Simple Words - BCOM LDAN 'DAS

When looking further into the sutras, such as the 8000 verses on the Perfection of Wisdom, you see this honorific title bcom ldan 'das many times. In Sanskrit it is Bhagavan. It's one of the many titles of Buddha. It is sometimes also translated as the blessed one, or the exalted one.

bcom means to conquer, such as conquering the four maras. ldan is a very handy Tibetan word, it points out a property, possession, quality, such as achieving anything, 'das is a word for above, beyond, transcend.

Thus this honorific word is about a being who has conquered all the obstacles, achieved everything and has moved beyond all that. Another way to expain this is that a Budddha has conquered all obstacles -- bcom, and has achieved all that could be achieved -- ldan, and has passed beyond samsara - 'das.

Sutra Homage

Let's look at the homage section of the first chapter of the 8000 Verses on the Perfection of Wisdom. We looked at the homage translations before.

The full homage sentence here is:

sangs rgyas dang byang chub sems dpa' dang 'phags pa nyan thos dang rang sangs rgyas thams cad la phyag 'tshal lo,

As we know from before, sangs rgyas means Buddhas, byang chub sems dpa' is bodhisattvas, and thams cad phyag 'tshal lo, prostrate to all...

What's left are the words nyan thos and rang sangs rgyas.

nyan thos is in Sanskrit Shravaka, usually translated as Listener. It's a special group of pracititioners that could listen to teachings, nyan means to listen, and then others listen - thos - when they teach. They could listen to Mahayana teachings, and even teach it to others, but they can't practice Mahayana teachings. Their end result is reaching personal nirvana.

rang sangs rgyas is in Sanskrit Pratyeka Buddha, usually translated in English as Solitary Buddhas. Now, looking at the Tibetan, rang means self and sangs rgyas Buddhas, so sometimes the term Self-made Buddhas are also used. In one lifetime they practice in solidarity, without any teachers, and reach nirvana (not full enlightenment as Mahayana practitioners reaching full enlightenment). However, they had countless teachers in past lives preparing them for this moment. eka is by the way number one in Sanskrit.

To note is that the homage is towards all these practitioners and Buddhas, without any discriminations whatsoever. In the various Tantic merit trees, visualizations of Buddhas, bodhisattvas and root teachers, nyan thos and rang sangs rgyas are also part of this merit tree!

Sutra Opening Lines Part 2

OK, let's finish the opening lines of most sutras, or ,'di skad bdag gis thos pa dus gcig na.

thos pa is listening, especialy in the context hearing a dharma teaching, receiving oral instructions. Just listening to a teacher even reciting texts is very important in the Buddhist tradition. What is established is a continuous tradition going back to the original teachings. Alas, this chain will be broken in future, so meanwhile it's good to try to keep the connection available for future generations.

dus is a very common word, means time. However, here it is used in an expression, dus gcig na, when one time, or one day.

So, the second part, thos pa dus gcig na is one day I heard. The full translation might look like: One day I heard the words of this teaching. However, this is not how you usually see the first line translated. A very common variant is: Thus I once heard, or Thus I have heard.

This whole first sentence is actually an indication that it is an authentic sutra. Shakyamuni Buddha gave instructions to his disciple Ananda to start any sutra with this statement, as welll as indicating the time and place, as well who were attending when the sutra was spoken.

Sutra Opening Lines Part 1

The interesting thing with most sutras is that they start with this same sentence:

,'di skad bdag gis thos pa dus gcig na,

I've even seen whole commentaries describing this starting sentence in the Tibetan literature.

Let's start parsing this sentence.

'di we had before, these.
skad means means voice, sound, something heard, but actually here it means words.
bdag we had before, me
gis is an instrumental particle, by where the right part points at the left side.

Thus, so far: by me these words...

Simple Words - MDO

Ok, as I've been late with postings, here's another short one. mdo, this is in sanskrit sutra. A sutra, or mdo, is usually something spoken by a Buddha. The reason it's best to say usually is that there are some texts by Indian commentators that has the word mdo included, such as the Vinaya sutra, 'dul ba mdo rtsa ba. This text is the root text when studying the vows and moral conduct of monks and nuns.

Otherwise, the historical Buddha spoke many teachings, they were initially memorized, and then later written down, and these are the so called sutras, mdo. The Tibetans then later collected and translated the ones available in India around 800 to 1000 BC, and collected them to a set called bka' 'gyur (KANGYUR). Note bka' means words of a Buddha, and 'gyur is a very, very common word we will see many times in future, such as become. So it again points at a state where an enlightened being teaches by speaking.

As part of the sutra collection there's the shes rab kyi pha rol to phyin pa collection of mdo. Some famous ones are the heart sutra, shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa'i snying po, or the perfection of wisdom in 8000 verses, shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa brgyad stong pa, but you could also call it brgyad stong pa as the shorter name. There are sutras on the perfection of wisdom of 25000 verses, and 100000 verses. Supposedly there were even longer ones that we don't have available today.

Homework: Print out the heart sutra and place it in your car.

SHES RAB KYI PHA ROL TU PHYIN PA

That's a mouthful! We went through shes rab earlier, wisdom. pha rol is the other, the far shore, other side. We looked quickly at the particle tu before, it's a dative particle, extremely flexible one, as the last letter in rol is l, then the dative particle is tu (it could be su, tu, du...). Think of it as the word to just now.

So far, pha rol tu means to the other side. phyin pa means pass, cross over. So the whole expression is the wisdom that will take one to the other side. Another more common word is transcendental, wisdom that transcends intellectual thinking. Buddhas who have overcome this are on the other side, they have crossed over, transcended ordinary beings.

In Sanskrit all this is prajnaparamita. Maybe now it makes sense. This is the full name of the perfection of wisdom, when wisdom is perfected, and you move to the other side.

Homework: Find this important term in the 8000 Verses of the Perfection of Wisdom.

Simple Words - SHES RAB

There will be an emphasis on using dharmadictionary as a basis for more examples and information -- this because I'm very much involved with it.

We just uploaded a first draft of the 8000 Verses of the Perfection of Wisdom in Tibetan, one of the key Prajnaparamita Sutras, so let's look at this text for a while. To start with, it's good to learn the word shes rab. This is in Sanskrit prajna, wisdom.

There are many, many words related to wisdom. Do not confuse shes rab, prajna, with ye shes, jnana. shes rab is the wisdom that a bodhisattva perfects on the path to enlightenment, Buddhas dwell in a constant ye shes, primordial wisdom/awareness.

Homework: Get familiar with the 8000 Verses of the Perfection of Wisdom by doing lookups of shes rab in the text.

In Sanskrit

OK, let's take something totally from a different angle. The Kangyur collection is the collection of spoken words by the Buddha, in other words it has the sutras. The so called Tengyur is the collection of commentaries and texts by Indian panditas and yogis, pandita is a title for a scholar. Sakya Pandita received this title by the contemporary Indian Panditas, by the way.

A text in the Kangyur or Tengyur collection usually starts with the original Sanskrit title, and after that the Tibetan translation. The Sanskrit title is preceeded by: rgya gar skad du, for example:

rgya gar skad du, bha ga ba ti padznaya'p'a ra mi t'a hri da ya, translated as the Heart Sutra in contemporary translations, even if the intent is to point out the heart essence of the perfection of wisdom (emptiness).

rgya gar means India, skad means speech, voice, but in this context language, so rgya gar skad means the language of India. As we know Kangyur and Tengyur was written down in Sanskrit, it's maybe the best to just translate this as Sanskrit. The last word du is another particle we will encounter many times, it's a particle of general subordination. It establishes a relationship between the right side and the left side. It has actually many forms, tu, su, ru, and an r appended to the previous word, depending on the last letter. Here skad has a d, so it's du. As a quick first translation word, use as.

Anyway, this as might be superfluous here, In Sanskrit, as, so you might as well leave it out.

If you look at the Kangyur or Tengyur collection, you will see this phrase many times at the beginning of a text.

Finally, after the Sanskrit title you have the Tibetan title, so the prefix for this is: bod skad du, In Tibetan, where bod is Tibet or Tibetan.

Here are some examples of texts from Asian Classics Input Project, in ACIP format, that you could take a look at, the beginning, and see how the titles are defined:

* Diamond Cutter Sutra
* Abhidharma-kosha by Master Vasubandhu
* Bodhisattva Way of Life by Master Shantideva

Or check out other Kangyur and Tengyur texts.