See the Tibetan translation of the Sarasvatīvyākaraṇa by Si tu paṇ chen Chos kyi ’byung gnas (i.e. mTso ldan ma’i brda sprod pa’i rab byed. Bod kyi bcu phrag rig mdzod chen mo: bKa’ brgyud pa’i gsung rab. Lanzhou: Kan su’u mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2004, vol. 1, p. 286: spyi bor thig le ni rjes su nga ro’o ||. I assume that spyi bor thig le is rendering of śīrṣabindu. But is śīrṣabindu as a name for the anusvāra sign attested in Sanskrit sources?
Indo-Tibetan Lexical Resources (ITLR): Issues (https://www.itlr.net)
Sunday, June 28, 2020
Saturday, February 16, 2019
On the Tibetan Rendering of Agastya
Here
is a small note pertaining to the Tibetan renderings of the name Agastya (= Agasti) as recorded in the ITLR. First, see MW (s.v.
agasti): “m. (according to, Uṇ. iv, 179 fr. 2. a-ga, a mountain, and asti,
thrower, √ 2. as). N. of a Ṛṣi (author of several Vedic hymns; said to have
been the son of both Mitra and Varuṇa by Urvaśī; to have been born in a
water-jar; to have been of short stature; to have swallowed the ocean, and
compelled the Vindhya mountains to prostrate themselves before him; to have
conquered and civilised the South; to have written on medicine, &c.) … the
star Canopus (of which Agastya is the regent, said to be the ‘cleanser of
water’, because of turbid waters becoming clean at its rising.” Second, the
name Agastya has been rendered into Tibetan in at least two ways, namely, as
(a) Ri ’dor/’phen (Saṃ bod shan sbyar,
p. 4) and as (b) Nyes ’dor (Vajratuṇḍasamayakalparāja-Tib,
B, p. 104.12). The former presupposes the interpretation: Agastya (or Agasti) =
aga (“mountain”) + asti (“thrower” from √as). Thus it has been rendered into
Tibetan as Ri ’dor/’phen “Mountain Hurler.” To be sure, a+ga means “unable to walk” and hence “a mountain” (among other
things). The latter Tibetan rendering presupposes the following understanding
by the translators: Agastya (or Agasti) = āga
(i.e. āgas and āga “sin” as in anāga
“sinless”) + asti “thrower” (cf. MW, s.v.
āgas “transgression, offence, injury, sin, fault”) and thus Nyes ’dor would
mean something like “Fault Eliminator/Avoider.”
Friday, February 15, 2019
On Vārāṇasī
Many
years ago, now mKhan-po bDud-’joms-rnam-rgyal, one of my classmates in the
monastic seminary (i.e. NNI) in rNam-grol-gling monastery, accompanied ’Gos
Padma-rgyal-mtshan, from whom we learnt a great deal about Tibetan brda dag snyan gsum (i.e. grammar,
lexicography/orthography, and poetry), to visit the famous Dil-mgo-mkhyen-brtse
Rin-po-che. rGan-lags wanted to ask sKyabs-rje Rin-po-che some question.
mKhan-po was full of anticipations. Perhaps he thought the meeting would be
something like the encounter of Bodhisattva Vimalakīrti and Mañjuśrī. mKhan-po
was, however, quite dismayed, because all what rGan-lags asked sKyabs-rje
Rin-po-che was about the etymology of Vārāṇasī. sKyabs-rje Rin-po-che simply
said he had no idea. rGan-lags was teaching in Sarnarth and obviously it has
been a burning question for him. It is also very typical of rGan-lags. He once
jokingly said that when he dies, he would do so by entering into the meditative
absorption of grammar. In English it does not sound funny. But it does in
Tibetan. Because dying by way of remaining in the meditative absorption is
usually seen as very profound and mystical. Sadly rGan-lags passed away
prematurely. It is a great loss for the Tibetan Buddhist intellectual world! We
would not know the state of mind he was in while passing away.
After this prelude, I actually wish
to address a few points pertaining to Vārāṇasī, its etymology, and to the
Tibetan interpretation and translation of the name in the context of the ITLR
entry on Vārāṇasī. First, Vārāṇasī has been mentioned in Buddhist sources (e.g.
both in the Pāli Mahāparinibbānasutta
and the Sanskrit Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra)
as one of the six great cities of India where the Buddha was active (Roth 2004:
123). According dGe-’dun-chos-’phel, name of the place where the Buddha set the
Wheel of Dharma into motion for the first time, one of the “four great sacred
places [connected with the life] of the Buddha” (sangs rgyas kyi gnas chen po bzhi), or, one of the “eight great
sacred places [connected with the life of the Buddha]” (gnas chen brgyad). See the dGe
chos gsung ’bum (B) (p. 392.13–16; Roth 2004: 123). Second, with
regard to the etymology, the MW
states: “the city Benares (more properly written Banaras; … so called after the
names of two rivers, Varaṇā and Asi, or Asī; also written Vāṇārasī q.v., Varāṇasī
or Vāraṇasī).” See also Apte: “Benares. This is at present situated at the
confluence of the rivers Vāraṇā and Asi, but formerly at the confluence of the
Ganges and Gomati (gaṅgāyā uttare kule
vaprānte rājasattama | gomatyā dakṣiṇe kule śakrasyevāmarāvatīm || Mb. 13.
30. 18 ). It was the capital of Kāśī, and seat of a Brahmanical University.”
Third, in Tibetan, the name has often
been left untranslated “Wā rā ṇa sī” (Mahāvyutpatti,
no. 4104; Mi-pham, Nor bu’i me long
(B): p. 388.2) or “Bā rā ṇa sī” (Roth 2004: 123). Occasionally, the name has been
translated as “Khor mo ’jig” (Hahn 2012: 9) or “Khor mor ’jig” (Hahn 2012: 9). In
this connection, Michael Hahn states: “A noteworthy case is khor mo(r) ’jig and wā rā ṇa sī for Vārāṇasī, which in the first case was analyzed as
consisting of vāra “turn” and the
derivation of the root naś “to perish”
(Hahn 2012: 9). Michael Hahn’s explanation of the Tibetan translation of Vārāṇasī
has not made clear that ’khor/khor mor was
obviously understood adverbially, that is, in the sense of vāraṃ vāram or vāraṃ vāreṇa,
many times, often, repeatedly (MW, s.v. vāra). Thus ’khor mor ’jig was understood by Tibetan translators as something
like “that which disintegrates repeatedly/continually.” The Tibetan translation
of the Vajratuṇḍasamayakalparāja (B,
vol. 96, p. 96.3) (the Sanskrit original is currently being studied by Gergely
Hidas) has g.yog ’dor (N [sNar thang]
is reported to read ’khar instead of ’dor) as the rendering of Vārāṇasī.
Péter Szántó (oral communication) surmises that g.yog here may be an interpretation of vāra in the sense of parivāra,
and the rendering ’dor seems to be a
rendering of √as (“to throw, cast”,
see MW, s.v. 2). See comments in Wadell 1914: 41, n. 32, where g.yog ’dor is understood literally as
“servant thrown off or forsaken or striding.” Since the Sanskrit text of the Vajratuṇḍasamayakalparāja has Vārāṇasī,
the reconstruction (i.e. urana + dāsa)
suggested in Wadell 1914: 41, n. 32 turns out to be wrong. In short, Vārāṇasī,
when translated into Tibetan, was translated in two ways, namely, as
’Khor-mor-’jig and as g.Yog-’dor.
Friday, January 25, 2019
Sahajavilāsa = ལྷན་ཅིག་སྐྱེས་པའི་རོལ་པ།
The Sanskrit name Sahajavilāsa (now recorded in the ITLR) has been
rendered into Tibetan as (a) lHan skyes sgegs pa (PTOS: P 2446; D 1315); (b)
lHan cig skyes pa’i rol pa (Lama 2013: 20, n. 77); (c) lHan skyes rol pa
(Chattopadhyaya & Chimpa 1970: 251, n. 10). The Sanskrit name Sahajavilāsa
found in the Sādhanamālā has been recorded by the PW; MW; BHSD (and
also mentioned in Isaacson 2009: 126). The PW, however, also
records it as a variant of *Sahajalalita. The name *Sahajalalita, used by
Cordier 1909: 296; Laluo 1933: 169–170, 218; Chattopadhyaya & Chimpa 1970:
251, 413), was corrected in Tucci 1932: 20 (Lama 2013: 20, n. 77) to
Sahajavilāsa. It has been, however, noted by Chattopadhyaya and Chimpa that
Vasil’ev or Wassiljew and Schiefner (i.e. the latter’s German translation of
the former’s Russian translation of Tāranātha’s rGya gar chos ’byung)
has Sahajavilāsa. Nonetheless they preferred *Sahajalalita. The attested
Tibetan renderings of Sahajavilāsa (see above) may be added to verify and
augment the information given in Dan Martin’s Tibskrit. This small
case seems to suggest that our knowledge is not always progressing but at times
even regressing.
Tuesday, December 25, 2018
👻 pitṛtantra
The
term pitṛtantra (for
Tibetan pha’i rgyud or pha rgyud) is, in my view, a ghost word.
This, however, does not mean that also Tibetan pha’i rgyud or pha
rgyud is a ghost word. The Tibetan pha’i rgyud or pha
rgyud is an abbreviated or elliptical expression for rnal ’byor pha’i rgyud and is
actually a rendering of yogatantra.
In Tibetan it would be quite legitimate to translate yogatantra as rnal
’byor pha’i rgyud especially when there is a need to distinguish it
from yoginītantra, just as it is
quite common to render bhikṣuvibhaṅga as dge slong pha’i rnam ’byed, which in
turn has often be abbreviated as pha’i
rnam ’byed.
👻 mātṛtantra
The
term mātṛtantra (for
Tibetan ma’i rgyud or ma
rgyud) is, in my view, a ghost word. This, however, does not mean that also
Tibetan ma’i rgyud or ma
rgyud is ghost word. The Tibetan ma’i rgyud or ma
rgyud is an abbreviated or elliptical expression for rnal ’byor
ma’i rgyud and is actually a rendering of yoginītantra. In Tibetan it would be quite legitimate to
translate yoginītantra as rnal ’byor ma’i rgyud especially
when there is a need to distinguish it from yogatantra, just as it is quite common to render bhikṣuṇīvibhaṅga as dge slong ma’i rnam ’byed, which in turn
has often be abbreviated as ma’i
rnam ’byed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)