In this spyang-pu, the central figure represents the deceased with legs bound and in an attitude of adoration, surrounded by symbols of ‘the five excellent sensuous things’: (1) a mirror (the first of the three objects on the left and numbered 1), symbolical of the body, which reflects all phenomena or sensations, and of sight as well; (2) a conch (numbered 2) and a lyre (numbered 3), symbolical of sound; (3) a vase of flowers (numbered 4), symbolical of smell; (4) holy cakes in a receptacle like that employed at the Roman Catholic Eucharist (numbered 5), symbolical of essence or nutriment, and of taste; (5) the silk clothes of the central figure and the overhanging royal canopy, symbolical of dress and ornamental art, and of the sense of touch. It is before such a paper figure, inserted in the effigy as a head and face, that the food offerings to the spirit of the deceased continue to be made, and to which, when visualized by the lāma as the deceased in person, the Bardo Thödol is read.
Having begun my Tibetan researches fresh from three years of research in the ancient funeral lore of the Nile Valley, I realized as soon as I gained knowledge of the Tibetan funeral rites—which are very largely pre-Buddhistic—that the effigy of the dead, as now used in Tibet and Sikkim, is so definitely akin to the effigy of the deceased called ‘the statue of the Osiris (or deceased one)’, as used in the funeral rites of ancient Egypt, as to suggest a common origin. Furthermore, the spyang-pu taken by itself alone, as the head-piece for the effigy, has its Egyptian parallel in the images made for the Ka or spirit. These sometimes were merely heads, complete in themselves, to replace or duplicate the head of the mummy and to furnish additional assistance to the Ka when seeking—as the Knower in the Bardo seeks—a body to rest in, or that which our text calls a prop for the body (see p. 182). And even as to ‘the statue of the Osiris’ the ancient priests of Egypt read their Book of the Dead, so to the Tibetan effigy the lāmas now read the Bardo Thödol—both treatises alike being nothing more than guide-books for the traveller in the realm beyond death.
Again, the preliminary rituals of the Egyptian funeral were
