Minor Tibetan Texts: 1. The song of the Eastern Snow-mountain
Author: Unknown
Date: 2022-02-20T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Prayer -- China -- Tibet Autonomous Region -- Buddhism; Buddhist literature; Tibetan; Tibetan language -- Texts

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Minor Tibetan Texts: 1. The song of the Eastern Snow-mountain

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Minor Tibetan Texts: 1. The song of the Eastern Snow-mountain

Editor: Johan van Manen

Release date: February 20, 2022 [eBook #67451]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: Tibetan, English

Original publication: India: Asiatic Society, 1919

Credits: Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net/ for Project Gutenberg (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MINOR TIBETAN TEXTS: 1. THE SONG OF THE EASTERN SNOW-MOUNTAIN ***

[Contents]

[Contents]

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.

[Contents]

རྗེ་ཡབ་སྲས་གསུམ་
རྒྱལ་ཚབ་རྗེ་ | རྗེ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་ | མཁས་གྲུབ་རྗེ་

[iii]

[Contents]

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 [iv]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. [v]

[Contents]

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.

[1]

MINOR TIBETAN TEXTS.

Primarily Lexicographically Treated.

By Johan Van Manen.

[Contents]

I. THE SONG OF THE EASTERN SNOW MOUNTAIN.

[Contents]

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.’ [2]

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 [3]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), [4]

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  a,, ceremony,, | : | ཞབས་ཀྱི་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཤོག །
Before tea | : | ཞལ་ལ་ (or དུ་) མཆོད་པ་འབུལ །
After   tea,, | : | 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 [5]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 [6]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. [7]

[Contents]

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་*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་*ཤར་ཕྱོགས་ན །

6 འབྲོག་དགེ་ལྡན་རྣམ་པར་རྒྱལ་བ་དེར ༎

7 མཚན་བརྗོད་པར་*དཀའ་བའི་རིན**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་*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 ༎[8]

15 རྗེ་ཡབ་སྲས་རྣམས་ཀྱི་བཀའ་དྲིན་ཡིན ༎

16 དྲིན་ཆེ་བར་ངེས་*སོ་ཡབ་སྲས་རྣམས** ༎

V 17 དུས་འདི་*ནས་བྱང་ཆུབ་སྙིང་པོའི་བར ༎

18 རྗེ་ཡབ་སྲས་ཁྱེད་རྣམས་མ་གཏོགས་པར* ༎

19 སྐྱབས་རེ་ས་གཞན་དུ་*མི་འཚོལ་བས ༎

20 ཐུགས་བརྩེ་*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* ༎

23 མགོན་ཁྱོད་ཀྱི་བསྟན་པ་འཛིན་པ་ལ ༎

24 དུས་ནམ་ཡང་བརྩོན་*པར་**བགྱིད་པར་སྨོན ༎

III

VII 25 ལར་ད་ལྟ་གངས་རིའི་ཁྲོད་འདི་ན ༎

26 རང་བསྟན་པ་འཛིན་པར་ཁས་ལེན་ཞིང་* ༎

27 གཞན་བསྟན་འཛིན་དགྲ་བོའི་དྭངས་མར་འཛིན ༎

28 ཚུལ་འདི་ལ་སྐྱོ་བ་གཏིང་ནས་སྐྱེས ༎

VIII 29 གཞན་འཕུང་*བར་འདོད་པའི་ཀུན་སློང་**དང་ ༎

30 རྒྱུད་མཚན་འཛིན་དམ་པོས་བཅིངས་ལགས་ཀྱང་ ༎[9]

31 ལམ་མཐོན་པོར་གནས་པའི་ཁས་ལེན་བྱེད ༎

32 འདི་བརྟགས་ན་ཀུན་གྱིས་*ཁྲེལ་**བའི་རྒྱུ ༎

IX 33 ལམ་གོལ་སར་རྒས་པའི་སྡུག་ཡུས་ཀྱིས ༎

34 ཆོས་ཚུལ་བཞིན་བྱེད་*པའི་གང་ཟག་ལ ༎

35 རྒྱུད་ཁོང་ནས་འཁྲུགས་*པའི་གདུག་སེམས་ཅན ༎

36 གདོན་ཐུགས་ལ་ཞུགས་པ་མ་ལགས་སམ ༎

IV

X 37 དགྲ་ཉོན་མོངས་འདུལ་ཐབས་*མི་བྱེད་པར ༎

38 གཤགས་འགྱེད་པ་ཙམ་གྱི་བཤད་*ཉན་ཡང་ ༎

39 འདྲེ་ཤར་སྒོའི་ཕྱོགས་སུ་གནས་པ་ལ ༎

40 གླུད་ནུབ་སྒོར་གཏོང་*བ་*དོན་རེ་ཆུང་ ༎

XI 41 དོན་དེ་ལྟར་གོ་བའི་བཤེས་གཉེན་པ* ༎

42 སྤྱིར་ལུས་ཅན་ཀུན་ལ་བཀའ་དྲིན་བསམ* ༎

43 སྒོས་ཆོས་མཛད་ཡོངས་ལ་དག་སྣང་སྦྱོང་* ༎

44 དགྲ་ནང་ན་འདུག་པའི་ཉོན་*མོངས་*འདུལ** ༎

XII 45 མི་ཁོ་བོའི་རྗེས་མཇུག་གྲོགས་པོ་*རྣམས* ༎

46 ཡིད་ཕྱོགས་སུ་ལྷུང་བས་*མ་*འཆང་*བར* ༎[10]

47 བློ་*གཟུ་བོར་གནས་པའི་རྟོག་དཔྱོད་ཀྱིས །

48 ལམ་དྲང་པོར་*ཞུགས་པ་ཅིས་ཀྱང་ལེགས ༎*

V

XIII 49 གཏམ་འདི་ལ་བརྟེན་ནས་འགྲོ་བ་རྣམས* ༎

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་*མཁྱེན་པ་ཆེན་པོ་དགེ་འདུན་གྲུབ་པ་དཔལ་བཟང་
པོས་གདུང་*དབྱངས་སུ་མཛད་པའོ ༎
བཀྲ་ཤིས ༎

Textual Notes

*l. 2 B སྙག་ *l. 5 B པའི་ *l. 7 A 1 and 2 བར་ **l. 7 B དྲིན་ *l. 10 B པ་ *l. 16 A 1 and 2 both ངས་. Text from B **l. 16 B closes the line with a ༈ instead of ༎ *l. 17 B དེང་ *l. 18 B པ་ *l. 19 B ནས་ *l. 20 A 2 བརྩ་ *l. 22 B བས་ *l. 24 A 1 and 2 བཙོན་ **l. 24 B པ་ *l. 26 B ཅིང་ *l. 29 B ཕུང་ **l. 29 A 2 སླང་ *l. 32 B ཀྱང་ **l. 32 B འཁྲལ་ *l. 34 B བསྒྲུབ་ *l. 35 B ཁྲུག་ *l. 37 A 1 and 2 ཐཔས་ *l. 38 B འཆད་ *l. 40 B སྐྱེལ་བཞིན་ instead of གཏོང་བ་ *l. 41 B རྣམས་ *l. 42 B སོམས་ *l. 43 B སྦྱོངས་ *l. 44 B last three words in B བདག་འཛིན་ཐུལ་ *l. 45 A 1 and B བོ་ *l. 45 B ཀུན་ *l. 46 last four words in B བར་མི་བྱེད་པར་ *l. 47 A 2 བླ་ *l. 48 4 2 བོར་ *l. 48 B has ༈ at the end of the line instead of ༎ *l. 49 B ཀུན་ *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 ༎ [Contents]

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 [11]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, [12]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་, [13]‘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 [14]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.

[Contents]

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,[15]

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,[16]

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.

[Contents]

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་. [17]

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 [18]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.’ [19]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).…’ [20]

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). [21]

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་[22]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་. [23]

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 [24]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་[25]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. [26]

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. [27]

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. [28]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,’ [29]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 [30]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 [31]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 [32]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་
Ordinary,, | གླུ་ | = hon.,, | | མགུལ་གླུ་
བཞེས་ (sic.) གླུ་ (??)
གསུང་གླུ་
Ordinary,, | གཞེས་ | = hon.,, | | 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 [33]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་ [34]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་. [35]

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 [36](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 [37]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. [38]

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་. [39]

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་. [40]

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, [41]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 [42]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 [43]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.’ [44]

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་. [45]

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 [46]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. [47]

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. [48]

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. [49]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 [50]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). [51]

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. [52]

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 [53]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་[54]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 [55]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 [56]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 [57]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་. [58]

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 [59]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 [60]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་. [61]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 [62]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 [63]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་. [64]

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 [65]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་. [66]

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. [67]

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. [68]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 [69]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་. [70]

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 [71]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་. [72]

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 [73](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་. [74]

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་. [75]

[Contents]

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 [76]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 [77]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, [78]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 [79]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 [80]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 [81]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. [82]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 [83]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 [84]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. [85]

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. [86]

[Contents]

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.

Table of Contents

| PREFATORY NOTE. | iii
| ABBREVIATIONS. | v
| MINOR TIBETAN TEXTS. Primarily Lexicographically Treated. | 1
| I. | THE SONG OF THE EASTERN SNOW MOUNTAIN. | 1
| A. | Introduction. | 1
| B. | Text. | 7
| C. | The Variants. | 10
| D. | Translation. The Song of the Eastern Snow Mountain. | 14
| E. | Glossary and Notes. (Lexicographical, Syntactical and Material.) | 16
| F. | Additional Notes. | 75
| ERRATA. | 86

Colophon

Availability

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org.

This eBook is produced by the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net.

The scans used to prepare this book are available from The Internet Archive (copy 1).

Metadata

Title: | Minor Tibetan Texts: The Song of the Eastern Snow-Mountain |
Author: | Johan van Manen (1877–1943) | Info
Language: | English |
Original publication date: | 1919 |

Encoding

Numerous missing periods and tshegs have been supplied. This is probably an issue with the available scan-sets from which this ebook has been prepared and not necessarily an issue in the original book.

Revision History

- 2021-11-08 Started.

External References

This Project Gutenberg eBook contains external references. These links may not work for you.

Corrections

The following corrections have been applied to the text:

Page | Source | Correction | Edit distance
Passim. | [Not in source] | . | 1
v, 19, 29, 43, 57, 61, 61 | [Not in source] | , | 1
4, 22, 23, 26, 27, 30, 36, 45, 50, 54, 63, 68, 81 | [Not in source] | ༌ | 1
7 | སྙ ག་ | སྙག་ | 1
7 | དྲི ན་ | དྲིན་ | 1
9 | འཁྲལ | འཁྲལ་ | 1
11 | བའི | བའི་ | 1
11, 38 | . | , | 1
11 | authorised | authorized | 1
11 | བསྙེག | བསྙེག་ | 1
12, 48 | . | [Deleted] | 1
16 | समुत्पद | समुत्पाद | 1 / 0
17 | fishiṅg | fishing | 1 / 0
18 | neccessarily | necessarily | 1
19, 63 | [Not in source] | ) | 1
20, 23, 31, 31, 34, 43, 46, 54, 66, 72, 72 | [Not in source] | ’ | 1
21 | colloquíal | colloquial | 1 / 0
21 | ). | .’ | 2
24 | ruchslos | ruchlos | 1
26, 30, 59, 61, 75 | ’, | ,’ | 2
27 | [Not in source] | རི་ | 3 / 2
28 | Dailalamas | Dalailamas | 2
31, 58, 73 | [Not in source] | ‘ | 1
32 | ( | [Deleted] | 1
36 | Smuck | Schmuck | 2
36 | अलंकरपण्डित | अलंकारपण्डित | 1 / 0
36 | Skr. | Sk. | 1
37 | - | [Deleted] | 1
38 | ལྟགསྒོ་ | ལྟག་སྒོ་ | 1
38 | སྐྱེསྒོ་ | སྐྱེ་སྒོ་ | 1
42 | - | | 1
44 | See | see | 1
55 | nishprapaṅca | nishprapañca | 1 / 0
55 | apaṅca | apañca | 1 / 0
55, 56 | aprapaṅca | aprapañca | 1 / 0
57 | ? | ’ | 1
58 | , | [Deleted] | 1
61 | [Not in source] | .’s | 3
62 | gives | give | 1
65, 78 | Lhassa | Lhasa | 1
68 | ’* | *’ | 2
68 | विशलक्षी | विशालाक्षी | 2 / 0
72 | ’ | [Deleted] | 1
73 | [Not in source] | ’. | 2
77, 84 | dge-rgan | dge rgan | 1
77 | Tantrik | Tantric | 1
80 | dwelling place-and | dwelling-place and | 2
80 | འབའ་བོ་ | འབའ་པོ་ | 1

Abbreviations

Overview of abbreviations used.

Abbreviation | Expansion
J.A.S.B. | [Expansion not available]
J.’s | Jäschke’s
N.B. | Nota Bene
N.S. | New Series
S. Ch. D.’s | Sarat Chandra Das’
s.v. | [Expansion not available]
S.v. | [Expansion not available]

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MINOR TIBETAN TEXTS: 1. THE SONG OF THE EASTERN SNOW-MOUNTAIN ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the United States and you are located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project Gutenberg™ License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website (www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works provided that:

- • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”

- • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ works.

- • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of receipt of the work.

- • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™

Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.

Table of Contents

- PREFATORY NOTE.

- ABBREVIATIONS.

- MINOR TIBETAN TEXTS. Primarily Lexicographically Treated.

- I. THE SONG OF THE EASTERN SNOW MOUNTAIN.

- A. Introduction.

- B. Text.

- I
- II
- III
- IV
- V
- VI

- Textual Notes

- C. The Variants.

- D. Translation. The Song of the Eastern Snow Mountain.

- OBEISANCE TO THE TEACHER.

- I. (His Teachers).

- II. (Himself).

- III. (His Contemporaries).

- IV. (His Pupils).

- V. (Final Prayer).

- VI. (Final Blessing).

- E. Glossary and Notes. (Lexicographical, Syntactical and Material.)

- F. Additional Notes.

- ERRATA.

- Table of Contents

- Colophon

- Availability
- Metadata
- Encoding
- Revision History
- External References
- Corrections
- Abbreviations

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE