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.