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Builders of the Adytum 35
Mahayana Buddhism. Various forms of devotional
Buddhism also developed within the
Mahayana fold. Devotional Buddhism focused on
different bodhisattvas (enlightened souls who
delayed the final stages of their nirvana so that
they could stay around and help ordinary
mortals) who, like the great gods and goddesses of
later Hinduism, could help their devotees. The
notion of heaven-worlds was also developed in
these forms of Buddhism, heaven-worlds where
the earnest devotee would find her- or himself
after death, and where she or he could continue
the quest for enlightenment, less hindered by the
demands of this world.
Along with heaven realms, Buddhism also
developed notions of hell realms in which exceptionally
sinful individuals were punished. In
earlier stages of the Buddhist tradition, the impersonal
force of karma carried out punishments for
evil deeds through the circumstance in which one
was reborn, and through the unfortunate events
one experienced while incarnated in a body. As
with their emergence in later Hinduism, the
notion of punishment in hell worlds emerged to
supplement—rather than to supplant—earlier
notions of karmic punishment. Unlike Western
hells, however, Buddhist hell worlds are not final
dwelling places. They are, rather, more like purgatories
in which sinful souls experience suffering
for a limited term. After their term is over, even the
most evil person is turned out of hell to once again
participate in the cycle reincarnation. This does
not mean, however, that Buddhist hells are any less
gruesome than Western hells. To cite a representative
passage from the Pali canon:
The guards of hell lay him down and chop
him with axes and turn him upside down and
slice him with razors, and bind him to a
chariot and drag him over a fiery blazing
earth, and drive him up and down a great
mountain of fiery blazing coals, and turn him
upside down and hurl him into a fiery blazing
iron cauldron; and there he boils, throwing up
scum to the surface, rising and sinking and
going across; and he feels pain that is sharp
and bitter and severe. But he has not finished
his time until he has exhausted his evil deeds.
And this is only the beginning. Dante would
undoubtedly have been jealous. Speculation
regarding demons and hellish realms, particularly
as they relate to the postmortem state, would not,
however, come to its fullest development until the
emergence of Tibetan Buddhism, the most
prominent school of Tantric Buddhism.
According to the Bardo Thödol, known in the
West as the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the dead
encounter various fearsome demons after
death—though they are also counseled that these
demons are insubstantial projections of the mind.
If one can gaze upon these insubstantial beings
with equanimity, then one will escape rebirth and
achieve nirvana.
See also Bardo Thödol; Hell and Heaven;
Hinduism; Mara
For Further Reading:
Benard, Elisabeth. “The Tibetan Tantric View of
Death and Afterlife.” In Hiroshi Obayashi, ed.
Death and Afterlife: Perspectives of World Religions.
Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992, 49–64.
Bromage, Bernard. Tibetan Yoga. 1952.
Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, UK:
Aquarian Press, 1979.
Conze, Edward. Buddhist Thought in India. 1962.
Reprint, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1967.
Evans-Wentz, W. Y., ed. The Tibetan Book of the Dead.
3rd ed. London: Oxford University Press, 1960.
Rahula, Walpola. What the Buddha Taught. 1959.
2nd expanded edition, New York: Evergreen,
1974.
Zimmer, Heinrich. Philosophies of India. New York:
Bollingen, 1951; New York: Macmillan, 1987.
Builders of the Adytum
The Builders of the Adytum (BOTA) was established
in 1922 by Paul Foster Case (1884–1954), a
member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden
Dawn. He was known as an expert in the study of
the tarot and cabala, and was said to have been
asked by the Inner School to reinterpret the
Ageless Wisdom for the Western audience. BOTA’s
name originated from the Greek term meaning
Holy of Holies, and referring to the metaphysical
building of one’s inner temple. Members of BOTA
regard Jesus as a carpenter, a builder, and a teacher
of the inner spiritual life.