Quotes from the Book of Khiu-te
From the Theosophist, Vol.3 n°1 – October 1881, p.14, one can read the Editor (HPB) Notes to a text from Eliphas Levi on Death :
« To force oneself upon the current of immortality, or rather to secure for oneself an endless series of rebirths as conscious individualities – says the Book of Khiu-te Vol. XXXI ., one must become a co-worker with nature, either for good or for bad, in her work of creation and reproduction, or in that of destruction. »
This is a very accurate quote : Vol. XXXI of the Book of Khiu-te.
Knowing that the Book of Khiu-te could be the Gyut part (Tantra) of the Tibetan Buddhist canon, one would like to take a look at it. Specifically the Kanjur part, the Tanjur being more associated with what HPB call « the Commentaries ».
Many nomenclatures of the Kanjur are known and may differ from each other.
At the time of the Theosophist publication (1881), at least one was known to the public, the one Csoma de Koros put together, published in 1836 in the Asiatic Researches, and later on translated in french by Léon Feer (Annales du Musée Guimet – Tome 2).
The table of contents of the Kanjur is described as a 7 divisions treatise, which the 7th is the Gyut part in 22 sections. Therefore Volume XXXI may be the 31st book of this section.
Looking at the contents of the different sections :
Section I (KA) : 14 books
Section II (KHA) : 4 books
Section III (GA) : 7 books
Section IV (NGA) : 15 books
Vol. XXXI refered to by HPB may be the 6th book of section IV, the
Çrî-Cathur-pithâh, tib. Dpal-gdan-vji-pa ; དཔལ་གདན་བཉི་པ (folios 57-128) :
Worship of the compassionate CENRESIK (Sk. Avalokiteçvara). This is a tantric treatise on the purification of the soul and the mystical union with the supreme Being. One can find several mandalas to perform, various ceremonies to accomplish, and several mantras to repeat to reach the complete liberation.
If this book is accessible, and that the quote can be identified, maybe it is a way to confirm the global hypothesis that the Book of Khiu-te is among the Kanjur collection.
By the way, on the same page of the Theosophist referred to here, there is another quote from the Book of Khiu-te, without specific volume designation :
Bottom page note : « That is to say, they are reborn in a « lower world » which is neither « Hell » nor any theological purgatory, but a world of nearly absolute matter and one preceding the last one in the « circle of necessity » from which « there is no redemption, for there regns absolute spiritual darkness. » (Book of Khiu-te).