April 04, 2012

སྣ་ཞགས།

sna zhags:

An elephant trunk is called “rope-nose” (i.e. “rope-like-nose”)! Indeed as Dan points out (see his comments below), “noose nose” is indeed a very “cool” and apt literal rendering of sna zhags. One case of the term occurring in a text and context (Mi-pham, Nges shes sgron me, Chengdu: Si-khron-mi-rigs-dpe-skrun-khang, 1997, p. 4):
mang thos sna zhags ring du brkyangs na yang ||
khron pa’i chu ltar zab pa’i chos kyi chu ||
ma myong da dung mkhas pa’i grags pa la ||
re ba rigs ngan btsun mor chags dang ’dra ||.
Cf. Pettit 1999: 195.

Another instance is (dGe.chos-2: 103):
de’i dri zhim rang gi zhon pa glang po mtsho skyes kyis tshor nas sna zhags kyis blangs te sa la bor ro ||.




7 comments:

  1. Dear D,

    I'd love to encounter this word out in the field, so to speak, in a text. I see Waldo's glossary has "noose nose," which is a very cool translation. I take it this describes the trunk of the elephant, which can lasso or 'rope' things in. The dictionaries also have sna-zhags-can as an epithet for the elephant itself. Neither seems to occur in the Kanjur and Tanjur (after searching the Vienna site).

    I did Google one instance from the Letter Writing Guide among the ACIP digital texts HERE at fol. 7v:

    LNGA PA NI, MKHYEN DBANG MCHOG RIN PO CHER ZHU BA, DENG SKU 'TSO SA SRUNG GNYIS 'THUNG GI DBANG PO LHAG PAR RGYAS SHING, SNYING STOBS 'PHONG RKYEN SNA ZHAGS RING POS PHYOGS GZHAN ZIL GYIS GNON BZHIN PA'I GRAGS SNYAN THOS PAS BKA' DRIN CHE, 'DIR YANG GSAR 'TSE MED PAS SNYOMS LDAN YUL DU MCHIS LAGS, CHED ZHUS ZHES DON 'GOD, SLAD CHAR THUGS NYE 'DOR MED NAS, PHEBS 'OS TSOGS KYANG SA TI'O 'GROS BZHIN ZHU ZHU, ZHOG RTEN DANG BCAS TSES LA PHUL BA'I ZHU SHOG CES ZHUGO PHAB TZAM MO, ,

    Top of the day to you!

    Yours,
    D

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  2. Thanks for putting up those lovely examples, but now they have got me wondering about those words re-ba (yak hair [tent], right?) and da-du (???).

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  3. Dear Dan,

    Thank you for your credulity but actually da du has been a typo for da dung (“and yet/still”). And re ba here is “to hope for” (i.e. here “to desire”).

    Yours,
    D.

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  4. Thanks. Now it does make better sense. I've learned to live with my credulity. It's so much better for me than always being mistrustful. I wonder now about the people of bad types (low family background?) becoming respected religious figures. Is the point that it's something out of their reach or within their reach? Or are we supposed to see it as something that very rarely happens? I mean, I think I still don't get the "social" point well enough to rightly translate Mi-pham's verse.

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  5. Wait, maybe I'll make an attempt with Gendun Chompel's line:

    "Sensing it's [the sugarcane's???] sweet smell, the lake-born elephant I was riding on took it in his nose noose and left it lying on the ground."

    Well, I said I'd try!

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  6. Oh, no. Wait another minute again! Do we have to read btsun-mo in place of btsun-po? I just looked at Pettit's book, and he translate the last line "like low-caste men lusting for a queen." That puts a new and interesting twist on the verse.

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    Replies
    1. Oh, no, btsun po was a mistake. It should read btsun mo. :)

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