Ya-lad In our last blog, we put forward a method for identifying foreign multisyllabic words in Tibetan. We should try again, just to add a little refinement and state it in a different way.  To begin with, let’s agree that a person with much experience with Tibetan language will be able to look at any multisyllabic name or term and recognize when its final syllable is not (or not easily, or not sensibly) etymologizable as Tibetan.* (*Bear in mind that most of the pukkah Tibetan bisyllabics, when they are not etymologizable as compounds, have as second syllable one of those i ..read more

A figure with the very unusual name Anenhar (A-nan-har) is mentioned twice in the recently released translation of a late 12th-century Bon historical text, Drenpa's Proclamation (pp. 254-5). He’s visible in the beginning of section 70 entitled “The Tibetan Armies are Defeated.” The narrative is set in the third quarter of the 8th century, when Emperor Trisongdetsen, a new convert to Buddhism, decided to embark on not one but three foreign military ventures simultaneously (even in the best of times never a good idea): Not listening to him either, the king, ordering them to ..read more

Look closely at this illustration, found in a brief chapter on Tartary published in 1741.  Engraved by Bernard Picart (1673-1733), it is one of many found in a 7-volume encyclopedia Religious Customs and Ceremonies of All the Peoples of the World. The large central figure is supposed to be a deified ruler of the Tartars (read into the neighboring prose and you find this is supposed to mean the Dalai Lamas, but honestly I would have taken him for Vasco da Gama). Below the smoke billowing out of his matching incense burners are two figures. Figure B is labeled as a Lama saying his prayers ..read more

A physician taking pulse readings “One who out of desire for material gain merely assumes the guise of a physician is a destroyer of life.”   — Bshad-rgyud, ch. 31. Even if it isn’t always transparent, people who know me and know my blogs will know I always write in response to current events in my life. That is why I have to say right up front that I’m not experiencing any new health issues, certainly nothing life-threatening that I’m aware of. Health is the least of my worries (insert wry grin).  It’s just that recently a family member told me about a visit t ..read more

  “Bon-byung Yid-ches Sgron-ma [b]zhugs.” Endangered Archives Project EAP687/1/19 I see no need to overplay that old scenario of the precious object lost and unknown suddenly revealed to the world. It isn’t exactly cognitive science, or is it? Is it a question of ‘Who is paying attention to what?’ or ‘What’s out there that could be seen?’ Surely there must be a handful of learned people in the hills of Himachal, not to mention the high Himalayas who are aware of this historical work in some degree, some may even have read it for all we know. However, Tibetan Histories  ..read more

Guru Rinpoche, with Nyangrel and so on (see below) HAR 160.   I’ve written before about how there were in the 11th-12th centuries, several popular Buddhist movements that virtually disappeared from history, yet may have had some impact. Led by laypeople, including laywomen, their memory has survived in what amounts to little more than lists, lists that represent different ways of grouping them. Despite or because of the fact that their Buddhist orthodoxy was and still could be framed in different ways, they become all the more important for historians in our contemporary world ..read more

  First question: How is it golden and who decided it has to be a rule? It appears the name emerged in England or the continent just a few centuries ago. Wouldn’t it be more of an appeal or an exhortation rather than something as legalistic as a ‘rule’? I don’t know exactly how the name got started, do you? Every religion may agree with some formulation of it, but that doesn’t mean they have to know what it’s called. Here is a sometimes quoted verse, originally from a Vinaya text, or so I believed until I located it in the Prajñādaṇḍa, a work credited to Nāgārjuna ..read more

Amitābha   The Buddha Amitābha. Chromolithograph. Wellcome Collection. Every time I write a blog I go ahead and put it up, thinking it’s over and done with. But it usually isn’t too long, maybe an hour, a day or a week, before something I should have included comes to mind. That happened last time, which is why I put up that Postscript with something about a 15th-century painted icon of Padampa. Continuing to mine the vein of probable Padampas, I would like to add another artistic representation of unknown date of origin and unusual appearance. This artwork, not exactly in ..read more

Padampa in Saspola Cave, Ladakh Photo by Rob Linrothe Here you will find on offer translations of six Tingrian Couplets. They were preserved in a 15th-century Nyingma & Kagyü meditation manual composed by Khedrup Yeshé Gyeltsen. Those interested in Tibeto-logical details can read all the way to the end of the blog if they like.  The Tingri Gyatsa, or Tingri Hundred is a widely renowned monument of Tibetan literature, always attributed to the authorship of Padampa Sangye, the south Indian meditation master who died in Tibet in 1105 or 1117 CE. Like Kabir ..read more

“Slob-dpon ’Bu-ta Kug-ta”   I’ll admit the drawings may not be the finest of fine art. Still, undeniably pleasing overall. Face it, the coloration, plain clumsy, may have been added by a later owner. The black ink drawings themselves display an early style, one without a doubt inspired by a strong Pāla Era aesthetic. The more obviously odd aspects are the royal folds that rise up like stubby wings behind their shoulders, and the Indian pandita hats that look more like military helmets. The catalog, likely judging from the stylistic evidence, places their making in the 13th ..read more