naraka ) the lowest of all. 
BournoufJ writing from Chinese and Ceylonese sources classes 
mankind above the Lhamayin, but the order now given is that adopted 
by the lamas. Existence in the first three worlds is considered superior 
or good and in the last three inferior or bad. And these worlds are 
shown in this relation in the picture, the highest being heaven and the 
lowest hell. 
Theoretically the place of one’s re-birth is determined solely by 
one’s own deeds (Zas=Skt. karma) during the latest worldly existence ; 
but the lamas now make faith, charms and ritual take to a large extent 
3rd. 
4 th. 
hth. 
6th. 
* | 
f Hardy’s Man. of Buddhism, p. 37. The lamaic account is contained in the 
‘ mngon-pa-i mdsod * translated by Lotsawa Bande-dpal rtsegs from the work of the 
Indian Pandit slob-dpan dbyig-gnyen. 
% Lotus de la Bonne Loi, p. 377. 
