Wednesday, February 02, 2011

Tibskrit Reloaded



If you are the sort of person who has made use of Tibskrit in the past, you will probably find its largest and latest incarnation, “Tibskrit 2011,” a little more useful.

Because upload services drop files if they have not been downloaded frequently enough, you will help to keep Tibskrit up there if you will do us the favor of downloading it. Recent studies have proven once and for all that information gains enhanced survival capabilities if it is spread around.

If you would like to take your chances and try going directly to the download of the Word version by all means go to the link just given. If it doesn’t take you there more quickly than expected we have no one but our selves to blame.  

Whatever you decide to do, best of luck with it.


Mindfulness of walking and sweeping-
January in Sarnath


Postscript


Why is it called “Tibskrit”?  Because a distinctive name like this will make it quickly located by a simple web search.  (And also because it signifies a very strong and continuing cultural relationship between Tibetan and Sanskrit.  The materials included in it testify to the truth of it.)

Why “Philology”?  Because this 20-dollar word is likely to intimidate people who wouldn’t find this sort of thing useful anyway.  (Oh, and also because it's all about the love of the language arts, which is what philology is supposed to mean, contrary to common misconceptions both inside and outside the academies.)

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The next release of Tibskrit, Tibskrit 2014 we’ll call it, will surely overshoot the one million word mark.  A present there are about 970,000 words, a 40,000 word increase over Tibskrit 2009.


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On another matter altogether...  


Think it will be a good hare year? I sure hope so. Been thinking about that Losar card to e-mail to all your friends? This one is from none other than Professor Emeritus Dieter Schuh of Bonn via the Wikimedia Commons. It has authenticity written all over it, but I’m thinkin’ any ol’ bunny wabbit* would do the twick.


Tibetan Hare (yos) year


There’s still plenty of time to create your personalized e-card. The Chinese “Spring Festival” may be starting about now, but Tibetan Losar is still a month away. The nice thing about e-cards is that, generally speaking, they are no sooner sent than received. Don’t neglect to put a little of your ingenuity into it, though. Nobody really appreciates an inbox stuffed with generic off-the-shelf e-cards. When you come right down to it, it really is the thought (and the effort and the artistry) that counts... Quality, not quantity.

*We’ve already had occasion to blog on (and on) about Tibetan words for hare and/or rabbit. See the Ownerless Donkey for this along with some fairly good photos of Middle Eastern bunny mosaics. And of course one of the best places to turn for rabbit & hare art, as you probably know from experience, is Tibetan Buddhist Digital Altar. (Wait, let me go look up the correct name, since I’m always getting the words mixed up: Digital Tibetan Buddhist Altar: Buddhist Polemics, Rabbit Appreciation, Desert Life and the Daily Lama.)


10 comments:

  1. Thank you so very much for your endeavour.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dear A.-

    Meaning please. Aren’t you our mirror?

    -D.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The link to the pdf still points to the 2009 version. Anyway, I downloaded the word version and exported it as a pdf. As a 'frequent user' this has certainly made my day. Many thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dear PSz,

    Whoops! I hope the link is fixed now. How did that happen? Not sure why anyone would especially want the PDF version, but anyway. Thanks for being a user. And a writer. Yours always,

    D.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dear Hummingbird,

    Could you possibly fix these words in the Wiki entry on the Samten Migdron?

    "The Samten Migdron was recovered amongst the Dunhuang texts."*

    *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samten_Migdrön (accessed just now)

    The Samten Migdron is most definitely not among the texts found at Dunhuang. I don't have the energy to go into the Wiki system to fix these things, but I think you are a frequent editor there, and would have no trouble adding the word "not" to the offending sentence if you felt so inclined.

    Yours,
    D.

    ReplyDelete
  6. PS for Hummingbird:

    I'll quote from the English-language preface to the 1974 Leh edition of the Bsam-gtan Mig-sgron, which is no doubt from the pen of the much-missed E. Gene Smith:

    "The discovery of the Bsam gtan mig sgron..., a treatise on the various approaches to Buddhist realisation focussing upon the methods of Rdzogs-chen by the famed Gnubs-chen Sangs-rgyas-ye-shes, may well prove to be one of the most significant events in Tibetological research during the present decade. The text produced here is a legible, though not elegant, copy of a blockprint from eastern Tibet. The text was xylographed through the efforts of a student of the 'Jam-dbyangs Mkhyen-brtse and 'Jam-mgon Kong-sprul tradition. The colophon to the blocks is signed by one 'Jam-dbyangs Blo-gros-rgya-mtsho, a teacher connected with Kah-thog. The blocks were prepared on the basis of a manuscript which had belonged to the great Rnying-ma-pa scholar Smin-gling Lo-chen Dharma-shrî (1654-1718). This manuscript, in turn, was based on a manuscript from the library of the famed Jo-nang Rje-btsun Târanâtha (b. 1575)."

    To clarify something that may not be all that explicit in this quote, the reprint of 1973 is a reproduction of a manuscript that copied a woodblock carved in early 20th century (it copies also the colophon to the woodblock print, which is why we have the rest of the information).

    It often wasn't convenient to go to the places where the woodblocks were kept and negotiate for the printing of a text. That's why we often find manuscripts that are (perhaps unexpectedly) hand copies of woodblock prints.

    In any case, I hope this will be enough to say that there is no good reason for anyone to place the Bsam-gtan Mig-sgron among the Dunhuang texts. It actually makes it more significant, as a text with so many clear connections with some of the contents of some of the Dunhuang texts, nevertheless was transmitted right down to us through the centuries by Tibetan hands.

    I think it would be excellent if someone were to quote the statement by E. Gene Smith as part of the Wiki page.

    ReplyDelete
  7. big thanks to dan martin for sharing years of meticulous bibliographic work. i will share this link with other students of tibetan and buddhist studies at the university of vienna in hope of spreading the word.

    all the best,
    dennis johnson

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  8. Thanks for the words of encouragement, DJ. And say hello to all our friends in Wien. Yours,D.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Pay attention, the links in this old blog are not going to work for you, so go to this one instead: https://www.dropbox.com/s/z1rmye59wj4llgv/Tibskrit%202021%20copy.docx?dl=0

    ReplyDelete

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