Travels in the Netherworld

In Travels in the Netherworld, Bryan J. Cuevas examines a fascinating but little-known genre of Tibetan narrative literature about the délok, ordinary men and women who claim to have died, traveled through hell, and then returned from the dead. Providing a clear, detailed analysis of four vivid return-from-death tales, including the story of a Tibetan housewife, a lama, a young noble woman, and a Buddhist monk, Cuevas argues that these narratives express ideas about death and the afterlife that held wide currency among all classes of faithful Buddhists in Tibet, from the most sophisticated of scholars in the monasteries and hermits isolated in caves to the pious townsfolk, villagers, and nomads. Relying on a diversity of traditional Tibetan sources, Buddhist canonical scriptures, scholastic textbooks, ritual and meditation manuals, and medical treatises, in addition to the délok works themselves, Cuevas surveys a broad range of popular Tibetan Buddhist ideas about death and dying, including beliefs about the vulnerability of the soul and its journey beyond death, karmic retribution and the terrors of hell, the nature of demons and demonic possession, ghosts and reanimated corpses. This study, moreover, offers innovative perspectives on popular religion in Tibet and fills a gap in an important field of Tibetan literature.