In 1996, at a Naxi village below Bai-shui-tai (white watery terrace), the holy place for dongbas
(dto mba), Naxi priests, chatting with an old dongba, I asked him about Zhi-lu-jing, guidance for the dead which I had taken a great interest in. He stopped chatting and began to mention all the names of stopovers on the way to the resting place for the dead, making an excuse that he should not have revealed it without the presence of the dead. I could not identify any name of stopover among several dozens, and these names were too long and jaw breaking. The final place was Pulamukotu.
“Where is the last place?”
“I don’t know. Probably it’s in India.”
I had a desperate feeling, hearing even the successor of oral tradition did not know it. Afterward I searched for various routes to the resting place at many Naxi villages. Some elders and dongbas showed routes to me and gradually I found most of routes have Mount Junarualua as the final place and some of them extend to somewhere between Qinghai and Gansu Province in north-western China. This kind of journey of the soul, I think, reflects its migration routes. The ancestors of the Naxi, used to be the proto-Qiang, ancient nomad people, took this route toward south. And there are some routes to Tibet or India which are spiritual journeys for Buddhists and Bon-pos.

At funerals dongbas send the soul of the deceased to the paradisiacal place beyond mountains and across the rivers along the way the ancestors took, mentioning each name of stopover. This concept of after-death is common among the Tibeto-Burman peoples, but not exclusive to them. It is found in the Miao in north-western Guizhou Province (Shi Ke-ding 1990) and in the Berawan of Borneo (Huntington and Metcalf 1980) where they retrace the migration route along the river by canoe to heaven ancestors dwell. Since the ancient Greek believed Elysium, the happy land for the dead, Utopian lands like Buddhist’s Western Paradise or Christian heaven have appeared repeatedly. Mentioning every stopover to the resting place where ancestors live happy life eternally is specific to the Naxi and the Tibeto-Burman peoples.

In China the soul’s journey to the resting place of the Yi is also known as well as the Naxi. But if you expect a long way toward far north, you may be disappointed. All of these are not very long, and some go around and reach a nearby point which is in the forest in the west of Zhaotong, north-western Yunnan Province. It means, I suppose, the tribes had been formed at this point. According to legend, a big ancient tribe led by a charismatic person named Tumu separated into six tribes of the present Yi. Probably the ancient tribe had a long way for the dead to the original place in the north, but nobody kept it.

In China I found guide songs and prayers for the dead to the resting place in the Naxi,Yi, Lisu, Hani, Lahu, Jingpo, Dulong, Nu, Bai, Pumi, and so on, but not the Tibetan. They have lost their guide song as the ‘Tibetan Book of the Dead’ (Bardo Thodol) replaced it.

I supposed that this concept of after-life spreads along the Himalaya Mountains in Myanmar, Nepal, and India, in accordance with the distribution of the Tibeto-Burman peoples.

First of all I decided to research the Humla district, south of Mt Kailash, in the north-west of Nepal and the Nyinba people that may be connected with the ancient kingdom of Zhang-zhung in western Tibet. It was very interesting whether the final place is western Tibet or north-western China. But the influence of Tibetan Buddhism was too strong in this area and they lost guide songs like Tibetans.

It was the suggestion of Dhami (shaman) and Drangri (shaman-priest) that shed a light upon this issue. They don’t have guide songs but evocation songs of their protective deities instead. Their ancestors had migrated with protective deities, so on every occasion they must evoke deities from the original place. One of Hilsas, their protective deity, the Drangri evoked, came from Siring, the present Xining, provincial capital of Qinghai, north-western China. On the other hand, the Six-armed Gombo their protective Buddhist deity, the Dhami evoked came from Khyung-lung, the capital of the ancient kingdom of Zhang-zhung. Does it mean their ethnic original place is in north-western China and their spiritual original place is Khyung-lung in western Tibet?

Then I went to the border land between India and Nepal in the south-west of Mt Kailash, the area of the Byansi (the former name is Bhotia, and they call themselves Rang) who had been known as traders of salt and wool on the pilgrimage route to Mt. Kailash between Indian bazaars and Purang (Taklakot). Before coming there I heard that a Sei-yakcha who sends the soul of the late deceased to the land of the dead transcribed recently the Sei-yamo, guide songs for the deceased, which had been kept a secret to outsiders. In Darchula, a town on the border, I found the son of the Sei-yakcha who died eight months earlier. I copied a tattered notebook written by the Sei-yakcha in Hindi and Byansi, which is Sei-yamo. It took eighteen months to translate it. It consists of seven chapters including some lore and guide songs for the deceased. Astonishingly enough, the last place of this song was Chyung-lung Guipato, Nine Valleys of Khyung-lung (Chung-lung). Khyung-lung is the capital fort of the ancient state of Zhang-zhung which had a vast territory around Tibetan plateau before the rising of the Yarlung Dynasty (the kingdom of Tibet) and is believed to be the birth place of the Bon religion.

Then I moved to Kinnaur in north-western India, which is significant for the followers of the Bon religion, for it seems the language of Kinnaur is related with the language of Zhang-zhung and it is connected directly to Khyung-lung by Sutluj River. In Kinnaur I collected a guide song for the deceased (ancestor) soul sung at Ukiang Festival. In this guide song the soul takes a journey on the route from the village (Chatagaon) via Guge-Changtang to Kinner Kailash. The soul goes up slowly toward north to Guge-Changtang and returns back down the mountains not very far from the village. Guge is the kingdom of Guge in western Tibet and Changtang is Ladakh or Zhang-zhung. Finally the soul leaves the peak of the holy mountain and gets into the heaven.

Returning back to south-western China, I ‘discovered’ painted scrolls of guide songs for the deceased. Some scrolls except those of the Naxi had been forgotten or ignored by scholars. The scrolls of the Naxi and Pumi are much influenced by Tibetan Buddhism. On these paints the soul falls down to the bottom of the hell at once and goes up beyond mountains and rivers to the heaven. On the other hand the scroll of the Namuyi is the guide map for the deceased referring the migratory route.

Researching along the Himalayas, I found guide songs for the dead among the Rawang, Jingpo (in Myanmar), the Limbu, Rai, Magar, Thakali, Gurung, Nyinba (in Nepal), the Rang, and the Kinnauri (in India). Studying it, we can reconstruct the migration route which had remained mysterious to some degree.

How this concept of after-life could survive although surrounded by the influential concept of reincarnation. Thousands years ago they were nomad people somewhere in Qinghai, Gansu, and Mongolia. As billiard balls are scattered by the first stroke, the peoples (proto-Qiang) are scattered by unknown cause, probably war or the change of weather. They began migrating southward. Later they regarded first ancestors as holy people and first place as holy place. Priests send the soul to the first place describing (mentioning every stopover) the journey. It is the ancestor worship, but not just ancestor worship. They may have gained the vision tracing the river of past like William James. When Andean shaman Chamalu mentions “I am almost six hundred years old; my ancestors live within me”, his way of thought is similar to this concept of after-life. (Espinoza 1995)

In the Hani villages when an old man dies, his eldest son succeeds his breath. Literally his son inhales his last breath like artificial respiration. Like this after finishing his life of this world, the soul of a man continues to live in his lineage eternally. (Bai Yui-bao Wang Xue-hui 1998)

The journey to the ancestral world (resting place) and the reincarnation sometimes co-exist. According to belief, after sent to Khyung-lung Guipato mentioned above, the soul of the Byansi (Rang) can go back to this world. It is reincarnation. As all of them are Hindu now, they may have chosen an eclectic concept. On the other hand, the soul of the Dulong can return back to this world as a butterfly, but if it dies, the soul also finishes eternally. It contradicts not only reincarnation but also the journey to the ancestral world. But contradictory ideas sometimes co-exist as if we wish to incarnate, at the same time, finish this suffering life.

It is natural that most of people accept the idea of reincarnation. The sun sets at dusk and rises next morning, all the plants wither in winter and bud in next spring, and the moon wanes and waxes. All the phenomena show the eternal return. The idea “as a man casts off his worn-out clothes and takes on other new ones, so does the embodied soul cast off its worn-out bodies and enters other new ones”(Bhagavad-Gita) widespread in India and other countries in Asia.

There is another unique concept in Yunnan. The Lahu people believe that if an old man dies in this world, a baby is born in other world, vice versa. The other world is the mirror-like world of this world. So, it is not necessary for us to lament the death.