Yes, in case anybody wonders, the Tibetan behind chiru is gcig-ru, which is funny because it would seem to mean the animal has only one horn, although it has two. Any idea why? The spelling gtsod is usual, but then most people don’t know how to spell these words, so gtso and other forms do occur to confuse or elude you.

Its Latin name is Panthopolops hodgsoni, and it’s sometimes called Hodgson’s antelope in earlier western zoological literature. I think it got these names because Brian H. Hodgson published an article, “Description of a New Species of Tibetan Antelope,” in Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. 15 (1846) 334-343.

I think it’s interesting the Wiki article mentions the chiru migration underpasses on the Tibet rail line, one of those same underpasses that features in that infamous photo of the train with stampeding chirus that was shown to be photoshopped a few months back.

I think the animal must be quite wild, since they say it can’t be liberated from its fur without first slaying it. And it takes about 7 or 8 of them to make a shahtoosh / Pashmina shawl. I find this story rather suspicious, though, especially these days when tranquilizer darts could certainly be used.

There are so many different types of goats-antelopes-gazelles running wild in Tibet. May there always be!

Your
Dab

Very happy to hear from you, even though you have more important things on your mind. And even better to hear that you agree with my assessment of man chad here. There’s another example in PT134, the prayer to Wu’i dun brtan. The prayer includes the aspiration that, of the butter lamps offered by the emperor, the cup (kong bu) should become the whole world, the ghee (mar) should become the ocean and the wick (snying po) should become Mount Meru. Then the light should pervade everything by shining down (man chad) from the pinnacle of existence. In Yamaguchi’s translation the light is shining up to the pinnacle of existence, but if the wick is already Mount Meru, shouldn’t it be shining down?

You said “It seems to me in my experience that it’s the yan-chad that comes first when both are used.” But in the Dunhuang texts, like PT1075 of IOL Tib J 753, it’s man chad that comes first. Anyway, I agree that the future is down. “It’s all downhill from here.” I wonder if this comes from the Indo-Tibetan (and Greco-Roman, and…) conceptual mindset that sees the distant past as a golden age and history as a process of downwards decline away from it. Swedenborgians and neo-Darwinists would see it the other way…

Finally since I know you like animal-related linguistic puzzles, and you might appreciate a little distraction, I will let on that I cheated in one part of the translation, reading the last animal in the penultimate verse as “antelope”. The Tibetan is btson which makes no sense here, so I read it as a corruption of gtsod. I wonder if the Tibetan antelope was considered more valuable than the horse. Nowadays they probably are, since their wool is so highly prized as the material of the shahtoosh, and the poor things are being poached to near extinction. (A threat incerased now by the new railway line, apparently: if you are in need of further distraction, have a look at the Wikipedia article).

Thanks for your comments. You were quite right to spot the missing line. I have re-installed it. As for the two missing /nga/, they really are missing in the manuscript. I just had a another close look at the microfilm, and I can’t see any sign that this is a scribal contraction. Nor does it seem to be a phonetic reading (in the sense that sometimes scribes drop the final /sa/ because it is silent). But I’ve put them into the transcription in square brackets now to avoid confusion.

I also don’t know of any equivalent for ‘dren pa’i slob dpon in the Indic tantric literature, but then I’m not an expert in that area. Karmay points out that the term ‘dren pa’i bshes gnyen (*nāyakamitra?) appears in PT42.

Staying with PT42, it does, as you know, discuss drod (“heat”), in terms of the signs of having positive experiences in the practice of “union”, “liberation” and the “feast” (sbyor ba dang sgrol ba dang zas kyi tshogs). Here I’m interpreting mthu nyams as “positive experiences” rather than “to become weak”. Beyond Dunhuang, “heat” goes back, as I’m sure you know, to the measurement of the progress of a bodhisattva, as the first of the four stages in the path of application. And then, of course, throughout the later Tibetan tradition it’s used as a sign of progress in meditation.

The term tshod here should just mean a measurement or estimate. My translation of that line is a bit loose. I think the meaning of the line is “Not applying (ma sbyar ba) the standards for measurement (tshod) to the signs of progress (drod).” The grammar is a little odd though.

I hope this elaboration (spro ba) was of some use!

I agree with Stein & with you on this point:

Rolf Stein translated this as “Depuis le «fils de dieu» (lha-sras) Dar-ma, depuis le «petit-fils» (dbon-sras) ‘Od-srus (lire srung)…” essentially the same as my translation.

Yamaguchi wrote an entire article on the subject of the yan-chad & man-chad. It has lots of instances of usages. It seems to me in my experience that it’s the yan-chad that comes first when both are used. Yan-chad means you are starting at the designated point in time and starting from there going back an indefinite period of time. Man-chad means you are starting at a designated point in time and starting from there going forward for an indefinite period of time. You could translate them, ‘from there on back [in time]‘ and ‘from that point onward.’

These words can be used ‘spatially’ rather than temporally, in which case they would mean ‘from here on up’ and ‘from here on down.’

That’s right, the future is down.

I think you also have to think about the script-based similarity between yan-chad and man-chad that could allow them to be rather easily confused by copyists.

I’ve missed our chats, but I’ve been so busy lately, like everyone else in the Tibetan world, otherwise I’d argue with you about Langdarma, too!

Your true
Dab

A very nice entry – as always.

I was just wondering: is leaving out the -ng- in gras and srus a conversion problem or is this the reading of the ms.?

I also think that the antepenultimate line is missing, I can’t find the equivalent of “Everyone thinks “I am accomplished as the deity.”

I was very surprised by ‘dren pa’i slob dpon. As far as I know *nāyakācārya is not attested anywhere in the Indian literature.

Again, drod and tshod are a bit obscure to me. I tried reading what PT42 has to say about this but it’s still not very clear. Could you perhaps elaborate on these? It would be great!

Peter

/yul mtho sa gtshang bod kyi yul/
/gangs ri mtho gtshang kun kyi gnya’/
/lha gnyan yul dbyings dkyil ‘di na/
/lha’i rigs la byang cub sems dpa’i rgyu/
/lha sras khri srong lde btsan gyis/
/dam chos slobs dpon rgya gar yul nas spyan drangs te/
/mun nag dkyil du sgron bteg bzhin/
/rgyal khams phyogs kyang spyod par gnang/
/byang cub mchog gi lam la bkod/
/lha sras lha’i drin re che/
/bka’ lung gzhung dang ‘thun pa’i tshe/
/phyi nang gnyis kyi slobs dpon dang/
/las kyi rdo rje mkhas dang gsum/
/ma ‘dres spyod lam ‘di lta bu/
/mkhas btsun spyod mkhas ‘khrug pa myed/
/bod ‘bangs kun kyang bde zhing skyid/

/lha sras dar ma man chad dang/
/’od sru[ng]s dbon sras man chad du/
/spyi na dam chos dar cing rgyas/
/ha cang dar cing rgyas ces pas/
/myir skyes kun kyang ‘grub par bzhed/
/gsum khrims ‘dul khrims myi shes par/
/las kyi rdo rje bong bus nyo/
/las kyi dbang dang myi ldan bar/
/’dren pa’i slobs dpon glang gis nyo/
/’dren pa’i dbang dang myi ldan bar/
/rdo rje rgyal ‘tshab rta ‘is nyo/
/rgyal ‘tshab dbang dang myi ldan bar/
/rdo rje rgyal po btson gyis nyo/

/drod dang tshod dang ma sbyar ba’i/
/nor kar bor ba’i slobs dpon gyis/
/’jig rten ‘das pa’i don myi rig/
/slob ma brgya la slobs dpon stong/
/lha chos nyan pa’i myi ma chis/
/grong tsan gcig la slobs dpon bcu/
/las kyi rdo rje gra[ng]s kyang myed/
/kun kyang lha ru ‘grub snyam ste/
/mjug du sde tsan mang po yis/
/rdo rje phung po bzhig ga re/