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ZSUZSA MAJER Texts for the Protection of the Bereaved These texts are specially for the protection of the relatives or friends, the bereaved with the aim of defending them from risk/misfortunes caused by his or her death.? These misfortunes can come form two sources: form the evil spirits that caused the death of the deceased and may there be still present endangering the relatives; and also there is the assumption that the ‘soul’ (according to Buddhist teachings, the term ‘consciousness’ should rather be used here) of the deceased might not find his way to next rebirth, and in this case it should be prevented from causing any trouble in future to the living ones, this being solved by guiding him or her. All titles here were taken from the lists of requestable recitations of present-day Mongolian temples, which means they are part of the current practice in them, or in any of them. Several of these are folk religion texts, and their involvment and exact use in the monastic environment requires further study. The following texts are used in Mongolian practice: — Texts for separating the living ones from the dead ones. The evil spirits that caused the death are believed to be still dangerous for the bereaved as they may take more lives if are not prevented from doing this. A kind of prevention is to separate the living ones (relatives of the dead) from the dead ones — in this way the evil spirits would not find new subjects among the ones left here. [From the Buddhist point of view separating the dead from the living is important as a means of helping detachment from the living ones and as such, from this life he/she has to leave now]. Such text is the text entitled Gar salgax / Gar salgax jasal, ‘(Remedy) separating hands’. Its recitation is recommended ,,if one ‘seats on the same seat’ as the deceased (nas baragctai xamt neg südald süxad), i.e. if one was born in the same year of the 12 year cycle as the deceased. The requester must come with a drawing of black and white hands”. — Special rites are performed for example for those relatives born in the same year of the 12 year cycle than the deceased or with the same astrological constellations (südal) as they are beileved to be at extreme risk due to their “similiarity’ to the dead person. This ritual is called Sidal salgax, ‘Separating the seats’. The recitation of the text is recommended ,,if one ‘seats on the same seat’ as the deceased (nas baragctai xamt neg siidald stixad), i.e. if one was born in the same year of the 12 year cycle or rather under the same astrological constellations as the deceased”. ® On this topic with a more precise list of these text types and their titles an article of mine is under publication in Hungarian in the volume published for the 75" birthday of Alice Sárközi (Majer, Zsuzsa: Néhány adat és egy rövid szöveg két változata a haláleset után a hozzátartozók védelmét szolgáló mongol buddhista szertartásokhoz. In: A Tan örökké ragyogjon! Tanulmányok Sárközi Alice tiszteletére. Ed. Szilagyi Zsolt. L’Harmattan, Budapest 2018, pp. 69-95 [Some Data on Mongolian Buddhist A fter-Death Rituals for the Protection of the Bereaved and Two Variations of a Short Text. In: May the Dharma flourish forever! Essays in honour of Alice Sark6zi]. 366
