Sacred Texts  Buddhism 

Esoteric Teachings of the Tibetan Tantra by C.A. Musés [1961]

This book contains three separate, and very important, works detailing Tibetan Tantric Buddhist thought and practice: Seven Initiation Rituals of the Tibetan Tantra, The Six Yogas of Naropa, and The Vow of Mahamudra. These were translated and edited by Musés assisted by exiled Tibetan monks from manuscripts in the Library of Congress.

There are some very strange passages here. There is the mysterious prophecy of Mi-Gyur-Dorje found in one of the manuscripts among the initiation rituals, which tells of a far future time when Tibet will be shattered and perscuted by demons. Naropa relates the Yoga of Entering Another's Body (which can be used to reanimate a corpse!). Naropa also discusses at some length what we call lucid dreaming, but which he calls The Practice of the Illusory Body. Of course, these are all pretty advanced studies, but it is fascinating to learn what the Tibetan monks were up to, firsthand. If all you have read about Tibetan Tantra is western descriptions, you owe it to yourself to take a look at these primary texts.

Production Notes: This is one of the few modern books with translations of Tibetan Buddhist texts which we know of in the public domain. In fact, we checked using Thompson Compumark, and there was no record of a renewal or registration of this work at the US copyright office, which was required by law at the time. There were a large number of typographical errors in this book, which we have corrected in the usual fashion. We also merged the author's errata into this etext (some of which we found ourselves during the spell check).--J.B. Hare, December 10th, 2009.

Part I: Seven Initiation Rituals of the Tibetan Tantra

Part II: The Six Yogas of Naropa

Appendix: The Vow of Mahāmudrā