Names of Manjushri

June 20, 2020

Names of Manjushri

Mañjuśrī , འཇམ་དཔལ་ jam pal, is a popular Buddhist figure representing wisdom that actually has many other Sanskrit names besides Mañjuśrī such as Mañjughoṣa, Vāgīśvara, Yamāntaka, besides also being a very common Tibetan first name Jampel. There's also a famous praise named Chanting the Names of Mañjuśrī (འཇམ་དཔལ་མཚན་བརྗོད་, ‘jam dpal mtshan brjod), a tantra that lists a multitude of names and titles for Mañjuśrī (and is actually a very deep Tantric commentary).

Here we will just examine some of the common forms of Mañjuśrī and how the Tibetans translated these Sanskrit names to their own native language.

The root in both Mañjuśrī and Mañjughoṣa is maJju beautiful. See the exellent SpokenSanskrit.org dictionary search tool where you could do similar explorations of Sanskrit words. In the case of Tibetan this was then translated to འཇམ་པ་ lovely, smooth, charming. śrī has many meanings such as luster, radiance, glory and is usually translated to Tibetan as དཔལ་ dpal. If we did a similar translation to English it would be the Beautiful Radiance or Glorious Beauty.

Tibetan this was then translated to འཇམ་པ་ lovely, smooth, charming. śrī has many meanings such as luster, radiance, glory and is usually translated to Tibetan as དཔལ་ dpal. If we did a similar translation to English it would be the Beautiful Radiance or Glorious Beauty.

ghoṣa means voice. Tibetans translated Mañjughoṣa as འཇམ་དབྱངས་ 'jam dbyangs, where ་དབྱངས་ means voice, melody. So if we again translated this forward into English it would be something like Gentle Voice or Beautiful Speech.

Vagiśvara is Lord of Speech which was translated as གསུང་གི་དབང་ཕྱུག gsung gi dbang phyug, གསུང་ means speech, and དབང་ཕྱུག is Lord.

We then also have various other deity forms of Mañjuśrī such as Black Manjushri འཇམ་དབྱངས་ནག་པ་ 'jam dbyangs nag pa, White Manjushri འཇམ་དབྱངས་དཀར་པོ་ 'jam dbyangs dkar po and so on.

One of highest yoga Mañjuśrī Tantra deities is Yamāntaka, yama here being death and anantaka making an end, or Ending Death. Tibetans translated this as གཤིན་རྗེའི་གཤེད་ gshin rje'i gshed. གཤིན་ is death, གཤེད་ is to destroy and རྗེ་ is lord, so a rough translation here would be Lord that Destroys Death. There are many other names for Mañjuśrī -- we might revisit this popular bodhisattva/Buddha at some later point.

Another note here in general is the topic translators cope with today, should they do as Tibetans, Chinese and Japanese and translate the Sanskrit names to their native languages, or keep the Sanskrit names? One big issue is that in our modern world we really do not have a authority that defines the name to be used, and it's doubtful this will ever happen in our modern democratic systems. For that reason my personal opinion is that it's best to honor and respect the original Sanskrit names. It also helps that in for example English we are used to loan words and usage of foreign names and titles.