In the setting-face-to-face, the repetition [of the above address to the deceased] is to be persisted in until a yellowish liquid beginneth to appear from the various apertures of the bodily organs [of the deceased].
In those who have led an evil life, and in those of unsound nerves, the above state endureth only so long as would take to snap a finger. Again, in some, it endureth as long as the time taken for the eating of a meal.
In various Tantras it is said that this state of swoon endureth for about three and one-half days. Most other [religious treatises] say for four days; and that this setting-face-to-face with the Clear Light ought to be persevered in [during the whole time].
The manner of applying [these directions] is:
If [when dying] one be by one’s own self capable [of diagnosing the symptoms of death], use [of the knowledge] should have been made ere this.[1] If [the dying person be] unable to do so, then either the guru, or a shiṣhya, or a brother in the Faith with whom the one [dying] was very intimate, should be kept at hand, who will vividly impress upon the one [dying] the symptoms [of death] as they appear in due order [repeatedly saying, at first] thus:[2]
Now the symptoms of earth sinking into water are come.[3]
- ↑ The full meaning implied is that not only should the person about to die diagnose the symptoms of death as they come, one by one, but that he should also, if able, recognize the Clear Light without being set face to face with it by some second person.
- ↑ Cf. the following instructions, from Ars Moriendi (fifteenth century), Comper’s ed. (p. 93): ‘When any of likelihood shall die [i.e. is likely to die], then it is most necessary to have a special friend, the which will heartily help and pray for him, and therewith counsel the sick for the weal [i. e. health] of his soul.’
- ↑ The three chief symptoms of death (which the text merely suggests by naming the first of them, it being taken for granted that the reader officiating will know the others and name them as they occur), with their symbolical counter-part, are as follows : (1) a bodily sensation of pressure, ‘earth sinking into water’; (2) a bodily sensation of clammy coldness as though the body were immersed in water, which gradually merges into that of feverish heat, ‘ water sinking into fire’; (3) a feeling as though the body were being blown to atoms, ‘ fire sinking into air’. Each symptom is accompanied by visible external changes in the body, such as loss of control over facial muscles, loss of hearing, loss of sight,
