Alan Neill

The Siddhivad Corpse Stories of Tibet Alan Neill

This is a scholarly translation of twenty-six stories with an introduction story from a very old handwritten Tibetan book. All the stories are told by a Siddhivad corpse while being carried on the back of a Prince. 62 full page illustrations, 303 pages These Tibetan Ro Dung (corpse stories) have their roots in Indian Vetala (spirits inhabiting corpses) literature. They entered Tibet hundreds of years ago and are now the most famous literature in Tibet. All the stories (except the introduction story) are told by a Siddhivad (spirit in a corpse) while being carried on the back of a prince. If the prince speaks even one word, the Siddhivad would get out of the bag and fly away, forcing the prince to capture the Siddhivad again. During my many years of research, I have collected many Tibetan Ro Dung (corpse story) books and have divided them into two types. The first type are the U-Me (dBu med) books hand written in Tibet before 1959. This was the year the Dalai Lama and others escaped to India. The second type of corpse story books are the ones made by a printing press, they are also called, U-Chen, the same as the old woodblock prints. They are in the Tibetan language printed in China, Tibet and India. Today, many publishers are reprinting this second type, but they edit them into modern Tibetan script, so people can easily read them today. So, the first type of U-Me corpse stories are more valuable to Tibetan scholars. This book here that I translated is from the first type.