ས་ཕུད་བླ་མ། ས་གཅོད་བླ་མ།

Some of us might like to ask: “What on earth is a Sa-phud-bla-ma (“Sa-omitting-bla-ma”) or Sa-gcod-bla-ma (“Sa-excluding-bla-ma”)? Well, these are nicknames given by Tibetan grammarians to sDe-dge-bla-ma Nor-bu-bstan-’dzin, who has maintained that secondary postscripts (yang ’jug), are not attested in Thon-mi’s treatise but were created later at around the time of gTsang-nag-pa Rig-pa’i-seng-ge. Sa-phud-bla-ma was a contemporary of Mi-pham (1846–1912). For a discussion, see Tshe-tan-zhabs-drung, Thon mi’i zhal lung (pp. 95–104, 198–199).

གའུ།

Several years ago (i.e. precisely on August 24, 2012), I published a small note on the etymology of the Tibetan word ga’u, mainly based on questions raised by Dan Martin. The basic question then was that the Tibetan word ga’u appears to be a diminutive form of ga. But what could be the meaning of ga? Dan Martin then made some suggestions to which we shall return later. I am now motivated to return to the topic. Just the other day (i.e. January 27, 2019), I received an email from Ms. Briana Foley, a graduate student at Vanderbilt University in the Department of Religious Studies working with Professor Nancy Lin. She is writing her Master’s thesis on the Tibetan ga’u and is “deeply interested in the mythological and literary contexts in which ga’u are manifest.” She came across a short post from 2012 on my blog concerning the etymology of the word. She wanted to know if I made any further discovery concerning ga’u.

Dan Martin and I have not pursued further speculations regarding the etymology of ga’u and we did not make any further discoveries. But I may recapitulate some of the speculations made by Dan Martin thus far and add some points. First, we shall have to be sure that ga’u is indeed a diminutive word. The fact that the thing itself, which is the referent of the word ga’u, is actually a “little thing,” suggests that the form is indeed diminutive. Second, the word ga’u seems rather old. Dan Martin already pointed out then that especially the fifteenth chapter of Haarh 1969 (i.e. Erick Haarh, The Yar-luṅ Dynasty: A study with particular regard to the contribution by myths and legends to the history of Ancient Tibet and the origin and nature of its kings. Copenhagen: G.E.C. Gad’s Forlag, 1969) refers several times to the word ga’u occurring in the descriptions of imperial burials. I looked up for the word ga’u in the Old Tibetan Documents Online (OTDO) but the search reveals only two hits and neither of the two instances seems to refer to the ga’u of out context. Third, we shall not dwell much upon how we should translate the word into English. There seem to exist several translations. Dan Martin has already referred to Haarh’s translation of it simply as “box.” But let me reproduce what Jäschke states in his dictionary, namely, “a chest, box … ; a little box or case; when containing amulets, it is worn suspended by a string round the neck” (Jäschke 1881: s.v. ga’u). Fourth, Dan Martin also pointed out to what may be called Tibetan “cosmogonic etiology” according to which the sky and earth need to be separated, and they are compared to a ga’u. He also pointed that that Cosmas Indicopleuthes—the first Mediterranean to give a description of g.yag and who traveled as far as Śrī-Laṅkā—was the Greek-speaking Alexandrian who believed the world was a box, so to speak, a ga’u.

Let us now know turn to the speculative etymology of ga’u. First, one speculation by Dan Martin was that ga’u may be some kind of reduced-down form of sgam chung, a small box, or sgam bu (such a term seems to be attested in the sense of sgrom bu), which was then reduced to gam bu and then to ga bu. Note that bTsan-lha’s brDa dkrol gser gyi me long (s.v. ga bu) has ga bu as an equivalent of ga’u. Dan Martin has found one instance of the usage (Zhi-byed Coll. II 482.5): nang rtsi phyi ru gsal ba shel gyi ga bu lta bu. It is like a crystal ga bu that shows the inner essence on the outside. Inasmuch as both ’u and bu are diminutive particles, the proximity (or perhaps even the semantic identity) of ga’u and ga bu is perhaps all too obvious. But the speculation that ga goes back to sgam is less convincing and appears to be less plausible. But then what could have been the meaning of ga?

This brings us to the second speculation that I propose. To be sure, I am not even convinced of myself. But for the want for a better suggestion, I decided to make this speculation. Could it be that ga in our word ga’u has something to do with gan as in gan bub (brDa dkrol gser gyi me long, s.v.) and gan rkyan/kyal. I think the meaning and usage of gan rkyal/kyal hardly require any explanation. It simply means “supine.” Consider, for example, the phrase lus gan rkyal du nyal ba  (“body lying with face upwards”). But the interesting thing is that the brDa dkrol gser gyi me long, s.v.) explains gan bub as a compound (i.e. dvaṃdva compound) comprising of two opposite members, namely, gan rkyal (“supine”) and kha bub (“prone”). Despite the fact that gan rkyal is contrasted with kha bub, I feel that the syllable gan is either actually synonymous with kha or is derived from gyen. This seems to be supported by the brDa dkrol gser gyi me long which explains gan pa as kha gyen du bstan pa (“facing upwards”). If we take gan to mean kha, then we can think of explaining the compound gan bub as “kha gyen du bstan pa (“supine”) and kha thur du bstan pa (“prone”). In other words, ga’u is a gan bub, that is, “a locket, the upper part of which lies ‘prone’ and the lower part of which lies ‘supine’). Another possibility is that gan bub is traced back to gyen bub (“supine–prone”) and this would precisely describe a Tibetan locket called ga’u. The simplification of gan bub to ga bu may have occurred on account of phonetic or phonological simplification. The step from ga bu to ga ’u seems to be rather easier to explain.

སོ་ན་གནས་པ།

One reason why I feel so na gnas pa should mean “to be at the brink/verge/edge/threshold of” is because I interpret so to mean “tooth/edge.” But obviously it is wrong because it is said to mean “to persist/prevail.” Cf. sngar gnas sor bzhag, where sngar gnas and sor bzhag are actually quasi-synonymous. In short: so so na gnas pa = so sor gnas pa = so na gnas pa = sor gnas.

དམར་ཁྲིད།

In order to understand the etymology of dmar khrid “direct instruction,” we may have to consider the usage of the dmar rjen (“red naked,” cf. English “stark naked” or “mother-naked”).

འཇིག་རྟེན།

The etymology of Tibetan ’jig rten, a standard translation of Sanskrit loka (“world” or “people”), seems to be “substrate of decomposition” or “substrate characterised by decomposition.” Something like: ’jig pa’i rten or ’jig pa’i rang bzhin can gyi rten. Of course there is nothing new here, for it has already been mentioned, for example, Michael Hahn. See Hahn 1985: 280 “Welt [‘Behälter des Vergänglichen’; die Tibeter führen skr. loka (fälschlich loka) auf die Wurzel luj, luñj zurück].”

Note that luc and luñc (forms in which these roots have been recorded in MW) are said to mean  respectively “plucking out or off” and “to pluck, pull out, tear off, to peel, husk.” To be pointed out is that the Tibetan verb ’jig pa is a heteronomous and intransitive verb meaning “to decay, fall apart,” that is, at least as I understand it.

ཐེ་ཚོམ།

Just wondering what the etymology of the tshom (“doubt”) may be. Could the mean “little, somewhat” and tshom be “hesitation,” as in the case of the tshom tshom byed “to be hesitant”? Just a random thought.

ཐ་གྲུ།

The Tibetan word tha gru meaning “extent” or “expanse” has two components. The first must be derived from mtha’ “end/extreme/rim” and the second gru means “corner/side/edge.”

གཉའ་ཤིང་།

The Tibetan word for “yoke” is gnya’ shing and its etymology is self-evident: “wood on the necks” or “neck-wood.”

ཉེ། ཉེན། གཉེན། གཉེན་པོ། དཔུང་གཉེན།

Obviously gnyen po (“antidote”) is related with gnyen/nyen “kinsman, relative,” which, in turn, seems to be related with nye ba “to be close.” Sanskrit words such as parāyaṇa (“last resort or refuge”) and paritrāṇa (“means of protection, refuge”) have been rendered into Tibetan as dpung gnyen. But note that my interest is not the etymologies of these Sanskrit words but rather Tibetan dpung gnyen. The first component seems to be the same dpung meaning “force” (as in military force) and the second component gnyen meaning “friend,” and so could dpung gnyen be etymologised as “ally in force” or “ally [that provides support of] strength”?

ལྐོག་ན་མོ། མདུན་ན་མོ།

It is said that the Sautrāntikas, as opposed to Vaibhāṣikas, both of whom are said to be Bāhyārthavādins (i.e. Buddhist realists), posit that the external entities (e.g. stones) are not perceived or perceptible and remain remote or inaccessible (although their images, which are of the cognitive nature, are cognised). Such objects are said to be “covert” (lkog na mo). The term lkog na mo is interesting because it contains a frozen locative participle (na) and a nominaliser (mo). The term can be found in the Tshig mdzod chen mo although its meaning lkog gyur (cognitively remote), in my view, is not correct, because for the Sautrāntikas  external objects by definition are lkog na mo but not necessarily lkog gyur insofar as they can still be the objects of direct perception (mngon sum) and thus mngon gyur (“manifest or conspicuous”). A direct opposite of lkog na mo seems to be mdun na mo, which can perhaps be rendered as “overt.” The term mdun na mo has been recorded both in the Tshig mdzod chen mo and brDa dkrol (s.v.).

རྟོག་གེ་རྣམ་པ་གཉིས།

Klong-chen-pa in his Shing rta chen po, an auto-commentary on the Sems nyid ngal gso (p. 887), states: rtog ge zhes pa’ang gnyis las | sa mtshams kyi rtog ge ni so so skye bo ste mi bden pa phyin ci log tu bden par zhen pas de skad ces bya’o || grub mtha’i rtog ge ni  dngos por smra ba’i gzhung thams cad de | gshis la med kyang rnam par sgro ’dogs pa’i phyir ro ||.

Note that the former is identified with persons (gang zag) and the latter with treatises (gzhung). Tibetan authors often do something like this.

One should also compare a passage found in his Yid bzhin mdzod ’grel padma dkar po (p. 650), which seems to provide scriptural sources for the two kinds of rtog ge ba found in his Shing rta chen po, namely, a quotation from the Śatasahasrikā Prajñāpāramitā for the sa mtshams kyi rtog ge ba and a quotation from the Prasannapadā for the grub mtha’i rtog ge ba. I did not check these quotations. In short, according to Klong-chen-pa, those of us who have no direct insight (ye shes: jñāna) or direct cognitive access to the true reality are called (“dogmatists [by pṛthagjana–ārya (skye–’phags)] distinction/divide”) (sa mtshams kyi rtog ge ba), that is, even those bodhisattvas or Mādhyamikas, who have not yet reached the darśanamārga level, would be called as such. As for the “doxographical dogmatists” (grub mtha’i rtog ge ba), they are de facto non-Mādhyamikas, who posit the true existence of some kind of entity, be it of mind or matter or both.

I would like to offer my own interpretation based on the Einsicht–Ansicht distinction: sa mtshams kyi rtog ge bas are “dogmatists devoid of Einsicht (insight)” and grub mtha’i rtog ge ba bas are “dogmatists devoid of correct Ansicht (view).” The two are not coextensive (khyab mnyam). All dogmatists free from correct Ansicht are also those who have no Ensicht, but the reverse is not true.  

There is, however, a third popular/common usage of rtog ge ba, that is, in the sense of a (German) “Rechthaber.” That is “someone who is self-opinionated (rechthaberisch) or dogmatic” or “one who is not really interested in knowing the state of affairs but one who is just interested in being ‘right’ or in winning an argument by hook or crook.”

ད་རུང་། ད་དུང་།

Evidently da rung and da dung (adverbs) “still” or “yet” are synonymous but the question is how come? One feels that da rung is more natural and makes sense also etymologically. Perhaps it can be best etymologised as “even now/then.” Could it be that graphic similarity of rung and dung led to frequent mistakes in the orthography that da dung came to be accepted as a corrected form? Both occur in OTDO but I am not sure of the use of da rung there whereas the use of da dung seems to be clear.

   

ཡང་འཇུག་ས་ཡོད་པ་དང་མེད་པའི་ཚིག་གི་ཁྱད་པར།

I see that someone has just misspelt the last syllable of my name (who knows whether deliberately or inadvertently). I do not intend to discuss the Tibetan discussions about the need or needlessness of the s-secondary postscript (yang ’jug) and so please do not come up with Mi-pham’s Sa mtha’ rnam ’byed (as a response to one sDe-dge grammarian—I keep on forgetting his name), Tshe-tan-zhabs-drung’s deliberation on the topic in his Thon mi’i zhal lung, and so forth. My concern here is the question   whether we can make a sweeping (and hence a risky) generalisation and state that all those words with and without sa yang ’jug must necessarily be cognates. Just as in the case of phyug “to be rich” and phyugs (“cattle”), which seem to cognates, can we also say about: nag and nags; yang and yangs; gang and gangs; and so on.

འཐག ཐག

Someone may have already some time and somewhere already thematised this and if so my apologies for my ignorance. It just occurs to me that ’thag pa in the sense of “to grind” and in the sense of “to weave” maybe somehow related. What is but the commonality in the acts of grinding and weaving? Perhaps in both cases, some strings/ropes (thag pa) are (at least initially) involved? We also have to consider tha ga pa “weaver” and tha gu “small rope.” A question that gnaws at me at the moment is if we can assume a connection between thag in the sense of “distance” and thag pa “rope/string.”

And what about tha chad?

རང་འཐག

The etymology of rang ’thag (“mill” or “water-mill”) seems obvious. One just have to come to think of it. So rang ’thag is “something that grinds (’thag) (e.g. grains) on its own (rang) or naturally/automatically,” that is, even it happens to be a pair grinding stones that are operated manually. The rule that “etymologies have  no pervasion” (sgra bshad pa la khyab pa med) holds true here as well. So if there are some incorrigible rTog-ge-bas (“sophists”) out there, please don’t come up with the following argument:

rang ’thag chos can | rang bzhin gyis ’khor zhing (gro la sogs pa) ’thag pa ma yin par thal | gzhan (chu dang skyes bu’i ’bad rtsal) gyis (bskor zhing) ’thag pa’i phyir ||

ཡོག

One of the challenges in teaching and learning modern/colloquial Tibetan is that there seems to be no standardised orthography. For those whose mother tongue is Tibetan, there has been no need to learn modern/colloquial Tibetan. Modern/colloquial Tibetan grammar came to be written for the first time for non-Tibetans and mostly by those who had either no philological training or interest. The result is a heap of textbooks with all kinds of orthography.

I have two suggestions to make, which are predestined to fall on deaf ears. First, even Tibetan school children should perhaps learn grammar of modern/colloquial Tibetan just as school children in England or Germany learn English or German. Second, as a measure to standardise the orthographies of modern/colloquial Tibetan, an attempt should be made to resort to only those orthographies that are attested in classical or literary sources. I believe that in most cases, we are bound to find precedence cases in literary sources. This would lead to the refinement and standardisation of both levels of the Tibetan language. 

Let me give one example for my second point. Anyone teaching modern/colloquial Tibetan would realise the auxiliary verb yod (pa) red has been spelt in various ways: yod red (I used this!), yo’o red (following the pronunciation), and yog red. The orthography yog red seems justified if we consider the occurrence of yog in some old Tibetan writings with the meaning of yod/mchis (gNa’ rtsom, p. 402). I have been arguing that although the correctness of pronunciation is crucial in modern/colloquial Tibetan, one cannot disregard the orthography. By doing so one would destroy a language. (By the way, I am not at all happy the way rDzong-kha orthography has been treated by my fellow Bhutanese at home.) If the orthography and pronunciation tally, it is all the better. If, however, the orthography and pronunciation of a certain word clash, I would suggest that the orthography should have the precedence over the pronunciation. Even in other languages such as English (and perhaps also French), children learn received pronunciation (RP) of many words from their parents and teachers and you do not start simplifying all the orthographies just because they are not spelt, as they should be pronounced. 

It is, of course, clear that we should not make things more difficult or simpler than it is necessary. The tendency to simplify orthographies, grammar, and language itself, mistaking for pedagogical or didactic skills, is, in my view, appalling. It would ultimately destroy a language. Having said that, I believe that the real pedagogical or didactic skill lies in making students learn a difficult and complex language with ease and pleasure.