ཐུན་ཚགས་མ་ཡིན་པ།

In the Mahāvyutpatti (Sakaki, no. 1623; Ishihama, no. 1629), the Sanskrit akalmāṣa has been rendered into Tibetan as thun tshags ma yin pa. But what does the Tibetan word mean? No other Tibetan lexical source seems to have recorded this word. The components thun and tshags are, of course, lexically attested but these together do not yield the sense required by the present context. Both the PWK and PW record “Akalmāṣa” but only as a proper name, that is, as the name of a son of the 4th Manu. The MW, however, adds the meaning “spotless” (providing a single source). The BHSD (s.v. akalmāṣa) provides some more information: “akalmāṣa, adj. (= Pali akammāsa), pure (lit. not variegated; in this sense once in ŚB., otherwise in Skt. only as n. pr.): Mv i.211.11 = ii.15.10, along with pariśuddha, of brahmacarya; i.239.5–6, of ceto-praṇidhāna; iii.343.2, of Buddha’s voice.” Based on these sources, we can conclude that the word thun tshags ma yin pa should mean something like dri ma med pa. Hirano 1966 (i.e. Takashi Hirano, An Index to the Bodhicaryāvatārapañjikā, Chapter IX. Tokyo: Suzuki Research Foundation, 1966) does record the word akalmāṣa but the Tibetan equivalent here is dri ma (followed by a question mark). I did not check the pertinent Tibetan passage but it seems to be a corruption of dri ma med pa (caused by the omission of med pa). Such a meaning would be confirmed by the meaning of the Sanskrit word. But can we be sure that Tibetan translators understood thun tshags ma yin pa as dri ma med pa? A quick search in the TBRC database yields several hits that would support such a meaning. In the contextually relevant passages, this word has been used as an adjective qualifying śīla (i.e. thun tshags ma yin pa’i tshul khrims) and several other synonyms and quasi-synonyms have been used such as skyon med, ma myams pa, ma dres pa, ma nogs pa, nog nog por ma gyur pa, and  ’dren [= ’dres?] mar ma gyur pa. But the question is why has been the Tibetan word thun tshags ma yin pa used to express “immaculate” or “impeccable”? The Tibetan word thun seems to mean something like “temporal or spatial segment” and tshags something like “temporal or spatial gap.” One can thus imagine why a “sieve” has been called a tshags in Tibetan. But why would an impeccable/immaculate ethical-ascetical integrity (śīla) called thun tshags ma yin pa’i tshul khrims? I feel that theoretically thun tshags yin pa’i tshul khrims (such an expression may, however, not be found) would be a kind of śīla that is “perforated” and thus “punctured” (i.e. with full of holes such a sieve, basket, or a net which cannot contain water) and thun tshags ma yin pa’i tshul khrims would be a kind of śīla that is “not perforated” or “not punctured” and hence is “faultless” (skyon med pa), “undamaged” (ma myams pa), “unadulterated” (ma ’dres pa / ’dren [= ’dres?] mar ma gyur pa), and “unsullied” (ma nogs pa / nog nog por ma gyur pa). The Sanskrit akalmāṣa is said to literally mean “not variegated” (see above). This would make sense if we are willing to consider a “blank sheet of white paper/cloth” (without any stain or spot) “pure” and a sheet of white paper/cloth that is spotted with “variegated” colors or stains “impure.”