སྤྲོས་བྲལ་, 51. This word corresponds according to S. Ch. D. to a Sk. nishprapañca (or apañca, aprapañca) which in Macdonell’s Sk. Dict. is rendered by ‘unevolved, exempt from multiformity.’ We may, therefore, think of expressions like ‘the undifferentiated, homogeneous, absolute.’ The word dhātu being the Sk. equivalent for Tib. དབྱིངས་ the whole expression དབྱིངས་སྤྲོས་བྲལ་ must correspond to a Sk. aprapañca dhātu. The same Sk. Dict. translates the word dhātu as ‘layer, component part, element.’ In Tibetan དབྱིངས་ means, according to J.: (1) ‘the heavens’; (2) ‘height’; (3) ‘extent, region, space, in metaphysics an undefined idea.’ According to the etymology སྤྲོས་བྲལ་ should mean ‘passive, actionless, quietistic, inert,’ but according to the etymology of its Sk. prototype rather ‘undifferentiated, monadic.’ One of my informants compares it with ཆོས་ཀྱི་དབྱངས་, dharma dhātu, and སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་, shunyatā, the void, the absolute. In this connection one should compare J.’s statements (215a) that in modern (Tibetan) Buddhism the term མངོན་པར་ རྟོགས་པ་ (अभिसमय), ‘clear understanding or perception’ means the same as སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་, and further (259b) that དོན་དམ་, originally परमार्थ, has, in later times, also become equivalent to སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་. It seems that the old metaphysicians reached regions and distinctions where their followers could no longer join them, and hence the process became ‘omne ignotum pro སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་.’ For practical purposes the rendering ‘absolute,’ or ‘motionless’ might be used for སྤྲོས་བྲལ་, whilst the word དབྱིངས་ might be rendered by ‘principle, state, region.’ If occurring in a specimen of the more technically and theoretically philosophical literature of Northern Buddhism, a more precise rendering and more careful definition might be required. Taking the following རྟོགས་པ་ as ‘knowledge, perception, cognition,’ then the whole expression becomes in English ‘the knowledge of the motionless state (or region, or principle)’ or—more pedantic but perhaps truer—‘the knowledge of (that is: pertaining to, inherent in) the monadic state.’ Other equivalents: ‘a state of stillness, the still state’ and, mystically, ‘the wisdom of the silence.’ One of my informants, the dge rgan, knows of a colloquial use of སྤྲོས་བྲལ་ = རེ་བ་མེད་ = ‘hopeless,’ but my second authority ignores this use. The following two examples were given: འདི་ཤེས་པ་སྤྲོས་བྲལ་རེད་, ‘it is labour lost (hopeless) to [try and] know this.’ You cannot hope to know this. (N.B.—Note the elliptic construction ‘hopeless to know’ for ‘to try to know, to study and so come to know.’) ཡི་གེ་ཡག་པོ་ཀློག་ཤེས་ཀྱི་མི་འདུག་སུམ་རྟགས་ཤེས་ པ་སྤྲོས་བྲལ་རེད་, ‘As he does not even know how to read well (or properly), it is hopeless (lost labour), for him to (or: how can he?) study grammar’ (Not: how can he pretend to know grammar?).