139 
The 
scene. 
judgment 
1892.] L. A. Waddell— Buddhist Pictorial Wheel of Life. 
tlie place of the good works of the earlier Buddhists. Happiness and 
misery in this life are the result of the virtue and vice of past exis¬ 
tences ; while virtue and vice in the present life are only rewarded or 
punished in the next existence. 
The judgment in every case is done at the impartial tribunal of 
Shinje Ghho-gyal* or ‘ Religious king of the 
Dead ’—a form of the Hindu Yama. He is 
painted of fearful form, enveloped in flames 
and wielding a flaming sword, but this is his appearance only to the 
wicked. The religious see him in the mild form of Chenresi ( Avalohita) 
as incarnate in the Dalai Lama of Lhasa—who he really is, according 
to the lamas and to give effect to this idea he is usually given a monster 
attendant on either side as representing Manjusri and Vajrapani—this 
triad forming the defensores fidei of Lamaism. The judgment scene is 
figured in the upper portion of the compartment devoted to the Hells. 
Here are seen entering the presence of The Great Judge the souls of a 
lama, a king, a man, woman, and child : 
“ Souls that by Fate 
“ Are doomed to take new Shapes.” 
They are coming from Bar do, that is the ghostly state which 
intervenes between death and judgment, and during which the spirit 
is free to roam among its old haunts, and work harm on its quondam 
enemies and friends. During the interval of Bardo therefore, which 
lasts only for 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 43, and at most forty-nine days, lamas 
are employed for a longer or less period, according to the means of the 
relatives, to prevent the wandering ghost harming the surviors. On 
arrival in the presence of the king of the dead, the soul is stripped of 
its clothes and manacled, by the attendant Shinjes or underling Yamas. 
And at this juncture the personal angels of the individual who have 
accompanied him throughout his worldly life and also in Bardo —the 
good angel or lha who sat on his right shoulder and inspired him to 
good deeds, and the bad angel or dud (literally demon) who sat on 
his left shoulder and tempted him to sin—those two angels now leave 
him and become incorporated in the god and demon, who stand respec¬ 
tively on the right and left hand of the king of the dead as recording 
angels and advocates ; and they now bear witness for and against the 
soul which is being tried. These personal angels are practically identi¬ 
cal with the Bonus Genius et Malus Genius of the Romans—the Genium 
Album et Nigrum.f 
The good angel pours out as white counters the good deeds done 
* iWj'S-iVihV I 
f Iio rat. 2 Epist. 
