August 17, 2014

དཀོན་ཅོག།


We may all take for granted that dkon mchog means dkon pa’i nang nas mchog tu gyur pa. But could it be that dkon mchog (dkon cog) initially meant dkon no cog (“all that is rare”)? Just a random thought!

7 comments:

  1. Well, I'd say "All that *is* rare," but anyway, your idea is one I think is worth considering. And Stein has something about cog being a Turkic god name, too.

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  2. Dear D. Many thanks, also for the English correction. “All people are nice. All is well.”

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  3. When I searched the OTDO (http://otdo.aa.tufs.ac.jp) I didn't find dkon-cog or dkon-chog one single time. I did find dkon-mchog (34 times) and dkon-mcog (6 times). What do you say to that?

    D

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  4. I am afraid in that case, I will have to discard my random thought. :-(

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  5. Dear D, A random thought is a terrible thing to waste. Especially since HH the Dalai Lama V rather consistently spells Rin chen as Rin cen, and Dkon mchog as Dkon cog, in His Record of Teachings Received. Still, for some reason I was of the persuasion you were thinking of a certain commentary called the དཀོན་ཅོག་འགྲེལ་, weren't you? -D

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  6. I think konchok is simply "rarity".

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  7. Yes, I think everybody, including myself, would think that dkon mchog means “the best among the rarities.”

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