Walter Yeeling Evans-Wentz.

(By Tsem Rinpoche and Pastor David)

Walter Yeeling Evans-Wentz was an American explorer, anthropologist, writer, and, most famously, a pioneer in the field of Tibetan Buddhist studies. His writings were pivotal in the early transmission of Tibetan Buddhism to the west, especially his iconic early translation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead published in 1927.

In addition, Evans-Wentz was also known for translating three other Tibetan books: Tibet’s Great Yogi Milarepa (1928), Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines (1935), and The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation (1954). However, even before his foray into Tibetan Buddhism, Evans-Wentz was the authority on fairy lore, when he published The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries in 1911. This work was a culmination of fieldwork collecting fairy folklore stories in Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall, Brittany, and the Isle of Man.

An early edition of The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries by Evans-Wentz published in 1911.

Formative Years

Evans-Wentz was born in Trenton, a bustling American city that was briefly the capital of the United States.

Walter Yeeling Wentz was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1878. He had two brothers and two sisters, but kept mostly to himself. His father was of German descent, was fairly successful as a real estate businessman, but was also an alcoholic. His mother was Irish, and it was his Irish roots that likely sparked his initial interest in Celtic fairy lore.

He grew up initially as a Baptist, but as he grew older, his father’s dabbling into spiritualism and Theosophy began to influence the family. As a teenager, Evans-Wentz was particularly interested in the occult, and read extensively on the writings of Madame Blavatsky on Theosophy like Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine.

Evans-Wentz youthful interest in the esoteric writings of Madame Blavatsky was the earliest reference to Tibetan lamas.

It was through the writings of Madame Blavatsky, the founder of Theosophy that he first came across references to Tibetan lamas, the source of inspiration for Blavatsky’s own Theosophy. Theosophy revolves around a collection of mystical philosophies and the occult that concerns the search for knowledge of the mysteries of life, the nature of reality, and particularly the nature of divinity and the universe. Theosophy is widely considered a part of Western esotericism, which believes that hidden knowledge or wisdom from our ancient past offers a path towards enlightenment and salvation.

Evans-Wentz actually saw the universal truth in all religions, but held a lifelong mistrust against Christianity, which he saw as petty and narrow-minded. He adopted the belief in reincarnation wholeheartedly, and believed that Gnostic Christians had once held onto a belief in reincarnation and wondered why mainstream Christianity had abandoned that belief. At the turn of century, he followed his father to San Diego, California in order to join his father’s profession and partly to be closer to Lomaland, the American headquarters for the Theosophical Society.

Lomaland was a Theosophical community located in Point Loma in San Diego, California from 1900 to 1942.

At age 24, Evans-Wentz enrolled into Stanford University to pursue his studies in religion, philosophy and history. It was at this time that he was deeply influenced by visiting philosopher and psychologist William James, and Irish poet W. B. Yeats. He received his B.A. and M.A. degrees, and subsequently studied Celtic mythology and folklore at Jesus College, Oxford in 1907.

During this time, he travelled extensively throughout Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall, Brittany and the Isle of Man as part of his fieldwork associated with the study of Celtic fairy lore. His research was eventually published as a book, The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries in 1911. During this time, he decided to add his mother’s Welsh surname Evans to his own name, and became known as Evans-Wentz.

Travel to the East

Upon encountering Tibetan Buddhism, Evans-Wentz would later praise the hermit lifestyle. Before this, he was an impressionable and dreamy youth who spent hot and lazy afternoons by the Delaware River. On one of these afternoons, he recalled that he had a ‘vision’ that left him convinced that he had lived within separate bodies before, and that he saw visions of a previous life that came so strongly to him that it remained with him for the rest of his life. The night after the visions came to him, he knew that he would eventually wander all over the world as a pilgrim in search of the truth.

During his time at Oxford, Evans-Wentz encountered many intellectuals, scholars, and poets, which included a curious British Army officer and archaeologist by the name of T. E. Lawrence who recommended him to travel to the East, and, self-funded by a string of rented properties in Florida, Evans-Wentz embarked on an extensive tour of Mexico, Europe, and then the Orient.

A brief meeting with British officer and archaelogist T. E. Lawrence led Evans-Wentz to travel to the East. (Click to enlarge)

Evans-Wentz was in Egypt during the First World War, and as soon as it was over, he quickly boarded a ship from Port Said in Egypt and sailed for Colombo, Sri Lanka, known at that time as Ceylon. He took interest in the history, culture and spiritual traditions of the people and studied them extensively. In the process, he amassed a large collection of important Pali texts, which was later donated to Stanford University.

Then in 1918, he travelled across the Indian subcontinent, from one important religious site to another in search of wise men from the east. During this time, he encountered great spiritual teachers like Yogananda, J. Krishnamurti, Ramana, Paul Brunton, Sri Krishna Prem, Maharishi and Shunyata. Naturally, he also visited the Theosophical Society at Adyar and met Annie Besant, Swami Shyamananda, and the founder of the Bihar School of Yoga, Swami Satyananda Saraswati.

While in India, Evans-Wentz met many influential intellectuals, teachers and philosphers like Jiddu Krishnamurti. (Click to enlarge)

A year passed and he finally arrived at Darjeeling and encountered Tibetan lamas along with Tibetan texts for the first time. It was here that Evans-Wentz acquired the Tibetan text of Karma Lingpa’s Liberation through Hearing during the Intermediate State (which was simply known as Bardo Thodol) from Major Campbell, a British officer returning from Tibet.

The Bardo Thodol was a teaching given in the 8th century by the Indian master Padmasambhava and was written down by his Tibetan consort and student, Yeshe Tsogyal. According to legend, she buried it in the Gampo hills in central Tibet and was uncovered by a Tibetan master, Karma Lingpa, in the 14th century. This text is meant to be a guide for the deceased person to navigate through the experiences of the consciousness in the bardo, or the intermediate state between death and the next rebirth. This text also includes chapters on the death process and a ritual to be performed just before death and after it has taken place.

Not long after that, he met Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup (1868-1922) who was the English teacher and headmaster of the Maharaja’s Boys School in Gangtok, Sikkim. The two of them struck up an unlikely friendship due to their shared interest in Tibetan Buddhism and the Bardo Thodol, Karma Lingpa’s text. In fact, Kazi Dawa Samdup already had a well-developed interest on the subject of death since at least 1912, according to Alexandra David-Neel’s writings. Evans-Wentz agreed to edit and bear the cost of publication and translation while they were collaborating.

Lama Kazi Dawa by this time had already served as translator to His Holiness the 13^th Dalai Lama during his visit to India in 1910. This teacher had also translated for Alexandra David-Néel, the Belgian-French explorer, writers, Buddhist converts, and Sir John Woodroffe, a famous British Sinophile. It is evident that Lama Kazi Dawa Samdup had an interest in propagating Buddhist teachings outside of Tibet. Therefore, he was finally able to do with the assistance of Evans-Wentz.

A portrait of Evans-Wentz and an English Quaker nurse, Barbara Bruce, during his travels in India circa 1940. (Click to enlarge)

Evans-Wentz began to work with Lama Kazi Dawa on the translation of the Bardo Thodol every morning before school began. The translation would later become the basis for the famous Tibetan Book of the Dead. After the translation was done, Evans-Wentz left for Swami Satyananda’s ashram in order to learn and practice yoga. Meanwhile, Lama Kazi Dawa was appointed as a lecturer at the University of Calcutta, but unfortunately passed away three years later, which was way before the book was published.

Oxford University Press published the Tibetan Book of the Dead to critical acclaim in 1927. Evans-Wentz chose the title ‘Book of the Dead’ which was on ‘the art of knowing how to die’, and this reminded him of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. In the west, the book would go on to become the main reference on Tibetan Buddhism for years to come. In the book, Evans-Wentz claimed to only have been the compiler and editor, while Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup did the actual translation. Unfortunately, Evans-Wentz’s limited understanding of concepts that he learnt from Theosophy and various other metaphysical schools heavily influenced his Tibetan translation.

A rare picture of Evans-Wentz with Lama Kazi Dawa probably taken during his time in Darjeeling. (Click to enlarge)

Nonetheless, the Tibetan Book of the Dead was one of the first reliable translations of a Tibetan Buddhist text into English. By 1950, the book was translated into the major European languages and gained further acceptance within the scientific community. It is notable that the famous Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, wrote a foreword to the second edition of this book and acknowledged that the Tibetan Book of the Dead inspired him in his work.

Evans-Wentz’s following book was Tibet’s Great Yogi Milarepa (1928), which was another of Samdup’s translations. Evans-Wentz considered this book to be on ‘the art of mastering life’ instead of death. In the course of his translations, Evans-Wentz became a practitioner of the Buddhist faith he was studying. He became the student of Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup, wore loose oriental robes, and maintained a vegetarian diet. Then in 1935, he met Ramana Maharshi and travelled to Darjeeling in order to employ three translators from Sikkim, who were of Tibetan descent, in order to work on what would become the Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines (1935). In this book, he took on a decidedly anti-Western tone in introducing the esoteric teachings.

The first edition of Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda with a foreword by Evans-Wentz. (Click to enlarge)

Evans-Wentz was planning to make India his home, but World War II changed his plans, and he was forced to return to the United States. He would publish The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation in 1954, and his last book, Cuchama and Sacred Mountains, was published posthumously in 1989. Aside from his books, he was known to have written a glowing foreword to Yogananda’s famous Autobiography of a Yogi, in which he introduced Yogananda and his relations with this teacher to a wider audience. The book would be in print for over 65 years and translated into 35 languages.

Despite his practice of Buddhism, Evans-Wentz identified himself more as a Theosophist for most of his life. He also wrote many articles for Theosophical publications and donated generously to the Maha Bodhi Society, the Self-Realization Fellowship, and the Theosophical Society.

His Later Years and His Passing

Upon returning to the United States, Evans-Wentz lived for 23 years at the Keystone Hotel in San Diego in order to be near the only vegetarian restaurant – the House of Nutrition. The hotel was also near the Public Library, where he could browse copies of his own books, as he had given away his only copies.

He had already praised the Buddhist hermit ideal and he came to realise it with Mount Cuchama, which was a few miles away from the Mexican border. He bought up as much land on the mountain as possible and established his little retreat house on the land in order to practice ‘the Dharma, the Buddhist way of truth’.

“Buildings end in ruin, meetings in separation, accumulation in dispersion and life in death.” ~ Milarepa

For the last months of his life, Evans-Wentz lived in Yogananda’s Self-Realization Fellowship in Encinitas, California and passed away on July 1965. As a eulogy, The Tibetan Book of the Dead was read out during Evans-Wentz’s funeral.

Since 1969, through funding from Evans-Wentz’s bequest, Stanford University’s Department of Religious Studies has been hosting The Evans-Wentz Lectureship in Asian Philosophy, Religion, and Ethics. With his extraordinary books on Tibetan Buddhism, Evans-Wentz left a lasting legacy for posterity.

Mount Cuchama, where Evans-Wentz established his retreat house and engaged in retreats in the years prior to his passing.

Selected Publications

Tibetan Book of the Dead (download PDF)

Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines (download PDF)

Autobiography of a Yogi (download PDF)

The texts above were sourced from legitimate book-hosting services offering these texts for free download. They are made available here for purely educational, non-commercial purposes.

Books by Walter Yeeling Evans-Wentz

Book Cover	Book Title
	The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, London, New York, H. Frowde, 1911
	The Tibetan Book of the Dead; Lāma Kazi Dawa-Samdup’s English rendering, with foreword by Sir John Woodroffe, London, Oxford University Press, H. Milford, 1927.
	Tibetan Yoga And Secret Doctrines; or, Seven books of wisdom of the great path, according to the late Lāma Kazi Dawa-Samdup’s English rendering; arranged and edited with introductions and annotations to serve as a commentary, London, Oxford University Press, H. Milford, 1935
	Tibet’s Great Yogi Milarepa: a biography from the Tibetan; being the Jetsün-Kahbum or biographical history of Jetsün-Milarepa according to the late Lāma Kazi Dawa-Samdup’s English rendering (2d ed.), edited with introduction and annotations by W. Y. Evans-Wentz, London, New York : Oxford University Press, 1951.
	The Tibetan Book Of The Great Liberation; According to English renderings by Sardar Bahädur S. W. Laden La and by the Lāmas Karma Sumdhon Paul, Lobzang Mingyur Dorje, and Kazi Dawa-Samdup. Introductions, annotations, and editing by W. Y. Evans-Wentz. With psychological commentary by C. G. Jung. London, New York, Oxford University Press, 1954.
	Cuchama and Sacred Mountains. Ohio University Press. 1989.
	The Diamond Sutra and the Sutra of Hui-Neng. Shambhala. 1969 (Foreword by W. Y. Evans-Wentz)
	Autobiography of a Yogi. Self Realization Fellowship. 1998 (Foreword by W. Y. Evans-Wentz)

 
For more interesting information:

• The Asia Travel category on my blog
• George Roerich – Light of the Morning Star
• Alexandra David-Néel
• Ekai Kawaguchi – Three Years in Tibet
• Professor Garma C.C. Chang -The Illustrious Pioneer
• In the Footsteps of Joseph Rock
• Nicholas Roerich & art (1874-1947)
• The Russian Princess Buddhist Nun
• Padmasambhava meets Tsongkapa
• 6 Yogas of Naropa by H.H. Kyabje Zong Rinpoche
• The Seventeen Pandits of Nalanda Monastery
• Milarepa’s Cave
• Teachings by Atisha
• Dharma Protectors of Tibetan Buddhism
• Eight Verses of Thought Transformation
• Peter Szasz – Persian Miniture Artist
• Tibetan Astrology
• Shall We Hate The Jews and Those Different Than Us?
• Achi Chokyi Drolma – Cheif Protectress of the Drikung Kagyu
• The 14th Dalai Lama’s Prayer to Dorje Shugden
• His Holiness Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche

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