Minor Tibetan Texts: 1. The song of the Eastern Snow-mountain
Religion
Minor Tibetan Texts: 1. The song of the Eastern Snow-mountain
Buddhist literature, Tibetan; Prayer -- China -- Tibet Autonomous Region -- Buddhism; Tibetan language -- Texts
Desg. gives no example of རྒྱན་པ་ with a clearly active value of the verb
‘to ornament,’ but both in J. and Desg. such examples are given under
བརྒྱན་པ་. Desg. gives as synonyms ལེགས་བྱེད་ and མཛེས་བྱེད་ and it is a
question whether in these expressions བྱེད་ can have the neuter sense of
‘to act as’ = ‘to be’ (like in རྒྱལ་པོ་བྱེད་པ་). S. Ch. D. (who has several
misprints in his syns. for རྒྱན་) quotes s.v. འགོད་པ་ (292b) a བརྒྱན་དགོད་པ་,
‘to arrange ornaments (tastefully); to decorate, adorn, to construct or
adjust grammatical forms, sentences, (Zam.).’ This latter use of བརྒྱན་
is evidently the clue to the expression, quoted elsewhere by Desg. and
S. Ch. D.: རྒྱན་མཁན་པོ་, अलंकारपण्डित, one versed in rhetoric, a clever
orator. The equation རྒྱན་པ་ = བཞག་པ་ (in the modern language, v. Bell,
to put, place), given by S. Ch. D. is denied by both my teachers,
though confirmed by Desg.; they know of no Tibetan word of this
spelling and sound with the meaning bejewelled, adorned, decorated, as
is the correct translation of the Sk. equivalent cited, मण्डित. Yet may
རྒྱན་ (པ་) perhaps mean ‘an ornamented object’, hence ‘die, dice’; hence
again Desg. ‘objets mêlés pour tirer les sorts’, and lastly ‘stake’ (in
gambling) and ‘lot’? This first meaning is not in the Dicts. but would
settle the question discussed a few lines lower down, and explain those
combinations with རྒྱན་ which refer to gambling and divination. In
connection with the immediately following articles in S. Ch. D., རྒྱན་
བཞག་མཁན༌, ‘one who joins in a wager, gambler’ [one who puts up his
jewels, ornaments for a stake?], and རྒྱན་དོར་བ་ or བཞག་པ་, ‘a dice-rogue,
a gamester, one who throws dice,’ etc., it should be ascertained
whether there is a Tibetan word with རྒྱན་ which means die, dice, or
whether the combinations refer to the staking of ornaments and jewels
in gambling.
S.v. བརྒྱན་པ་ S. Ch. D. gives no news, treating this word, however, as a
verb, and referring to རྒྱན་ for the subst.
As a result of this little investigation we come to the conclusion that
it is legitimate to inquire whether there is not a Tibetan verb རྒྱན་པ་
(more likely than བརྒྱན་པ་) with the passive or neuter sense of ‘being
decked out, being ornamented or adorned, showing gaily.’ What would
render such a word exactly in English is difficult to see, unless we
coin a verb ‘to splendiferate,’ but D. pronken (pronken in vollen
luister) comes near to it. Other related words would be: to blaze
forth, to shine out, to cut a dash, or else to swagger, to swank, to
preen, to strut, or again to be graced with or by, to show forth, etc.,
but especially ‘to display’ in the technical zoological sense.
An instructive illustration in this matter is furnished by the
following two sentences, both with the same meaning: ཐང་ཀ་རི་མོས་བརྒྱན་
འདུག་, or ཐང་ཀ་འདི་ལ་རི་མོས་བརྒྱན་འདུག་, of which the best idiomatic
translation is: O, what a fine picture!; how fine is the painting
(drawing) of (in) (this) picture!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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