Not listening to him either,
the king, ordering them to subdue the ‘Three Great Realms’
by means of Ch’ö,
(1) ordered Dré Pelgyi Lodrö
to subdue the realm of Tazik;
(2) (he) ordered the monk Anenhar
to subdue the empire of T’rom Gesar;
(3) (he) ordered the monk Dharmazhala
to subdue the empire of China.
Having thereupon suppressed the formerly auspicious Bön,
he performed various practices of Ch’ö
and adopted the ‘holy Ch’ö’ of India.
... ... ...(1) First Dré Palgyi Lodrö conquered Tazik, (B 54b)(but) the Four Citadels of the highlands were lost,Badakshan and Utibuling revolted,and Gongla in Tsang was vanquished by Mön.(2) Then the monk Anenhar conquered Hor,but Gagong and Yutsen were killed,and the citadel Tsenpo Lich’ung was lost to Hor.(3) Then the monk Dharmazhala conquered China,but Ke’ushika revolted.
- I ought to make my method clear ahead of time. Whenever I see a multi-syllabic Tibetan name or term with a final syllable difficult or impossible to etymologize within the Tibetan language[s], I strongly tend toward seeing it as a foreign borrowing. Then, even if the spellings of the first syllable[s] may on occasion look as Tibetan as can be, I would still suspect them of being ‘Tibetanizations’ (use of familiar spellings with relatively clear Tibetan meanings tending to naturalize the exotic syllables). I’ve found this to be productive in the past, as you might see in an earlier blog discussion of Tibetan name elements ending in the syllable -zi, explaining four such names — Ka-zi, Ga-zi, Mu-zi and Ya-zi — as being of Turkic (and possibly also Iranic), origins (see the postscript to this blog). I’ve discussed the noun kha-tham as Aramaic for ‘seal’ in yet another blog, and hope to write about the odd pre-Mongol-era vocabulary items ya-lad and dmu-yad before long. There is a method to what some may see as my madness.
(? I’m not troubled by the different spellings for the time being, are you? P.K. reminded me that in the more ancient times Avestan hvar meant ‘sun’ and corresponded with Vedic svar, ‘sun,’ and would only later develop the correspondence in meaning with Sanskrit śrī.)
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Brief Indications of the teaching lineage of Master Namkhai Nyingpo.
“As for the teachers, there was the Master A-rtan-hywer, knowledgeable in the Path of equality of [all] dharmas. He departed India and for the benefit of beings proceeded to the country of An-se.* Gathering around him some 300 disciples, he taught them how to access the meaning of the Great Vehicle. He took divine sustenance from the sky (i.e., from Namkha) and sated the hunger of his 300 disciples. When he achieved the age of one hundred, he passed beyond time** in the way of Ner-ban (nirvāṇa). The An-se King stroked his body and said, “Master, if you could teach so much Dharma for sentient beings, are you departing without teaching me even a few words?” Three days after his death he rose again. He then taught Dharma to the An-se King Kva-tsi-thang (Kwa-tsi-wang?) and passed beyond time.”***
(*The place name in Tibetan spelling An-se, Schaik interprets as Anxi, the relocating capital of the Four Garrisons region, its name moving with it.
**I see the unusual phrase dus-las 'das as something associated with early scriptural translation literature. It may have originated as a calque of Sanskrit kālagata. It could well be translated less literally as ‘come to his end,’ ‘[whose] time has come,’ or just ‘died.’
***See Lalou's essay, p. 505-521 for the first published facsimile, with French translation. For an alternative English translation, see Schaik, Tibetan Zen, pp. 164, 170. For a modern edition of this text, see “Mkhan-po Nam-ka'i-snying-po'i Dge-ba'i-bshes-nyen-gyi Rgyud Mdor Bshad-pa,” contained in: Lo-paṇ-gyi Rnam-thar Phyogs-bsgrigs, Krung-go'i Shes-rig Dpe-skrun-khang (Beijing 2018), in 7 vols., at vol. 1, pp. 9-13. For a modern edition and study, you might consider reading the Chinese-language essay by Tshe-ring, listed below.)
(*The text uses variant spellings of the word bande. In Bon sources this could mean simply ‘Buddhist.’ Elsewhere in Tibetan sources it tends to mean an itinerant Buddhist ritual specialist or teacher who is likely not fully ordained, or just a layperson. It certainly resembles the Pāli term bhante, Japanese bonze, etc. The Tibetan term doesn’t carry with it the same high level of respect that the Pāli does.)
Find me! Read me!
- This link ought to take you directly to the color photographs of the manuscripts at Gallica website. You would need the complete scans of Pt 116 and Pt 996, and both ought to be available at Gallica. Both texts have been nicely cataloged by Sam van Schaik (2014).
- See Sam van Schaik's Early Tibet blog, entry for March 31, 2010.
“The spelling of the master’s name (a rtan hwer) suggests that it has been rendered into Tibetan from Chinese characters that were attempting to transliterate a foreign name. One scholar has argued that it represents the Persian name Ardašīr, though this is difficult to substantiate. The first part of the name may represent the Chinese surname An, which would imply an origin in the region of Sogdiana. In any case, the lineage is first recorded in Anxi, the name of the Chinese command center for its western territories. This had been in Kucha until the late 680s, when Kucha was taken by the Tibetan army, and the Chinese moved the Anxi commandery to Qocho. Thus by the time of Artanhwer, Anxi may have referred to Qoco (Ch. Gaochang).”
§ § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § §
Notes on origins of Tibetan forms of names in text
Michael Walter, Nov. 15, 2024
(References are found at the bottom of this brief disquisition, which I hope is not an imposition or uncomfortable as an inquisition.)
The names could conceivably be transcriptions of either Sogdian, Bactrian or Khotanese, although the latter is an outlier. I’ve recently discovered that there were Bactrian Manichaeans in Turfan as well as Sogdian, and that Sogdians were a significant element of the population in Khotan (Dunkin-Meisterernst.2018; Zhang.2018 [no quote from latter]).
As to the idea of a Chinese intermediary in the transmission of these names, that is always possible. However, the variety of transcriptions of /hwar/ in Tibetan which express both palatalization (y) and labial velarization (w) would not be expected from informants speaking the same language. It cannot be excluded that different written versions of these names were available and consulted. “An” may also have come from a written source as well as a spoken.
This situation may have arisen in part through the frequent need of intermediary interpreters for communication among traders, attested at Turfan and other locations. This may also be a reason why there have not yet appeared any Sogdian terms in Tibetan—perhaps most Sogdian-Tibetan trade was effected using Chinese as an intermediary or with the aid of a Chinese interpreter. Since both Tibetans and Sogdians lived for quite some time in Dunhuang and Turfan, bilingualism involving the Chinese language must have been common, and nearly everyone would have understood what An/ 安 referred to. (There are two quotes concerning the name Anxi at the bottom of this statement. They support the pronunciation Anse and give a hint about the complicated employment of the term.)
Let’s begin with a-nan-hwar. I was immediately disabused of the notion that /hwar/ in these examples was a variant of far/farr/farn, because in all three above Iranian languages the f- is preserved (becoming the plosive ph- in Khotanese). [Gnoli.1999] Therefore, as you suggested, the only logical alternative would be hwar, Romanized identically in today’s transliteration of Sogdian. It has a long history in Iranian languages as meaning “sun”. Gharib’s dictionary of Sogdian provides only one meaning: xwr, i.e., xur, xwar, ‘sun’, the likely word here. I considered rendering xwar here as ‘brilliance’, because that is the metaphorical value for the sun in Iranian culture. However, ‘sun’ is also attested as the second element in two Parthian Manichaean names. [Cited below at Cereti.2008] The significant point here is that, because of its multivalence in Manichaeism, such as a being worthy of offering prayers to, the Sun was considered a god. This helps us make sense of these two names.
The a-nan element may be resolved into An and Nana. I.e., this was a Sogdian from Anxi named in part for Nana, the most important goddess of Central Asian Iranians. Most Iranists believe she was neither a Buddhist or Manichaean goddess, but basically a deity of the Bactrians and Sogdians who became the city goddess of Panjikent. Yoshida considers her a goddess of the Zoroastrians with regard to the theophorism nnyprn, Nanaifarna. [Yoshida.2018.22]
I am helped to this conclusion because, despite not affiliated with a major religion, Nana(i) ranks as one of the most common theophoric name elements attested for Sogdians in ancient sources. [Lur’e.2019.447]
Therefore, this name is most likely to be read as An Nanahwar, ‘He who is from An, (a worshipper of) Nana and the Sun’.
Now, as to /a-rtan or rdan-hwer/. First, let us postulate that the various forms of the second element provided here for both names represent the vagaries of scribes. As far as I can see, hwar is the only alternative among the variety here (-har, -hywar, -hywer, hwer) which can be matched with a meaningful term in Sogdian. Two variations given here may, indeed, be explained as variants of hwar which have undergone metathesis. [Yoshida.2016: “xwyr ‘sun’ < *xwarya- …”] So, again we are dealing with the Sun here.
The t/d alteration is a common and ancient feature in Iranian languages, occurring as a dialecticism, a result of ambiguities in scripts, or simply an ad hoc variation. There are examples very similar to what we have here. [Justi.1895, cited below.] Justi also provides an ancient identification which corroborates your intuition, a venerable and noble name: Justi.1895.37 “Artanēs, from time of Herodotus”. The presence of the -n here is significant; the presence of an n is otherwise very difficult to explain in either sort of compound considered here, making Artanēs an even more likely choice. Originally it is the Greek form of the name of the brother of Darius. It seems to have developed the extended meaning “virtuous; doer of good deeds”, etc. Since Sogdians are already attested to have been part of the Achaemenid’s forces, there is well over 1000 years during which the Sogdians may have adopted this extended meaning.
Therefore, the name Artanhwar is most likely to mean, “Who (worships the) Sun and The Doer of Good Deeds.”
How do we interpret such name forms? Comparisons with Sanskrit compounds abound in such onomastic studies. Most often mentioned for Iranian theophoric compounds are equivalents of dvandva and ṣaṣti tatpuruṣa formations. The presence of dvandva compounds in Iranian languages is rather recent and not without controversy. [Cereti.2008] However, the dvandva concept seems to fit these two examples, provided that the analysis of the meaning of har, hwar, etc. is correct—that the term refers to the sun. Thus, An Nanahwar could follow the examples at Cereti.2008, cited below. (Another reason to prefer this over “Sun of Nana” is that Nana is often iconographically shown holding the Sun and the Moon, making the meaning of “Sun of Nana” uncertain.)
In any event, there is little likelihood that these are the names of Sogdian Buddhists, in particular monks. These names lack any reference to Buddhism. Also, some Sogdians who converted to Buddhism bore names beginning with Buti-, ‘Buddha’. [Yoshida.2006] This element is also lacking. However, as is so often the case, we cannot know this with certainty. E.g., consider the numerous ancient Buddhist writers who carried their Hindu names with them, such as Haribhadra or names with the element īśvara. However, the text is supposed to be mentioning the names of monks. This does not seem possible.
Historical note of some significance in Chen&Mair.2017.202:
“… it would seem no less legitimate to characterize a nearly simultaneous socio-cultural import, namely the arrival of theophoric names in China during early medieval times, as the Iranisation of Chinese nomenclature. In a short timespan after the collapse of the Western Jin 晋 dynasty (265-316), all principal types of theophoric names found in the Near East, namely verbal-sentence, nominal-sentence, one-word, genitive-construct, and even hypocorism, were attested in China. The long-ignored historical fact is that the Iranians-Sogdians spearheaded the introduction of theophoric names into China.”
CITED SOURCES
Dunkin-Meisterernst.2018:
“… the Bactrian fragment … is written in Manichaean script and is therefore the only surviving Bactrian text not written in Greek script. Since Greek script used for Bactrian is defective, for example, in not having a letter for the sound h whereas Manichaean script has a letter h and some other relevant features, the fragment is valuable for its script alone. But its value goes deeper. The fragment consists of a page from a book, folded to a small size, possibly for use in an amulet. It is direct evidence for a Manichaean book and for Manichaean literature in Bactrian and therefore a highly significant link in the chain of missionary endeavors that brought Manichaeism from Mesopotamia … in the third century CE to Turfan.”
Gnoli.1999:
“Among Middle Iranian languages it is attested in Sogdian farn, Bactrian far(r)o, and Khotanese phārra and then in the Digoron and Iron dialects of Ossetic respectively as farnä and farn “peace, happiness, abundance, fortune …”
Cereti.2008.5:
“In his article on Manichaean names, Sundermann (1994, 256) reports … MP Bārist-Xwaršēd “Paradise and Sun” and Wahman-Xwaršēd "Wahman and Sun.”
Yoshida.2006:
“Some Sogdians were converted to Buddhism and bear names beginning with buti- “the Buddha,” e.g.—one of the rare female personal names in the material—Fuzhitai (31) (*bʻi̯tu tie dʻai; Li and Wang, p. 180) = pwty-δʾyh “the Buddha’s slave [fem.].” It is interesting to note that these Buddha names are all attested only after the latter half of the 7th century. The fact seems to hint at the period when Sogdians were converted to Buddhism (Yoshida, 1998, pp. 40-41).”
Justi.1895.21:
“Ardām = Artames”. See also Harmatta.1994.402 (“Artanēs (read Aryandēs formerly) *Artāna- ‘righteous’ (cf. Avestan ar∂ta- above.)”
•
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
This list covers material quoted above as well.
Cereti.2008 “Copulative Compounds in Iranian Onomastics”
Chen&Mair.2017 “A "Black Cult" in Early Medieval China: Iranian-Zoroastrian Influence in the Northern Dynasties”
Dunkin-Meisterernst.2018 “Aspects of Multilingualism in Turfan as Seen in Manichaean Texts”
Forte.1996 “Kuwabara's Misleading Thesis on Bukhara and the Family Name An 安”
Gnoli.1999 “Farr(ah)” (Encyclopaedia Iranica)
Harmatta.1994 “Languages and Scripts in Graeco-Bactria and the Saka Kingdoms”
Justi.1895 Iranisches Namenbuch
Lur’e.2010 Personal Names in Sogdian Texts
Lur’e.2019 “The Pantheon of Sogdians from the Onomastic Viewpoint”
Rong.2005 “Name of the So-Called ‘Tumshuqese’ Language”
Yoshida.2006 “Personal Names, Sogdian. i. In Chinese Sources” (Encyclopaedia Iranica)
Yoshida.2016 “Sogdian Language i. Description” (Encyclopaedia Iranica)
Yoshida.2018 “On the Sogdian Version of the Lengqie shiziji and Related Problems”
Zhang.2018 “Sogdians in Khotan”
•
FURTHER NOTES (also by Michael Walter)
On dvandva compounds in Iranian languages
On the plausibility that these are dvandva or dvandva-like compounds, see Cereti.2008, with Sogdian examples of the use of the Sun as a latter element in cmpnds (.5), Bactrian & Sogdian exx (.5), and a long list of dvandva there. He also asserts (.5n):
“… taking into account the fact that in Middle Persian farr/xwarrah is also personified, they may also be interpreted as copulative compounds, as done by Gignoux (1986, 82) for Farr-Mihr, Farr-Narseh and Farr-Ohrmazd, but curiously not for Ardaxšīr-Farr and Ardāy-Farr. In Bactrian we have βαγο-φαρνο, καµιρδο-φαρ, where καµιρδο (< kmṛda-“head, chief”) is used as the name or title of a god, φαρο-οαραζο, and φαρο-οηþο”, in the ostraka from Nisa we find Mihr-Farn and Nanē-Farnak, and in Sogdian we have *rwtprn, βnprn, βγyfrn/βγyprnw, k yprnw k yfrn, m xprn , myrprn xprn myrprn, nnyprn, nwyfrn/nwyprn nwyfrn/nwyprn nwyfrn/nwyprn, *pwtyprn *pwtyprn *pwtyprn, and tyšfrn; the latter taken from frn Weber 1972, 195-200, who, however, does not consider them copulative compounds.” .8 “Interestingly, copulative compounds are found also in other Middle Iranian traditions, chiefly in Parthian and Bactrian, but also, though scantily, in Sogdian.” [NB: The transcribed Sogdian titles cited here from Cereti have not copied correctly and are to be disregarded.]
On problems connected with interpreting and transcribing Anxi, see Yoshida.2006, general note on names of Sogdian clans:
“All these surnames were collectively referred to as Zhaowu (jiu) xing (11) “(nine) surnames of Zhaowu,” because Sogdians were believed by the Chinese to have originated from Zhaowu, a town in Gansu; the number nine in this case seems to mean “numerous.” Among the seven surnames, Kang and An are the oldest and were attested already in the Han time. However, in the older days Kang represented Kangju (12), which denotes a nomad state once ruling the area including Sogdiana, while An is short for Anxi (13), a transcription of Aršak “Arsaces,” i.e., the Parthian state, dating back to the Han period. An Shigao (14), who came to China in the 2nd century and was alleged to be a Parthian crown prince, is the earliest example of An as a surname. Later, when Kangju and Anxi no longer existed, the names came to be applied to Samarqand and Bukhara respectively. The others began to be attested later in the 6th century. Mi (< Middle Chinese *miei), Shi (8) (< *ṣi), and Shi (7) (< *źiäk) are characters representing parts of their original names: Maymurg, Kesh, and Chach. However, the reason why Cao and He were selected is not known. Apart from the seven most common surnames, there were a few others, but only Bi (15) has been identified (with Paykent). It is also to be noted that the other six names, but not Mi, were also borne by non-Sogdians (see de la Vaissière, pp. 124-27). On the other hand, due to the intermarriage between Turkish peoples, one sometimes finds Sogdian names among those who bore the surname Zhe (16), which is generally assumed to be a surname of a Turkic tribe, e.g., (Zhe) Hutianpantuo (17) (Li and Wang, p. 113) = Xwatenvandak (xwtʾyn-βntk) "queen's slave."
Rong.2005.124:
“In addition to the Chinese materials, this toponym has also been noted in the following sentence of the Tibetan Prophecy of the Arhat Samghavardhana published by F. W. Thomas:
"Likewise also the monks of Άη-tse, Gus-tig, Par-mkhan, and Śu-lig, after great sufferings, will go to the Bru-sa land."
“The places in this sentence have long been correctly identified by P. Pelliot as the following: Άη-tse = Anxi [Kucha), Gus-tig = Jushide, Par-mkhan = Bohuan, Shu-lig = Shule (Kashgar).47 [The form of Gus-tig/Jushide in this document corresponds perfectly with Maue's new reading of the word in Tumshuqese, i.e. güzdi.]
“The dating formulae of documents in Iranian languages from the Western Regions also suggest that the word gyäzdi- should correspond to the place-name Jushide. As a rule, the dating formula refers to the year of a certain king, the word for "king" being preceded by a toponym denoting his domain.”
Forte.1996.652 On An vs An-xi:
“In fact, as far as I know not a single Chinese work on surnames indicates that the origin of this surname [An-mlw] was in the Western country of An. Rather, all declare consistently and coherently--including the Yuanhe xing-zuan—that it derives from Anxi. In stating this, I am not maintaining that people from Bukhara were not named An, but only that the An family from Wuwei, according to Zhang Yue, the Yuanhe xingzuan, and other sources, came from the country of Anxi during the Han. I should also add that … I have not found a single case where people named An who are declared to be from Anxi can be proven to have actually originated in Bukhara.”
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