| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: Minor Tibetan Texts: 1. The song of the Eastern Snow-mountain
Author: Manen, Johan van
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Minor Tibetan Texts: 1. The song of the Eastern Snow-mountain" ***
BIBLIOTHECA INDICA:
A
Collection of Oriental Works
PUBLISHED BY THE
ASIATIC SOCIETY OF BENGAL.
New Series, No. 1426.
MINOR TIBETAN TEXTS.
I.—THE SONG OF THE EASTERN SNOW-MOUNTAIN.
BY
JOHAN VAN MANEN.
CALCUTTA:
PRINTED AT THE BAPTIST MISSION PRESS,
AND PUBLISHED BY THE
ASIATIC SOCIETY, 1, PARK STREET.
1919.
PREFATORY NOTE.
Lewin, in his ‘Manual of Tibetan,’ 1879, preface, states: “Tibet and
its language are still comparatively unknown ... the familiar tongue of
the people, their folk-lore, songs and ballads are all unknown.”
Far from contradicting this saying, Jäschke, the greatest Tibetan
scholar of his time, stated two years later, in 1881, in the preface to
the third edition of his Tibetan Dictionary: “(To) the student who has
for immediate object to learn how to read and write the Tibetan
language ... existing dictionaries (are) almost if not quite useless.”
Since Jäschke’s third edition, two new Tibetan dictionaries have
appeared. Walsh in an article in the J.A.S.B., Vol. 72, Pt. 1, n. 2,
1903, reviewing the last one of these, the one by Sarat Chandra Das,
says, p. 78: “Although the present Dictionary has fulfilled what it
purposed to be, namely, a complete Dictionary of literary Tibetan, so
far as our present sources of knowledge go, it does not fulfil the
requirements of a standard dictionary of the entire language, and the
standard dictionary of the modern and current Tibetan language has yet
to be written.”
Laufer, ‘Roman einer Tibetischen Königin,’ 1911, p. 27 et seq., says:
“We have here to open a road through the jungles, unaided and by
ourselves; we have to work through text after text and note down
expressions and idioms as we meet them,” etc.
Grünwedel in ‘Padmasambhava und Verwandtes,’ 1912, pp. 9–10, endorses
Laufer’s remarks and adds about the difficulty of translating from
Tibetan: “Ignorance regarding the subject-matter, mistakes and
misunderstandings in the text itself, and, finally, the insufficiently
explored idiomatic element of the language, of which the history is as
yet poorly known, these are the main shoals.... Of all the dictionaries
only Jäschke’s has really achieved something in the matter of idiom.”
As a matter of fact the printed materials available for the home
student do not at present enable him, if without the help of a native
teacher, to translate, accurately and without skipping the
difficulties, any modern Tibetan book (not even the so-called Tibetan
Primers in use in Darjeeling) if such books do not happen to belong to
those excerpted in the existing dictionaries. Jäschke’s, which is the
best from this point of view, mentions only 25 titles of texts used as
his sources. Comparing this with the more than 1000 titles quoted by
Skeat as the sources for the material for his Etymological Dictionary
of the English language we at once see the inadequacy of such material
in the case of Tibetan.
It is true that at present more showy results can be obtained by the
wholesale translation of texts (more with a view to making known their
general contents, than to the furnishing of a precise philological,
lexicographical and grammatical analysis), and it is certain that the
results of such work of translation would be more attractive and
interesting to the wider public. Yet one of the most valuable
contributions towards laying a sound basis for future Tibetan
scholarship is the painstaking, laborious and to a certain extent
inglorious and humdrum drudging away at small texts with scrupulous
attention to the smallest minutiae, for a secure fixing of illustrative
examples by co-ordinating correctness of text, full discussion of
meanings, sharp formulation of definitions and subtle analysis of all
questions and problems involved.
The following essay is a first contribution towards an attempt to serve
such an ideal.
ABBREVIATIONS.
adj. = Adjective.
A.S.B. = Asiatic Society of Bengal.
Bell = Bell’s Manual.
Cs., Csoma = Csoma’s Dictionary; if his Grammar is referred to it
is specifically stated.
D. = Dutch.
Desg. = Desgodins, Dictionary.
dict. = Dictionary.
dicts. = All existing European Tibetan Dictionaries, but
especially the three current ones by Jäschke, Sarat
Chandra Das and Desgodins.
Dzl. = Dzanglun, ed. and trsl. by Schmidt.
Ed. = Edition.
fig. = figuratively.
G. = German.
Hannah = Hannah’s Grammar.
Henderson = Henderson’s Manual.
Hon. = Honorific.
J. = Jäschke, Dictionary, 3rd ed.; also Journal.
L. = Latin.
l. = line.
M.A.S.B. = Memoirs, Asiatic Society of Bengal.
pr. = pronounce, pronunciation.
prob. = probably.
q. v. = see.
S. Ch. D. = Sarat Chandra Das, Dictionary.
Schmidt = Schmidt’s Dictionary, German Edition.
Schroeter = Schroeter’s Dictionary.
Sk. = Sanskrit.
subst. = Substantive.
s.v. = sub voce.
syn(s). = synonym(s), synonymous.
voc. = vocabulary.
MINOR TIBETAN TEXTS.
Primarily Lexicographically Treated.
By Johan Van Manen.
I. THE SONG OF THE EASTERN SNOW MOUNTAIN.
A. INTRODUCTION.
In his ‘Mythologie des Buddhismus,’ Grünwedel gives on p. 59 the
figures of a triad of famous reformers of lamaism; Rje Rin po chʽe,
better known as Tsoṅ kʽa pa, and his two pupils, Rgyal tsʽab rje and
Mkʽas grub rje. On pp. 70–72 he gives biographical notes concerning the
three, and indicates their place and historical importance in lamaism.
Günther Schulemann, in ‘Die Geschichte der Dalailamas,’ gives in
chapters II and III a complete compilation of what is known about these
three.
In the modern Dge lugs pa sect their historical importance has never
been lost sight of and their memory is kept green by a universal prayer
or invocation, still in daily use, opening and closing every ceremony
in a Dge lugs pa monastery. In preceding a ceremony it runs as
follows:—
གངས་ཅན་ཤིང་རྟའི་སྲོལ་འབྱེད་ཙོང་ཁ་པ ༎
དངོས་སྟོབས་རིག་པའི་དབང་ཕྱུག་རྒྱལ་ཚབ་རྗེ ༎
མདོ་སྔགས་བསྟན་པའི་བདག་པོ་མཁས་གྲུབ་རྗེ ༎
རྒྱལ་བ་ཡབ་སྲས་གསུམ་ལ་ཕྱག་འཚལ་ལོ ༎
To the repairer of the Tibetan vehicle, Tsoṅ kʽa pa (the
Onionlander),
To the true, strong, wise Lord Rgyal tsʽab rje (Noble
Throne-prince),
To the sūtra and mantra teaching master Mkʽas grub rje (Noble
Cleverness-perfection)
To these three victorious (illustrious) Father and Sons (Family of
three), obeisance!
In closing the ceremony the words ལ་ཕྱག་འཚལ་ལོ་ are changed into གྱི་བཀྲ་ཤིས་
ཤོག་, ‘may their blessing be on us,’ ‘may they bless us.’
When the monks meet for གསོལ་ཇ་, collective or communal tea drinking,
the last three words are changed into མཆོད་པ་འབུལ་, ‘we give our
offering,’ said before drinking the first cup and whilst sprinkling a
few drops in libation with two fingers, the thumb and fourth finger of
the right hand. At the termination of tea drinking nothing is said at
all. Except for these changes the formula remains the same for all
occasions.
Another pupil of Tsoṅ kʽa pa was his own nephew Dge ḥdun grub, about
whom further particulars are given in the same passages of the two
works cited above, and who may be called the first Dalai Lama, though
not known by that title but by that of Rgyal ba, or conqueror. Yet it
will be seen from the above formula that the three who are together
called ཡབ་སྲས་ ‘father and sons,’ that is Tsoṅ kʽa pa and his two
spiritual sons or pupils, are all three called རྒྱལ་བ་. The expression
ཡབ་སྲས་ has no doubt to be understood as a collective word like ‘group,’
‘family,’ just like ཕ་མ་ means ‘parents.’
From this དགེ་འདུན་གྲུབ་ a small poem in praise of his teachers, the ཡབ་
སྲས་, has come to us, which we now publish. Of མཁས་གྲུབ་རྗེ་ it is said that
he founded a formal cult of his teacher Tsoṅ kʽa pa, and it may be that
his devotional attitude found a reflection in this poem, showing the
attitude taken by his own pupil towards him and his two other teachers
in his turn.
This poem occurs in a miscellaneous collection of religious matter
(said to comprise about 150 leaves), in a work ཆོས་སྤྱོད་ (‘Religious
Practice’), leaves 59, 60. I have not been able to see a complete copy
of this work. In this edition the text is fairly correct and clearly
legible. A small edition, complete in itself, of which I possess two
copies (not quite so legible), offers several different readings which
nearly all seem quite as good, and some decidedly better, than those of
the larger edition. The differences shown by the two texts are,
relatively to the size of the poem, so numerous and of such a nature as
to preclude the idea that mere copying can have led to them. One is led
to the conclusion that one of the two texts was produced from memory
and not by actual copying. We shall note the variants furnished by the
larger edition, marking them B., whilst following for our own text,
with one exception, duly noted, the smaller edition A. My two copies of
the smaller edition would seem to be prints from the same blocks but
for some difference in the last page. Whether the other pages are
printed from the same blocks, whilst only this one last block has been,
for one reason or another, renewed (and changed in the process) may be
left undiscussed for the moment. Enough to make the general statement
that great care should always be exercised before pronouncing Tibetan
prints as made or not made from the same blocks, and that, indeed,
interesting observations may be made on Tibetan typographical
practices.
The title ཆོས་སྤྱོད་ is a very frequent one in Tibet, and indicates, like
མདོ་མང་ (as in J. Dict., p. 273b, but not as on p. XXI a), a religious
miscellany. The particular ཆོས་སྤྱོད་ from which our poem is taken is said
to be one of the text-books which the Tashilhunpo tapas are required to
learn by heart. The book with the same title which Laufer (Verzeichniss
der Tib. Handschr. etc. zu Dresden, Z.D.M.G., 1901, p. 123, n. 135)
mentions, might or might not be the same. As I have not been able to
examine the title pages and final pages of the book, I cannot give any
further information about it. ཆོས་སྤྱོད་ is the marginal short title.
Another Gelukpa prayer of almost equal popularity and frequency as
those of the one quoted above, is the following which may be used as an
alternative to the former one. It is distinguished from it in that not
the ཡབ་སྲས་གསུམ་, but Tsoṅ kʽa pa alone is invoked in it. It runs:—
དམིགས་མེད་བརྩེ་བའི་གཏེར་ཆེན་སྤྱན་རས་གཟིགས ༎
དྲི་མེད་མཁྱེན་པའི་དབང་པོ་འཇམ་པའི་དབྱངས ༎
བདུད་དཔུང་མ་ལུས་འཇོམས་མཛད་གསང་བའི་བདག །
གངས་ཅན་མཁས་པའི་གཙུག་རྒྱན་ཙོང་ཁ་པ ༎
བློ་བཟང་གྲགས་པའི་ཞབས་ལ་གསོལ་བ་འདེབས ༎
To the unfathomable great treasury of love, the Down-Looking-One
(Chenresi, Avalokiteshvara),
To the immaculate Lord of knowledge, Sweet-voice (Jamyang,
Mañjughosha),
To the subduer of the hosts of devils without exception, the Master
of Mysteries (Chanadorje, Vajrapāṇi),
To that crown-jewel of Tibetan sages, Tsoṅ kʽa pa,
To the feet of that (or: thee, o!) Famous Goodheart (Lozangtakpa,
Sumatikīrti), we pray.
The chief difference between the use of the two prayers is that the
latter is more in private use, whilst the former is more favoured in
what may be called official meetings and collective acts of worship.
The latter prayer is often used in a manner like the ‘Oṃ maṇi padme
hūṃ’ formula, and cases in which a devotee vowed to recite this prayer
once or more times a 100,000 times are known. The practical purpose of
the latter prayer was thus defined by a Tibetan: ཚེ་འདི་ལ་གཟུགས་པོ་སྐྱིད་པོ་ན་
ཚ་མི་ཡོང་བ་ཚེ་རིང་པོ་ཡོང་བ་དང་ ། ཤི་བའི་དུས་ལ་ཡིད་དགའ་ཆོས་འཛིན་ལ་འཁྲིད་རོགས་གནང༌ ༎ To
ensure (bring, ask for) in (this present, earthly) life: health,
happiness, absence of sickness, and longevity—and at the time of death
a happy mind and a firm hold on (grasp of) religion.
The above form of the prayer is the printed one which is used by the
monks to read aloud, mechanically and repeatedly, as a sort of
prayer-litany, together with other similar matter, for the benefit of
their clients, or also to ensure their own salvation. It is said to
occur in a prayer-book called དགའ་ལྡན་ལྷ་བརྒྱ་མ་, which I have not seen
myself and about which I have no further details.
This prayer has also some variations in its final line (after the words
གྲགས་པའི་) according to circumstances. This line ends, when:
Opening a ceremony : ཞབས་ལ་ཕྱག་འཚལ་ལོ །
Closing ,, ,, : ཞབས་ཀྱི་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཤོག །
Before tea : ཞལ་ལ་ (or དུ་) མཆོད་པ་འབུལ །
After ,, : nothing at all is said.
It is interesting to note that one of my informants interprets the
above formula as indicating that Tsoṅ kʽa pa is the simultaneous
incarnation of Avalokiteshvara, Mañjughosha and Vajrapāṇi, and that
these persons invoked in the prayer are not referred to as a
consecutive series of separate entities, but as all embodied in the one
Tsoṅ kʽa pa. My informant was very insistent about it that this is the
general and orthodox interpretation of this prayer. The other two names
of Tsoṅ kʽa pa are འཇམ་མགོན་བླ་མ་ and བློ་བཟང་གྲགས་པ་.
The closing verse of our poem is also a prayer to Tsoṅ kʽa pa. It is
also in use elsewhere than in connection with the present booklet and
occurs elsewhere in print as well. My informant ascribes it to
Gendundub himself and thinks that its wider use has spread from this
booklet, though he cannot definitely assure that Gendundub himself did
not appropriate it for the closing lines of his poem, taking an already
current prayer to Tsoṅ kʽa pa. The latter theory is plausible inasmuch
as the last verse is seven-footed as against the eight-footed lines of
the rest of the poem. Anyhow, the statement that this prayer also
refers to Tsoṅ kʽa pa alone, and is as such used and understood by all
Gelukpa monks, settles a doubt we might otherwise entertain as to
whether it is not addressed to the ཡབ་སྲས་གསུམ་, in which case its final
line would have to be translated in the plural.
As to the edition, in the original the verses are not marked; they are
evidently four-lined. The small edition has no divisions at all, except
marking the lines, but the larger edition has in addition a ༈ (སྦྲུལ་མགོ་ =
snake head) after lines 16 and 48. In my own text and translation I
have by typographical disposition and by the introduction of title
headings indicated my conception of the clever and very logical inner
structure of the poem.
The text is followed by a short discussion of the variants in it, next
by a translation, and then, my main business, by a full lexicographical
discussion, in alphabetical order. This embodies in the first place all
the new material, supplementing, amplifying, modifying, or even only
questioning, the data in Jäschke’s Dictionary, 3rd edition. For this
Dictionary is, as far as lexicographical method is concerned, still
superior to all other, even subsequent, Tibetan dictionaries, however
much valuable and additional matter may be contained in the two latter.
Jäschke’s dictionary is as yet the proper starting point for all future
lexicographical research. In this glossary I have also drawn special
attention to contradictions in these three current dictionaries, those
of Jäschke, Desgodins and Sarat Chandra Das, even to such points for
which I myself have not been able to suggest a solution or about which
I could not bring new material. For the good of future lexicographical
work in the Tibetan field, it is very necessary to point out as many as
possible of the numerous existing discrepancies and uncertainties
(especially relating to finer shades of discrimination and precision)
so as to focus the attention of investigators on them. It is
unavoidable that most of this work can only be suitably undertaken on
the spot in consultation with educated, intelligent Tibetans, and not
in European closets. The number of those in a position to undertake
such research will, for a long time to come, remain limited enough. As
indicated in the sub-title of this essay my own main object in writing
it is primarily a lexicographical one. For this reason I have also
incorporated in my glossary notes on side-issues and all sorts of
incidental idiomatic ‘catches’ which cropped up in the discussion of
our text, though not immediately connected with the poem itself.
As it seemed the handiest way to present all the results of my
investigation I have also embodied all commentatorial matter, the
philological notes as distinct from the lexicographical ones, under the
same alphabet. The few syntactical remarks have also been wedged in in
this list, though in their case the ‘Stichwort’ had to be chosen more
or less at haphazard.
In the matter of oral information and illustrative examples embodied in
this paper, my authorities are nearly exclusively my two Tibetan
teachers Skarma Bsam Gtan Paul and Pʽun Tsʽogs Lung Rtogs. The first is
a native of Ghoom, though of pure Tibetan extraction (Kʽams). He has
resided for nearly a year in Lhasa, for another 3 months in Tashilhunpo
(where he was Tibetan interpreter between the Tashi Lama and Capt. R.
Steen, I.M.S.), and for 4 years in Gyangtse. The second is a native of
Lhasa, where he resided till his 18th year, after which he spent 3
years in Tashilhunpo as a tapa. Then he wandered for 12 years through
Tibet, Sikkhim and Nepal, after which he settled in Ghoom since about
1914. Until recently he was there schoolmaster (dge rgan) in the local
Tibetan monastery.
Both these intelligent men have given me the greatest help in long,
patient and painstaking discussions concerning the lexicographical and
other problems presented by this present text, as well as by several
others, which I hope I will be able to publish and discuss from time to
time in the future.
B. TEXT.
༄༅ ། ། གསུད་མགུར་ཤར་གདས་རི་མ་
བཞུགས་སོ ༎
ན་མོ་གུ་རུ །
I
I 1 ཤར་གངས་རི་དཀར་པོའི་རྩེ་མོ་ན ༎
2 སྤྲིན་དཀར་པོ་གནམ་ལ་བསྙེག་ [1]འདྲ་བ ༎
3 དེ་མཐོང་བའི་མོད་ལ་བླ་མ་དྲན ༎
4 དྲིན་བསམས་ཤིང་བསམས་ཤིང་དད་པ་སྐྱེས ༎
II 5 སྤྲིན་དཀར་པོ་ལྡིང་བའི་ [2]ཤར་ཕྱོགས་ན །
6 འབྲོག་དགེ་ལྡན་རྣམ་པར་རྒྱལ་བ་དེར ༎
7 མཚན་བརྗོད་པར་ [3]དཀའ་བའི་རིན [4]པོ་ཆེ ༎
8 ཕ་བློ་བཟང་གྲགས་པ་ཡབ་སྲས་བཞུགས ༎
III 9 ལམ་རིམ་པ་གཉིས་ཀྱི་རྣལ་འབྱོར་སོགས ༎
10 ཆོས་ཟབ་ལ་ཤིན་ཏུ་རྒྱས་པར་ [5]གསུངས ༎
11 བོད་ཁ་བ་ཅན་གྱི་སྐལ་ལྡན་ལ ༎
12 མགོན་ཁྱོད་ཀྱི་བཀའ་དྲིན་བསམ་མི་ཁྱབ ༎
II
IV 13 སྒོས་སྙོམས་ལས་འཛིན་པའི་དགེ་འདུན་གྲུབ །
14 བློ་ཅུང་ཟད་ཆོས་ལ་ཕྱོགས་པ་འདི ༎
15 རྗེ་ཡབ་སྲས་རྣམས་ཀྱི་བཀའ་དྲིན་ཡིན ༎
16 དྲིན་ཆེ་བར་ངེས་ [6]སོ་ཡབ་སྲས་རྣམས [7] ༎
V 17 དུས་འདི་ [8]ནས་བྱང་ཆུབ་སྙིང་པོའི་བར ༎
18 རྗེ་ཡབ་སྲས་ཁྱེད་རྣམས་མ་གཏོགས་པར [9] ༎
19 སྐྱབས་རེ་ས་གཞན་དུ་ [10]མི་འཚོལ་བས ༎
20 ཐུགས་བརྩེ་ [11]བའི་ལྕགས་ཀྱུས་དྲང་དུ་གསོལ ༎
VI 21 དྲིན་ཇི་བཞིན་འཁུར་བར་མ་ནུས་ཀྱང་ ༎
22 སེམས་ཆགས་སྡང་དབང་དུ་མ་སོང་བར [12] ༎
23 མགོན་ཁྱོད་ཀྱི་བསྟན་པ་འཛིན་པ་ལ ༎
24 དུས་ནམ་ཡང་བརྩོན་ [13]པར་ [14]བགྱིད་པར་སྨོན ༎
III
VII 25 ལར་ད་ལྟ་གངས་རིའི་ཁྲོད་འདི་ན ༎
26 རང་བསྟན་པ་འཛིན་པར་ཁས་ལེན་ཞིང་ [15] ༎
27 གཞན་བསྟན་འཛིན་དགྲ་བོའི་དྭངས་མར་འཛིན ༎
28 ཚུལ་འདི་ལ་སྐྱོ་བ་གཏིང་ནས་སྐྱེས ༎
VIII 29 གཞན་འཕུང་ [16]བར་འདོད་པའི་ཀུན་སློང་ [17]དང་ ༎
30 རྒྱུད་མཚན་འཛིན་དམ་པོས་བཅིངས་ལགས་ཀྱང་ ༎
31 ལམ་མཐོན་པོར་གནས་པའི་ཁས་ལེན་བྱེད ༎
32 འདི་བརྟགས་ན་ཀུན་གྱིས་ [18]ཁྲེལ་ [19]བའི་རྒྱུ ༎
IX 33 ལམ་གོལ་སར་རྒས་པའི་སྡུག་ཡུས་ཀྱིས ༎
34 ཆོས་ཚུལ་བཞིན་བྱེད་ [20]པའི་གང་ཟག་ལ ༎
35 རྒྱུད་ཁོང་ནས་འཁྲུགས་ [21]པའི་གདུག་སེམས་ཅན ༎
36 གདོན་ཐུགས་ལ་ཞུགས་པ་མ་ལགས་སམ ༎
IV
X 37 དགྲ་ཉོན་མོངས་འདུལ་ཐབས་ [22]མི་བྱེད་པར ༎
38 གཤགས་འགྱེད་པ་ཙམ་གྱི་བཤད་ [23]ཉན་ཡང་ ༎
39 འདྲེ་ཤར་སྒོའི་ཕྱོགས་སུ་གནས་པ་ལ ༎
40 གླུད་ནུབ་སྒོར་གཏོང་ [24]བ་[24]དོན་རེ་ཆུང་ ༎
XI 41 དོན་དེ་ལྟར་གོ་བའི་བཤེས་གཉེན་པ [25] ༎
42 སྤྱིར་ལུས་ཅན་ཀུན་ལ་བཀའ་དྲིན་བསམ [26] ༎
43 སྒོས་ཆོས་མཛད་ཡོངས་ལ་དག་སྣང་སྦྱོང་ [27] ༎
44 དགྲ་ནང་ན་འདུག་པའི་ཉོན་ [28]མོངས་[28]འདུལ[28] ༎
XII 45 མི་ཁོ་བོའི་རྗེས་མཇུག་གྲོགས་པོ་ [29]རྣམས [30] ༎
46 ཡིད་ཕྱོགས་སུ་ལྷུང་བས་ [31]མ་[31]འཆང་[31]བར[31] ༎
47 བློ་ [32]གཟུ་བོར་གནས་པའི་རྟོག་དཔྱོད་ཀྱིས །
48 ལམ་དྲང་པོར་ [33]ཞུགས་པ་ཅིས་ཀྱང་ལེགས ༎ [34]
V
XIII 49 གཏམ་འདི་ལ་བརྟེན་ནས་འགྲོ་བ་རྣམས [35] ༎
50 བྱམས་སྙིང་རྗེས་དྲངས་པའི་སེམས་བསྐྱེད་དང་ ༎
51 དབྱིངས་སྤྲོས་བྲལ་རྟོགས་པའི་ལྟ་བ་ཡིས ༎
52 དཔལ་བླ་མེད་བྱང་ཆུབ་མྱུར་ཐོབ་ཤོག ༎
VI
XIV 53 སྐུ་ལ་མཚན་དཔེའི་དཔལ་འབར་ཞིང་ ༎
54 གསུང་དབྱངས་ཡན་ལག་དྲུག་ཅུས་བརྒྱན ༎
55 ཐུགས་ནི་ཟབ་ཡངས་མཁྱེན་བརྩེའི་གཏེར ༎
56 དཔལ་ལྡན་བླ་མའི་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཤོག །
ཅེས་པ་འདི་ནི་ཐམས་ཅད་ [36]མཁྱེན་པ་ཆེན་པོ་དགེ་འདུན་གྲུབ་པ་དཔལ་བཟང་
པོས་གདུང་[36]དབྱངས་སུ་མཛད་པའོ ༎
བཀྲ་ཤིས ༎
C. THE VARIANTS.
The texts used were two small blockprints, nearly identical A 1 and A
2, and a large blockprint B.
On the whole A furnishes a good text and it may be used as the basis
for the edition. Two curious cases of the use of བ་ for པ་ (7. 45) seem
more than mere negligence of the wood-cutter in connection with the
badly printed པའི་ in l. 13 (which looks also like བའི་) and also a པ་
like བ་ in l. 23. Inversely there is a clear པ་—ཐཔས—in l. 37 and a བོར་
for པོར་ in l. 48. A 2 twice lacks the hook in རྩ (20, 24) and the naro
ོ in lines 29, 47. These two latter variants may be due to
deterioration in the blocks or the roughness of the paper, or defective
inking. Otherwise A 1 and A 2 are practically identical, and except for
the last pages (the last two of A 1 are condensed into a single one in
A 2) the two copies may have been printed from the same blocks.
In 5 B writes ལྡིང་པའི་ for བའི་ as authorized by the Dicts. But the
question of final particles is still far from being satisfactorily
settled. The Dicts. are on the whole much at variance on this point.
Desg. gives as a rule a greater variety of them than J.
Some differences in the tenses of the verb are presented by the two
copies of A on one side and B on the other. In l. 2 སྙེག་ is the present
tense as against the past form བསྙེག་ in A. As to the sense both would
do, and though the past form in Tibetan is better rendered in English
by the present we may understand the past form as ‘has begun to rise.’
In verse XI B gives imp. forms, making the sense one of command whereas
A has present forms giving a mere statement. The final ས་ in སོམས་,
however, is not recorded in the Dicts., nor the form སྦྱོངས་; ཐུལ་,
however, is a regularly recognised imp. form.
འཁྲུགས་ in l. 35 is a correct past tense. The form ཁྲུག་ (without an
initial འ་) as in B is not recorded, though འཁྲུག་, present, might do
equally well. འཁྲེལ་, l. 32, is not authorized by the Dicts. which all
omit the initial འ་. The substitution of འཆད་ for བཤད་ (38) seems to
lack sufficient urgency, though J. records a འཆད་ཉན་པ་ ‘to listen to an
explanation’ from Sch. A འཕུང་, l. 29, is correct according to the
Dicts., not ཕུང་ of B, though J. and S. Ch. D. give the alternative
spelling.
In the treatment of grammatical particles A is superior to B. པར་ (10)
is correct, not པ་ B. It is an adverbial construction. In 18, པར་, and
22, བར་, equally so. In 24 པར་ is a terminative dependent on བགྱིད་པ་.
The remaining variants are all in the nature of equivalents for or
against which nothing (or the same!) can be said, and which would do as
well as the readings we have adopted. Many of them are, however,
curious for this reason, that they are not homonymous variants at all
and consequently substitutions for, not corruptions of, the text. We
have to leave the question alone whether those in A or in B are likely
to be the original ones.
In 7, དྲིན་པོ་ཆེ་, very kind, is as good as རིན་པོ་ཆེ་, very precious; in 17
དུས་འདི་ནས་ means practically the same as དུས་དེང་ནས་, ‘from this moment’,
and ‘from this very day.’ In 19 གཞན་དུ་ ‘in another’ seems even a trifle
better than གཞན་ནས་ ‘from another.’ གྱིས་ seems better in 32 than ཀྱང་ in
B, ‘even, indeed!’ བྱེད་པ་ ‘to perform,’ in l. 34, is as good as བསྒྲུབ་པ་,
also ‘to perform, accomplish,’ and the future form of the latter would
be better if changed into a pf. form བསྒྲུབས་ or pr. སྒྲུབ་. In l. 40 གཏོང་བ་,
‘the sending, throwing,’ seems as good as སྐྱེལ་བཞིན་, ‘(as silly) as the
conveying.’ In 41 the article པ་ means the same as plural རྣམས་ B. In
44, བདག་འཛིན་, ‘egotism, selfishness,’ is substituted for ཉོན་མོངས་,
‘sin’; similarly in 45 and 49 ཀུན་ ‘all,’ for རྣམས་ ‘many.’ Lastly, the
difficult construction ལྷུང་བས་མ་འཆང་བར་, in 46, is replaced in B by the
easier ལྷུང་བར་མི་བྱེད་པར་, ‘not allowing (letting, making) it [the soul]
(to) fall’ instead of ‘letting it remain fallen when once it has done
so.’
All these examples seem to point out that one of the blockprints
(probably the larger one) was derived from a version which was not
actually copied from the original but rather written down from memory.
The variants are no cutting or copying mistakes except ངེས་སོ་ and ངས་སོ་
l. 16, and དྲིན་པོ་ཆེ་ and རིན་པོ་ཆེ་ in l. 7.
In l. 26 we find an erroneous ཅིང་ for ཞིང་.
The two ༈ at the end of lines 16 and 48 in B (or rather at the
beginning of the following lines, for that is where they must be put if
the Tibetan text is printed line for line like English verse) do not
agree with my conception of the structure of the poem as indicated by
my typographical arrangement of it. I would not have expected a ༈ after
line 16 but after lines 12, 24, 36 and 48. The occurrence of the sign
after line 48 may, however, be taken to indicate that the next two
verses have to be regarded as appendices to the body of the poem
proper.
It must be mentioned that in the title, in both copies of A., the final
word is བཞུགས་. In B., as the poem occurs in the body of the volume,
there is no equivalent title. I have written བཞུགས་སོ༷་ without prejudice
to the question whether the form བཞུགས་ is legitimate or not. My
teachers say that before a ༎ the སོ་ is required.
The only reading taken from B is ངེས་ for the incomprehensible ངས་ of A
1 and 2, in line 16.
It may be, finally, remarked that the three copies from which this
edition was prepared, show once more that textual correctness and
perfection of typographical execution are not necessarily related in
Tibet. The two small prints which are, but for the single omission of a
dengbu in line 16, quite correct, are small, badly printed on bad
paper, and not carefully or neatly cut. The larger copy is neat, well
printed on good paper, very legible, but not nearly so satisfactory as
a text.
D. TRANSLATION.
THE SONG OF THE EASTERN SNOW MOUNTAIN.
OBEISANCE TO THE TEACHER.
I. (His Teachers).
1. On the peak of the white snow mountain in the East
A white cloud seems to be rising towards the sky.
At the instant of beholding it I remember my teacher
And, pondering over his kindness, faith stirs in me.
2. To the East of where that cloud is floating,
In that entirely victorious Virtue Solitude,
There resided the precious ones, difficult to be invoked,
Father Famous Goodheart, the Sire with (his two spiritual) sons.
3. The yoga and other (teachings) of the two stages of the road
Relating to the profound Doctrine, they preached most fully.
To the pious of snowy Tibet
Your grace, O protectors, was ineffable.
II. (Himself).
4. Especially that this ease-loving Clergy-Perfection
Has turned his mind a little towards the Doctrine
Is (thanks to) the kindness of these noble father and sons.
Truly your kindness is great, O father and sons.
5. From now onward till (I reach) the heart of saintship,
Whilst, except in you, noble father and sons,
I will not place my hope for protection in anyone else,
I pray you to drag me along with your mercy-hook.
6. Though I cannot repay you in proportion to whatever your favours
have been,
I pray that, with my soul not enslaved by attraction or repulsion,
I may hold fast to your teaching, O protectors,
And may always put my best energy into the endeavour.
III. (His Contemporaries).
7. However, nowadays, in this snow mountain solitude,
(There are those who) whilst promising to follow the teaching
themselves,
Regard others, who (equally) follow the teaching, as their veriest
enemies.
Such conduct calls forth the deepest sorrow.
8. With thoughts wishing the ruin of others
And with souls fettered by fierce ambition,
They nevertheless promise to dwell on the high road.
If we consider this (carefully) it is a matter of shame for all
concerned.
9. These malignant beings,
Angry because they find themselves in their old age in the wrong
road,
And raging from the bottom of their hearts
Against those persons who have (duly) acted conform to the Doctrine,
Has not a demon entered their minds?
IV. (His Pupils).
10. Not to take steps to conquer the enemy, sin,
But yet after mere reproach to flare up in reply,
That is as silly as,
When an evil spirit is at the Eastern door,
To throw the ransom towards the Western door.
11. Those virtue-friends who understand that this is so,
Think of all embodied beings in general with kindness,
But saintly thoughts especially of all who devote themselves to the
Doctrine.
And they subdue the enemy residing within, sin.
12. O, my followers and friends,
Whilst not letting your souls remain fallen after a lapse,
But whilst examining (yourselves constantly) whether your minds keep
to righteousness,
To remain on the straight road, that surely is good.
V. (Final Prayer).
13. May all those who believe in these words,
With a mind bent on the drawing on of all beings by means of love
and mercy,
Through the (direct) vision of the actionless state of (pure)
knowledge,
Speedily obtain (that) glorious, supreme saintship.
VI. (Final Blessing).
14. He, whose body blazes with the marks and beauties (as of a Buddha),
Whose speech is adorned with the sixty branches of melody,
Whose deep and wide mind, indeed, is a treasury of omniscient love,
May that glorious teacher’s blessing be on us.
The above was composed by the Great Omniscient Clergy Perfection
Good-Glory as a song in loving memory.
Blessing.
E. GLOSSARY AND NOTES.
(LEXICOGRAPHICAL, SYNTACTICAL AND MATERIAL.)
ཀུག་ see ཀྱུ་.
ཀུན་གྱིས་ཁྲེལ་བའི་རྒྱུ་, 32. Not so much ‘a matter of shame to all’ (= all the
people who look at or into the matter, the beholders, the general
public, or even humanity in general), but rather ‘a matter of all (of
them) being ashamed,’ i.e. the people doing the shameful acts, the
people concerned, engaged in this conduct, not the public in general.
ཀུན་སློང་, 29. Here thought, conception, wish (cf. D. opwelling). (Desg.
‘all-enveloping,’ i.e. ‘natural corruption or sin,’ p. 8b, but ཀུན་སློང་ =
ཉོན་མོང་གི་སློང་, ‘excitement of passion’ on p. 1044a). See also S. Ch. D.,
p. 29b, समुत्पाद, but Schroeter, p. 2b, ‘approbation, assent, the
consenting to any proposition.’
ཀོ་ཀོ་ see གླུད་.
ཀྱང་, 30. Here equal to ཡིན་ན་ཡང་, ‘yet, however, nevertheless.’
ཀྱུ་, 20. Not as a separate word in J., who gives ཀུག་ and ཀྱོ་བ་, the
latter after Schmidt. This is the word occurring in the compound ཞབས་ཀྱུ་
the Tibetan u-vowel, the ‘foot-hook’ (not merely honorific of ཀྱུ་ as
Hannah seems to suggest in his Grammar of the Tibetan Language, p. 4),
which J. has under ཞབས་, on p. 472a, together with a queried meaning
‘spur’ (of the foot: ‘ein Sporn’), taken from Csoma. This latter
meaning is unknown to my informants. Bell gives: hook ཀུག་; fishhook ཉ་
ཀུག་, but iron hook ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་. Henderson gives both ཁུག་ and ཀྱུ་ for hook,
and also ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་ alone for iron hook. My informants deny the correctness
of ཁུག་. Desg. knows ཀུག་ (པ་) only as a verb, not as a subst.; he
mentions ཀྱུ་ as a separate word, subst. hook, and does not mention ཀྱོ་བ་.
The various articles in the three Dicts. sub ཁུག་ are interesting but
the meaning hook is not given in any of them. S. Ch. D. translates ཀྱོ་བ་
with ‘अङ्कुश, a pointed iron hook, a large pin to pierce with,’ whilst
Macdonell in his Sk. dict. translates the Sk. word as ‘hook, goad,
stimulus, remedy.’ (See below s.v. འདྲེན་པ་.) J. under ཀུག་ gives also
ལྕགས་ཀུག་, an iron hook, and ཉ་ཀུག་, a fishing hook, but my informants say
that the colloquial for fish hook is rather ཉ་འཛིན་ཡའི་ (or པའི་) ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་
or simply ཉ་འཛིན་ (pr. nyendzin), just as a meat hook (to hang up meat
on) is ཤ་འཛིན་ (pr. shendzin). The ཡ་ in the above represents the
pronunciation of the more illiterate people.
One of my informants is, however, of opinion that ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་ does not mean
an iron hook at all, but hook in general even though it might be made
of silver, copper, gold, etc. He compares it with the word wall, ལྕགས་
རི་, which is not necessarily made of iron, and though of stone or earth
is still called ‘iron-mountain.’ Women’s ornaments such as earrings,
chains, or necklaces (སྐེ་འཕྲེང་, pr. kenthang, not in the Dicts. or Bell.
As a colloquial word the dengbu might perhaps be left out in writing)
may have golden or silver hooks, གསེར་གྱི་ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་ or དངུལ་གྱི་ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་. Example:
སྐྱེ་དམན་འདི་ལ་སྐྱེ་འཕྲེང་ཡག་པོ་ཅིག་འདུག། དེ་ལ་གསེར་དང་དངུལ་གྱི་ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་བཞི་འདུག་, this
woman has a very fine necklace which has four golden and silver hooks
(or clasps). Schroeter’s dict., p. 361b, already gives ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་ as hook
only. The expression ལྕགས་ནག་ in the sense of mineral, given by Desg.,
307a, would make us think that ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་ might perhaps mean metal hook,
but see below. S. Ch. D. adds to the confusion. Under ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་ he gives:
(1) iron pin to guide and punish elephants; fish-hook; (2) name of a
plant. (His next entry seems improbable, elephant driving and elephant
driver for one and the same word). But under ཀྱུ་ he defines ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་ as
‘iron hook, an angle, a fishing-hook.’ J. has ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་ under ལྕགས་ and
gives ‘an iron hook, esp. fishing-hook, angle; often fig.’ and in his
illustration he translates ཆོས་ཀྱི་ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་ simply as ‘hook of grace.’ He
marks the word as belonging to the book language. It is curious to note
that Schlagintweit in his Rgyal-rabs (title, or introductory verse)
translates the word ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་ with ‘eisernen Hacken’ (p. 25), whilst
Schiefner renders the same word correctly on the next page by ‘Hacken’
alone. But in his new translation of the Rgyal-rabs, H. A. Francke
(J.P.A.S.B., Vol. VI, n. 8, p. 397) writes again ‘Iron Hook.’
There is still another compound with ཀྱུ་, namely མཐེབ་ཀྱུ་, the name for a
component part of the elaborate torma cake structure. It indicates a
small piece of dough in the form of the top of the thumb. From all
these examples it might be hazarded that the element ཀྱུ་ means primarily
‘curve, curved’ or ‘curvature,’ and has no substantial meaning like
‘hook’ or the like. My teachers, however, think that ཀྱུ་ by itself is a
substantive ‘hook.’ So it is not clear whether J. is right as against
the other Dicts. in not entering the word separately. The above
discussion is in any case better entered under the word ཀྱུ་, whether
this is really an independent word or not. The fact that S. Ch. D.
gives a Sk. equivalent for ཀྱུ་ alone, pleads for its separate existence.
My teachers opine that ཀྱུ་ as a separate word may occur alone, but their
nearest approach to framing a sentence illustrating such a use was one
in which they spoke of a wooden hook (made by a jungleman to fish or
hunt with) as ཤིང་གི་ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་ or more briefly ཤིང་ཀྱུ་. So the example was not
decisive.
Additional Note—Cf. the example in Csoma’s Grammar, p 109: གསེར་གྱི་ལྕགས་
སྒྲོག་, golden fetters or chains, lit.: golden iron ropes. See also
Ramsay, ‘Western Tibet’, p. 62:
‘To hook—ngiákuk táng ches, properly applicable only to a fish caught
with a hook, but also used generally’, and:
‘Hook—ngiákuk (fish hook), kuk kuk (a hook of any kind)....’
Query: Is the use of ལྕགས་ merely conventional in several words, as in
ལྕགས་ཁྲ་, cage (Bell, Walsh ‘Tromowa Dialect’), ལྕགས་ཟམ་ (iron) bridge,
etc.? And is the use of ལྕགས་ perhaps analogous to that of honorific
prefixes? Cf. the Dutch guilder (gulden) which is made of silver,
though its name is derived from ‘gold.’
ཀྱོ་བ་ see ཀྱུ་.
དཀའ་བ་, 7. Difficult, but here rather with some of the meaning of the
English ‘hard’ (hard lines?), the French ‘dur’, perhaps L. ‘arduus.’
The meaning is somewhat that the invocation should not be undertaken
lightly (God’s name should not be spoken ‘in vain’). Conceptions like:
grave, serious, weighty, not lighthearted, or commonplace, or flippant,
suggest themselves here. It is ‘a serious matter’ to invoke these
teachers.
བཀའ་དྲིན་སེམས་པ་, 42. To think with kindness of or towards, or about (ལ་).
སྐལ་ལྡན་, 11. We have taken this word in the general sense given by J.
‘the pious,’ though it may equally well be rendered by ‘the fortunate
ones,’ i.e. those who were fortunate enough to hear Tsoṅ kʽa pa’s
preaching or that of his two pupils. One of my informants suggests,
however, that སྐལ་ལྡན་ should here be taken more literally as ‘sharers’,
‘share-havers’ in Tsoṅ kʽa pa’s message and consequently should here be
understood as his ‘followers.’
སྐུ་གླུད་ see གླུད་.
སྐེ་འཕྲེང་ see ཀྱུ་.
སྐྱབས་རེ་ས་, 19. May either be taken as two separate words ‘protection and
hope’ or as a compound ‘hope for protection,’ ‘protection-hope.’ More
accurately ‘the spot (place = persons in this case) in whom I place my
hope for protection, to whom I resort or go, in whom I trust, for
protection.’ (cf. D. heul, toeverlaat).
སྐྱིད་གླུ་ see མགུར་མ་.
སྐྱེ་སྒོ་ see སྒོ་.
སྐྱེ་བ་, 4. This is an illustration of the meaning of སྐྱེ་བ་ under J.’s 4th
sub-heading, 1st division. དད་པ་སྐྱེས་ ‘faith has been born,’ but here
rather ‘becomes active,’ ‘sprouts,’ ‘waxes strong,’ or ‘grows, flames
up, intensifies, awakens, arises, stirs.’ The idea is not, as in a case
of Christian conversion, of a state of previously non-existent faith,
suddenly arising, but of an existing faith becoming strongly energised,
leaping up (‘an outburst of faith’). The colloquial དད་པ་སྐྱེས་ can be
suitably translated by ‘to inspire faith to.’ For instance བླ་མ་འདི་ལ་དད་
པ་སྐྱེས་ཀྱི་ (མི་) འདུག་, that lama inspires me with (no) faith. A free
translation of དད་པ་སྐྱེ་བ་ is consequently ‘to have faith in,’ but in our
passage the additional meaning of ‘renewed’ is implied. Therefore we
may also render ‘they call up my faith’ or ‘renewed faith comes up in
me.’ See the use of this expression in the Tibetan Primer III, p. 7, 1.
8. དེ་ནས་ཁོ་ (read ཁོས་) རྒྱལ་པོ་དེ་ཤིན་ཏུ་བཟང་པོར་ཤེས་ཏེ་དད་པ་སྐྱེས་ཏེ་ཕྱག་གྲངས་མེད་འཚལ་
ནས་རྒྱལ་པོས་གནང་བ་དེ་རྣམས་བདག་ག་ལ་ཞུ ། Then he, recognising that the king was
very good, and having gained faith in him, and having prostrated
himself numberless times, (asked) how can I request (i.e. take, accept)
such (gifts) given by the king.
སྐྱེད་སྒོ་ see སྒོ་.
སྐྱེད་པ་, 50. To generate, the generation, production. སེམས་བསྐྱེད་པ་ ‘that
which has been produced in the soul,’ ‘the (completed) productions of
the soul’; with དང་ = with; ‘with thoughts of, assuming, observing an
attitude of, with a mental attitude of or disposition to.’ འགྲོ་བ་རྣམས་
བྱམས་སྙིང་རྗེས་དྲངས་པའི་སེམས་བསྐྱེད་ (དང་) is one elaborate substantive, a
‘the-beings-with-kindness-having-drawn-soul-disposition.’
སྐྱོ་བ་, 28. Here not in J.’s sense ‘to be weary,’ but as Desg. and S. Ch.
D. have it ‘sadness, grief, sorrow,’ or adj. ‘sad’, etc. In seeing a
half-naked beggar, it may be said: མི་འདི་སྐྱོ་བ་ལ་ཁོ་ལ་དུག་ལོག་ཡང་མི་འདུག་. Here
the word is adjective: ‘that unhappy (unfortunate, wretched, miserable)
man has not even a coat.’ [དུག་ལོག་ (Bell) = J. དུག་པོ་ = གོས་ལག་ = ཆུ་པ་ =
Desg. ཆོ་པ་, coat, garment, dress; not alone ‘man’s coat,’ as J. has it,
but for both sexes—J. s.v. ཆུ་པ་. ཆུ་པ་ and ཆོ་པ་ both missing in S. Ch.
D. གོས་ལག་ is pronounced both golak and gölak. Walsh, Vocabulary Tromowa
Dialect, s.v. coat ‘go’ and ‘golag.’ My teachers do not know a word དུག་
པོ་ for coat in Tibetan. Desg. has a དུགས་པོ་, overcoat. S. Ch. D. དུག་པ༌
or དུག་པོ་ ‘old coat or garment patched up and mended.’]
ག་གདན་ see གདན་.
ཁ་རྩོད་ see གཤགས་འགྱེད་པ་.
ཁ་གཤགས་འགྱེད་པ་ see གཤགས་འགྱེད་པ་.
ཁུག་ see ཀྱུ་.
ཁོ་བོའི་རྗེས་མཇུག་གྲོགས་པོ་རྣམས་, 45. My followers and friends (cf. citizens and
compatriots), i.e. followers who are also my friends; the same people
under two qualifications, not two different groups of people, the
friends and the followers. See རྗེས་མཇུག་པ་.
ཁོ་མི་གླུད་ཡིན་ see གླུད་.
ཁྱེད་ 18, ཁྱོད་ 12, 23. The difference in form is not accidental. མགོན་ཁྱོད་
is a stereotyped ལབ་ལུགས་, manner of speech, expression. ཡབ་སྲས་ཁྱེད༌, l.
18, is a normal honorific form. The form ཁྱོད་ was described to me as one
of intimacy, of utter confidence, as distinct from familiarity and lack
of respect. This seems an almost exact parallel to the use of (thou),
tu, du in (English), French and German in addressing parents, God, and
relations. The following example was given, a quotation from the བླ་མ་
མཆོད་པའི་ཆོ་ག་, a little ritual gelukpa book, leaf 12a: ཁྱོད་ནི་བླ་མ་ཁྱོད་ནི་ཡི་
དམ་ཁྱོད་ནི་མཁའ་འགྲོ་ཆོས་སྐྱོང་སྟེ ། ‘As thou art our lama, our yi-dam, our ḍākinī,
our dharmapāla ...’ (prayer addressed to Tsoṅ kʽa pa). Likewise, in the
little prayerbook རྗེ་བཙུན་སྒྲོལ་མའི་གདུང་འབོད་ (to Tārā) we find a few cases of
ཁྱོད་ (e.g. p. 5b) amidst many cases of ཁྱེད་. In the term ཡབ་སྲས་ཁྱེད་ the
hon. form of the first two syllables of course determines the hon. form
of the last. The ‘intimate’ form ཁྱོད་ was further described as ‘the
language of religious transport, ardour, fervour,’ དད་པའི་ཡུས་.
ཁྲེལ་གད་ (རྒྱབ་པ་) see ཁྲེལ་བ་.
ཁྲེལ་དགོད་ see ཁྲེལ་བ་.
ཁྲེལ་བ་, 32. According to the Dicts. ‘to be ashamed.’ Desg. and S. Ch. D.
do not support J.’s meaning ‘piety’ and his third meaning ‘disgust,
aversion.’ My oral information rejects these second and third meanings,
yet see below. ཀུན་གྱིས་ཁྲེལ་བའི་རྒྱུ་, freely translated ‘is a matter of (cause
for) shame to all,’ literally ‘a-by-all-shame-feeling-cause,’ i.e. all
should feel ashamed. The shame, it should be understood, must be felt,
not by all who behold the bad behaviour, but by all who are guilty of
it. The exact meaning of the root ཁྲེལ་ from which the verb is derived is
not yet satisfactorily dealt with in the Dicts. which are supplementary
as well as contradictory in their data. The compounds exhibit a great
variety of shades of meaning. That of ཁྲེལ་མེད་, for instance, may perhaps
cover so wide a range as ‘shameless, impudent, self-willed, stubborn,
stiff-necked, arrogant, insolent, ungrateful, loveless, heartless,
harsh, cruel, wanton, ruchlos, frech.’ Some of the compounds and
applications clearly indicate that ཁྲེལ་ must also mean ‘sexual modesty,
chastity,’ others that it must mean ‘bashfulness, shyness, timidity’
(in this sense ཁྲེལ་མེད་ ‘brazen, forward, unabashed, saucy, bold,
audacious’). ཁྲེལ་ seems to come very near to the D. ‘schroom’ which is
more ‘diffidence’ than ‘scruple,’ but ཁྲེལ་མེད་ may in some cases mean
‘unscrupulous’ or ‘without a conscience.’ In this sense it comes near
to ‘impious.’ The German subst. ‘Scheu’ may be also compared. It is
also averred that in certain combinations a positive statement with ཁྲེལ་
མེད་ is practically identical with the English exclamation: how dare
you! how can you!
A compound, difficult to define exactly, is ཁྲེལ་གཞུང་མེད་ in which གཞུང་
has the meaning, not given in the Dicts. of straight, straightforward,
honest, true, dependable, the French ‘droit’ (cf. rectitude). The whole
expression may mean ‘abandoned,’ or simply ཁྲེལ་མེད་. Example ཁྲེལ་གཞུང་མེད་
པའི་མི་དེ་ཡི་ཚེ་དེ་དོན་མེད་རེད་, ‘the lives of these abandoned (shameless, etc.)
men are useless.’ An old sweetheart who has cast off her lover may be
called ཁྲེལ་གཞུང་མེད་ ‘the brazen, perfidious girl.’ Desg. gives གཞུང་ in
this sense as equal to བཟང་, ‘good, just, generous.’ This may be
Schmidt’s གཞུངས་པ་ ‘sincere, orderly.’ In the sentence ཕ་མ་ལ་སྐུ་དྲིན་འདི་འདྲ་
ལོག་པ་དེ་ཁྲེལ་མེད་ཀྱི་སེམས་རེད་, ‘to render your parents kindness in this way
shows a lack of gratitude,’ my teachers explain the word as
‘ungrateful, loveless, harsh.’
As far as the further meanings of ཁྲེལ་, as given in J. (see above), are
concerned, Pʽun Tsʽogs maintains that ཁྲེལ་སེམས་ཅན་ = ཆོས་སེམས་ཅན་, ‘pious,’
but Karma denies it, and the former also states that ཁྲེལ་ཡོད་པ་ = ཞེན་པ་
ལོག་པ་, which latter expression Desg. and S. Ch. D. know as ‘to be
disgusted with.’ But J. and the others render the former expression
with ཁྲེལ་, as ‘chaste’ or ‘modest,’ or as ‘to be chaste,’ etc. Both of
my teachers are at one about the expression ཞེ་ཁྲེལ་བ་ ‘to be weary,
tired, sick of.’ Examples: ལྟོ་ཆས་འདི་ལ་ཞེ་ཁྲེལ་སོང་, I am tired of this food.
(ལྟོ་ཆས་, pr. tobché, see Henderson’s Manual, Voc., p. 48, s.v. food;
there written ལྟོབ་ཆས་.) མི་འདི་ལ་ཞེ་ཁྲེལ་སོང་, ‘I have got tired of this man.’
The sentence ཆོས་ཐོས་པས་རྒྱུད་གྲོལ་ནས ། ཁྲེལ་ཡོད་ངོ་ཚ་ཤེས་ was explained to me as:
Having understood the doctrine, and having been delivered (saved), I am
now weary of the world, have renounced the world, know the world for
vanity, have turned away from it. For J.’s ཁྲེལ་གད་, ‘scornful laughter’,
the synonym ཁྲེལ་དགོད་ was given to me, as well as the explanation ‘a
laugh to make the other feel ashamed,’ ‘to make another feel small.’ We
may therefore think of ironic, sarcastic, malicious laughter, or of
derision and Schadenfreude. ཁྲེལ་གད་རྒྱབ་པ་, to laugh at another, at the
expense of another, in order to make him ridiculous. This word ཁྲེལ་
furnishes a very striking test of the present state of Tibetan
lexicography, the word གདན་ will furnish another.
For words like these a comprehensive collection of authentic
illustrations is imperative before finer shades and the exact range of
meanings can be fixed. ངོ་ཚ་, commonly translated as ‘shame,’ a synonym
for ཁྲེལ་, is a similarly uncertain word. Compare the translations in J.
and S. Ch. D. of this same sentence: ཁྲེལ་བ་དང་ངོ་ཚ་བ་མེད་, J.: ‘he has no
shame nor dread’; S. Ch. D.: ‘he has no shame or modesty.’
ཁྲེལ་མེད་ see ཁྲེལ་བ་.
ཁྲེལ་གཞུང་མེད་ see ཁྲེལ་བ་.
ཁྲེལ་ཡོད་པ་ see ཁྲེལ་བ་.
ཁྲེལ་སེམས་ཅན་ see ཁྲེལ་བ་.
ཁྲོད་ see གངས་རིའི་ཁྲོད་འདི་ན་ and འབྲོག་.
མཁྱེན་པ་ see མཁྱེན་བརྩེ་.
མཁྱེན་བརྩེ་, 55. J.’s queried མཁྱེན་བརྩེ་, quoted from Gyal-rabs: ‘prob.:
omniscient-merciful,’ cannot with any certainty be decided from this
passage.
Desg. has མཁྱེན་བརྩེ༌ = ཐུགས་རྗེ་ = ‘knowledge of the heart, i.e. pity,
mercy.’
S. Ch. D. ‘omniscient mercy.’
According to my teachers these are two different words here, knowledge
and mercy; not a compound. མཁྱེན་པ་ is here hon. form of ཤེས་པ་ to know.
But a subst. མཁྱེན་ is not recorded in the Dicts. Desg. has a མཁྱེན་པ་ =
ཤེས་པ་ = རིག་པ་ ‘science, knowledge,’ and S. Ch. D. also gives མཁྱེན་པ་ as
‘knowledge.’ In compounds མཁྱེན་ has usually the verbal value of
‘knowing.’ The entries s.v. མཁྱེན་ in the Dicts. need careful comparison
and deserve close study.
མཁྱེན་པ་ is often used in an emphatic sense, to know all, to know through
and through, to know with supernatural knowledge (as, for instance, to
know what happens from a distance), cf. the English adj. ‘knowing.’
The shades of meaning: wise, learned, intelligent, sensible, careful,
cautious, clever, need further analysis.
འཁྲུག་པ་, 35. The value of this word is clear from the Dicts., but there
is a difficulty in choosing suitable English words to fit each case in
rendering. Such words as the following may be found useful under
various circumstances: to be disturbed, upset, disordered (cf.
disordered brain), unbalanced, deranged, convulsed, in turmoil,
tumultuous (a soul in tumult), in revolt, turbulent, wild, seething, in
uproar, in the throes of (passion, etc.).
And even so none of the above expressions furnishes an easy, idiomatic
and close rendering for རྒྱུད་ཁོང་ནས་འཁྲུགས་པའི་མི་, the man whose very
character is an utter chaos.
འཁུར་བ་, 21. Ordinarily to carry, but here to carry back, i.e. to repay,
render, return.
Example: ཕ་མའི་དྲིན་འཁུར་དགོས་, You must render your parents their kindness.
The verb འཇལ་བ་, primarily ‘to weigh’, is equally so used; see J. s.v.
4. For the above example the word ལན་ would ordinarily be inserted, ཕ་
མའི་དྲིན་ལན་འཁུར་དགོས་, but this would lessen the force of the illustration
for our purpose as ལན་ means here ‘return,’ and དྲིན་ལན༌, ‘a kindness in
return.’ The above sentence can be expressed in three ways: ཕ་མའི་དྲིན་
(with or without ལན་), འཁུར་ (or འཇལ་, or ལོག་), དགོས་.
གངས་རི་མ་, title. Mother Snow Mountain. The affixes to རི་ are according
to J. བོ་ and ག་; Desg. adds ངོ་; S. Ch. D. only བོ་; Bell and Henderson
no affix. Of these བོ་ gives a definite sense of greatness to the
mountain. (See S. Ch. D., Grammar, Introduction, p. 18). Here the
particle མ་ is not an inherent part of the substantive, but is added to
give a feminine sense to the word, which here means something like
‘Mother Mountain,’ the big mountain being as it were the mother of all
smaller hills and heights around it. My informants were definitely of
opinion that, here, ‘Mother Mountain’ and not ‘Lady Mountain’ was
meant. So we should not understand the expression as ‘Her Majesty or
Ladyship the Snow Mountain.’ The meaning though grammatically important
remains better neglected in the translation.
གངས་རིའི་ཁྲོད་འདི་ན་, 25. In this snow-mountain-mass, i.e. monastery. རི་ཁྲོད་
as monastery in J. s.v. རི་ but not s.v. ཁྲོད་. Bell has རི་ཁྲོད་ as ‘cell
(of hermit).’
Here the expression seems rather to indicate Gendundub’s own monastery
(be it Daipung, Tashilhunpo or Namgyalchöde) than Galdan, spoken of in
the second verse. See Schulemann, Gesch. der Dalailamas, pp. 92 fll.
See འབྲོག་ and ཤར་.
གོ་ལག་ see སྐྱོ་བ་.
གོལ་ས་, 33. J. འགོལ་ས་, error, mistake. In Desg. འགོལ་ས་ or འགོལ་བའི་གནས་,
solitary spot (s.v. འགོལ་) and ལམ་གོལ་ (s.v. གོལ་), ‘has lost his way’;
and also འགོལ་སར་གནས་སུ་ to put apart; འགོལ་ལམ་, a separate road, a side
road (route détournée). According to Desg. only the past form of འགོལ་
བ་, i.e. གོལ་བ་, means to have erred, gone astray, both physically and
morally. S. Ch. D. copies J., but adds to J.’s འགོལ་ས་, the place where
two roads separate: ‘so as to create doubt in the mind regarding the
right path.’ Schroeter (p. 451a) has two entries འགོལ་བ་, ‘remote,’ and
འགོལ་བའི་གནས་, ‘a closet.’ J. has the latter expression as ‘a hermitage,’
and Desg., as above, ‘solitary spot.’ In our passage ལམ་གོལ་ས་ does not
mean ‘the mistake as to the road,’ or Anglice ‘the error of his ways.’
In our passage ལམ་གོལ་ has to be taken together in the sense of ལོག་ལམ་ =
ལམ་ལོག་ = ལམ་ངན་, the wrong road (in a religious sense, in contrast to
the ལམ་མཐོན་པོ་ of l. 31). ལམ་གོལ་ས་ is here to be understood as a
‘wrong-road-place,’ as the spot or place (ས་ = ས་ཆ་) which is, or
proves to be, the wrong road, i.e. the place where one realizes that
the road on which one is, is the wrong road, or, perhaps better, that
the road is a wrong road (= place) to be in, a wrong-road-spot, indeed.
The meanings, recorded in the Dicts. for compounds with or without
initial འ་ of འགོལ་བ་, seem logical, as one who has separated himself
from the road, is astray, is mistaken, is (in moral or intellectual
matters) in the wrong, in error.
Note this example of the use of the verb: ལན་རིག་པ་བསྒྲིམས་ནས་རྒྱབ་མ་གཏོགས་
འགོལ་ཡོང་ངོ་, answer very carefully otherwise you will make a mistake.
[རིག་པ་བསྒྲིམས་ནས་, ‘having twisted, squeezed, screwed up your brains??’ =
adv., carefully, attentively.]
གོས་ལག་ see སྐྱོ་བ་.
གླུ་ see མགུར་མ་.
གླུད་, 40. Ransom. Is here rather གླུད་ཚབ་, well defined by S. Ch. D., s.v.
The meaning of གླུད་ཚབ་ is probably ‘the ransom (which is thrown to the
evil spirit) as a substitute for, representative of (the person on
whose behalf the offering is made),’ J.’s མི་གླུད་ ‘a man’s image which in
his stead is cast away in the གཏོར་མ༌,’ a ransom in effigy. There are,
however, uses of གླུད་ in which the primary sense is perhaps rather
‘effigy’ than ‘ransom.’ In a ritual describing the construction of the
torma cake it is said that the སྐུ་གླུད་ (together with many other moulds)
must be imprinted on the dough or paste. Here the word seems to mean no
more than ‘a mould constituting an effigy of the body.’ Though all the
torma-cake material is thrown away after it has served its purpose,
these imprinted effigies do not seem to serve specially as ransoms like
the གླུད་ཚབ་ and མི་གླུད་ quoted above.
As to J.’s queried ཁོ་མི་གླུད་ཡིན་ (and the slightly different མི་ཁོ་གླུད་ཡིན་),
this is explained as follows. The first phrase means: he is a lü in
human form (a man-lü, cf. werwolf; D. een lü in menschenvorm,
menschelijke gedaante). མི་ཁོ་ means ‘that man, there (with a pointing
out by word or finger).’ For instance: that man John, that king ཀོ་ཀོ་.
‘That man’ alone would be མི་དེ་. But the second phrase would mean: ‘that
man so-and-so is a very devil.’ J.’s rendering of the first phrase as
‘he is a curse, an anathema, one deserving to be cursed’ seems too
strong. Rather ‘an unmitigated nuisance,’ for, though harsh, it may be
said by a mother of her own child when it is naughty and unruly. The
sense seems to be ‘devil’ (as may also be applied to children or wicked
grown-ups in English ‘they are true devils,’ D. ‘een paar baarlijke
duivels’) and seems to be a case of meaning-shifting from result to
cause (pale death!), the lü being the ransom thrown to the evil spirit,
Anglice devil. The association does not seem to be that of
worthlessness, hatefulness, something good for nothing, only fit to be
thrown away like a lü.
As to the above King Koko, this is a facetious name applied (something
like thingumbob) to such Tibetans as ape Chinese manners in dress and
in other ways. ཀོ་ཀོ་ is said to be a Chinese word for Tib. ཨ་ཇོ་ or ཇོ་ཇོ་,
elder brother. A Tibetan, strutting about in Darjeeling with Chinese
cap and coat may hear the sarcasm addressed to him: ཀོ་ཀོ་ལགས་ག་པ་ཕེབས་ཀྱི་
ཡིན་ནམ་ ‘Well Mr. Chinaman (or John Ch., Uncle Ch.) where are you going
to?’ (‘Mossioo’ of the mid-Victorian Punch and music hall ditties).
གླུད་ཚབ་ see གླུད་.
དགའ་ལྡན་ see དགེ་ལྡན་.
དགེ་ལྡན་, 6. Clearly printed in both copies, not དགའ་ལྡན་. This name, ‘the
virtuous,’ seems to refer to the Gelukpa sect, though the monastery
which is here meant is usually called དགའ་ལྡན་. The relation between the
two terms is not quite clear. Grünwedel, in his ‘Mythologie des
Buddhismus,’ etc., p. 72, speaks of ‘das Kloster dGa-ldan oder
dGe-ldan.’ Günther Schulemann in ‘Die Geschichte der Dalailamas,’ p.
65, speaks of the ‘Schule, die zuerst dGa-ldan-pa, dann aber
dGe-ldan-pa oder dGe-lugs-pa, ‘die Tugendsekte’, genannt wurde.’ Modern
Tibetans seem to know only the name དགའ་ལྡན་ for the famous monastery.
དགྲ་ཉོན་མོངས་, 37. This is an apposition. The enemies, the sins; the
enemies who are the sins; ‘these enemies of sins’ as in ‘these rascals
of boys.’ See ཉོན་མོངས་.
མགུར་མ་, title. Its hon. form is གསུང་མགུར་. As a single word the affix མ་
is required, which may disappear in compounds. Bell gives as meaning of
མགུར་མ་ ‘religious song,’ Henderson ‘hymn.’
As J. points out, the profane song is གླུ་ and the religious song མགུར་མ་.
A synonym for གླུ་ is གཞེས་ (not in the three Dicts. but in Bell and
Henderson s.v. song).
S. Ch. D.’s གླུ་གཞེས་ ‘sportive song’ is not supported by the data in J.
or Desg., nor by my informants. They take the second part of this
compound as a misprint for གཞེས་ and hold that གླུ་གཞེས་ is a double-form
with the meaning of either of its parts: song. The word མགུར་མ་ has one
honorific form, གསུང་མགུར་. The words གླུ་ and གཞེས་ have each various hon.
forms: གསུང་གཞེས (recorded in Bell) and གསུང་གླུ་. Desg. has a གསུང་མགུར་,
pleasant song, but my oral information does not support this special
meaning.
Note the difference between J. སྐྱིད་གླུ་ (s.v. སྐྱིད་), ‘song of joy,’ and
Desg. id. s.v. གླུ་ ‘chant érotique.’
In Redslob’s translation of the Psalms into classical Tibetan, the word
གསུང་མགུར་ is used for psalm.
The following table may be useful.
Ordinary མགུར་མ་ = hon. གསུང་མགུར་
{ མགུལ་གླུ་
,, གླུ་ = ,, { བཞེས་ (sic.) གླུ་ (??)
{ གསུང་གླུ་
,, གཞེས་ = ,, { གསུང་གཞེས་
{ མགུལ་གཞེས་ (rare) ??
འགོལ་བ་ see གོལ་ས་.
འགོལ་ས་ see གོལ་ས་.
འགྱེ་བ་ and འགྱེད་པ་, 38. Attention must be drawn to the fact that Desg.
identifies འགྱེད་པ་ with འགྱེ་བ་ as against J.’s distinction between the
two forms as neutral and active. Also that Desg.’s explanation of གཡུལ་
འགྱེད་ etc., as ‘to put (the enemy) to flight in battle,’ seems more
probable than J.’s ‘to fight a battle,’ etc. The explanation of འགྱེད་པ་,
by འཕམ་ in the note on གཤགས་འགྱེད་པ་, q.v., seems to support this
supposition. S. Ch. D. gives as a meaning of འགྱེད་པ་ ‘to institute, set
going’ and translates accordingly འཐབ་མོ་འགྱེད་པ་ as ‘to start a combat,’
as against J. ‘to combat’ alone. Also གཡུལ་འགྱེད་པ་པོ་ ‘one who gives
battle.’ Desg. s.v. གཡུལ་ (p. 923): གཡུལ་འཐབ་ or གཡུལ་འགྱེད་ ‘to fight in
battle, to combat.’ Cf. also J. s.v. གཡུལ་. S. Ch. D. copies J. as
against Desg. གཡུལ་འགྱེད་པ་, ‘to fight a battle.’ These words འགྱེ་བ་ and
འགྱེད་པ་, again, need further investigation supported by quotations (as
well as the word གཡུལ་ with which they are used).
རྒ་བ་, 33. To be old, the state of being old, old age. Example སྐེ་རྒ་ན་
འཆིའི་སྡུག་བསྔལ་ཡོད་, ‘the being born, growing old, being ill, dying are
sorrows,’ or ‘birth, old age, illness and death are sorrowful.’ Cf. the
treatment of the first four words in J. རྒས་པའི་, with following verb, to
be translated as ‘of old age,’ literally: of (belonging to, attendant
on) having become old; for instance, the joys, sorrows, etc., of the
state of having become old (of old age) = རྒས་པའི་སྐྱིད་པོ་ (or སྡུག་པོ་). This
is not the subst. རྒས་ or རྒས་པོ་ of Desg. J. treats རྒ་བ་ as a verb with
རྒས་ as a past tense, taking རྒད་པ་ and རྒན་པ་ as adjectives from which
the usual substantives in པོ་, མོ་, etc., are made. Desg. gives the four
forms རྒ་, རྒད་, རྒན་ and རྒས་ as substantives and has no verb ‘to be old.’
J.’s analysis seems the more accurate one. J.’s རྒས་ཀ་ ‘old age’ is
absent in Desg., whilst this latter has a རྒས་ without affix as ‘old
man,’ ‘old age.’ This word S. Ch. D. has as = རྒ་བ་ ‘old, ripe’; whilst
he adds རྒས་པ་ = རྒད་པོ་ ‘aged, old; exhausted, infirm; an old man.’ This
group needs proper quotations for final settlement.
My oral information on some of these points is as follows: The use of
རྒས་ alone, as ‘old, ripe’ is denied. རྒས་པ་ does not mean རྒད་པོ་ ‘old,’
because རྒས་པ་ requires a ལོ་ ‘grown old in years’ in that sense. As an
independent adjective, however, it means ‘worn out, exhausted, thin,
lean, aged, grown older,’ and is in that case an equivalent for རྒད་པོ་.
Troubles make a man རྒས་པ་ ‘age him’; make him as if old. Age makes a
man རྒད་པོ་, old, i.e. really old. For the use of རྒས་ཀ་ the following two
illustrations were given: རྒས་ཀའི་དུས་ལ་ལས་འདི་འདྲ་མ་བྱེད་ ‘don’t do such work
(or things: or don’t behave in that manner) in your old age;’ རྒས་ཀ་ཤི་
བའི་དུས་ལ་བསམ་བློ་ངན་པ་མ་ཐོང་, ‘don’t think bad (evil) thoughts in your old
age when (whilst) death is drawing near.’
རྒད་, རྒན་, རྒས་ see རྒ་བ་.
རྒྱ་ (or རྒྱལ་) སྒོ་ see སྒོ་.
རྒྱན་མཁན་པོ་ see རྒྱན་པ་.
རྒྱན་ཆ་ see རྒྱན་པ་.
རྒྱན་རྣམས་ see རྒྱན་པ་.
རྒྱན་པ་ and བརྒྱན་པ་, 54. The treatment of these words in the Dicts. seems
unsatisfactory. None of the Dicts. give a passive verb རྒྱན་པ་ or བརྒྱན་པ་
‘being adorned, being decked out, embellished,’ etc. J. has only རྒྱན་ as
a subst. ‘ornament, decoration,’ and a verb བརྒྱན་པ་ ‘to adorn, decorate,
provide with.’ According to this his own example ཉ་མགོ་ས་ཡིས་བརྒྱན་པ་
should not mean, as he says, ‘the letter nya (ཉ་) being provided with
an S above it’ (= སྙ་), but rather something like ‘to adorn the letter
nya with a sa as a topletter.’
Desg. knows a verb རྒྱན་པ་ or རྒྱན་རྒྱབ་ (or བྱེད་ or བཀོད་) with the meaning of
‘to adorn,’ with a past tense བརྒྱན་, ‘ornavi, ornatus, orné,’ whatever
that means. He and J. quote also a རྒྱན་གྱིས་བརྒྱན་པ་ ‘adorned,’ in which the
རྒྱན་ has clearly a substantival value, like in རྒྱན་མེད་པ་, ‘without
adornment, unadorned.’
S.v. བརྒྱན་ Desg. says: ‘praet. verbi རྒྱན་པར་, ornatus, et v. act. ornare,
orné, orner,’ and he adds བརྒྱན་པ་ or ཆ་ ‘ornament.’ Bell has རྒྱན་ཆ་ for
ornament. But J. knows no བརྒྱན་པ་ or ཆ་ as substantives and refers
expressly to the unprefixed རྒྱན་ for the substantives. He further
equates རྒྱན་ཆ་ and རྒྱན་རྣམས་ ‘ornaments’ (plural). Under འདོགས་པ་, ‘to put
on,’ we find further རྒྱན་འདོགས་པ་, to put on gay clothes, finery (s.v.
རྒྱན་, the same expression is translated as ‘to adorn one’s self,’) and
རྒྱན་བཟང་པོ་བཏགས་པ་, ‘beautifully attired’ (Mil.). If these translations
are idiomatically true we should expect (བ) རྐྱན་ to have a wider sense
than the English ornament, rather anything beautiful or fine, whether
ornaments (in the sense of trinkets) or not. The word adornment would
fit better. (Cf. D. tooi, G. Schmuck.)
Desg. gives no example of རྒྱན་པ་ with a clearly active value of the verb
‘to ornament,’ but both in J. and Desg. such examples are given under
བརྒྱན་པ་. Desg. gives as synonyms ལེགས་བྱེད་ and མཛེས་བྱེད་ and it is a
question whether in these expressions བྱེད་ can have the neuter sense of
‘to act as’ = ‘to be’ (like in རྒྱལ་པོ་བྱེད་པ་). S. Ch. D. (who has several
misprints in his syns. for རྒྱན་) quotes s.v. འགོད་པ་ (292b) a བརྒྱན་དགོད་པ་,
‘to arrange ornaments (tastefully); to decorate, adorn, to construct or
adjust grammatical forms, sentences, (Zam.).’ This latter use of བརྒྱན་
is evidently the clue to the expression, quoted elsewhere by Desg. and
S. Ch. D.: རྒྱན་མཁན་པོ་, अलंकारपण्डित, one versed in rhetoric, a clever
orator. The equation རྒྱན་པ་ = བཞག་པ་ (in the modern language, v. Bell,
to put, place), given by S. Ch. D. is denied by both my teachers,
though confirmed by Desg.; they know of no Tibetan word of this
spelling and sound with the meaning bejewelled, adorned, decorated, as
is the correct translation of the Sk. equivalent cited, मण्डित. Yet may
རྒྱན་ (པ་) perhaps mean ‘an ornamented object’, hence ‘die, dice’; hence
again Desg. ‘objets mêlés pour tirer les sorts’, and lastly ‘stake’ (in
gambling) and ‘lot’? This first meaning is not in the Dicts. but would
settle the question discussed a few lines lower down, and explain those
combinations with རྒྱན་ which refer to gambling and divination. In
connection with the immediately following articles in S. Ch. D., རྒྱན་
བཞག་མཁན༌, ‘one who joins in a wager, gambler’ [one who puts up his
jewels, ornaments for a stake?], and རྒྱན་དོར་བ་ or བཞག་པ་, ‘a dice-rogue,
a gamester, one who throws dice,’ etc., it should be ascertained
whether there is a Tibetan word with རྒྱན་ which means die, dice, or
whether the combinations refer to the staking of ornaments and jewels
in gambling.
S.v. བརྒྱན་པ་ S. Ch. D. gives no news, treating this word, however, as a
verb, and referring to རྒྱན་ for the subst.
As a result of this little investigation we come to the conclusion that
it is legitimate to inquire whether there is not a Tibetan verb རྒྱན་པ་
(more likely than བརྒྱན་པ་) with the passive or neuter sense of ‘being
decked out, being ornamented or adorned, showing gaily.’ What would
render such a word exactly in English is difficult to see, unless we
coin a verb ‘to splendiferate,’ but D. pronken (pronken in vollen
luister) comes near to it. Other related words would be: to blaze
forth, to shine out, to cut a dash, or else to swagger, to swank, to
preen, to strut, or again to be graced with or by, to show forth, etc.,
but especially ‘to display’ in the technical zoological sense.
An instructive illustration in this matter is furnished by the
following two sentences, both with the same meaning: ཐང་ཀ་རི་མོས་བརྒྱན་
འདུག་, or ཐང་ཀ་འདི་ལ་རི་མོས་བརྒྱན་འདུག་, of which the best idiomatic
translation is: O, what a fine picture!; how fine is the painting
(drawing) of (in) (this) picture!
But the psychological translation is in the first case: ‘This picture
is by-lines-(fine)-displaying’, and in the second case: ‘To this
picture there is a by-the-lines-(drawings)-ornamentation (or display).’
རྒྱལ་སྒོ་ see སྒོ་.
རྒྱལ་བ་, 6. According to J., III, also ‘superior, excellent, eminent.’
རྣམ་པར་རྒྱལ་བ་, ‘most excellent, illustrious.’ This may be the meaning
here. Whether there is a connection between the word as used here and
the རྒྱལ་བ་ title of the Dalai Lamas may be left undecided.
རྒྱུད་, 30. Here character, heart, disposition, etc. It is curious that
this meaning, given by J. and Desg., is absent in S. Ch. D.
སྒོ་, 39, 40. Door. Though the average Tibetan house (if it be not a mere
hut) has two doors, a front door and a back door, they are not on a
principle located in the eastern and western sides of the house. For
the text the words east and west have no special significance; they are
simply used དཔེ་འདྲ་པོ་, by way of speech, as an example, illustration or
comparison.
The front (main, public) door is called གཞུང་སྒོ་ or རྒྱ་ (or རྒྱལ་) སྒོ་. The
first word is interpreted as the ‘main,’ ‘public,’ or ‘middle’ door;
the second as the ‘wide’ or ‘royal’ door. The back door is called ལྟག་སྒོ་
(in J. s.v. ལྟག་པ་), which is explained as ‘the door for horses and
cattle.’ The སྐྱེད་སྒོ་ quoted by J., p. 29b, is unknown to my informants.
They only know a སྐྱེ་སྒོ་, ‘the door leading to birth, or re-birth.’
སྒོ་གསུམ་ see གསུང་.
སྒྲིམ་པ་ see གོལ་ས་.
བརྒྱན་པ་ see རྒྱན་པ་.
ངེས་པར་ (དུ་) see ཅིས་ཀྱང་ and ངེས་སོ་.
ངེས་སོ་, 16. With terminative: ‘there is certainty for’ = ‘it is certain’
= ‘I am sure of’, ‘I know for certain that’, ‘it is surely, truly so.’
A has ངས་ for ངེས་ in B.
Here, however, ངེས་སོ་ = ངེས་པར་ = ངེས་པར་དུ་ = ངོ་ཐོག་ = ངོན་ནས་ = ‘indeed,
truly, really, forsooth.’ Compare also ཅིས་ཀྱང་.
ངོ་ཆོད་ see ཅིས་ཀྱང་.
ངོ་རྟོག་ see ཅིས་ཀྱང་.
ངོ་ཐོག་ see ཅིས་ཀྱང་ and ངེས་སོ་.
ངོ་མ་ see ཅིས་ཀྱང་.
ངོ་མོ་ see ཅིས་ཀྱང་.
ངོ་ཚ་ see ཁྲེལ་བ་.
དངོས་ནས་ see ཅིས་ཀྱང་.
མངོན་པར་རྟོགས་པ་ see སྤྲོས་བྲལ་.
ཅི་མྱུར་ see མྱུར་.
ཅིས་ཀྱང་, 48. (Also ཅིས་ནས་ཀྱང་). Here rather with the meaning ‘without
fail, for sure, indeed, surely’ in addition to J.’s ‘anyhow, by all
means.’ It is said to be synonymous with ངེས་པར་དུ་ and colloquial ངོ་ཐོག་,
as, for instance, in: ངོ་ཐོག་ཕེབ་རོགས་གནང་, ‘I ask (you) to come without
fail, indeed, surely, for sure, so that I may count on it.’ Also རྟེན་
ལྡན་. Cf. Desg. in addition to J.—J. (p. 129b) has the spelling ངོ་རྟོག་.
Bell s.v. ‘certainly’ ངོ་ཐོག་ (syn. རྟེན་ལྡན་); s.v. ‘indeed’ (syn. རྟེན་རྟེན་);
s.v. ‘surely’ ངེས་པར་; s.v. ‘actual’ ངོ་ཐོག་; s.v. ‘real’ ངོ་ཐོག་ (syn. དངོས་
ནས་); s.v. ‘really’ ངེས་པར་. Desg. ངོ་ཐོག་ཡིན་ ‘natural, not manufactured,’
but ངོ་ཐོག་ (next article) ‘certitude’ = ངོ་མ་, ངོ་མོ་ or ངོ་ཆོད་. S. Ch. D.
ངོ་ཐོག་ ‘true, genuine, really.’ རྟེན་ལྡན་ and རྟེན་རྟེན་ are not in the Dicts.
ངོ་མོ་ and ངོ་ཆོད་ are not endorsed by my authorities. See also ངེས་སོ་.
ཅེས་པ་, colophon. According to J. = ཅེས་སྨྲས་པ་, ‘that which has been
spoken,’ i.e. ‘speech, word,’ etc. Corresponds very closely to D. ‘het
gesprokene, het gezegde’ or L. ‘dictum.’ Here, however, the meaning may
be extended to ‘piece of writing’ (D. ‘het geschrevene,’ L. ‘scriptum’)
or perhaps even more generally ‘the above, the foregoing.’
The other use of the expression, as an abbreviation for ཅེས་བྱ་བ་, ‘the
so-called,’ is here, of course, not applicable.
གཅིག་པུ་ (or པོ་) see དྭངས་མར་.
ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་ see ཀྱུ་.
ལྕགས་ནག་ see ཀྱུ་.
ལྕགས་རི་ see ཀྱུ་.
ཆགས་སྡང་, 22. In J. ‘love and hatred,’ but here better ‘attraction (for
the pleasant) and repulsion (for the unpleasant),’ in other words:
‘non-attachment (to weal and woe), indifference (to the ups and downs
of life),’ or again ‘bondage’ (to emotions, impressions, etc.). S. Ch.
D. has ‘passion for, passionate attachment.’ It is the German ‘Lust und
Unlust.’
ཆུ་གཏེར་ see གཏེར་.
ཆུ་པ་ see སྐྱོ་བ་.
ཆོ་པ་ see སྐྱོ་བ་.
ཆོས་ཀྱི་དབྱིངས་ see སྤྲོས་བྲལ་.
ཆོས་ཚུལ་བཞིན་, 34. To be construed: ཆོས་ + ཚུལ་བཞིན་ (པ་ or དུ་), and not as
ཆོས་ཚུལ་ + བཞིན་, etc.
ཆོས་མཛད་ (མཁན་), 43. Here most likely in the stricter sense those who
have devoted, given, themselves (entirely) to the religious life, i.e.
those who have entered the order, the དགེ་སློང་ or even གྲྭ་པ་, learners,
pupils, lay-brothers. Cf. however, J. s.v. ཆོས་བྱེད་པ་, p. 163a, and Desg.
who has a subst. ཆོས་མཛད་, ‘lamaist dignity, rank,’ p. 333b.
ཆོས་ཟབ་, 10. Stands here for ཟབ་པའི་ཆོས་, or ཆོས་ཟབ་མོ་, ‘the deep,
profound, doctrine, teaching, religion.’ Perhaps an allusion to the ཟབ་
ལམ་, the ‘profound doctrine of Buddhism as explained in the Tantras’
(S. Ch. D. s.v. ཟབ་ལམ་). J. renders it ‘a term of Buddhist mysticism,
doctrine of witchcraft,’ whilst Desg. translates the term as ‘doctrina
magica.’ ཆོས་ཟབ་ instead of ཟབ་ཆོས་ perhaps for metrical reasons; in
ordinary speech the inversion seems not usual. See also ཟབ་པ་.
ཆོས་སེམས་ཅན་ see ཁྲེལ་བ་.
མཆོད་གདན་ see གདན་.
འཆང་བ་, 46. ‘To hold, to keep, to stick to, adhere to.’ མ་འཆང་བར་ ‘not
keeping (it) so, not preserving, maintaining (it) in that (the same)
state, not letting (it) continue in the same way, not keeping up the
state of, not persisting in (the same way)’ etc.
Freely translated by its reverse: rectifying, redressing, correcting,
changing (one’s attitude, condition, action, etc., previously referred
to).
འཆད་ཉན་པ་ see བཤད་ཉན་.
མཇུག་ see རྗེས་མཇུག་པ་.
འཇུག་ see རྗེས་མཇུག་པ་.
རྗེས་མཇུག་པ་, 45. Not in the Dicts., lit. ‘after-track,’ is here,
‘followers, pupils, disciples, adherents.’ Though འཇུག་ is sometimes
used for མཇུག་, see J. 177a, last line, the word རྗེས་འཇུག་, ‘affix, final
consonant,’ a grammatical term, is of course different, as well as J.’s
adj. ‘following, coming after.’
The word has also the meaning ‘orphan’ (those left behind). See also
under ཁོ་བོའི་, etc.
བརྗོད་པ་ see མཚན་བརྗོད་པ་.
ཉ་ཀུག་ see ཀྱུ་.
ཉོན་མོངས་, 37. Here ‘sin’ or ‘vice’ are to be understood as either the
three sins, or vices, or failings, or defects, or frailties, ཉོན་མོངས་
གསུམ, ‘lust, anger and stupidity’ (in the conventional rendering), འདོད་
ཆགས་, ཞེ་སྡང་, གཏི་མུག་, or the five sins, ཉོན་མོངས་ལྔ་, namely the three
mentioned above with the addition of ང་རྒྱལ་ ‘pride’ and ཕྲག་དོག་ ‘envy’ as
fourth and fifth.
See also དགྲ་ཉོན་མོངས་.
མཉེན་ see བཤེས་གཉེན་.
སྙིང་པོ་ see བྱང་ཆུབ་སྙིང་པོ་.
སྙིང་རུས་བྱེད་པ་ see བརྩོན་པར་བགྱིད་པ་.
སྙོམས་ལས་འཛིན་པ་, 13. Equals སྙོམས་ལས་བྱེད་ (or དྲན་) པ་ = ‘to be ease-loving,
indolent, lazy.’
གཏིང་ནས་, 28. ‘From the bottom’ (sc. of the heart), hence expressions
like སྐྱོ་བ་གཏིང་ནས་སྐྱེས་ may be simply translated ‘a deep pity (or sadness)
arises, I become very sad, I am very sorry.’ See also སྐྱོ་བ་.
གཏེར་, 55. Here perhaps better ‘treasure heap’ than mere ‘treasure,’ or
perhaps even ‘treasury.’ S. Ch. D. gives as meanings: ‘treasure’ and
‘store-place,’ in this deviating from J. and Desg. S. Ch. D.’s example
ཆུ་གཏེར་, ‘the repository of water, the ocean’, seems to prove his
additional explanation.
རྟག་དཔྱད་ see རྟོག་དཔྱོད་.
རྟེན་རྟེན་ see ཅིས་ཀྱང་.
རྟེན་ལྡན་ see ཅིས་ཀྱང་.
རྟེན་པ་, 49. (Pf. and ft. བརྟེན་). Has here simply the primary meaning ‘to
adhere to,’ more colloquially, ‘to stick to,’ or ‘to keep to, hold fast
to, to heed, to observe.’ May, however, here be also taken as Desg.’s
‘to believe in, to trust’ (in the sense of ‘to rely on’) according to
his example ཁྱེད་ཀྱི་གསུང་ལ་རྟེན་པས་, ‘I believe, trust (in) your words’ (p.
420a), or otherwise: to put reliance on (what another says, states,
preaches, teaches).
རྟོག་པ་, 32. (Pf. བརྟགས་). May almost be translated here as ‘to
contemplate, to consider’ (‘if one comes to think about it’ or ‘if one
looks into that matter’), but not merely as ‘to behold, to see.’
རྟོག་དཔྱོད་, 47. Evidently the same as J.’s. བརྟགས་དཔྱོད་ ‘examination, trial’
(214b). J. has a verb བརྟག་དཔྱོད་ (or རྟོག་གཞིག་) གཏོང་བ་, occurring in the
Padma tʽaṅ yig and in Milaraspa, with the meaning ‘to examine, search
into, see whether or whether not.’ J. has also the forms རྟོག་དཔྱོད་ and
བརྟག་དཔྱད་, both subst. ‘examination,’ s.v. དཔྱོད་པ་, ‘to examine,’ p.
329a.
Desg. gives རྟོག་དཔྱད་ as syn. with རྟོག་པ་, ‘to consider, test, judge’;
བརྟགས་དཔྱོད་, ‘examination, judgment.’
S. Ch. D. རྟོག་དཔྱོད་ (= བསམ་མནོ་, or མནོ་བསམ་) ‘consideration, examination,
trial,’ and (558a) བརྟག་དཔྱད་ (= ཞིབ་དཔྱད་), ‘examination, careful weighing
of all the details of a case, deliberation.’ S. Ch. D. seems to treat
རྟོག་དཔྱོད་ and བརྟག་དཔྱད་ as two quite different words. S.v. དཔྱོད་པ་ he has
further རྟོག་དཔྱོད་པ་, ‘to examine anything,’ and བརྟག་དཔྱད་, ‘investigation,
inquiry.’
རྟོགས་པ་ see སྤྲོས་བྲལ་.
ལྟ་བ་ 51. This word seems here to mean ‘vision, illumination, (direct
mystical) contemplation, the seeing face to face.’ In our passage it is
the direct vision (the ‘vision direct’), proper to, inherent in,
characteristic of, belonging to, the knowledge pertaining to the
actionless (or undifferentiated) state, the
‘passive-state-knowledge-vision.’ See also སྤྲོས་བྲལ་.
ལྟག་སྒོ་ see སྒོ་.
ལྟོ་ཆས་ see ཁྲེལ་བ་.
ལྟོ་གདན་ see གདན་.
ལྟོབ་ཆས་ see ཁྲེལ་བ་.
སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་ see སྤྲོས་བྲལ་.
བརྟག་དཔྱད་ see རྟོག་དཔྱོད་.
བརྟག་དཔྱོད་གཏོང་བ་ see རྟོག་དཔྱོད་.
བརྟགས་དཔྱོད་ see རྟོག་དཔྱོད་.
བསྟན་པ་ (གཉིས་) see ལམ་རིམ་.
བསྟན་པ་འཛིན་པ་, 23. ‘To follow, to keep to the teaching; to be or remain
true, faithful to the teaching, to hold fast to it, to stick to it.’
See also རྟེན་པ་.
ཐབས་ see འདུལ་ཐབས་.
ཐམས་ཅད་མཁྱེན་པ་ཆེན་པོ་དགེ་འདུན་གྲུབ་དཔལ་བཟང་པོ་, lit.
‘Great-all-knowing-clergy-perfection-good-glory,’ corresponds to a Sk.
Mahā-sarva-jña-saṁgha-siddhi-shrī-bhadra. See for literature about him:
Schulemann, Geschichte der Dalailamas, pp. 91–92, note 11, and S. Ch.
D.: The Hierarchy of the Dalai Lamas, J.A.S.B., Vol. LXXIII, Pt. I,
extra No., p. 81.
ཐུགས་ནི་ཟབ་ཡངས་མཁྱེན་བརྩེའི་གཏེར་, 55. This is here, in my opinion, not a sort
of Hottentottenpotentatentantenattentater-like formation. I take the
ཟབ་ཡངས་ to refer to the ཐུགས་, a profound and wide mind, whilst the མཁྱེན་
བརྩེ་ only refers to the གཏེར་, the treasury of omniscient mercy. It is
not likely that the qualities of width and depth form part of an
enumeration of which the remaining items are love and knowledge or even
(as a compound) omniscient-mercy. See the various component words in
this glossary.
ཐུགས་རྗེ་ see མཁྱེན་བརྩེ་.
ཐུགས་གཟུ་བོ་ see བློ་གཟུ་བོ་.
མཐེབ་ཀྱུ་ see ཀྱུ་.
མཐོན་པོ་ see ལམ་མཐོན་པོ་.
འཐབ་མོ་འགྱེད་པ་ see འགྱེ་བ་.
དག་སྣང་, 43. J.’s entry under this entry is as follows: “དག་ (པའི༌) སྣང་
(བ་) Schr. ‘good opinion’ (?), prob.: a pure, sound view or knowledge
Glr.; in Mil. it has a similar meaning.” He adds an oral sentence:
“*dhag-náṅ jón-wa* C. to lead a holy life.” (sic. jón = jóṅ?) Schroeter
has (135b): “དག་སྣང་, a good opinion, a good conception of any thing, a
conceit, a thought.” [Based on an Italian ‘concetto’?] He has two
further entries ‘དག་པའི་སྣང་བ་, to form a good opinion of any
individual,’ and ‘དག་སྣང་སྤྱོང་ (read: སྦྱོང་) བ་, to form a good opinion, or
to conceive well of any one.’
In our passage we are inclined to take སྣང་ as སྣང་བ་, as ‘view, thought,
idea, conception,’ etc., and སྦྱོང་བ་ = ‘to exercise, practise, perform’,
or even ‘to entertain, cherish (thoughts).’ དག་ we take as དག་པ་,
‘pure’—the connection with thought not the opposite of false,
erroneous, but of bad, cruel, unkind. So here the expression seems to
mean ‘to think with goodwill, with kindness (of others),’ not the
colloquial ‘to have a good opinion of, to think well of.’ To think
‘good’ is here the opposite of to think ‘evil,’ but the idiomatic value
of the expression ‘to think well of’ (as the opposite of ‘to think
poorly of’) would make the latter rendering misleading. The real value,
then, of the expression as used in this passage, seems to be: ‘to think
good, kind thoughts of,’ i.e. purely, or saintly in the sense of
kindly, lovingly, benevolently, in a friendly manner, with sympathy,
but not, as J. seems to suggest, intellectually correct. We may expand
the rendering into ‘with a holy mind, with thoughts of saintliness,
thinking saintly thoughts.’ Compare J.’s colloquial phrase quoted
above. So, as to the interpretation of the line in which the compound
occurs, we take it that it means to enjoin, in contrast with the
previous line in which it is said that beings in general must be
thought of with kindness, that religious people (instead of the mere
laymen) must be thought of in a still better, higher manner, namely
with holiness and saintliness.
One of my informants was first inclined to take དག་སྣང་སྦྱོང་བ་ as ‘to
teach, to preach the true knowledge.’ Though he later on sided with the
explanation adopted above, the opinion should be recorded, but it
should be added that a second informant rejected this view of the first
one.
Attention should be drawn to the meaning of སྣང་དག་, ‘the soul’ (with
spellings སྣང་ and ནང་; དག་, རྟགས་, བརྟག་, སྟག་, s. J.). Also the curious
expression ‘to be indifferent’ སྣང་དག་མ་བཏང་བ་, S. Ch. D.; and སྣང་དག་མི་
བྱེད་པ་, Bell. These expressions not in Desg.
དག་སྣང་སྦྱོང་བ་ see དག་སྣང་.
དང་པོ་ see དཔེ་.
དྭངས་མར་, 27. Adverb: ‘purely, first class, first rate.’ Not in J. but
in Desg., yet here in a slightly different application. About S. Ch.
D.’s ‘gravy’ and ‘relish’ see below. དྭངས་མ་ with the genitive seems to
mean ‘acme’, ‘essence’, the typical embodiment of something, like in
expressions as ‘a first class liar, a thief pure and simple, the very
devil, satan himself, nothing short of an angel, a saint in propria
persona.’ དགྲ་བོའི་དྭངས་མ་, ‘the very enemy.’ In the colloquial དྭངས་མ་, ཡང་
རྩེ་ and ཨང་གི་དང་པོ་ may have the same meaning. The latter is something
like pidgin-English ‘number one’ or the kitchen Malay equivalent
‘nommer satu.’ Other equations are གཅིག་པོ་ (or པུ་), also རང་, the
Anglo-Indian ‘pukka.’
The word དྭངས་ may mean soup or gravy in the following case, when there
is question of singling out the liquid portion from a mixture of broth
and liquid. The primary meaning seems in that case rather to be liquid
as contrasted to solid. ང་ལ་དྭངས་བླུགས་རོགས་གནང་ = give me (only) the
liquid (not the solid stuff), pour out to me (only) the liquid. But
this དྭངས་ has no final མ་. A common word for soup which is not in the
Dicts. is ‘rü thang’, probably རུས་ཐང་, or ཐང་ alone. This latter word
is in J. with the meaning of ‘potion’, a medical term, and in S. Ch. D.
as ‘potion, plain decoction, or mixture to be drunk after a medicinal
pill has been taken.’ The word རུས་ཐང་ means originally bone-soup, but
has acquired also the more general meaning ‘soup.’ ཐང་ can be applied
to meat-soup, ཤ་ཁུ་, but ཤ་ཐང་ cannot be used. It might be that ཐང་ and
དྭངས་ are really the same word.
དད་པ་སྐྱེས་ see སྐྱེ་བ་.
དམ་པོ་, 30. Might here, in connection with ambition, be translated as
‘fierce,’ an extension of its primary meaning ‘strong.’
དུག་པོ་ see སྐྱོ་བ་.
དུག་ལོག་ see སྐྱོ་བ་.
དུགས་པོ་ see སྐྱོ་བ་.
དུས་ནམ་ཡང་, 24. For ever, always.
དུས་མྱུར་བ་ see མྱུར་.
དོན་ཆུང་ཆུང་ see དོན་རེ་ཆུང་.
དོན་རེ་ཆུང་, 40. ‘Exceedingly stupid, meaningless, useless, silly,
senseless.’ The particle རེ་ has an emphatic value, but it is difficult
to define its precise scope in English. Oral information is vague on
the subject, and seems to point towards a possibility that the རེ་ is a
syllable of exclamation or turns the expression, of which it forms
part, into an exclamation. དོན་རེ་ཆུང་. ‘Oh, how silly!’ An equivalent is
དོན་ཆུང་ཆུང་ཡིན་ = དོན་མེད་. དོན་ཆུང་ alone is not used, and དོན་ཆུང་ཆུང་ demands
a final རེད་ or ཡིན་.
S. Ch. D. (502a) translates ཁྱོད་བོད་རྣམས་སྙིང་རེ་རྗེ་ as: ‘I pity you, ye
Tibetans’; perhaps better ‘What a pity, O ye Tibetans.’ Compare the
list of words with wedged-in རེ་ in J. s.v. རེ་ p. 533b.
དྲིན་ཆེ་བ་, 16. Also དྲིན་ཆེན་, adjective ‘kind.’ According to S. Ch. D. also
‘very kind, great boon, and the great or greatest benefactor.’ S. Ch.
D.’s wording is unsatisfactorily indefinite and his examples, taken
from J., fit the text badly. J. does not define the combination དྲིན་ཆེ་བ་
though he has an example བཀའ་དྲིན་ཆེ་བ་ with the meaning ‘greatest
benefit.’ Two colloquial examples are: དྲིན་ཆེ་བའི་ཡབ་ཡུམ་གཉིས་, ‘the two
(very) kind parents,’ and མི་འདི་དྲིན་ཆེན་ཡིན་, that man is (very) kind.
In form དྲིན་ཆེ་བ་ is a comparative, ‘kinder.’ ཆེན་པོ་ is one of those
adjectives which have a comparative and superlative of their own as:
Great. Many. Good. Small. Bad.
positive ཆེན་པོ་ མང་པོ་ ཡག་པོ་ ཆུང་ཆུང་ སྡུག་པོ་
comparative ཆེ་བ་ མང་བ་ (or ང་) ཡག་ག་ ཆུང་ང་ སྡུག་ག་
superlative ཆེ་ཤོས་ མང་ཤོས་ ཡག་ཤོས་ ཆུང་ཤོས་ སྡུག་ཤོས་
In practice, however, as shown by the above examples, the form is used
for an ordinary quality in the positive degree though implying an
amount of abundance or fullness of the quality referred to. Bell (p.
33) and Hannah (p. 129) have described these degrees of comparison.
Short and partial notes in S. Ch. D.’s grammar (p. 31) and Henderson
(p. 23). See J. Dict. s.v. ཤོས་, p. 564. དྲིན་ཆེ, J. 262b (as equal to དྲིན་
ཅན་) is not acknowledged by my informants.
དྲིན་ཆེ་ is objected to by my teachers because they say it never occurs
alone but requires a final བ་, except in the superlative form དྲིན་ཆེ་ཤོས་
which, of course, is another thing. See, however, S. Ch. D. བཀའ་དྲིན་ཆེ་,
p. 654, J. p. 13. As to the ཆེན་ or ཆེན་པོ་ in many Tibetan adjectives,
this is better regarded as an enclitic particle, exactly corresponding
to the English termination -ful. As little as the English -ful really
means ‘full’, does the Tibetan ཆེན་ (པོ་) as a termination of adjectives
really mean ‘great.’
Bell has དྲིན་ཆེན་པོ་ for ‘kind.’
The word དྲིན་ལན་ and its uses merit a separate inquiry. In this place we
shall limit ourselves to stating that the entry gratitude (S. Ch. D.,
Ramsay, Schroeter) seems incorrect. The confusion has most likely come
about because a དྲིན་ལན་ is an answer to kindness (return gift, etc.) and
so betokens gratitude.
དྲིན་ཆེན་ (པོ་) see དྲིན་ཆེ་བ་.
དྲིན་ཇི་བཞིན་, 21. Ellipse for: according to (or, in the measure of)
whatever kindness (you have shown to me).
དྲིན་ལན་ see དྲིན་ཆེ་བ་.
དྲུང་འཁོར་ see བརྩེ་.
གདན་ see བྱང་ཆུབ་སྙིང་པོ་.
གདུག་པ་, 35. The three Dicts. are not at one as to the exact shades of
meaning of གདུག་པ་.
J. has, subst.: ‘anything hurtful, or any injury, mischief, harm,
done.’
Desg., subst.: ‘dommage, perte, mal.’
S. Ch. D. no substantive.
J., adj. (= གདུག་པ་ཅན༌), ‘noxious, mischievous, dangerous.’ Desg., adj.
only གདུག་པ་ཅན་, not གདུག་པ་ alone: nuisible (noxious), and a གདུག་ =
གདོག་, deteriorated.
S. Ch. D., adj.: གདུག་པོ་, vicious, mischievous, deleterious, poisonous.
In J. and S. Ch. D. further applied meanings as: wild, hideous
(screams); ferocity (in beasts), deleterious (smell), fierce (woman).
In our passage the expression གདུག་སེམས་ཅན་ may be rendered by malign,
wicked, evil, evil-minded, spiteful, with sufficient correctness.
གདུག་པ་ཅན་ see གདུག་པ་.
གདུག་པོ་ see གདུག་པ་.
གདུག་སེམས་ཅན་ see གདུག་པ་.
གདུང་བ་ see གདུང་དབྱངས་.
གདུང་དབྱངས་, Colophon. J. renders this word as ‘a song expressive of
longing or of grief, an elegy (Mil.)’; but this definition is not quite
typical of our present poem. S. Ch. D. has ‘a song of longing grief.’
J.’s example མོས་གུས་གདུང་བ་དཔག་མེད་སྐྱེ་, where གདུང་བ་ means (spiritual)
love, seems to point out to a meaning more apposite here. So we would
prefer a translation: paean, hymn of praise (D. lofzang), or psalm
instead of elegy. Other words to be considered: song of thanksgiving,
memorial song, lament, plaintive song (jammerklacht?), memorial verses,
an in memoriam, a memorial, etc. See also དབྱངས་.
The dge rgan, however, explains the word indeed in J.’s manner, but
states that the longing and grief are not the worldly sentiments but
religious ones. The longing and grief are concerned with the sorrows of
the world and a yearning after spiritual realities, but not with the
memory of the three teachers mentioned in the poem. If this is true,
the above hypothesis is likely to be a wrong one and in my translation
of the colophon the words there used should in that case rather run ‘as
a song of yearning for the higher life’ (cf. the G. ‘Weltschmerz’).
གདོག་ see གདུག་པ་.
འདུལ་ཐབས་, 37. Steps, measures, to subdue or tame, etc. འདུལ་ཐབས་བྱེད་པ་,
to take such measures.
འདོགས་པ་ see རྒྱན་པ་.
འདྲེན་པ, 20. (Fut. དྲང་). If the ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་ (see ཀྱུ་) is here to be thought of
as a goad (like the one of the mahout) then the verb should be
understood as sub J. 2, ‘to conduct, lead, guide’ (by prodding). My
teachers take it as ‘to draw,’ or ‘pull.’ Pictorial representations
might decide the point. My teachers think rather of a rod with a hook
at the end, like the episcopal staff, and not of angling with a
fishhook or prodding with a goad.
སྡུག་ཡུས་, 33. Or simply ཡུས་, here: ‘the loss of temper, wrath, angry
explosion or outburst.’ This sense is not given in the Dicts., though
J.’s 4, ‘ardour, fervour, transport’ comes near it. སྡུག་ཡུས་ is the same
as ཡུས་, but for the fact that the former word shows the cause, an
outburst on account of trouble, vexation, worry, pain, sorrow. (སྡུག་)
ཡུས་བཤད་ (སྟོན་ or བྱེད་) པ་ = to show (or to lose) one’s temper, to flare
up, to burst out, to break loose, to explode in anger, wrath. ཕ་མ་ལ་སྡུག་
ཡུས་མ་བཤད་, ‘don’t show temper to your parents.’ དཔོན་ལ་ཡུས་མ་བཤད་, ‘don’t
lose your temper before (or with) the master.’ དེ་རིང་ཁོས་ང་ལ་ཡུས་མང་པོ་བསྟན་
སོང་, ‘to-day he has entirely lost his temper before (or to) me.’ It is
synonymous, in this sense, with the word འུ་ཐུག་ which is also dealt with
inadequately in the Dicts. q.v. མི་སུ་ལ་ཡང་འུ་ཐུག་མ་སྟོན་, ‘don’t lose your
temper to anyone, to whomsoever.’ ཁྱོད་ཀྱིས་འུ་ཐུག་བཤད་དགོས་པའི་དོན་མེད་, ‘there
is no reason (no need, or it is senseless) to lose your temper.’ (Cf.
D. uitvallen, uitvaren, uitvoeteren, opstuiven, uitbarsten.)
གནམ་ལ་སྙེག་འདྲ་བ་, 2. Either ‘as if rising towards the sky,’ in which case
འདྲ་བ་ refers to all the previous words, or: as if rising whilst in the
sky, in which case the འདྲ་བ་ would only refer to སྙེག་པ་.
གནས་པ་ see བློ་གཟུ་བོ་.
མནོ་བསམ་ see རྟོག་དཔྱོད་.
རྣལ་འབྱོར་སོགས་, 9. I have not received an explanation of the ‘etc.’ (སོགས་)
in this place and I ignore what kind of category is alluded to here. It
seems not probable that the ’18 classes of science’ can be meant,
which, in the Mahāvyutpatti (Ed. M.A.S.B.), form group XXIV, p. 20.
Group L, (p. 59), furnishes more likely material, but Yoga is missing
in it.
སྣང་དག་ see དག་སྣང་.
དཔལ་ལྡན་, 56. ‘Glorious, noble,’ also ‘having abundance.’ Twice
mentioned in J.’s article but not translated, perhaps because the
meaning is so evident. Curious that neither Desg. nor J. specially cite
this compound to which S. Ch. D. gives 7 lines, besides mentioning
several combinations.
དཔལ་བླ་མེད་, 52. Is this one word?
དཔལ་འབར་བ་, 53. ‘Glory- or splendour-burning,’ i.e. ‘to blaze with
glory,’ or, more tamely, ‘to be famous, renowned, celebrated’; the
latter quoted by J. from Cs. s.v. འབར་བ་ (It may also be taken as
glory-spreading, i.e. getting more famous). Desg. quotes a geographical
name དཔལ་འབར་, Chinese Pienpa. The expression is not in Desg. or S. Ch.
D., and in J. only as taken from Cs., so that the latter’s explanation
needs verification. The literal translation ‘to blaze with glory’ fits
here better.
Colloquially འབར་བ་ is ‘to thrive, to prosper, to do well.’ འབར་འདུག་,
‘he is doing well, is well-to-do, thriving.’ འབར་སོང་, he has become
rich, has made a success of his life, has come out top dog, has made
good, has become wealthy, opulent, is safe, got his ship home, has ‘got
there,’ made his pile, is now a man of position. (Fr. est arrivé. D. is
binnen, heeft zijn schaapjes op het drooge.)
དཔེ་, 53. Here དཔེ་ = དཔེ་བྱད་ or དཔེ་བྱད་བཟང་པོ་, technically ‘the eighty
symmetrical parts, proportions, or points of beauty’ (Cs.,
Mahāvyutpatti); or beauties, lesser signs (de Harlez); proportions
(Schiefner). See the references under མཚན་ and མཚན་དཔེ་. J. (s.v. དཔེ༌,
p. 327b) gives the full expression ‘the eighty physical perfections of
Buddha,’ དཔེ་བྱད་བཟང་པོ་བརྒྱད་ཅུ་, and དཔེ་བྱད་ alone ‘proportion, symmetry,
beauty.’ J. has the entry དཔེ་ ‘symmetry, harmony, beauty (in certain
phrases)’ but S. Ch. D. omits this. Our passage is an example of this
use, but the syllable དཔེ་ is really an abbreviation here and not a full
and independent word. Desg. seems to be mistaken in saying: དཔེ་བྱེད་
(sic, misprint for བྱད་) or མཚན་དཔེ་, ‘proportion, symmetry, the 80
marvels of the body of the Buddha.’ So དཔེ་བྱད་ཅན་ means indeed
‘symmetrical, showing 80 marvels,’ but these meanings would not be
applicable to མཚན་དཔེ་ཅན་ which could only mean ‘showing the 32 signs
and 80 beauties.’
For the rest Desg.’s 2nd article s.v. དཔེ་ adds to J.’s data, and his
དཔེ་སྲོལ་ and དཔེ་ཚུལ་ ‘custom, rule, example’ are new. In Desg. ‘custom,
rule’ tally with S. Ch. D. ‘way of doing, method’ which J. has as
‘pattern, model,’ but which he translates more freely in his examples.
J. s.v. བྱད་ ‘proportion, symmetry, beauty,’ quotes a དཔེ་བྱད་ from the
Dzl. in the same sense. According to this དཔེ་ would be equal to བྱད་
which seems improbable and is denied by my informants. An example of
the use of དཔེ་ཚུལ་ is the following: དེ་རིང་སང་གི་དགོན་པའི་ལོ་གསར་གྱི་འཆམ་དེ་དང་
པོའི་དཔེ་ཚུལ་རེད་, the new year’s dance of now-a-days in the monastery is in
imitation of the old way, is after the ancient pattern, the old manner,
follows the old example. དཔེ་ཚུལ་ is here not exactly ལུགས་སྲོལ་ ‘custom’
but rather: ‘(with) the (ancient) method (as) an example.’
Note the use of དང་པོའི་ in the above example as ‘old, ancient.’
དཔེ་འདྲ་པོ་ see སྒོ་.
དཔེ་བྱད་ see དཔེ་.
དཔེ་བྱེད་ (= བྱད་) see དཔེ་.
དཔེ་ཚུལ་ see དཔེ་.
དཔེ་སྲོལ་ see དཔེ་.
སྤྲི་ན་དཀར་པོ་, 2, 5. The white cloud is a figure often occurring in
Tibetan poetry. If used as an emblem of holiness or spiritual loftiness
in connection with eminent persons, this expression may perhaps contain
a stereotyped allusion to the name of the tenth and supreme bhūmi or
stage of the Bodhisattva, the dharma-megha, ‘cloud of virtue,’ ཆོས་ཀྱི་
སྤྲིན་. See Mahāvyutpatti, ed. A.S.B., p. 11. Here evidently not J.’s
(336a) ‘emblem of transitoriness,’ though the point might be argued on
the basis of the final remark s.v. གདུང་བྱངས་, see above.
སྤྲོས་བྲལ་, 51. This word corresponds according to S. Ch. D. to a Sk.
nishprapañca (or apañca, aprapañca) which in Macdonell’s Sk. Dict. is
rendered by ‘unevolved, exempt from multiformity.’ We may, therefore,
think of expressions like ‘the undifferentiated, homogeneous,
absolute.’ The word dhātu being the Sk. equivalent for Tib. དབྱིངས་ the
whole expression དབྱིངས་སྤྲོས་བྲལ་ must correspond to a Sk. aprapañca dhātu.
The same Sk. Dict. translates the word dhātu as ‘layer, component part,
element.’ In Tibetan དབྱིངས་ means, according to J.: (1) ‘the heavens’;
(2) ‘height’; (3) ‘extent, region, space, in metaphysics an undefined
idea.’ According to the etymology སྤྲོས་བྲལ་ should mean ‘passive,
actionless, quietistic, inert,’ but according to the etymology of its
Sk. prototype rather ‘undifferentiated, monadic.’ One of my informants
compares it with ཆོས་ཀྱི་དབྱངས་, dharma dhātu, and སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་, shunyatā, the
void, the absolute. In this connection one should compare J.’s
statements (215a) that in modern (Tibetan) Buddhism the term མངོན་པར་
རྟོགས་པ་ (अभिसमय), ‘clear understanding or perception’ means the same as
སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་, and further (259b) that དོན་དམ་, originally परमार्थ, has, in
later times, also become equivalent to སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་. It seems that the old
metaphysicians reached regions and distinctions where their followers
could no longer join them, and hence the process became ‘omne ignotum
pro སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་.’ For practical purposes the rendering ‘absolute,’ or
‘motionless’ might be used for སྤྲོས་བྲལ་, whilst the word དབྱིངས་ might be
rendered by ‘principle, state, region.’ If occurring in a specimen of
the more technically and theoretically philosophical literature of
Northern Buddhism, a more precise rendering and more careful definition
might be required. Taking the following རྟོགས་པ་ as ‘knowledge,
perception, cognition,’ then the whole expression becomes in English
‘the knowledge of the motionless state (or region, or principle)’
or—more pedantic but perhaps truer—‘the knowledge of (that is:
pertaining to, inherent in) the monadic state.’ Other equivalents: ‘a
state of stillness, the still state’ and, mystically, ‘the wisdom of
the silence.’
One of my informants, the dge rgan, knows of a colloquial use of སྤྲོས་བྲལ་
= རེ་བ་མེད་ = ‘hopeless,’ but my second authority ignores this use. The
following two examples were given: འདི་ཤེས་པ་སྤྲོས་བྲལ་རེད་, ‘it is labour
lost (hopeless) to [try and] know this.’ You cannot hope to know this.
(N.B.—Note the elliptic construction ‘hopeless to know’ for ‘to try to
know, to study and so come to know.’) ཡི་གེ་ཡག་པོ་ཀློག་ཤེས་ཀྱི་མི་འདུག་སུམ་རྟགས་ཤེས་
པ་སྤྲོས་བྲལ་རེད་, ‘As he does not even know how to read well (or properly),
it is hopeless (lost labour), for him to (or: how can he?) study
grammar’ (Not: how can he pretend to know grammar?).
N.B.—The Tibetan does not ‘read’ but ‘reads books’; he does not ‘write’
but ‘writes letters,’ he does not ‘go’ but ‘goes to the shop.’ In
short, he is a very objective being.
ཕ་, 8. ‘Father.’ It is not clear why in the same line the same person
is referred to by the ordinary ཕ་ and then by the honorific ཡབ་, unless
ཡབ་སྲས་ is a standard expression which cannot be changed whilst the
first ཕ་ is used for the sake of variety in expression.
The same double use of the honorific and ordinary terms for father
occurs in Laufer’s ‘Ein Sühngedicht der Bonpo’, line 41.
ཕྱོགས་, 5. In expressions like ལྡིང་བའི་ཤར་ཕྱོགས་ན་ the བའི་ is explained as
equivalent to སའི་, ‘of the place where.’ So the phrase མི་དེ་འགྲོ་བའི་ཕྱོགས་
འདི་ལ་ should be understood as ‘towards where the man has gone, to the
place where the man has gone,’ འགྲོ་སའི་ཕྱོགས་འདི་ལ་.
ཕྱོགས་པ་, 14. Here verb, infinitive, connected with Gendundub in
instrumental (agentive) or genitival relation: to turn, move towards,
to tend to.
ཕྱོགས་སུ་ལྷུང་བ་, 46. Lit. ‘to fall aside,’ but here, as applied to the mind
(ཡིད་), simply to be deflected, to go astray, to fall, sin (mentally),
to deviate from the right path (religion, the right), to lapse (from
virtue), etc.
འཕུང་བར་འདོད་པ་, 29. ‘To wish the ruin, the undoing, destruction of, to
be bent on the perdition of, to wish evil to’ = མེད་པར་འདོད་པ་.
བྱང་ཆུབ་སྙིང་པོ་, 17. The bodhimaṇḍa, according to the Dicts. historically
and geographically Gaya, where the Buddha attained nirvāṇa. Here,
however, it means rather the state implied by the locality,
‘illumination, the essence of purification, final sainthood’ literally
‘the quintessence of bodhi.’ In Christian language Golgotha (or the
Cross) is similarly used in a metaphorical sense. In living Tibetan བྱང་
ཆུབ་ (bodhi) is not understood as ‘wisdom’ but as ‘saintliness, purity.’
There is, it seems, a confusion in the group of Tibetan [and Chinese!]
renderings of bodhimaṇḍa (bodhi-essence) and bodhi-maṇḍala
(bodhi-round), and their synonyms, a confusion which may already have
its origin in India itself. The treatment of these words in the Dicts.
is not satisfactory. J. and S. Ch. D. give s.v. བྱང་ཆུབ་སྙིང་པོ་ this word
as synonymous with རྡོ་རྗེ་གདན་, Vajrāsana, but under སྙིང་པོ་ S. Ch. D. has
the entry: ‘བྱང་ཆུབ་སྙིང་པོ་, the spirit of the Bodhisattva, i.e.
Buddhahood.’ This is the sense meant in our passage, though it may be
doubted whether བྱང་ཆུབ་ really stands here for བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ་ as S. Ch.
D. interprets it instead of only for bodhi. The Mahāvyutpatti (A.S.B.,
p. 44) has Bodhimaṇḍa = བྱང་ཆུབ་སྙིང་པོ་, and Cs. translates, ‘the essence
of sanctity or holiness (name of the holy place at Gaya).’ I yet
believe that here a confusion of maṇḍa and maṇḍala must be thought of.
J. has, s.v. སྙིང་པོ་ (p. 198b) ‘snyiṅ-po-byaṅ c̀ʽúb- (or
byaṅ-c̀ʽub-snyiṅ-po)-la mc̀ʽís-pa, to become Buddha Thgy.’ Rockhill, Life
of the Buddha, p. 35, mentions the form byang-tchub-kyi-snying-po as
the equivalent for bodhimaṇḍa, and though Foucaux in the alphabetical
index to his translation of the Lalita Vistāra gives only the form
without ཀྱི་, yet in his text, in the places I verified (p. 239, five
times), there is the ཀྱི་ as with Rockhill.
In mentioning the word རྡོ་རྗེ་གདན་ a special reference must be made to the
element གདན་, commonly translated as bolster, cushion, seat, rug, etc.
J. is very detailed about it. He has: ‘a bolster, or seat composed of
several quilts or cushions, put one upon the other (five for common
people, nine for people of quality).’ Desg. simply ‘stuffed cushion.’
S. Ch. D. more general ‘a low seat, a divan, cushion, a bolster.’ As to
J.’s definition my authorities declare that this may be so perhaps ‘on
the Ladakh side,’ but is certainly not so in Tibet and in the
Darjeeling district. They do not know about the details of five and
nine cushions. They take the meaning far wider than bolster or cushion.
They say that anything used to support anything or to seat anybody may
be called གདན་, it may be a sheet of cloth, a carpet, a blanket, a
cushion, a bolster, a seat in general, anything used for lying or
sitting down on. The word has a meaning exactly opposite to the English
‘cover’ and can consequently be used in as many varied senses as the
latter. Etymologically—if the root of གདན་, as seems probable, means
‘to support’—the word would mean something like ‘bearer,’ ‘basis,’
‘bed,’ ‘floor,’ ‘upholder.’ We might think of ‘underwear,’ though in
English that particular word is used with quite another association of
ideas. In typography there is a word ‘underlay’ which corresponds
exactly to the meaning of གདན་. The word ‘bedplate’, used in
engineering, comes also near to it. It will be easily seen how an
applied meaning as ‘cushion, bolster,’ if given as the general sense of
the word, would in many cases be totally inadequate. The line of
associations to which ‘cushion’ belongs, and the line of associations
to which ‘seat, support, underlay’ belong, intersect at only one point
and for the rest have nothing in common. A table-cloth may be called
གདན་ because the food rests on it (ལྟོ་གདན་ is used in this sense; lit.
something like ‘food-sheet, that on which the food rests’). In a ritual
it is prescribed that the གདན་ for the offerings should be a spotless
piece of white cotton or other cloth, called མཆོད་གདན་, ‘offering
sheet,’ ‘that on which the offerings rest.’ Bell has ས་གདན་ for
‘carpet’; small cushion, placed on chair ཁ་གདན་; large cushion on
ground འབོལ་གདན་. This is a most interesting example illustrating the
fact that it is strictly necessary first to find out the root-idea of a
Tibetan word before translating it by words representing the incidental
applications of that root-idea. Whoever has handled Chinese
dictionaries knows how specially necessary this is in studying
Indo-Chinese languages. The Sanskrit equivalent, āsana, is derived from
the root ās, to sit or lie, but the Tib. root seems different.
Further notes on གདན་. Cf. J. མ་གདན་ (pr. magdàn), ground, basis,
foundation, p. 409a. Bell, apron པང་གདན་. Cs., Grammar, p. 170, l. 10,
translates གདན་ as couch (stuffed seat). Lewin, Manual, p. 123, first
word last line: ‘mat, seat’, in the same sentence taken over from Cs.’s
Grammar. Two synonyms for J.’s མ་གདན་, quoted above, are རྨང་གདན་ and
གཞི་གདན་. Bell also has ‘mat.’
བྱམས་སྙིང་རྗེ་, 50. Seems simply an amplified form for ‘love.’ Difficult to
be translated exactly, Sk. maitrīkaruṇā, may be treated as a compound,
loving-kindness, love and kindness, or pity. On the question of karuṇā,
especially, the learned have descanted profusely.
བླ་ (ན་) མེད་ (པ་), 52. Sk. अनुत्तर, unsurpassed, unexcelled, unrivalled,
supreme, incomparable, most high, highest. Not specially entered in J.
but illustrated by an example s.v. བླ་. Altogether absent in Desg. S.
Ch. D. བླ་མེད་རྣམས་ལ་, ‘to those who are supreme, or to the followers of
the Anuttara school.’ A curious entry! See S. Ch. D. also s.v. བླ་ན་.
བླ་མ་, 3. Here perhaps better ‘teacher’ than ‘priest’ or ‘superior.’ The
word may be here equally well taken in the singular as in the plural,
but the latter is perhaps more likely.
བླ་མེད་, see བླ་ན་མེད་པ་.
བློ་གཟུ་བོ་, 47. ‘Straight, upright, righteous mind.’ J.’s entry is a
little vague. I think he takes ཐུགས་ in his example ཐུགས་གཟུ་བོ་ as an
indication that གཟུ་བོ་ is also a honorific form. That, however, is not
the case. Compare also the quotation from Cs. in S. Ch. D., གཟུ་བོར་གནས་
པ་ ‘to be impartial and straightforward, to be on the side of honesty.’
I don’t find this example in Schmidt. Desg. ‘straight, upright,
(élevé,) just, honest.’ According to the above the word is an adj. and
the translation of the passage becomes ‘whether you persevere in a
straight (righteous) mind.’ The verb གནས་པ་ has then to be taken as ‘to
hold, adhere to, persevere in (an opinion, etc.).’ If however, we
should find that གཟུ་བོ་ can also be sbst. ‘righteousness,’
‘straightness,’ (not in any Dict.), then གནས་པ་ would have the other
meaning of ‘to dwell, reside’ and the phrase would have to be rendered
‘whether the mind (continues to) dwell(s) in righteousness.’ S. Ch. D.
renders ཐུགས་གཟུ་བོ་ as ‘honest mind,’ but the sense honest versus
dishonest seems not quite applicable in our passage. J. is vague here.
My informants gave the above definition ‘straight, upright’ as their
own but felt afterwards vague about this example which, though they had
framed it, they could not vouch for: མི་དེ་གཟུ་བོར་གནས་མི་གནས་ལྟོས་ཤིག་, ‘see
whether the man keeps straight or not.’ The framer honestly confessed
that whilst we were discussing the word he had been influenced by S.
Ch. D.’s Dict. in coining the sentence; a confession so instructive for
idiom-verifiers that I think it worth while to record it here.
Finally, Desg. supports S. Ch.’s second meaning ‘witness’ for གཟུ་བོ་.
He, however, does not give S. Ch.’s form གཟུ་དཔང་. The ordinary word for
witness is, of course, དཔང་ (པོ་). It is characteristic of S. Ch. D.
that he copies J.’s extract from Sch. under གཟུ་དཔང་ ‘witness,
mediator,’ but then immediately adds his own individual interpretation
which not only is likely to be correct, but which also nullifies and
contradicts the previous entry which he copied immediately above. He
himself says, ‘an honest and truthful witness.’ It often occurs that S.
Ch. D. brings modifications, extensions and even corrections to J.’s
statements, but at the same time he copies J. far too slavishly and so
contradicts himself in the pages of his own dictionary. Whether
meanings like ‘reliable, straightforward, correct, proper,’ etc., have
to be attached to གཟུ་བོ་ is as yet uncertain.
བློ་བཟང་གྲགས་པ་, 8. In Sk. Sumatikīrti. According to the Sk. dictionaries
the primary sense of ‘sumati’ is ‘benevolence.’ In present-day Tibetan
བློ་བཟང་ is rather ‘good-natured, kindhearted,’ as against དྲིན་ཆེན་པོ་
‘benevolent.’ So the Tibetan name has to be rendered as
Good-nature-fame, or Famous good-nature, the personal name of Tsoṅ kʽa
pa.
དབང་དུ་ (མ་) སོང་བ་, 22. (Not) fallen under the power (of)....
དབྱངས་, 54 and colophon. This word seems here hardly to mean ‘song,
singing tune,’ but rather ‘melody, melodiousness, sweetness,’ etc. This
tallies to a certain extent with Csoma’s translation of the title of
list LXI (p. 86) of the Mahāvyutpatti, ‘Names of the 60 sorts (or
divisions) of melody or melodious voices (or vocal sound).’ I take it
that this list refers to what is mentioned here in our text. How these
60 branches of melody are exactly to be understood I have not been able
to ascertain. The opinions of Pʽun Tsʽogs on the point are as follows.
The Buddha’s voice had such a variety of (magic?) qualities, sixty in
number, that they made him understood by all beings, whatever their own
languages. The Buddha was in this way simultaneously understood by men,
devas, nāgas, etc. In proffering this explanation Pʽun Tsʽogs takes ཡན་
ལག་ to mean rather ‘kind’ than ‘branch.’ As an alternative he suggests
that དབྱངས་ is an adjective synonymous with རིང་བུ༌, ‘high’ (as applied to
voice or rather tone) [or perhaps long, lengthened?] and that then
དབྱངས་ཡན་ལག་ would mean a ‘variety’ of tones or modulations. I myself am
inclined to think that if the Mahāvyutpatti list is not referred to, we
have here to do with some scholastic scheme of rhetorics, though if so
understood the exact value of དབྱངས་ is not clear and certainly not
sufficiently defined in the Dicts.
(Cf. S. Ch. D. s.v. ཟབ་ (p. 1092a), ཟབ་དབྱངས་ = मन्द्र, मन्द्रक, ‘a deep
voice, a musical tone.’ See also གདུང་དབྱངས་.)
དབྱིངས་ see སྤྲོས་བྲལ་.
དབྱིངས་སྤྲོས་བྲལ་ see སྤྲོས་བྲལ་.
འབར་བ་ see དཔལ་འབར་བ་.
འབོལ་གདན་ see བྱང་ཆུབ་སྙིང་པོ་.
འབྲོག་, 6. Here ‘solitude, wilderness’ and so = རི་ཁྲོད་ = དགོན་པ་,
‘monastery.’ Not associated with any of the meanings connected with
‘pasturing.’ Cf. S. Ch. D. འབྲོག་དགོན་ s.v. འབྲོག་.
The famous Galdan monastery was erected on a site called འབྲོག་པོའི་རི་. See
S. Ch. D., The Monasteries of Tibet, J.A.S.B., Vol. I, N.S. (1905), p.
108.
མི་ཁོ་ see གླུད་.
མི་ཁོ་གླུད་ཡིན་ see གླུད་.
མི་གླུད་ see གླུད་.
མིག་བཟང་མ་ see ཡངས་.
མིག་ཡངས་ see ཡངས་.
མེད་པར་འདོད་པ་ see འཕུང་བར་འདོད་པ་.
མྱུར་, 52. J. མྱུར་བ་ adj., and མྱུར་དུ་ adv., ‘quick(ly), swift(ly).’ In Mil.
adj. མྱུར་པོ་. Desg. མྱུར་ and མྱུར་བ་ (ཉིད་), subst. ‘promptness,’ and མྱུར་པོ་
‘swift.’ As adv. མྱུར་བར་, or དུ་, or གྱིས་. S. Ch. D. མྱུར་བ་, verb, ‘to
hurry by, to pass on swiftly,’ (example དུས་མྱུར་བ་, ‘time quickly runs
away.’ [= tempus fugit]), and adv. quickly. Further adv. མྱུར་དུ་. Some
interesting compounds in S. Ch. D.: མྱུར་མ་ ‘a dancing woman,’ etc. Note
the expression ཅི་མྱུར་ ‘as speedily as possible,’ J.
According to my informants S. Ch. D.’s example དུས་མྱུར་བ་ is not good
Tibetan. It should either be དུས་མྱུར་པོ་ (or བ་) ཡིན་, lit. ‘time is
quick,’ or with another meaning also ‘the time is near’ (i.e. at hand,
coming quickly), or again དུས་མྱུར་པོ་དེ་, ‘the quick time.’ Time quickly
runs away, they say, should be expressed thus: དུས་མྱུར་བར་འགྲོ་གི་འདུག་.
Cf. also J., Desg.: སྨྱུར་བ་.
མྱུར་མ་ see མྱུར་.
ཙམ་གྱི་, 38. Here: ‘after only, as a result of only, in consequence of
only, mere, simple.’ But ཙམ་ has also the meanings: as soon as, simply
on (hearing), on the slightest (reproach, etc.) with a more prominent
stress on the time element, instantaneousness.
རྩེ་དྲུང་ see བརྩེ་.
རྩེ་པོ་ཏ་ལ་ see བརྩེ་.
རྩེ་ཞྭ་ see བརྩེ་.
རྩོད་པ་རྒྱབ་པ་ see གཤགས་འགྱེད་པ་.
བརྩེ་, 55. བརྩེ་ = བརྩེ་བ་, vb. ‘to love’ sbst. ‘love, kindness, affection,’
etc. Desg. has also a བརྩེ་, ‘acidity,’ which is also known to my
informants. His བརྩེ་དྲང་ ‘bodyguard of the Dalai Lama’ is held, by one of
my informants, to be a mistake for རྩེ་དྲུང་ (pronounce tsī-dung), the
monk-employees of the Tibetan government (and in a narrower sense: the
clerical staff, the clerks and secretaries amongst them) as contrasted
with the lay-employees of noble birth (not officials in general as with
S. Ch. D. 656a, but only those belonging to the nobility) who are
called དྲུང་འཁོར་. The word རྩེ་ in the compound is said to be derived from
the designation of the Potala palace where many of the government
offices are located, and which is called རྩེ་པོ་ཏ་ལ་, the Potala peak, but
most commonly, by the people, briefly རྩེ་, the peak. This explanation of
tsī-dung as a general class of lama government-employees is wider than
that given in Waddell’s table in his ‘Lhasa and its Mysteries,’ p. 165.
See also རྩེ་དྲུང་, ‘chief clerk or secretary’ in S. Ch. D. s.v. རྩེ་ཞྭ་
(1013b), the latter being the special name of the former’s hat.
བརྩེ་དྲང་ see བརྩེ་.
བརྩོན་པར་བགྱིད་པ་, 24. Equals བརྩོན་པར་བྱེད་པ་ (or གྱུར་བ་) ‘to apply oneself,
exert oneself, put one’s best energy into something’ = སྙིང་རུས་བྱེད་པ་, ‘to
be zealous, diligent.’ Also བརྩོན་འགྲུས་སྐྱེད་པ་ (བྱེད་པ་, རྩོམ་པ་).
ཚུལ་, 28. Here ‘conduct, behaviour’ pure and simple, without allusion to
the ཚུལ་ཁྲིམས་, ‘religious law, discipline, monastic rules.’
ཚུལ་བཞིན་ see ཆོས་ཚུལ་བཞིན་.
མཚན་, 53. Here technically the (thirty-two) characteristic signs or
marks of a ‘Great Man,’ the mahāpurusha. Mahāvyutpatti (Ed. A. S. B.),
LXIII, p. 92. De Harlez, ‘Vocabulaire Bouddhique Sanscrit-Chinois,’ no.
3. Schiefner, ‘Triglotte,’ no. 3. See de la Vallée Poussin,
‘Bouddhisme,’ pp. 241 et seq.
The transition of meaning of the word མཚན་ in modern Tibetan in such
expressions as མཚན་ལྡན་བླ་མ་, ‘a holy lama,’ or མཚན་ལྡན་མ་, ‘a woman of
good appearance and virtues’ (S. Ch. D.) should not be overlooked in
the interpretation of our passage for its psychological value. See also
དཔེ་.
མཚན་ལྡན་ see མཚན་.
མཚན་དཔེ་, 53. This is a compound substantive of an elliptic nature, and
means: ‘the [well known 32 primary] characteristics [and the 80]
beauties [of Buddhas]’ = མཚན་དང་དཔེ་བྱད་ (བཟང་པོ་). See also མཚན་ and དཔེ་.
མཚན་འཛིན་, 30. མཚན་ is here hon. of མིང་ ‘name,’ and the compound,
literally ‘name grasping,’ means ‘ambition, thirst for fame, glory,’
etc. (D. eerzucht, roemzucht), perhaps even ‘vainglory, pride, conceit,
egotism,’ i.e. the hugging of one’s own name and fame.
མཚན་བརྗོད་པ་, 7. To invoke by name, to address a prayer to by name.
Applied to both spiritual and human beings. རྒྱལ་པོའི་མཚན་བརྗོད་པ་, ‘to
address the king, speak to the king, direct, appeal to the king,’ but
always by calling him by his name. ‘O king help me’ is not a proper
example of མཚན་བརྗོད་པ་, but ‘O, thou, King George, help me!’ would be
one. To spiritual beings their names may be expressed in a paraphrase,
metaphor or symbol, but they must be expressed in some way. The prayers
to superhuman beings may be twofold, either an address containing
requests, etc., or a mere litany of names without any further subject
matter attached to them. The one is a recitation of names, the other a
direct address by name; the one a litany proper, the other an
invocation or prayer.
འཚོལ་བ་, 19. The form མི་འཚོལ་བས་ was paraphrased to me as འཚོལ་གི་མིན་ =
འཚོལ་མི་ཡོང་ = simple future, ‘not going to seek’ (D. niet zullende
zoeken).
ཞིབ་དཔྱད་ see རྟོག་དཔྱོད་.
ཞེ་ཁྲེལ་བ་ see ཁྲེལ་བ་.
ཞེན་པ་ལོག་པ་ see ཁྲེལ་བ་.
གཞན་བསྟན་ (པ་) འཛིན་པ་ see རང་བསྟན་ (པ་) འཛིན་པ་.
གཞུང་ see ཁྲེལ་བ་.
གཞུང་སྒོ་ see སྒོ་.
གཞུངས་པ་ see ཁྲེལ་བ་.
གཞེས་ see མགུར་མ་.
བཞག་པ་ see རྒྱན་པ་.
ཟབ་, 10, 55. ཟབ་ = ཟབ་པ་. J. vb., adj., subst. and adv. ‘to be deep,
deep, deeply, depth’; adj. ཟབ་པོ་ and མོ་. Desg. ཟབ་པོ་ and མོ་ adj. only.
S. Ch. D. ཟབ་པ་ vb. ‘to make deep, to deepen,’ also adj. and sbst.;
further in པོ་ and མོ་ only adj. Note the additional meaning ‘dense’
(also ཟབས་ ‘thickness’) in S. Ch. D., not in the two others. My
teachers deny that ཟབ་པ་ can be a verb ‘to deepen,’ or ‘to make deep.’
ཟབ་ must also be understood as ‘profound’ (wisdom, teaching, etc.). See
ཆོས་ཟབ་, also དབྱངས་, also ཐུགས་ནི་, etc.
ཟབ་ཡངས་ see ཐུགས་ནི་, etc.
གཟུ་བོ་ see བློ་གཟུ་བོ་.
གཟུ་དཔང་ see བློ་གཟུ་བོ་.
གཟུ་བོར་གནས་པ་ see བློ་གཟུ་བོ་.
འུ་ཐུག་ see སྡུག་ཡུས་.
ཡང་རྩེ་ see དྭངས་མར་.
ཡངས་, 55. = ཡངས་པ་ or པོ་, ‘wide, large.’ Desg. also ‘ample, abundant.’
S. Ch. D. only ཡངས་པ་. Note J. ‘*mig-yaṅ*’, C., W. liberal, generous,
bounteous,’ but Desg. མིག་ཡངས་པ་ ‘wide-eyes: envious, covetous, greedy.’
In S. Ch. D. ཡངས་པའི་མིག་ = विशालाक्षी, ‘large-eyes, a handsome woman, name of
a Goddess.’ Cf. also in the same dict. མིག་བཟང་མ་, ‘beautiful-eyes, a
very handsome woman, a nymph’s name.’ As to J.’s mig-yaṅ, one of my
teachers holds with him as against Desg., the other does not know the
expression.
ཡངས་པའི་མིག་ see ཡངས་.
ཡན་ལག་ see དབྱངས་.
ཡབ་སྲས་ (གསུམ༌), 8, 15, 16, 18. ‘Father (and) sons,’ or, as Csoma already
has it in his Grammar, p. 28, ‘teacher and pupils.’ With the addition
གསུམ་ ‘three,’ and also as here without this addition, a very well known
appellation of Tsoṅ kʽa pa and his two pupils (his spiritual sons). It
is likely that to the Tibetan mind the expression means something like
‘spiritual family (of three),’ namely of one father and two sons. See
introductory remarks. Free renderings like ‘spiritual trio’ or ‘teacher
triad’ and the like are apt enough for practical purposes. Cf. an
expression like the following: ཁྱོད་ཕ་བུ་གཉིས་ག་ནས་ཡིན་, ‘where have you
two, father and son, come from?’ (But the sentence has also the second
meaning ‘where do you live? where is your home?’).
In the light of the above, has the note on p. 98 of the J.A.S.B., Vol.
II, N.S., no. 4, 1906, in Satis Chandra Vidyābhūṣana’s article on ‘the
Gyantse rock inscription’ to be rectified? My informants do not think
that the expression is used among the Sakyapas in the sense given in
that note.
ཡིན་ན་ཡང་ see ཀྱང་.
ཡུས་ see སྡུག་ཡུས་.
གཡུལ་ see འགྱེ་བ་.
གཡུལ་འགྱེད་ see འགྱེ་བ་.
རང་ see དྭངས་མར་.
རང་བསྟན་ (པ་) འཛིན་པ་, 26. This expression must here not be understood as
‘to follow one’s own teaching.’ རང་བསྟན་ is here not one compound word.
The meaning is: they who themselves follow the teaching, as against the
གཞན་བསྟན་པ་འཛིན་པ་, the others who (also) follow the teaching. See གཞན་
བསྟན་ (པ་) འཛིན་པ་, 27.
རི་ཁྲོད་ see འབྲོག་ and གངས་རིའི་ཁྲོད་འདི་ན་.
རི་འབྲོག་ see འབྲོག་ and གངས་རིའི་ཁྲོད་འདི་ན་.
རིག་པ་ see མཁྱེན་བརྩེ་.
རིག་པ་བསྒྲིམས་ནས་ see གོལ་ས་.
རིང་བུ་ see དབྱངས་.
རུས་ཐང་ see དྭངས་མར་.
རེ་ see དོན་རེ་ཆུང་.
རེ་བ་མེད་ see སྤྲོས་བྲལ་.
ལན་འཕམ་པ་ see གཤགས་འགྱེད་པ་.
ལམ་གོལ་ see གོལ་ས་.
ལམ་གོལ་ས་ see གོལ་ས་.
ལམ་མཐོན་པོ་, 31. ‘The high, elevated road,’ has a religious connotation,
the proper road that leads to heaven after death, the ‘narrow’ road of
Christianity. See below.
ལམ་དྲང་པོ་, 48. The straight road (metaphorically), the road of
righteousness, of straightness of mind. Cf. S. Ch. D. s.v. དྲང་ལམ་, p.
649a. The meaning of this expression and that of ལམ་མཐོན་པོ་, in line 31
(see above), are quite different. The other is the highroad (towards
heaven), the road of a high standard of moral conduct.
ལམ་རིམ་, 9. ‘Steps on the path,’ ‘degrees of advance,’ ‘steps towards
perfection,’ is the short title of many mystical writings and
especially of one by Tsoṅ kʽa pa, to which the words may allude here
without specially designating it. In this place the meaning does not
seem to be a specific work but merely ‘(religious) instructions,
teaching in general.’ The ལམ་རིམ་པ་གཉིས་ are here, according to my oral
information, to be taken as the two halves or divisions of the Kandjur
which is commonly divided into མདོ་ and སྔགས་, sūtra and tantra (or
mantra, or dhāraṇī). In this division the རྒྱུད་ or tantra section is
called སྔགས་, whilst all the rest, properly subdivided in six divisions,
is taken together as མདོ་, of which the real མདོ་སྡེ་ or sūtra-division
(the 5th in sequence in the Kandjur) is only one. Concerning Tsoṅ kʽa
pa’s study of the ‘Sūtras and Tantras’ see S. Ch. D., ‘Contributions,
etc. on Tibet,’ VI, in J.A.S.B., 1882, Vol. LI, Part I, no. 1, p. 53.
J., s.v. བསྟན་པ་, quotes a བསྟན་པ་གཉིས་: ‘with Urgyan Padma, etc., the
same as mdoi and sṅags kyi lam, v. mdo extr.’ This is seemingly the
same as our expression.
ལུས་ཅན་, 42. J. has = སེམས་ཅན་, ‘beings, creatures,’ but may not the idea
rather be all embodied creatures; with the etymological sense still
potent in connection with the Buddhist reincarnation theory? S. Ch. D.
gives a ལུས་ཅན་གནས་ = གྲོང་ཁྱེར་ = ‘town, city,’ which seems rather to point
to the meaning ‘man’ for ལུས་ཅན་. My informants don’t feel quite certain
whether to include the five other classes of beings (including animals)
amongst the ལུས་ཅན་, but are somewhat inclined to interpret the word as
མི་, ‘man,’ in general.
ཤ་འཛིན་ see ཀྱུ་.
ཤར་གངས་རི་མ་, title, 1. The author writes his poem in a place to the
west of a snow-capped mountain, to the east of which the Galdan
monastery is situated. See notes on འབྲོག་, དགེ་ལྡན་ and གངས་རིའི་ཁྲོད་འདི་ན་.
Which mountain or mountain chain is meant must be left undecided, even
if granting that modern cartography could show it if identified. Local
tradition, however, would most likely be able to point out a particular
mountain.
ཤེས་པ་ see མཁྱེན་བརྩེ་.
ཤོས་ see རིན་ཆེ་བ་.
གཤགས་ see གཤགས་འགྱེད་པ་.
གཤགས་འགྱེད་པ་, 38. This expression cannot yet be explained with
certainty. It may be taken here to mean, literally, ‘to send out
(distribute, give, put forward) justice, right,’ but the exact
idiomatic value of the phrase remains to be determined. It is not in
the Dicts., and unknown to my informants. We may take the possible
values of the expression as three, viz.: 1. གཤགས་འགྱེད་པ་ = རྩོད་པ་རྒྱབ་པ་ =
གཤགས་རྒྱབ་པ་ = ‘to dispute, argue, contend with words.’ This seems the
same expression as S. Ch. D.’s ཁ་གཤགས་འགྱེད་པ་ ‘to hold controversy,’ p.
1248. (Perhaps also ‘to challenge, to be challenged to dispute.’) 2. =
ལན་འཕམ་པ་ ‘to be defeated in argument, in dispute, to be silenced in
dispute.’
3. = ‘To make observations to, to remonstrate with, to use plain speech
to, to speak straight to, to rebuke, to reproach, to tell one the
truth.’ (Cf. the entry in J.’s *kʽa kye-c̀e* to abuse, to menace’ (p.
97b.)) This seems the sense required here and would be a logical
development of the primary meaning of the expression: ‘to spread out
the justice (right) of the case before someone,’ i.e. ‘to submit the
truth about it.’
S. Ch. D. has s.v. ཁ་གཤགས་ = ཁ་རྩོད་ ‘using rough language, controversy,
discussion, dispute.’ The other Dicts. lack this word.
The above is the result of an exhaustive discussion of the expression
with my teachers. Lexicographically (with a view to the entry quoted
from S. Ch. D.) the first explanation seems the best, but with
reference to the context, the last one deserves preference, and this is
the one chosen for the rendering.
It should be noted that in modern Tibetan there seems to be taking
place a shifting of the meaning of གཤགས་. Instead of as ‘right,
justice’ it seems to be understood by some modern Tibetans as ‘the
arguing about right or justice’ as in a court of law, and hence simply
as ‘dispute, argument, pleading.’ Example: ‘This is not the place to
argue your rights,’ ཁྱོད་གཤགས་རྒྱབ་སའི་ (or པའི་) ས་ཆ་འདི་རུ་མ་རེད་, lit. ‘to
hit out (རྒྱབ་) for the right,’ the verb meaning ‘to do (རྒྱབ་ for verba
loquendi) arguing (གཤགས་).’
བཤད་ཉན་, 38. Literally ‘speak-listen,’ has two meanings. The first,
quoted in J. from Schmidt in the form of འཆད་ཉན་པ་ (s.v. འཆད་པ་ pf. and
fut. བཤད་), is endorsed by my informants, ‘to listen to an explanation
(also, to a sermon, discourse, etc.)’. The second is, ‘to answer upon
hearing,’ i.e. ‘to answer (in invective, hotly, in remonstrance or
dispute) upon hearing (reproaches or unpleasant words).’ If a mother
chides her son for some fault, he may, instead of taking the rebuke in
humility, try to argue or to be impudent in return. The mother then may
say: ང་ཁྱོད་ཀྱི་ཨ་མ་ལ་བཤད་ཉན་མ་བྱེད་འདི་ལས་ངའི་གཏམ་ཉོན་, ‘Don’t argue, dispute,
bandy words with (don’t be impudent to, “no words with me!”) your
mother, but (འདི་ལས་, ‘rather, on the contrary, instead of this’) listen
to me.’ The expression may be rendered as ‘to flare up in answer (to a
reproach), to retort angrily (after admonition), to snap, yap back.’
བཤེས་གཉེན་, 41. ‘Friend’ and, as J. has it, abbr. for དགེ་བའི་བཤེས་གཉེན་ =
कल्याणमित्र = virtue-friend.
Here interpreted by my informants as ‘true, genuine priests or monks,
monks who come up to the mark, worthy of the name,’ but not technically
as ‘spiritual adviser’ as J. has it. Desg. s.v. བཤེས་, quotes only a
form with མཉེན་ and gives it the meaning ‘doctor, a lamaistic title.’
Under གཉེན་, however, he has བཤེས་གཉེན་, ‘ad scientiam adjuvans, monastic
dignity, teacher.’ S. Ch. D. adds ‘pious or holy friend, spiritual
friend or adviser.’ Compare also J. for the semi-homonym དགེ་བསྙེན་.
ས་ see ཕྱོགས་.
སེམས་པ་ see བསམས་ཤིང་ and བཀའ་དྲིན་སེམས་པ་.
སེམས་བསྐྱེད་པ་ see སྐྱེད་པ་.
གསུང་, 54. Here ‘speech’ in general, not ‘a speech,’ a slight extension
of J.’s meanings, unless his use of the definite article in ‘the
speech’ is a lapsus. The dicts. differ slightly and need co-ordination
in details. About the meaning there can be no doubt as the word is here
used in the series (hon.) སྐུ་, གསུང་, ཐུགས་, for ordinary ལུས་, ངག་, ཡིད་,
body, speech and mind, the so-called ‘three doors,’ སྒོ་གསུམ་.
གསུང་མགུར་ see མགུར་མ་.
གསུང་བ་, 10. Here is the sense of ‘to preach, to explain, to give an
exposition of, to expatiate on, to exhibit, to lecture on.’
བསམ་མནོ་ see རྟོག་དཔྱོད་.
བསམ་མི་ཁྱབ་, 12. Inconceivable, unthinkable, unimaginable, not to be
grasped by or in thought, beyond comprehension, realisation.
བསམས་ཤིང་བསམས་ཤིང་, 4. The repetition of the verb softens the meaning
into ‘quietly thinking’ or from སེམས་པ་ ‘to think,’ into ‘to muse, to
ponder’, etc.
ཨང་གི་དང་པོ་ see དྭངས་མར་.
F. ADDITIONAL NOTES.
In l. 10 the ལ་ might also be understood as ‘with a view to, for the
purpose of, explaining, expounding.’ The translation should in that
case rather run: With a view to expounding the profound (Buddhist)
doctrine, they preached, explained, most fully, minutely, in full
detail, Yoga and the other teachings (or the various kinds of Yoga) of
the two stages of the road.... ལ་ has then the force of: with regard,
reference to; as far as ... is concerned.
In l. 17 the ‘till’ ought to be more emphatically rendered: until the
very moment that, i.e. I shall not cease a moment before. Or else: till
I reach the very heart of saintship. See J. s.v. བར་.
In l. 49 ‘May all those’ is more correct than ‘May all of you,’ for,
unlike in the three preceding verses which are addressed to his pupils,
the author now utters a universal prayer addressed to mankind in
general.
Note to p. 2. Waddell, Lāmaist Graces before Meat, J.R.A.S., 1894, p.
265, says that the libation is sprinkled with the tips of the fore and
middle fingers. This is denied by my informants who maintain their
statement as given on p. 2, above.
To p. 4. After the Introduction was in print I have seen a copy of the
དགའ་ལྡན་ལྷ་བརྒྱ་མ་, ‘The Galdan Century of Gods,’ and had it copied for me.
It is a small prayer-book to Tsoṅ kʽa pa, who manifests in a hundred
different forms, and it contains 18 four-lined stanzas of 9 syllables
each, with the single exception of the stanza quoted in the
Introduction, which contains five lines.
This little book is the one mentioned in the Hor chos byuṅ (Huth’s
translation, p. 387—see note 5—, and text p. 246). Huth gives as Sk.
equivalent for the title: Tushitadevaçatikā. Galdan (Tushita) is here
the heaven of that name, not the famous monastery. The stanza we are
discussing is also mentioned in the same passage. Its name is དམིགས་བརྩེ་
མ་ (The unfathomable love verse). This Dmigs brtse ma is of
considerable theological importance. I possess a commentary on it
written by བློ་བཟང་བསྐལ་བཟང་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, the seventh Dalai Lama. Grünwedel, in
the list of Dalai Lamas on p. 206 of his ‘Mythologie,’ etc., writes སྐལ་
ལྡན་ and Rockhill, in ‘Tibet, a ... sketch derived from Chinese
sources,’ J.R.A.S., Vol. XXIII, new series, 1891, p. 287, སྐལ་བཟང་.
Since, I have also found that this same stanza, with a modification,
occurs on the title page of Sarat Chandra Das’ edition of the དཔག་བསམ་
འཁྲི་ཤིང་ (Bibl. Ind.). The stanza as there given consists of six lines,
by the addition of an initial line to
དངོས་གྲུབ་ཀུན་འབྱུང་ཐུབ་དབང་རྡོ་རྗེ་འཆང་ །,
i.e. the Thunderbolt-bearer, Vajradhara.
In another little work, the སྤྱན་འདྲེན་ཁྲུས་གསོལ་ཕྱག་མཆོད་ཀྱི་རིམ་པ་སྒོ་གསུམ་མུན་སེལ་,
‘The illuminator of body, speech and mind concerning the order of
inviting, lustrating, making obeisance to and worshipping (Tsoṅ kʽa
pa),’ the stanza occurs once more, again in a different form.
There, p. 9b, the prayer is as in our Introduction, but lacks the third
line (བདུད་དཔུང་, etc.) and ends with དཔལ་ལ་ཕྱག་ཚལ་ལོ་. Also, instead of
འཇམ་པའི་དབྱངས་ in the second line, this text writes འཇམ་དཔལ་དབྱངས་.
I am informed that the prayer occurs also in many other books with
modifications, and that when it is used in connection with ཁྲུས་པ་ or
‘lustration’ rites the closing words after གྲགས་པའི་ཞབས་ལ་ are changed
into སྐུ་ཁྲུས་གསོལ་, ‘we baptise thee.’
To p. 17. S. Ch. D., p. 490 b, s.v. གཉན་ཐབ་པ་ mentions a medicinal root
used against the plague, called ལྕགས་ཀྱ་ (without zhabs-kyu), but
transcribed lcags kyu.
To p. 23. Huth, Hor chos byuṅ, trs., p.117, renders མཁའ་འགྲོ་ as ḍāka,
also on p. 118 (see note 4). On p. 231 (see note 1) he suggests that
མཁའ་འགྲོ་ should be understood as ḍākinī = མཁའ་འགྲོ་མ་, not as Sk. ḍāka.
The dge rgan understands all these three passages as referring to
(female) ḍākinīs. Though according to Grünwedel (‘Mythologie,’ p. 153)
in Sk. mythology a male ḍāka exists (a Tantra deity), in Tibet the མཁའ་
འགྲོ་ is always feminine, and a male species or individual does not exist
according to my informants. This statement needs testing of course.
Grünwedel (loc. cit.) thinks that these female ḍākinīs are original
Tibetan spirits or goddesses. The female ཡེ་ཤེས་མཁའ་འགྲོ་’s are mentioned
indifferently with or without the final མ་. Macdonell in his Sk. Dict.
only mentions the feminine form of the word. In the ritual book གཅོད་ཆ་
དྲུག་ “The six cut off pieces” (i.e. chapters, divisions, into which the
description of the torma offering is divided) we find the apostrophe:
ཀྱེ་མ་མི་མིན་ཡེ་ཤེས་ཀྱི་མཁའ་འགྲོ་མ་, “O, wisdom fairy, supernatural (= not-human)
mother,” so defining the sex. In Tibetan the form མཁའ་འགྲོ་ must
accordingly not be understood as a masculine form of མཁའ་འགྲོ་མ་, but as
its abbreviated form only. This without prejudice to the question
whether in special Tantric texts a male god Ḍāka, མཁའ་འགྲོ་, does occur.
S. Ch. D. has for མཁའ་འགྲོ་ an entry giving the meanings ‘god, bird,
arrow.’ Here the word has a poetical or metaphorical meaning based on
its etymology, ‘sky-goer’, but no mythological value. He adds under
མཁའ་འགྲོ་མ་ ‘a class, mainly of female spirits.’ But the form in མ་
cannot be masculine. In Tibet there is a class of people called ཆོས་རྗེ་,
both male and female, whose name may be translated as oracles, shamans
or mediums. They are deemed to be obsessed by ཆོས་སྐྱོང་’s who speak
through them whilst they themselves are in a state of trance or
obsession. Their name is ཆོས་རྗེ་ in Lhasa and other greater towns, and
amongst the more educated; but the country-people and the lower orders
have a special name for these mediums if they are women and call them
རྣལ་འབྱོར་མ་ or མཁའ་འགྲོ་མ་. In Sikkhim the word མཁའ་འགྲོ་མ་ is general in
this sense. In Sikkhim the designation for a male medium of this sort
is དཔའ་བོ་ and not ཆོས་རྗེ་ as in Tibet.
Whilst investigating the question of Khandomas from the standpoint of
colloquial Tibetan I stumbled unexpectedly on the following interesting
piece of information, throwing a vivid sidelight on some current
beliefs and practices of modern Tibet.
The abbot of the Saskya monastery is held to be the reincarnation of
Padmasambhava. As the latter was the great ‘binder,’ that is subduer,
of all spirits, witches, goblins and other creatures of that ilk, the
Saskya abbot has in some way become the official head and master of all
Tibetan witches. Belief in witches is rife all over Tibet, and any
woman is liable to be declared one. The process is very simple. If a
great Lama receives obeisance from the multitude he presents the
devotees in return with a ‘protection-knot’ (སྲུང་མདུད་), a narrow strip
of cloth which he puts round their necks. He ties a knot in it
muttering some mantram over it, hence the name. Ordinary laymen receive
a white strip, tapas or those who have their hair cut short (probably
because they look like tapas) get a yellow or red strip, but if a woman
approaches whom the Lama by his magic knowledge recognizes as a witch,
she receives a black strip. From that moment she is irrevocably a witch
and no protestation can help her out of the situation. In the Saskya
monastery an annual feast or ceremony is celebrated in which all
witches must appear personally, and the magic then displayed is so
tremendously powerful that all women who are secretly endowed with the
powers of witchcraft without the people knowing it, are irresistibly
compelled to attend the meeting. They simply cannot help it, and so
stories are told of witches working in the fields, milking cows, or
otherwise engaged, being drawn away from their work and appearing in
the assembly with their milk-pail, or spindle, or whatever utensil they
were using at the time at any work, when they were forced to quit it
and to come to Saskya. In the meeting they are then officially
proclaimed witches and forced to pledge allegiance and obedience to the
Saskya monastery and its head. Then the profitable and practical side
of the transaction becomes manifest, for henceforth they have to pay an
annual, heavy witch-tax, and in cases known to Karma himself, who came
across them when living in Tibet, this tax amounted to one རྡོ་ཚད་ (see
Bell, p. 104) or about Rs. 120 a year. On the other hand they are now
protected by the authority of the monastery as long as they pay the
tax, though they have to pledge themselves not to use their powers for
evil. Then they receive the official title of ས་སྐྱ་མཁའ་འགྲོ་, though they
are known to the people as འབའ་མོ་, witch. But this latter word is a
term of abuse or contempt. The meaning of the two terms, however, is
the same. The entries in the dicts. s.v. འབའ་མོ་ and པོ་ (and other
spellings) need proper testing in the light of the above. These witches
are supposed not to live up to a great age but to die young, because
the monastery calls them out of life to become protecting spirits of
the monastery in the invisible spheres. When a bamo dies, her daughter,
if she has any, inherits the office or quality of the mother. These
bamos, during life, follow the ordinary occupations of women: buying,
selling, working or marrying, and their bamo-hood seems to be no
drawback, in itself, to their matrimonial prospects. I heard of the
case of a bamo who was the wife of a very wealthy man. But the tax, far
in excess of any levied on ordinary people, must be regularly paid. If
the bamo does not pay her tax, the monastery calls her soul and she
dies. In the gompa for every accredited འབའ་མོ་ there is a སོབ་ or
stuffed effigy, puppet, of which I have not been able to get a full
description. Probably a stuffed doll or body, with a mask and garment,
perhaps only a stick to hold the mask and garment up, like in a
puppet-show. Each such puppet becomes the dwelling-place of the soul of
a dead bamo when she dies, and in order to see to it that after death
she may not do harm whilst roaming about, the puppet is bound in
chains. Horrible to say, however, sometimes these chains are found
broken by the guardians, and this is a sure sign that the imprisoned
soul has escaped from the puppet which was its dwelling-place and that
it may have started on a pilgrimage of evil works. As soon as it is
found that such an imprisoned witch-soul has escaped, solemn notice is
at once sent out to all Tibet to the effect that a bamo-soul has broken
loose from Saskya, and the various local Lamas all through the country
warn their flocks that a bamo is at large and enjoin them to be careful
not to fall a victim to the wandering witch. So, for instance, they are
told not to go about alone after dark, not to entertain strangers, and
the like, for the bamo may assume any disguise, and any man may fall a
prey to the snares of a beautiful strange woman, as any woman might be
allured by an unknown man. The late Lama Sherabgyamtsho in Ghoom, whose
name is so well known to all students of Tibetan, used very often to
make solemn announcements of this nature and warn the Ghoom people that
a bamo had escaped from Saskya.
A most fitting ending to this story is perhaps to be made by quoting
the old Buddhist formula “Thus I have heard,” but there is no doubt
that the word མཁའ་འགྲོ་མ་ acquires an interesting new meaning through
this curious tale.
There is a belief prevalent in Tibet that in every woman a touch of
bamo-hood is latent (some philosophers, also outside Tibet, seem to
think the same!), but in the night of the 29th day of the twelfth
Tibetan month, this seed of evil will manifest most fully. The male
Tibetans, however, seem not to take any precautions or perform any
rites to counteract the sinister influence of this date. Evidently it
is a male Tibetan who first set up this theory, and it might be the
same fellow who is the author of the following proverb which bears on
our subject and on the words we are dealing with. It runs:
སྐྱེས་དམན་བརྒྱ་ལ་མཁའ་འགྲོ་གཅིག་
ཁྱོ་ག་བརྒྱ་ལ་འབའ་པོ་གཅིག་
Amongst a hundred women (at most) one khando!
Amongst a hundred men (at most) one sorcerer!
That is—khando being here used in the good sense of fairy—: Amongst
many women there is scarcely one extremely good, but amongst many men
there is scarcely one extremely bad. In fact, in Tibet, all women are
suspected of having just a little seed of evil (of the witch) in them.
And so the term of reproach is not as in Europe ‘Old Adam’ but rather
‘Old Eve.’
As far as the above story is concerned, it should not be forgotten that
it is only a popular version of an interesting phase of religious
practice, but Tibetan casuistry and theology are as a rule so subtle
and well-systematised that a more theoretical exposition of the
doctrines and practices alluded to might throw considerably more, if
not other and new, light on the subject.
To p. 25. The quotation, s.v. ཁྲེལ་བ༌, l. 16: ཆོས་ཐོས་པས་, etc., is from a
little tract, a prayer to Padmasambhava, entitled བསམ་པ་མྱུར་འགྲུབ་མ་, ‘the
quick mind-fulfiller.’
To p. 25. Cf. Lewin, pp. 133–134, no. 97–10, གཞད་གད་ (རྒྱུ་), ridiculous;
zhed-ked, laughter, ridicule.
To p. 26. ངོ་ཚ་བ་ Bell, voc., to blush; Lewin, p. 77 (64–5), ridiculous.
See his example.
To p. 30. S. Ch. D., Dict., has ཀོ་ཀོ་ (hidden on p. 34, out of
alphabetical order) as ‘a Tibetan of mixed breed, i.e. born of a
Chinese father and a Tibetan mother.’ Waddell, Lhasa and its Mysteries,
p. 214, the same explanation. A special enquiry into this point,
however, yielded a different result. One of my informants was a Tibetan
woman from Lhasa who had herself married a Chinaman there, and so ought
to know. The half-breeds referred to by S. Ch. D. and Waddell are
called ‘baizhin,’ spelling uncertain, given as བལ་བཞིན་ and བའི་ཞིན་, said
to be a Chinese word. However, another explanation of that same word
was given, as a man not in the pay of, not taking wages from, another.
Not necessarily rich or of high position, but independent. Perhaps
something like crofter. This latter explanation is, however,
contradicted by Karma who has relations amongst the baizhins in Tibet.
In a Tibetan mixed marriage such as we are here considering the custom
is to call the elder son ཀོ་ཀོ་ after the Chinese manner, instead of
using the Tibetan word. This is ཨ་ཇོ་ in Tsang and ཇོ་ཇོ་ in Lhasa. The
latter is pronounced, and sometimes written, ཅོ་ཅོ་ and even sometimes
pronounced chö-cho, as if written ཅོས་ཅོ་. But in the above case ཀོ་ཀོ་
means really ‘elder brother.’ A girl, born in such a marriage, is
similarly called མི་མི་, Chinese, instead of ཨ་ཆེ་, Tibetan. These terms
do not mean half-blood. Whether མི་མི་ is used for the eldest daughter
alone or for all the daughters of the marriage I could not ascertain.
It is said that every Chinaman, however humble, becomes at once a
personage of importance when in Tibet, and demands to be addressed at
least as དཔོན་པོ་, Mister, Sir (as every European becomes automatically a
Sahib in India), and feels quite insulted if addressed by the more
familiar ཀོ་ཀོ་ as a liberty taken with his dignity. A Chinaman from
Tibet, however, denied this. I remember once travelling in the Sunda
country with my Javanese writer who met several people on the road whom
he knew and whom he saluted as ‘little brother’ or ‘elder brother.’ I
was puzzled at his belonging to so big a family, but found the solution
of the riddle when I understood that this fraternity was not one of
consanguinity at all. So ‘elder sister’ amongst Tibetans means only
Madam, Lady, or a polite word of address to any woman of more than low
status in life. In German Mütterchen for any old woman of simple
status.
To pp. 35–37. The expression ཀུན་ཏུ་བཟང་པོས་བརྒྱན་པའི་ཞིང་ occurring in the
little prayer-book བཟང་སྤྱོད་ can hardly mean ‘a field (= heaven, world)
which Kuntuzangpo has adorned’ (beautified, decorated, embellished), in
the sense in which one may decorate a house or room, with beautiful
pictures, furniture, etc. It must surely be understood as ‘the heaven
blazing with the glory of Kuntuzangpo’s presence in it,’ a heaven
resplendent with his glory. In other words, he adorns it by his mere
being there, but not as the result of some activity expressed by a
transitive verb. The world is adorned, but has not been decorated or
beautified. I wonder if the agentive case པོས་ may be understood as in
English expressions like: ‘happy through him,’ ‘blazing with diamonds,’
‘laughing for joy,’ and the like.
To p. 40. See the unusual explanation of ཅེས་པ་ in S. Ch. D., s.v. ག་
III, where he translates ཅེས་པའོ་ as ‘it may be said.’ The dge rgan,
however, paraphrases the expression here as ལབ་པ་རེད་ or ལབ་གི་འདུག་, or
ཅེས་སྨྲས་སོ་, which gives it another meaning, namely: ‘so it has been
said,’ ‘so is the teaching,’ ‘that is what has been taught.’ In this
sense the previous words are a direct quotation and the ཅེས་པའོ་ cannot
be translated as ‘it may be said that.’
To p. 40. In the note to ཆགས་སྡང་, for འདོད་ཆགས་དང་ཞེ་སྡང་, non-attachment
and indifference only in connection with a negative.
To p. 44. ལྟ་བ་. See Graham Sandberg, Tibet and the Tibetans, p. 268,
who renders this word, as a technical term denoting the first of the
four stages of meditation, according to Milaraspa, as ‘contemplation’
or ‘concentration.’ The second word, denoting a mental action
unconnected with visual experience, does not seem appropriate. As in
English ‘view’ has both a physical and a mental meaning, so in Tibetan
ལྟ་བ་, as a verb, has mental connotations. J. has the word as sbst.
‘mystical contemplation.’ The Sk. equivalent, दर्शन, is likewise both
physical and mental in meaning. Whereas J. and S. Ch. D. have a sbst.
ལྟ་བ་ ‘the act of looking,’ and ‘a look,’ Desg. has it as ‘sight’
(visus, vue, “etc.”).
To p. 58. See Jäschke’s note on maṇḍa and maṇḍala, s.v. དཀྱིལ་, p. 11 b.
His remark may have a bearing on the question of ḍāka and ḍākinī,
discussed above. See next note.
To pp. 59 and 60. My informants, though ignorant about the detail of
five and nine cushions, do know of a custom requiring the man of higher
social position, greater age, more prestige, to be seated on a higher
seat as a sign of respect. The difference of height, however, is in the
seat itself, not effected by the placing of a number of cushions on
seats of equal height.
To གདན་ still the two following words: རྟ་གདན་, saddle cloth, and ཁ་
གདན་, second sheet, upper sheet, covering sheet over the འབོལ་གདན་. The
འབོལ་གདན་ is usually thick and rough but the ཁ་གདན་ thin and of finer
texture, like in European beds the bed sheet over the mattress. The
འབོལ་གདན་ is for softness and the ཁ་གདན་ for cleanliness, like the loose
covers of armchairs and sofas in Western countries.
To p. 62. Huth, Hor chos byuṅ, trs. 117, note 4, reconstitutes the name
Blo bzaṅ grags pai dpal into Sk. Matibhadrakīrtiçrī. In Tibetan
mantrams, however, where Tsoṅ kʽa pa’s name is given in its Sk. form,
Sumati is used and not Matibhadra. See also p. 5 of the Introduction,
supra.
To p. 64. The word དམིགས་མེད་ (p. 3 and additional note to p. 4) should
have been discussed there. Desg. alone has the meaning of the word as
in our text: unthinkable, unimaginable. According to oral information,
synonymous with བསམ་མི་ཁྱབ་, l. 12, see p. 74, supra.
The elaborate entries in J. and S. Ch. D. under this word and under
དམིགས་པ་མེད་པ་ need investigation.
The word དམིགས་པ་ has also a special meaning, not in the dictionaries,
in connection with any action done ‘in thought,’ དམིགས་པ་བྱེད་པ་ (as in
English ‘I am with you in thought’). But Tibetans can not only be
present in thought but they can give presents ‘in thought,’ and do all
sorts of things ‘in thought,’ when there is no physical possibility of
doing so in the flesh. So the good story is told of a lazy Lama who, to
get rid of the crowd, said: “And now I give my hand-blessing to you all
‘in thought,’” whereupon a disappointed and angry pilgrim answered:
“Well, then I give you my butter-offerings, which I have brought with
me, also ‘in thought.’”
To p. 65. The dictionaries spelt པོ་ཏ་ལ་ but the dge rgan says that པོ་ཏཱ་
ལ་ also occurs. Desg. has an alternative spelling པོ་ཌ་ལ་, but this
seems a misprint for པོ་ཊ་ལ་. In Tibetan books I have only seen ཏ་ but
the dge rgan is sure that the two spellings, ཊ་ and ཏཱ་ (but not ཊཱ་),
occur as well.
To the text. When the larger part of this booklet was in print I
acquired an additional copy of the text, which proved to be different
from the two editions used by me. It is of the same size and style as
edition A, but printed from other blocks. We call it C. The copy is a
poor one, badly printed from worn-out blocks. A collation brought no
news of importance. The reading ངེས་སོ་ in l. 16, however, is confirmed
by this edition. Its only new reading is འཆིང་བར་ for འཆང་བར་ in l. 46.
This reading does not seem so satisfactory as the one we have followed.
The full result of the collation is given below. Indistinct readings
are marked with a note of interrogation.
C. l. 13. འཛིན་བའི་? for པའི་
l. 18. གཏོགས་བར་ ” པར་
l. 24. བརྩོན་པ་ ” པར་
l. 29. ཀུན་སླང་ ” སློང་
l. 30. མཆན་? ” མཚན་
l. 41. བཤེས་གཉེན་ང་? ” པ་
l. 44. འདུག་བའི་ ” པའི་
l. 46. འཆིང་ ” འཆང་
l. 50. རྔེས་ ” རྗེས་
l. 51. རྟོགས་ངའི་ ” པའི་
Colophon. གདུངས་ ” གདུང་
” བཀྲ་ཤིས་ ” desunt.
The variants of ll. 30, 41, 50 and 51 are evidently due to
deterioration of the blocks. There is no ༈ in this edition.
ERRATA.
p. 7: first variant, bottom, read: སྙེག་.
p. 8: l. 20 of text, insert asterisk after བརྩེ་.
p. 9: second variant, bottom, read: འཁྲེལ་.
p. 14, l. 13: teacher (or: teachers).
p. 14, l. 14: his (or: their).
p. 25, l. 1: for render read: repay.
p. 27, l. 20: for render read: repay.
p. 27, l. 27, 28: eliminate the commas outside the brackets.
p. 36, l. 4: for Smuck read: Schmuck.
p. 65, l. 24: for Lhassa read: Lhasa.
p. 76, l. 24: for ཁྲུས་པ་ read: ཁྲུས་.
p. 76. l. 25: for baptise read: lustrate.
NOTES
[1] l. 2 B སྙག་
[2] l. 5 B པའི་
[3] l. 7 A 1 and 2 བར་
[4] l. 7 B དྲིན་
[5] l. 10 B པ་
[6] l. 16 A 1 and 2 both ངས་. Text from B
[7] l. 16 B closes the line with a ༈ instead of ༎
[8] l. 17 B དེང་
[9] l. 18 B པ་
[10] l. 19 B ནས་
[11] l. 20 A 2 བརྩ་
[12] l. 22 B བས་
[13] l. 24 A 1 and 2 བཙོན་
[14] l. 24 B པ་
[15] l. 26 B ཅིང་
[16] l. 29 B ཕུང་
[17] l. 29 A 2 སླང་
[18] l. 32 B ཀྱང་
[19] l. 32 B འཁྲལ་
[20] l. 34 B བསྒྲུབ་
[21] l. 35 B ཁྲུག་
[22] l. 37 A 1 and 2 ཐཔས་
[23] l. 38 B འཆད་
[24] l. 40 B སྐྱེལ་བཞིན་ instead of གཏོང་བ་
[25] l. 41 B རྣམས་
[26] l. 42 B སོམས་
[27] l. 43 B སྦྱོངས་
[28] l. 44 B last three words in B བདག་འཛིན་ཐུལ་
[29] l. 45 A 1 and B བོ་
[30] l. 45 B ཀུན་
[31] l. 46 last four words in B བར་མི་བྱེད་པར་
[32] l. 47 A 2 བླ་
[33] l. 48 4 2 བོར་
[34] l. 48 B has ༈ at the end of the line instead of ༎
[35] l. 49 B ཀུན་
[36] Colophon, A 2 has no ཅད་ after ཐམས་, and has a final ས་ to གདུངས་.
B has a different colophon འདི་བྞ་ཆེན་དགེ་འདུན་གྲུབ་ཀྱིས་མཛད་པའོ ༎
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Minor Tibetan Texts: 1. The song of the Eastern Snow-mountain" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.