Punctuation: the gter tsheg

I've been thinking about punctuation lately, namely the gter tsheg. Here are few themes and questions that have come up.

•  Some translators like to include the gter tsheg (i.e., ༔ ) at the end of every line in English. To be honest, I'm not such a fan. The gter tsheg replaces the shad (i.e., ། ) at the end of a line so if we include the gter tsheg to show that a text is a treasure text we should also include the shad other times to show that it is not a treasure text! This is obviously not feasible. Some have put a single gter tsheg at the end of a block of text to show that it is a treasure. This seems to work a lot better. It fulfills the same purpose without so many additional punctuation marks. In fact, it's a lot like jewelry (rgyan cha). A single thin gold necklace looks far more attractive than fifty chunky chains of iced gold. Indeed, sometimes less is more. I wonder if we couldn't invent a treasure period mark? My understanding is that the gter tsheg was developed not so much from the process of the revelation of the treasure but from the process of writing it down. So how would it look like if we made an English version? I have no idea. Maybe something like the Chinese period mark (。). Or maybe not!
   
• I wonder why the gter tsheg is actually not called a gter shad since it replaces the shad and not the tsheg? Perhaps because structurally it resembles more a dot than a bar?
  
• Now where does the gter tsheg come from? That is a very good question that I do not know the answer to. It might be interesting to note that there is a double tsheg found in Dunhuang manuscripts. Sam van Schaik notes how the double tsheg fell out of usage after the Imperial Period. Perhaps it was revived albeit in a modified form with the rise the terma tradition? Van Schaik has more on the different from of tshegs here: https://readingtibetan.wordpress.com/resources/punctuation/
  
• From the Rangjung Yeshe Dictionary:

Terma sign, according to the vision of Taksham Dorje, it is said that the two circles symbolize means and knowledge and the crescent moon their indivisible unity. This is, however, not totally fixed since the wood blocks at Mindroling have only two circles without a crescent moon.

If you have any info or resources on this please do share! Here is a beautiful piece of calligraphy by Tashi Mannox featuring the gter tsheg which I do not own the rights to.

སྔགས་ཕ།

Have you ever noticed that in the beginning of so many rnam thars it mentions how it was the father who first taught them reading, writing, and basic rituals? The father is usually a ngakpa, perhaps relatively famous in that area and time period, but otherwise unheard of in history. This seems to be a definite recurring theme. It makes sense too. Ngakpa's have children and are skilled in the arts of scripture so it would seem natural for them to produce the great historical figures we find through out rnam thars. If I ever have children, I hope to be such a ngakpa father!

ཧ་ཧ། Haha! Representations of laughter in Tibetan literature

I just read an interesting New York Times article titled, "Laugh and the World Laughs With You. Type ‘Ha,’ Not So Much." In this piece Jessica Bennett describes the development of textual representations of laughter:

Textual representations of laughter go back at least to Chaucer, who fancied the onomatopoeic “haha” to convey merriment in his writing. (Shakespeare preferred a more staccato “ha, ha, he.”) But neither Chaucer nor Shakespeare could have predicted the universe of meaning that now exists in the subtle nuance between those two expressions. These days, a HAHAHA versus a ha in a text can indicate the difference between “I’m dying laughing” and “I literally never want to see you again.”

What first came to mind for me was a textual representation of laughter that I chanced upon in one of Mipham's texts. This short text, Dispelling Doubts About the Tantras of the Ancient Translation School (Snga 'gyur rning ma'i rgyud kyi byung tshul la dogs sel), is about three folio sides in length and does pretty much what you would expect from the title, that is defend the Nyingma tantras. What is of interest here though are it's final words:

After discrediting his detractors positions, Mipham enjoys himself a good laugh.

I had seen ha ha written in Tibetan plenty of times on WeChat, but this was the first time I had seen it in a classical Tibetan text. Curiosity piqued, I decided to do a search of TBRC (I can just not get used to saying BDRC) for other instances of laughter in the form of words.

The first text I came across was again by Mipham. In fact it was what looks like will he wrote close to his death.  The will is entitled the Haha Testament (Zhal chem ha ha) which gives the reader a strong sense that death is not something to be feared but in fact somewhat humorous. In this text he describes to whom his belonging--some clothing, statues, and silver--should be given to. "Otherwise," he writes, "what need is there to give things like statues and so forth to the clear light?" (de min sku 'dra sogs 'od gsal la ci mkho byin). He says it would be nice to print  his commentary on the Ornament of the Mahāyana Sūtras (mdo rgyan 'grel pa) but makes it clear that he doesn't care what they do or do not do (nga la ci byas ma byas re dogs med). He makes aspiration for all those connected to him to be reborn in Sukhavati and assures his audience that he has no agony or sorrow whatsoever. The only reason he writes a will is for those who might feel uneasy about his passing. It is, afterall, the way things are done in the world (de ni 'jig rten tshul lugs red).

Perhaps the first thing to come to minds of many readers is the 100 syllable mantra of Vajrasattva. The ha ha ha ha that we are so familiar with towards the end of the mantra is said to represent or rather be the four immeasurables, the four empowerments, the four joys, and the four kāyas. This is according to Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo's translation into Tibetan.

There are a quite a few other instances of ha ha being used in Tibetan that can be gleamed from a TBRC. It would seem that they are all of the above two categories though; that is, either representations of laughter or as mantric formula. Either way, I encourage you all to research these further. What is the oldest usage? Are there any instances of laughter in the Dunhuang texts?

ཧོར།

I attended an interesting lecture today from a Japanese professor on the diplomatic ties between the Tibetan empire and other surrounding empires. It would seem that the timeline and series of events he drew is as follow: first the Tibetan empire was militarily and politically dominant over central Asia; then the Tang Chinese made military alliances with the 'Jang empire, Uighur (hor?), and other central Asian empires that lead to several serious defeats of the Tibetans; the Tibetans figured this out and secretly made peace agreements with the other empires (including Tang Chinese) and thereby breaking the Chinese "siege"; it was this series of peace treatises that encouraged the imperial support of Buddhism. The professor described it much more precisely and with dates however I believe that is the gist of it.

At any rate, what I want to get at is the term hor. The professor had given hor as a translation for Uighur which I found surprising. Usually hor is used to refer to the Mongols (text often talk about turning back the hordes of Mongols) and many Tibetans refer to themselves as hor since their ancestors where Mongols that settled in Tibet and assimilated (often around Nag chu and Brag mgo). I found the courage to ask him during the Q&A and he said that hor was indeed to describe Central Asian neighbors. I would still like to verify this further though.

I suggest that we need to understand the word hor relative to historical time period. It would be great if someone (maybe you?) could do a study on this word to reveal how it's use and what it refers to. Is it an indigenous term or was it borrowed from another language? Where does the first instance of it appear? Supposedly it is in the Dunhuang texts, but I'm not positive about that.

I feel tempted to suggest "Turk" or "Turkish" as a translation for hor but am now sure whether it's too inclusive a tranlsation or too exclusive.

བཞུགས་སོ།།

I usually associate bzhugs so coming at the end of a text title. It's rarely ever translated, but could be rendered as "herein lies" then followed by the title. Usually just putting the title on a title page in large font "translates" it. However I recently saw bzhugs so printed on this incense packaging.  I wonder where else it might be used (the dkar chag of a statue for instance?).

"Herein lies Minling Incense with authentic ingredients and ritual procedure"

མཁས་བཙུན་བཟང་གསུམ།

ཤེས་བྱའི་རིག་པའི་གནས་ལ་མ་རྨོངས་པ་ནི་མཁས་པ་དང་། སྒོ་གསུམ་གྱི་ཉེས་སྤྱོད་སྡོམ་པའི་ཚུལ་ཁྲིམས་གཙང་བ་ནི་བཙུན་པ། གཞན་ཕན་གྱི་ལྷག་བསམ་རྣམ་པར་དག་པ་ནི་བཟང་པོའོ། །

Learning means to be be unmistaken in fields of knowledge. Discipline means to have maintain ethical vows of physical, verbal, and mental conduct. Kindness means to have genuine altruism for the benefit of others.  

མཆོག་ཏུ་གྱུར་བ། vs. མཆོག་ཏུ་མི་འགྱུར་བ།

I was chanting through the Concise Manual for Daily Practice (Rgyun gyi rnal 'byor bkol byang) recently when I came across the following line:

Mchog tu mi 'gyur bde chen rdo rje'i ngang:

I had to take a second glance because my initial instinct was to read it as "Within the non-supreme, blissful, vajra state..." which would be perhaps an anomaly in Tibetan Buddhist literature. So I took another looked and compared it with the translation before noticing my error. I was reading mchog tu mi 'gyur as mchog tu mi gyur, that is without the a prefix. As I know see, this makes a huge difference. The above line should then rather be read as "Within the supreme, immutable, and blissful varja state..."

It is the gyur in past tense that is often said to act like a yin and translates bhū in Sanskrit. It is also the gyur in the name of the great treasure revealer Mchog gyur gling pa for instance. Mi 'gyur on the other hand is a stock phrase meaning "immutable" (it's also a personal name which speaks to it's ability to stand alone by itself).

Of course, a single syllable can invert the meaning of a line (as in the case of a negation) but this was the first time I saw how a single letter could change  and thereby alter meaning so radically!

The Great Treasure Chokgyur Lingpa

Speculative etymology

The verbs zhi ba (to be pacified) and shi ba (to die) strike me as being etymologically related. To be honest, I'm not sure how the etymology of words are traced. But given that they sound relatively similar and represent somewhat similar process one would think that there must be some connection.

ཇ་ཨེ་འཐུང་། ཟ་མ་ཨེ་ཟོས།

This photo was taken my friend's sister took on her trip through Lhasa. It's of a tea house by the name of Toilet Tea House. It's real. Supposedly there used to be a public toilet (like there are throughout Tibet) where the tea house now stands and hence it was aptly named. Perhaps it's important to note that the Chinese is a transliteration and NOT a translation! Can I invite you for a cup of ... tea?

My friend's comment on his sisters photo was "Did you drink any tea? Did you eat anything?" (Tibetan in the title to this post). It's interesting to note that there are two ways to conjugate the verb za, to eat.

1.)   མ་འོངས་པ། བཟའ། ད་ལྟ་བ། ཟ། འདས་པ། བཟས། སྐུལ་ཚིག ཟོ།

or

2.)  མ་འོངས་པ། བཟའ། ད་ལྟ་བ། ཟ། འདས་པ། ཟོས། སྐུལ་ཚིག ཟོ།

Basically the difference is with the past tense form, not with the meaning. It seems that the first is more prevalent in Central Tibet and the second in Eastern Tibet. Also on that note, in Central Tibet they prefer to use the word gsang spyod for toilet which is also understood in Eastern Tibet although they more often use spyod khang. At any rate, please enjoy yourself a nice tea today!

Round two of the scholar-practioner ideal

Hi all,

I'm back after a hiatus of what looks like... a year and a half. Yikes!

My last post was at the of end of February 2016. It was about that time that the Masters was heating up, I was struggling with emotional battles, and Nepal was hit with a 7.2 earthquake two months later. I don't wish to make excuses, but reflecting back, I understand why this blog came to a stand still. My musings on Tibetan language certainly never stopped as I've kept reading as much as I could, however, I simply didn't have the capacity to share them.

Now, a year and a half later, I have finished the MA, starting practicing more seriously (and, I believe, by virtue of that attained some basic mental-emotional stability), and life has more or less smoothed out.

There's many musings I'd love to share, but today I want to create some "tendrel" or auspicious circumstances (rten 'brel) for this blog by sharing some advice from Dza Paltrul (Rdza dpal sprul). These lines really spoke to me about the ideal of the scholar-practitioner---someone who is neither a dry intellectual nor someone informed by blind faith; someone who possess great learning and wisdom yet is accompanied by great humility and compassion:

དེ་ལྟར་ཡུལ་ཤེས་བྱ་སྤྱི་གནས་ལུགས་རྟོགས་ཀྱང་།  ཡུལ་ཅན་ཤེས་པ་རང་གི་གནས་ལུགས་མ་རྟོགས་ན།  ཆོས་ཐམས་ཅད་ཤེས་བྱའི་ཡུལ་དུ་ལུས་ནས་ཉོན་མོངས་པའི་གཉེན་པོར་མི་འགྲོ་སྟེ་རྟོགས་པ་དེ་ཉིད་ལ་སླར་ང་རྒྱལ་དང་རློམ་སེམས་སྐྱེ་ཞིང་།  གང་ཟག་གི་བདག་རགས་སུ་འགྲོ་བས།  ཤེས་བྱ་ཤེས་མཁན་གྱི་བློའམ་སེམས་སམ།  ཡིད་དམ་རྣམ་ཤེས་ཁོ་རང་གི་གནས་ལུགས་རྟོགས་དགོས། 

I have translated this below in what many would call an "interpretive" manner (although I would argue that there is no translation that is not interpretive). What I mean to say is that, I translated it as it spoke to me:

Even if you understand the general reality of external objects and intellectual facts, you may have still not realized the particular reality of the inner subject or the mind. If that is the case, then everything will simply remain within the realm of [mere] facts and will not serve to remedy your disturbing emotions. Likewise, you will feel more pride and arrogance with respect to your knowledge and [your sense of] personal self will become coarser. Therefore, you must realize the natural state of that which knows objects of knowledge--the intellect, the mind, consciousness, or whatever you may call it.

It's great to study Buddhism. It's great to study philosophy. It's great to study language, grammar, history, and so on. It really is a joy. But if we leave our studies merely at an intellectual level, it would really be a loss. Instead, let us let them let them transform us for the better! The majority of the musings on this blog will be on random fun facts and discoveries about the Tibetan language but nevertheless, let's see what happens!

 

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རྒྱལ་ཀུན་གྱི་སྐྱེད་ཡུམ་ལྷ་མོ་དབྱངས་ཅན་མ་ལ་ན་མོ།

Homage to Sarasvatidevi, the mother of all awakened ones.