Two Odd Words that Ought to be Persian

Ya-lad

In our last blog, we put forward a method for identifying foreign multisyllabic words in Tibetan. We should try again, just to add a little refinement and state it in a different way. 

To begin with, let’s agree that a person with much experience with Tibetan language will be able to look at any multisyllabic name or term and recognize when its final syllable is not (or not easily, or not sensibly) etymologizable as Tibetan.*

(*Bear in mind that most of the pukkah Tibetan bisyllabics, when they are not etymologizable as compounds, have as second syllable one of those important -pa -po -ba -bo -ma -mo endings that don’t count for anything right now for our present purposes.)

Next, a suspicion forms: The entire word in all its syllables is quite likely to be of foreign origin.* And this holds even if, and I would emphasize this point, the earlier syllables seem to be etymologizable as Tibetan. Those syllables could have undergone a historic process of naturalization, a rather common phenomenon I like to call Tibetanization. This might not involve any great alteration in the sound, but is very likely to evolve spellings that make the syllable look more and more like a normal Tibetan word.

(*A rather subtle point I must inject here: Rightly or wrongly, we have a strong tendency to consider Tibetan syllables individually, but here we need to learn to transcend those syllable boundaries and view the word as a single unit.)

I see this as a workable method for isolating candidates for foreign origins, one that would basically exclude Chinese and Sumerian as donor languages.* So the third step is to look into possible Turkic, Mongolian, Persian (including Sogdian, Khotan Saka, etc.), Aramaic [Hebrew and Arabic], and Greek origins. And yes, you are kidding me, of course, Indian languages. How could we ever neglect Sanskrit? So it is mainly in those just-named languages that these foreign words will be found if at all.

(*In my experience scholars are quite reluctant to accept Tibetan single-syllable words as borrowings. However longer words bear more phonetic data and moreover stand out in a Tibetan sentence, particularly the three-syllable words. We won’t deny single-syllable borrowings, see under Martin in the reading list below.)

Borrowings from one language into another are likely to involve sound shifts at the border crossings, and these are usually believed to work with some regularity, so much so that linguists have traditionally called them ‘laws.’ However, the body of recognized loanwords from Persian (and other Middle Eastern languages) is quite small. So rather than appealing to ‘laws’ already made, we would rather see the loanwords we do find as material useful for future legislative efforts. I don’t make rules here, guidelines and suggestions at best.

In fact I’m still trying to hone the method and I’m likely to tweek it to conform to the results I’ve gotten from it, if that makes sense, and I think it does... Why should I be forcibly circumscribed by rules I made up myself? And haven’t we been making up the rules for ourselves all along?

My strongest argument for the method is in its results, in quite a few cases quite clear, as in the word thu-lum of Turkic origin (see the reading list below). Since ours is a result-driven method, our ways of defining it can be revised to better suit the results it achieves. If that seems circular, does it really matter?

Enough of these methodological ruminations. I have been too heavily imposing on my few but much-appreciated readers, readers I am in constant danger of losing. We should make up for lost time and go swiftly to the two words I want to discuss today and be done with them before you know it. 

I’ve discussed both words in the past, even composed lengthy footnotes about them, all the time never even once considering the possibility of rooting out their origins, despite the suspicions raised by their unusual (and to some degree similar) appearance. Both words were discussed in a single footnote by R.A. Stein 35 years ago, but he, too, never suggested their foreign origins. 

So I feel justified in claiming this blog as the first time they have been publicly recognized. And I am confident that most people, just by having them pointed out to them, will know there is something to be seen there. They can freely go on to support or undermine the possibilities by arguing in a completely different direction.

The first of the two is ya-lad. True, I’ve noticed one late usage of the word, but I see it as a conscious archaism (alphabetic poems called ka-bshad tend to use it). I feel justified in seeing it as having currency before 1300 or so with usage going back several centuries. It is defined in many natively Tibetan glossaries of early vocabulary items (the genre of Brda’-rnying) where it is often defined as “go-cha” or “go-cha generally speaking.” Now this is an interesting point, since the word used in the definition looks etymologizable in Tibetan as roughly something like covering piece. In very common usage from early times, go-cha means military equipment, most often body armor. Nevertheless it very surely is borrowed into Tibetan from Indic kavaca, armor, coat of mail (if in doubt, check your Mahāvyutpatti no. 6072).

We do know of some usages of ya-lad in Bon literature, including an important Bon tantra, the Gsang-ba Bsen-thub, revealed by Shenchen Luga in 1017 CE. We know it is a rather archaic word as it is used a few times in Old Tibetan texts from Dunhuang. In general we may say it has two usages (a third usage meaning a very high number will be left aside for now). When we encounter it, it is very likely to mean armor, but could also have an architectural meaning (more on that soon). A quick search of the Old Tibetan texts in OTDO will reveal a couple of examples of usage. These are difficult texts, but in one of them at least it is very clear it means some kind of armor, since it is used in tandem with go-cha (here spelled go-ca). 

Pelliot tibetain 239, click to enlarge.
Can you see the word ya-lad (ཡ་ལད་)
near the end of line 4?

• We have to wonder if this word suits our method, since the 2nd syllable has what might seem to be a valid Tibetan etymology. I’ve considered this possibility and dismissed it in an appendix (see below).

We can be satisfied that it is old and that it means body armor. However, there is one and only one example to the best of my knowledge where it is used with an architectural meaning. We find this in the Statements of Ba, even though the same history book has other examples where it without any doubt refers to armor. 

The early usages in the Dunhuang texts and in the Statements of Ba deserve close study, but for now it would only be a distraction as we are quite sure it means armor, most likely metal armor with elements of chain mail. And it is for now enough to know that it is old without knowing just how old. It was definitely used in the 10th century, and likely in the early 9th, and it kept being used with a degree of regularity up until the age of Mongol conquests, into the 13th century after which it was brought back to life now and then just for fun and poetry.

Now at last I should introduce with a dramatic drum roll the foreign word candidate behind the Tibetan ya-lad. Very ancient Iranian language already has a word zrādha, at some later point borrowed into Arabic in the form zarad, with the meaning of chain mail armour. The r > l shift is the well known lamdacism (occurring, for instance, in Turkic languages, as M.W. tells me). Lallation is another term for it (it obviously means 'L'-ifying what is other than 'L'). The consonantal shift z > y will find an explanation, even if I won’t offer one myself. Time will tell if these terms of identical meaning will fully pass the test and be accepted by the savants as being, ultimately, one and the same. I have confidence.

Dmu-yad

The other word will not require too much discussion. One way it differs from ya-lad is that it is a term exclusively in use in Bon religious contexts as far as I am aware. But it has enough usage in those texts to prove it is of pre-Mongol era currency. Also, while ya-lad is witnessed in a large number of lexical sourcebooks, only a couple of specialized Bon vocabularies list the word dmu-yad.

In Chapter Six of Martin’s book, the most renowned Treasure Revealer (Tertön) of Bon scripture by the name of Shenchen Luga tells his own story. Here dmu-yad was translated as “spiritual power.” Shenchen speaks of the dmu-yad appearing to him, and of it pouring inside of himself when he came face-to-face with a divinity. But the most illuminating passage is this one (my quote is modified for easier reading):

When I reached my thirteenth year, my father said, "You and Gekhö run along and go pick white gentian and tinder." 

So we went. I left Gekhö to pick gentian while I went to find tinder in a further valley, where a voice spoke from the sky saying, "Shen Luga, shall I bestow the spiritual power of Bon?" The place where I stood shook, and a crevice in the rock was filled with liquid. Thinking this to be the spiritual power, I kept it secret even from my parents. (pp. 57-58)

In my present understanding, this experience signaled his attainment of siddhi, of supernatural powers and spiritual illumination. It presaged his future career as a scriptural treasure revealer. An alternative version of the story says the liquid in the rock was ghee, the clarified butter used in Indian kitchens. Regardless of which liquid it might have been it represented elixir, a goal and product of internal alchemy.

Some might need to learn these three Sanskrit words momentarily: sādhana, siddhi, and siddha.* Simply put, sādhana means the Work of progressing in spiritual practice. Siddhi means an ultimate or not-quite-so-ultimate attainment or fulfillment that results from that Work. Siddha means the one who has attained the goal or goals of that Work. All three come from the same Sanskrit verbal root that means to strive for an aim or simply to do the work.

(*Tibetanists may need to see the words in Tibetan: སྒྲུབ་ཐབས་, དངོས་གྲུབ་, and གྲུབ་ཐོབ་.)

Almost all the Bon glossaries basically agree on four meanings of dmu-yad. According to the Pasar dictionary (but simplified for clarity) they are [1] ghee, [2] nutritive essence, [3] nectar (amṛta), and [4] spiritual attainment (siddhi).

The Namdak glossary gives only the last two meanings: ‘siddhi, elixir and so on,’ and I believe these two meanings have to be regarded as the primary ones. 

• Although these glossaries don’t mention it, and it doesn’t lead us anywhere of significance, we have to admit that there are rare instances in which dmu-yad refers to a particularly luxurious type of cushioning material. See Namdak’s history for an instance.

Before going on to name the foreign candidate, I should first eliminate one possibility that is likely to occur to many. But first observe that the yad syllable doesn’t suggest any Tibetan meaning (there is the reduplicative yad-yud, also in the form yad-de-yud-de — it is obviously formed on the basis of yud, not yad, which is why I believe it can be disregarded — but it indicates something of minimalized importance, so no way it fits here). It is rather the first syllable dmu that people are likely to take for Zhangzhung language, although I believe it is in fact a Tibetan word used in Tibetan-language contexts where it is meant to be taken as Tibetan. 

In an earlier blog I’ve argued how the Tibetan dmu (sometimes rmu or just mu) is perhaps the most widely shared Tibeto-Burman word for sky (often with the initial 'd' pronounced), although in Tibetan literary language it has been pushed to one side (often meaning horizon or boundary) replaced in common usage by the words gnam and nam-mkha'. See “Nam, an Ancient Word for Sky.”

It is true that the syllable mu / dmu is very commonly the Zhangzhung word for sky. This we do not deny. However, if we look at it together with the 2nd syllable yad, we are faced with the problem that this syllable is not registered in Zhangzhung language. So we revert back to our initial methodology and conclude that the entire word is an import even though the earlier syllable looks etymologizable, indicating that we are allowed to take this as a Tibetanization (or even, I suppose, Zhangzhungization). This frees us to look for a foreign word that sounds like muyad.

I think I have found a word that fits the bill quite well in its sound, and well enough in  its meaning.  Evidently of Persian origins, it has spread to other languages of the Middle East, particularly Arabic. Although more familiar to the world as a personal name, it is also a word with a meaning.

I’m talking about mu'yad. It is probably best known to the world at large as a proper name Muayad (with many variant spellings). According to one Persian dictionary source: مؤايدة muʼāyadat (v.n. 3 of ايد): ‘Strengthening, infusing fresh vigour, assisting.’  The inner fortification meaning at least suits the primary usages of dmu-yad to some degree.

I won’t say I’m entirely convinced by these suggestions of Persianate origins, and this being so I’d hardly expect conviction from you, my readers. I do think I’ve uncovered some probable connections worthy of discussion. One thing we might notice is that several of our known examples have a final syllable that starts with a single initial consonant followed by -ad. One that I haven’t mentioned is the early term ya-gad, that means step or footstool or, in architectural contexts, something like a plinth. If this is a foreign word as it seems to be, where did it come from? This discussion is by no means over, it’s really just getting started.

Writings on the web

Ya-lad was mentioned in a Tibeto-logic blog of 2017, “Translator Trip-Ups 3 - Words.” 

Note also “Turkish and Mongolian Loanwords.”

Specifically on the Turkic word thu-lum, see “Great Balls of Iron.”

“Bagel, Baklava and Bag-leb.” Bag-leb is another foreign loan that gave us the ordinary Tibetan word for ‘bread’ although this likely happened only a couple of centuries ago, and both syllables do oddly seem capable of Tibetan-internal etymology.

“Book Arts, Consecration and Letters” mentions Tibetan deb-ther, and its deep connections to ancient Greek (even Sumerian), and the disease we know as diphtheria. As far as Tibet is concerned, we only need to go back to the Mongol era. In the shortened form deb, this is now the common Tibetan word for the book format most in use in the modern world until recently, the kind bound in signatures. Traditional Tibetan book formats had, and continue to have, other names.

One Secret of the Seals begins with one of my earlier formations of the method, then finds Aramaic origins for kha-tham, a word for seal that appears in a Zhijé manuscript scribed in mid-13th-century Tibet.

For the Tibetan and Zhangzhung dictionaries that have entries for one or both words, see “Tibetan Vocabulary” and “Zhangzhung Dictionary.”

°

Writings on paper and PDFs

• Note: I tried to include a few of the more recent essays on Tibeto-Iranian relations by way of supplying more general background within which the borrowings would have taken place. For earlier studies not listed here check their bibliographies, although the fascinating comparative cultural studies of Jivanji Jamshedji Modi (1854-1933) deserve much more attention than they ever have gotten. More on that another time.

Anonymous, Gsar-rnyed Byung-ba’i Spu-rgyal Bod-kyi Dmag-khrims Yi-ge, ed. by Pa-tshab Pa-sangs-dbang-’dus, Bod-ljongs Mi-dmangs Dpe-skrun-khang (Lhasa 2017).

At p. 20, line no. 86, you can see the word ya-lad. This imperial period military law code was mentioned in a Tibeto-logic blog from five years ago (click here to go there). John Bellezza’s Besting the Best, discusses its provenance (at p. 134) and translates large parts of it, an impressive accomplishment given its high level of difficulty.

H.W. Bailey, Dictionary of Khotan Saka, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge 1979), at p. 21, where a number of forms of the Persian word for armor are given, including the loanword srah in Armenian.

Pavel V. Basharin, “Iranian Loanwords for Weapons in Uralic Languages,” contained in: Amin Shayeste Doust, Dādestān ī Dênīg: Festschrift for Mahmoud Jaafari-Dehaghi, Farhang Moaser (Teheran 2022), pp. 37-62. 

On p. 46, we see that Khanti, a language of the Uralic family, borrowed its word tă̹γ̭ər, ‘chain mail’ (< *saγɜrɜ) from Middle Iranian *zγar, ‘armour.’ Here we see an initial consonant shift z > t, and not the z > y shift we might be looking for.

Christopher I. Beckwith, The Tibetan Empire in Central Asia, Princeton University Press (Princeton 1987), particularly pp. 109-110 and 185, on use of Tibetan armor (by a Türgesh leader), and Tang Chinese sources on Tibetan chain mail armor in the early 8th century.

John Vincent Bellezza, Besting the Best: Warriors and Warfare in the Cultural and Religious Traditions of Tibet, Lumbini International Research Institute (Lumbini 2020), with ya-lad mentioned on pp. 117, 146, 163.

Joanna Bialek, “When Mithra Came as Rain on the Tibetan Plateau: A New Interpretation of an Old Tibetan Topos,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, vol. 169, no. 1 (2019), pp. 141-153.  Zoroastrian set phrases detected in the Old Tibetan Chronicles mediated by Sogdian Buddhist literature.

W. South Coblin, “A Note on Tibetan Mu,” Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area, vol. 10, no. 1 (Spring 1987), pp. 166-168. 

This is about the ancient Tibetan (and proto-Tibeto-Burman) word for ‘sky’ in the forms of mu, dmu, rmu and more rarely smu. For still more on this widespread Himalayan sky word, see the STEDT database #2473 PTB *r-məw SKY / HEAVENS / CLOUDS. In more recent Tibetan literature, dmu is more likely to mean the furthermost horizons of the sky rather than the sky itself.

Matteo Compareti, “Iranian Elements in Kasmîr and Tibet: Sasanian and Sogdian Borrowings in Kashmiri and Tibetan Art,” Transoxania, vol. 14 (August 2009), in about 18 pages [online publication].

Goutam Das, “Influence of Persian Identity on Tibetan Culture,” contained in: Tseten Namgyal, ed., A Copter Approach: The Trans Himalayan Tibet, History, Language and Literature (Traditional & Contemporary), Manakin Press (New Delhi 2016), vol. 1, pp. 219-235. 

This is an effort to cover the entire field of Tibeto-Persian connections of various types throughout history, with Bon Religion holding a prominent place in the discussion.

A.H. Francke, A Lower Ladakhi Version of the Kesar Saga: Tibetan Text, English Abstract of Contents, Notes and Vocabularies; and Appendices, Asian Educational Services (New Delhi 2000), first published in 1905-1941. See particularly the vocabulary entries for pho-lad with meaning iron on p. 349.

Daniel Haneberg, “Die sinesischen, indischen und tibetischen Gesandtschaften am Hofe Nuschirwans,” Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, vol. 1, no. 2 (1837), pp. 185-204.  Tibetan tribute delivered together with a letter to Sassanian Emperor Khosrow I included armor and shields. Amazing to contemplate, since this would have happened in the 6th century CE. I hope someone will delve into this more.

Anton Kogan, “On Possible Dardic and Burushaski Influence on Some Northwestern Tibetan Dialects,” Journal of Language Relationship, vol. 17, no. 4 (2019), pp. 263-284. 

This helps in thinking about possible routes of transmission from Persia to Tibetan realms, although Amdo in Tibet’s northeast is also entirely possible (via Sogdian or Khotan Saka). It also raises the possibility that Iranic language speakers, absorbed into the Tibet during his Imperial Era, could have brought vocabulary items along with them.

_____, “Towards the Reconstruction of Language Contact in the Pre-Tibetan Upper Indus Region,” Journal of Language Relationship, vol. 19, no. 3 (2021), pp. 153-165. Around thirty Zhangzhung words are here identified as Indo-Iranian in their origins.

Per Kværne et al., Drenpa’s Proclamation: The Rise and Decline of the Bön Religion in Tibet, Vajra Books (Kathmandu 2023), in 656 pages, but see especially p. 170 note 419. This is a full translation, with text edition and notes, of a never-before-translated 12th-century history of Bön composed by an anonymous Tibetan author.

Per Kværne, “Dualism in Tibetan Cosmogonic Myths and the Question of Iranian Influence,” contained in: Christopher I. Beckwith, ed., Silver on Lapis: Tibetan Literary Culture and History, The Tibet Society (Bloomington 1987), pp. 163-174. Available online.

Donald J. LaRocca, Warriors of the Himalayas: Rediscovering the Arms and Armor of Tibet, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York 2006). 

This is of the best book for seeing and knowing more about Tibetan military equipment and its history. There is a vocabulary entry for ya-lad at p. 271. Of particular interest is the concept of four mirrors type of armor known in both Persian- and Tibetan-language expressions (see p. 126).

Berthold Laufer, “Loan-Words in Tibetan,’ contained in: Hartmut Walravens, ed., Sino-Tibetan Studies: Selected Papers on the Art, Folklore History, Linguistics and Prehistory of Sciences in China and Tibet, Aditya Prakashan (New Delhi 1987), vol. 2, pp. 483-643. I use an old photocopy of the original publication in the journal T'oung Pao, vol. 17 (1916), pp. 403-552 (for the Persian loans, see pp. 474-483). This is the classic study on pre-modern Tibetan words of foreign origins. The Persian-donated Tibetan terms he discusses I’ll list here (for variant spellings, go to the source publication):  

gur-gum, zi-ra, ba-dam, se-rag dur-sman, dal-ci-ni, kram, 'a-lu ba-ka-ra, 'a-lu, 'a-lu-ca, cob-ci-ni, zar-babs, sag-lad, kim-khab, tsa-dar, sag-ri, pi-shi, pho-lad, ta-ba, dig, ta-ra-tse, nal, sang-gi-ka, tambu-ra, sur-na, kab-sha, dur-bin, sang-gin, phugs-ta, pe-ban, po-la, pai-kham-ba, deb-ther, phe-rang, phya-ther.

Boris A. Litvinsky, “Armor ii. in Eastern Iran,” Encyclopaedia Iranica Online, entry last updated on August 12, 2000:  

“In the Avesta, the term for armor is zrāδa- (armor, breastplate). The etymology of the word is presumably connected with Old Iranian *zar- “to cover” (cf. modern Ossetic zğær, oesqoer ‘coat of mail,’ ‘chain mail,’‘armor,’ ‘metal’). Similar terms are found in other Middle Iranian languages, such as Sogdian and Khwarazmian, and in modern languages like Pashto and Ormuri.”

Dan Martin, tr., A History of Buddhism in India and Tibet: An Expanded Version of the Dharma’s Origins Made by the Learned Scholar Deyu, The Library of Tibetan Classics series no. 32, Wisdom Publications (Somerville 2022). 

We call this for short the “long Deyu” even though the work is a post-1261 CE anonymous compilation framed as a commentary on a verse work. It was this verse work alone, dating from nearly a century earlier, that was composed by the Zhijé figure named Deyu. We only recently learned of yet a third distinct history written as commentary on those verses. See the blog entry of April 18, 2023: 

“Eye Spoon to Open up Historical Vision.”

Persian language origins are suggested for [1] dom with meaning of tail (or tassel) in both Tibetan and Persian (p. 528 note 1952), [2] zar meaning gold in Persian, so the Tibetan zar likely has the same meaning (p. 536 note 1995), and [3] bi-ci (also bi-ji) in Tibetan deriving from Persian bijishk or some related term in an Iranic language (p. 588 note 2261, with reference to a 1979 essay of Christopher I. Beckwith).

_____, Unearthing Bon Treasures: Life and Contested Legacy of a Tibetan Scripture Revealer, Brill (Leiden 2001), particularly p. 59.

Lopon Tenzin Namdak, Rgyal Gshen Rnam-thar — The Life of Lord Gshen-rab, "excerpted from original texts by Tenzin Namdak," Tibetan Bonpo Monastic Centre (New Delhi 1971), in 2 volumes, page numbers consecutive. 

The vocabulary in the back of the book, at p. 899, has this entry: dmu yad / dngos grub / bdud rtsi sogs.

_____, Snga-rabs Bod-kyi Byung-ba Brjod-pa’i ’Bel-gtam Lung-gi Snying-po — A Study of Early History of Tibet According to Bon Tradition (New Delhi 1997), p. 51: 

dar dkar gyi yol ba bres / dmu yad kyi gdan bting / gser gur gyi nang du bcug nas.... 

Here in this passage about Gnya’-khri-btsan-po, the dmu-yad appears to be some kind of material used as a cushion (reference thanks to Kalsang N. Gurung).

Pasar Tsultrim Tenzin, Changru Tritsuk Namdak Nyima, Gatsa Lodroe Rabsal, A Lexicon of Zhangzhung and Bonpo Terms, Senri Ethnological Reports no. 76, National Museum of Ethnology (Osaka 2008), with entries for both dmu-yad and ya-lad. The entry for dmu-yad is on p. 194. Other such dictionaries given the same set of four meanings, but without the English translations you see here:

དམུ་ཡད།  1. མར་ཁུ། liquid butter, ghee. 2. ཟས་བཅུད། the essence of food, the excellent taste of food, nourishment, vitamins. 3.  བདུད་རྩི། nectar, ambrosia, amrita. 4. དངོས་གྲུབ། realisation, attainment, spiritual attainment, magicial [!] powers.

Volker Rybatzki, “Turkic Words for Steel and Cast Iron,” Turkic Languages, vol. 3 (1999), pp. 56-86, particularly pp. 60-63. Bolat is one of four distinct Turkic terms for steel, and it seems to have come into use only in the 13th or 14th century, as a borrowing from New Persian. Some believe Persian got it from an Indic language. For Tibetan usages, see the listing of Francke’s book, above, as well as Appendix One, below.

D.D.Y. Shapira, “Irano-Arabica: Contamination and Popular Etymology. Notes on the Persian and Arabic Lexicons (with References to Aramaic, Hebrew and Turkic),” Xristianskij Vostok [Christian East], vol. 5, no. 6 (2009), pp. 151-183, at pp. 151-152. 

It was while reading this that the foreign candidate behind the Tibetan word ya-lad first dawned on me.

R.A. Stein, “Tibetica Antiqua III: A propos du mot gcug-lag et de la religion indigéne,” Bulletin de l'École Française d'Extrême Orient, vol. 74 (1985), pp. 83-133, at p. 108 note 58 (English trans., p. 154). 

Stein was probably the first and only person to mention both of our two words together in the same sentence, suggesting that the second syllable of one (yad) is a contracted form of the other (ya-lad). I think it is amazing that he came up with the idea even when I don’t believe it. A one-syllable contraction of ya-lad would be yal rather than yad — compare ra-gan, brass, in compounds reduced to rag, as in rag-dung, trumpet (lit., brass conch).

Heather Stoddard, “The Lexicon of Zhangzhung and Bonpo Terms: Some Aspects of Vocabulary in Relation to Material Culture and the Persian World,” contained in: Donatella Rossi & Samten G. Karmay, eds., Bon, the Everlasting Religion of Tibet: Tibetan Studies in Honour of Professor David L. Snellgrove, special issue of East and West, vol. 59, nos. 1-4 (December 2009), pp. 245-265. 

David Templeman, “Internal Illumination: Possible Iranian Influences on Tibetan Tantric Culture,” conference presentation of 1998. I’m not sure if it was entirely published. 

_____, “Iranian Themes in Tibetan Tantric Culture: The Ḍākinī,” contained in: Henk Blezer, ed., Religion & Secular Culture in Tibet (Tibetan Studies II), Brill (Leiden 2002), pp. 113-127.

F.W. Thomas, Tibetan Literary Texts and Documents Concerning Chinese Turkestan, Part II: Documents, Royal Asiatic Society (London 1951). See pp. 439-440 for a brief Old Tibetan document written on wood listing armor supplied to variously named Tibetan personnel. The word ya-lad is repeated several times.

Giuseppe Tucci, “Iran et Tibet,” Acta Iranica, series 1, vol. 1 (1974), pp. 299-306.  

This early work is significant for us right now because of a paragraph or two on Persian loanwords in Tibetan on p. 301. I believe his chief example, deb-ther, a word for book, was introduced to Tibetan by Mongols while having its ultimate origins more in the Greek speaking world than anywhere else. The only other example he gives is kur-kum,* Tibetan for saffron, but even if Persian may have been the donor, the word has very ancient Assyrian roots. See Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim, “Central Asian Mélange: Early Tibetan Medicine from Dunhuang,” contained in: Brandon Dotson, Kazushi Iwao and Tsuguhito Takeuchi, eds., Scribes, Texts, and Rituals in Early Tibet and Dunhuang, Reichert Verlag (Wiesbaden 2012), pp. 53-60, at p. 57, for a better discussion showing its borrowings into several languages subsequent to its  very probably Akkadian origins.

(*Actually gur-gum is the more usual spelling, although gur-kum does occur and might be earlier.) 

§   §   §

Appendix One

Showing how the syllable lad in ya-lad doesn’t actually have a workable Tibetan-language etymology (but see no. 3):

I searched various databases and digital lexicons for Tibetan words with second-syllable lad and came up with three varieties:

1. 

Although recent loans, they are both said by Laufer to derive from Persian in the original 1916 publication of his “Loan-Words,” just as they had been already in Jäschke’s dictionary:

PHO LAD — steel. LW, p. 479. Bolad is a proper name in the Turkic-Persian realms (including Mongolia) and it has the meaning of steel. One problem with this and the following is that we are not sure if these terms gained much currency in the Tibetan realm and at what time. This word is actually used in Ladakhi version of the Gesar Epic (see Francke’s book), as the material used for his bow (and also his axe). For numerous examples of borrowings into many languages, including Tibetan, see Rybatzki’s essay listed above.

SAG LAD — broadcloth. LW, p. 477. For offerings from Mike Walter on this word, see Appendix Two.

 

2. 

This example seems weird to me, since it’s in a modern dictionary, and looks so close to Semitic walid/yeled, ‘child.’ It also must be a borrowing, although I suspect it would be a very recent one.

A LAD — phru gu. child.

 

3. 

In the following examples lad appear to be a genuinely Tibetan syllable in word-final position, and this deserves attention. Here it is a Tibetan verb signifying some kind of weakening or deterioration of something that had been in good shape (it is related to another verb slod). Both examples have entries in the Btsan-lha dictionary, although neither one is of common occurrence:

SGRIG LAD — nyams zhan du song ba'am nang rul byung ba.

NYAMS LAD — nyams chag. 

After some consideration, it seems impossible to accommodate this meaning with the known meaning of the entire word ya-lad, so we put the possibility aside without forgetting about it.

§   §   §

Appendix Two

This appendix is entirely from Michael Walter, an unmodified version of his email transmission of December 6, 2024.

I believe I’ve solved sag lad: 

Observations:

Tibetan /g/ must serve to transcribe a number of possible velar sounds, in particular in a coda (a closed syllable, such as VC, CVC, CVCC). These include, depending on the language, /k/, /g/, /kh/, /gh/, /q/, /gh/. 

Tibetan V /a/ may stand for /u/ or /o/, as all three are “back vowels” (pronounced in the back of the throat, with the tongue raised). This is especially likely if the /u/ of the loan word is pronounced in a flat manner, sounding more like “ah” (the schwa), as in but, than the “long” /u/ in cute. Both Indic and Iranian languages have short-a vowels with this general pronunciation.

This is all the almost-linguistic analysis I’m going to do for what follows, because a) I’m not a linguist, and b) We remain ignorant of the donor language for sag lad. In addition, we must not posit a “standard” form of any language when dealing with such old data. That means that we are making assumptions about the values of vowels in languages which have been preserved in scripts ill-fitted to give us detailed data concerning those values. And, dialects and special registers of languages (i.e., Chos Skad) may contain their own vocabulary for certain categories of words. Finally, and most importantly, we don’t yet know how many intermediary languages were involved in transmitting this term, and how this affected both its phonetic and semantic structures. As time went on, as is quite usual, the term came to have several referents. It is interesting to consider that, as with Paisley, Jersey, Denim, etc., the Tibetans may have been told that this material is “Saqlat”, i.e., from the Turkish city 

To pare down possible origins of sag lad, we can remove Sanskrit, Mongolian and Arabic as potential donors. The three following sources provide us with the evidence necessary to put forward a plausible explanation.

1.

Habib.2003 "Textile terms in Medieval Indian Persian texts," 543. (Several diacritics here need to be corrected.)

“90. suqlãt, suqarlãt. Qawwãs, early 14th century, defines suqarlãt, suqlãt and suqlätün, as woollen cloth of Firang (Europe). The Ā’īn, I, 110a, puts suqlãt of Rum (Turkey), Firang (Europe) and Portugal, under woollen stuffs, priced at Rs.lYi to 4 muhrs per yard. In its account of Kashmir, it is stated (ibid., I, 564) that suqlãt (so spelt) was made there "of wool, very soft.”

“Bahãr-i 'Ajam, s.v. suqarlãt, suqlãt, has an interesting notice of it: "well known cloth of wool, which is woven in Firang. In the Qâmus, siqlãt (is cloth that) was thrown over the litter carrying women... It is not known whether it is a Persian word or of some other language. Some say, had it been Persian it should have been with a gh, not q, and that Saqlätün is a city in Turkey (Rūm), where they weave suqlãt and other kinds of cloth. Some say, black and blue cloth comes from that city ... It seems that Saqlātün may in reality be suqlät-gün ["like suqlãt"], since in olden times blue was the colour of suqlãt and, then omitting the g, they have made it suqlätün. This is just speculation; it is not found in [previous] dictionaries …”

2.

Katsikadeli.2017 "Jewish Terminologies for Fabrics and Garments in Late Antiquity : A Linguistic Survey Based on the Mishnah and the Talmuds,"154n.

“Akkadian saqqu ‘sack (cloth)’, ‘cloth of goat-hair, sack’, Hebrew saq ‘sack (cloth)’, Aramaic š-q (~ Gr. sákkos ‘cloth of goat-hair, sack’).”

The etymology of a term which eventually meant ”cloth” or “sackcloth” seems to begin here.

3.

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD.2017. Passage cited is on p. 59 in the entry by Salvatore Gaspa:

“sāgu.  This term has been interpreted as a name for ‘sack’ and for a garment. In Neo-Assyrian texts it probably represents the Assyrian counterpart of the Neo-Babylonian saqqu, a designation for a sack and a garment, and the Aramaic saq, saqqā, analogously meaning ‘sack’ and ‘sack-cloth’.179 In light of the meaning of the word, it is clear that this garment was made with the coarse cloth of sacks. In Assyria, the occupation dealing with the production or trade of these garments was called ša sāgātēšu. In light of a letter dealing with Aramean troops going on a campaign, it seems that sāgus were a component of travel equipment along with leather bags, sandals, food and oil.181 The word has long been considered a 1st-millennium textile term in the Assyrian dialect. However, the fact that the same word also occurs in Middle Assyrian administrative documents from Assur demonstrates that it was already known in the 2nd millennium BC.”

 

•

Postscript (December 12-15, 2024)

Now that I’ve heard back from my good friend David Shulman it seems I will have to change my mind about the Persian origins theory. Looking at it again, I see every reason to regard mu'yad as inherently and natively Arabic and possibly more broadly Semitic.  D.S. wrote:

There is a bona-fide Arabic root, ayyada, which means “to strengthen, to endorse, to corroborate,” and so on. Mu'ayyad is the present passive participle, thus meaning “strengthened” or maybe just “strong” or maybe “supported.” I don’t think it can mean “prosperous.” The name of course is there in Persian as well, but I doubt that it’s of Iranian origin. I am not sure if ayyada has cognate roots in the Semitic languages. There is a verbal noun, ta'yyīd, “strengthening.” that would tend to make me think that the root is good Arabic.

Another thing, I was doing a local word-search through an out-of-print book for the word armor when I uncovered a gem. Who would have thought to find a relevant word in Old Irish?  The word — errad — means armor. A later spelling might be erredh. A quick search of Googlebooks turned up several published sources. Someone should look into this and get back with us. Help us out here.

Words New and Old: An Unknown Glossary

I ought to warn you, already decades ago I submitted a paper about Tables of Contents as a Tibetan literary genre. It was finally published, but I still get push-back for it from people who think they know me and assume I must be joking. I just have to assert my sincerity and go on telling things as I have learned to see them. 

The spectrum of Tibetan literary genres is distinct from what we know in the modern Anglophone world. Things were divided up differently. There is no one-to-one correspondence to be found. Really, if you think about it, there never was a Tibetan novel, not until quite recently, just as the Anglos never had a namthar. Anyway, what does ‘literary’ mean? Is there such a thing as a minor literary genre? A sub-genre? If we’re going to go on splitting things up and then analyze why it was done... We’ll never finish work for the day if we have to answer all those types of questions.

So here we are delving into a different Tibetan genre we’ll call Old-New Glossaries. The title above already tells you the one we’ll talk about is unknown, but Laufer had heard about it, so others probably did, too, I just haven’t found evidence. Its poetic title is The Shining of Seven Horses. In case the metaphor doesn’t work on you, and we have to accept that possibility, the whole phrase could be reduced down to Sunshine. What? Were you not fully aware that the sun is the object that is drawn along by seven horses in Indian mythology? The title tells us the book will shine a light on obscure matters, something all compositions ought to do, ideally.

The book can very well be called a glossary or a vocabulary, although it doesn’t suit the definition of a dictionary. Its scope is much smaller. Its author intends to explain old and obsolete words to his contemporaries by using understandable contemporary language. 

You might be thinking such a work would tell us what “Old Tibetan” words mean. Well, okay, it can and sometimes does happen that you find help with a puzzling word you encountered in a Dunhuang document of the 8th-11th centuries by consulting this type of glossary. That would be unusual. 

Sparing you the arguments and details, the fact is that what are here meant by old words are items of vocabulary that were used in the pre-Mongol Second Spread era (or roughly 11th into 13th centuries) and later fell out of use. Sometimes in art studies they call this same period the Kadampa period, although I prefer to call it early Tibet as a fuzzy way of distinguishing it from the Old Tibetan imperial era. The century and a half in between (mid-9th through end of 10th) we can call the post-imperial era or period of fragmentation.

A somehow distinct emphasis in these works is on differences in terms used in old and new Tibetan translations of scriptures and treatises. Unlike Chinese Buddhists who saved everything in their canon collections, Tibetans simply abandoned earlier translations along with their vocabulary choices and replaced them with new ones to suit new standards. Their efforts were not entirely successful, so old translation terms still survive here and there, so there was at least this one reasonable use for Old-New Glossaries.*

(*I think the earliest examples, like the one by Dbus-pa Blo-gsal, were more strictly done in order to show how old terms had been, or ought to be, replaced by new ones. I don’t say this with complete assurance, it’s just an impression. Later examples were more likely to include old terms from non-canonical sources as well.)

Oddly enough, although no other mentions can be traced in the worldwide web,* Berthold Laufer did mention the Shining of Seven Horses (Seven Horses for short) in his famous and still useful essay, “Bird Divination among the Tibetans,” published way back in 1914, at p. 65, where he says that the 1899 Tibetan-Latin-French dictionary of Father Desgodins made use of it as one of its sources. I hope you’re taking all this in, taking notes if necessary.

(*Believe me when I tell you this Laufer reference was not located through any internet search, I found it in my own notes to Tibskrit. The link to Tibskrit is in the sidebar to your right.)

 

The title (click on it to enlarge)

What this tells us is that the Seven Horses manuscript scanned and posted by BDRC is our nearly unique evidence for the existence of this work. The only other mention of it is as a source of the Desgodins dictionary. This dictionary was very beautifully printed, but not well circulated to say the least. I couldn’t immediately find mention of our title in the front matter of the dictionary, but Laufer corresponded directly with the missionary and could have learned about it in that way rather than from the printed page. Apart from my mother, I know of no other person today who actually writes in handwriting, putting the paper in an envelope, and attaching postage stamps. You may have to take my word when I say it was once a very common method of communication. But enough distraction, let’s spare a few words about the author, as much as we can given the resources at our disposal today.

The name of the author as it appears in the colophon

I couldn’t immediately explain why BDRC lists the author’s name as Kun-bzang-padma-blo-ldan, while the small cursive letters in the colophon actually read dge-kyongs [~ dge-skyong] Padma-blo-ldan. The dge-skyong, or virtue keeping epithet may imply that the person named is a monastic, but it isn’t in any sense a proper part of the name, just an epithet. So the only author’s name we have here in the manuscript is Padma-blo-ldan, a person not very easily identified.

Still we can know things of significance about the author without peering anywhere outside the colophon itself (see the discussion at the head of the Reference list, below). What is sure is that he was a Nyingma belonging to the 17th century. Even if less sure, he likely lived and worked in Kham in Eastern Tibet.

Maybe another time someone will go into the content of this under-utilized work in detail and tell us how well it corresponds with previous works of its genre. A good text for comparison would be the most famous one, known by the short poetic title Li-shi'i Gur-khang by the translator Skyogs-ston. It could help with a number of discussions and arguments we might want to have or make. For now, to close with, I would like to look briefly at something near the end. This might supply enough of a taste of it for now.

After the ending of chapter 30, after the end of the alphabetic series, on folio 17 verso, there is a special section on borrowings from non-Tibetan languages, starting with the most obvious group, borrowings from Sanskrit (or more broadly Indic) language. The reason for going into this is this: Tibetans might very well encounter words that they don’t immediately understand and rush to the conclusion that they are Old Vocabulary terms, when in fact they are borrowings. 

While that motive is surely there, we may also see, mainly in this Indic section, that certain terms underwent local adaptations within Tibet often making them difficult to recognize as borrowings. I call this process “Tibetanization.” Mostly well known examples are given, like Indic pustaka meaning book, evolving into po-ti in Tibet. Another example is Tibetan form bram-ze for Sanskrit brahmaṇa, or, as we say in English, brahmin, meaning the priestly caste.* 

(*Yes, it is true what you may be thinking, we may well imagine Prakritic or colloquializing forms intervening, so at least some of the change could have already taken place in India, no doubt.)

I see a lot of drama in the Tibetanization of the Indian woman saint’s name Lakṣmīṅkarā — Legs-smin-kā-ra — since the first two syllables are transformed into meaningful Tibetan syllables that could be translated well ripened. Our author sees all these things as mistakes Tibetans have made in Sanskrit, rather than seeing the ways they had fun with Sanskrit. I hope you’re having fun, but let’s move ahead to the next bit about Chinese borrowings. 

Here he says that there are instances in which people want to take Chinese borrowed words as being Old Terms. Examples of more-or-less direct borrowings he gives are grum-tse [seating mat], cog-tse [table] and zing-zan [zang-zing as a term for food or meat?]. But also there are calques from Chinese terms like gser-zhal and gser-yig.* All of these items come together with added small-letter explanations in red ink, even if not all are easily read. Gser-zhal [‘gold face’] is glossed as face of the king. Gser-yig [‘gold letter’] is bang-chen-pa [‘one with great messages’], usually understood to mean an imperial envoy. 

(*My impression is these two calques only entered Tibetan usage during the early days of Yuan Mongolian influence.)

But then it’s the next thing that most interests me (fol. 18v.2). We all of a sudden switch from language borrowings and calques to terminology of a different religion. What exact religion might be here intended by Bon we will return to again and again in some other place. The line reads like this (with the glosses in parentheses, all red letters given here in red font):

gnam (mchod rnam legs pa la) gshegs (li shi na ’ang) lor bon po’i brda.

Let me do my best to unpack this rather than straight-up translating. It’s telling us there is such a thing as Bonpo vocabulary, with one example being gnam gshegs, meaning passing [to] heaven, glossed as being in the sense or context of finely made offerings. Then the second gloss says, just before the syllable lor that must mean as reported, “as also in the Clove, the Li-shi.”*

(*This could provoke lots of discussion, not least of all because the expression[s] given aren’t really special Bon terminology in the sense that only Bonpos would understand them, and, less relevant here yet a truth that needs telling, the fact is that Bon writings have carried very many early Tibetan terms into modern times when everyone else had practically forgotten them in around the 13th century.)

This mention of Clove or Li-shi is meant as a clue to have a look at the Clove Canopy of Skyogs-ston. The Clove Canopy does in truth end its vocabulary listings in much the same manner as the Seven Horses, by discussing clusters of items that might be misconstrued as Old Terms. The latter work doesn’t just reproduce what’s in the former, but appears for most part to supplement it. Significantly for us right now, it does have a discussion of passing [to] heaven [p. 22]:

kha cig bon po'i brdar yod de / legs pa la gnam mchod pa dang / mi shi ba la gnam du gshegs pa dang / bsod nams che ba la gnam gyis bskos pa zhes pa dang / dbang che ba la gnam sa'i bdag ces pa sogs shin tu mang zhing...

In some cases we have words of the Bonpos. For something that is quite fine, they say sky offering (gnam mchod-pa), and for a person who has died they say he has gone to heaven (gnam-du gshegs-pa). For someone of superior merits, they say he is sky appointed (gnam gyis bskos-pa), and for someone of superior power, they say lord of sky and earth (gnam sa'i bdag).

Without reading this passage from the Clove Canopy, I fear we would never be able to see the point of the corresponding passage in the Seven Horses. True enough. But let me make the point I want to make here in connection with some arguments in a recent blog entry with the title “Nam, an Ancient Word for Sky.” Both the Clove Canopy and the Seven Horses can come to our aid,* seeing that these expressions make use of the concept of gnam. In the minds of these glossary writers, gnam belongs to a non-Buddhist “Bon” context that would likely feel alien or archaic to your typical Tibetan Buddhist reader of their times.

(*Along with still other sources like the well known quote, falsely attributed to the Nel-pa history, about how Bonpos “like the sky.” See the discussion under “Nel-pa” in the list below.)

 

Reference list

For more on Tibetan-language lexical tools, see our July 16, 2015 blog “Lexical Euphoria: Good News on Dictionaries.”

In the list you can see below, I’ve included several works known to me that belong to the genre of Old-New Glossaries. I had no idea to make a complete list. One way you can look for still more examples is to do a search at BDRC/BUDA, where you can even find their subject heading for it together with its own independent listing (try this link). Alternatively, do a more general search of BDRC using the terms “gsar rnying brda” or “brda gsar rnying” or “brda’ rnying.” You can try the same in a worldwide web search, but make sure to include the double quote marks when you do.

Before typing up the bibliographical list, let me give the details for the Seven Horses:

The full title-page title is: Bod yul gyi skad gsar rnying gi rnam par bzhag pa rta bdun snang ba [zhes bya ba bzhugs so legs so ngo mtshar mchog lags]. A Sanskrit title is also given in Tibetan script. The title page verso has a slightly variant title: Bod yul gyi skad gsar rnying gi rnam par dbye ba rta bdun snang ba [zhes bya ba].

It can be found here at this page.

But it can also be found here at this page.

Both manuscripts end on the verso of folio 19, even if the number of folios is stated differently. They are for all purposes identical. BDRC gives its author’s ID as P5081, along with three forms of his name: [1] Kun-bzang-padma-blo-ldan. [2] Stag-ras-pa. [3] Stag-ras-pa Kun-bzang-padma-blo-ldan. Thanks to Google and its help finding the article by Cantwell (q.v.), I could find a mention of one by the full name (no. 3), as author of a biography of Bdud-’dul-rdo-rje. BDRC is as correct as it can be about the date of the work. It must be 17th century because it names the author’s teacher as Padma-blo-gros, holder of the treasure lineages of Bdud-’dul-rdo-rje and Mi-’gyur-rdo-rje. The former is the very well known tertön by that name who lived from 1615-1672. The latter, a still more famous tertön, lived from 1645-1667. Both were particularly active in Khams, and had their early main followers there.

The author’s teacher is identifiable as Stag-bla Padma-ma-ti (aka Padma-blo-gros), whose dates are 1591 to 1637. The author held this teacher’s lineages from both of the just-mentioned tertöns. The person who actually requested that the work be written is given as the fully ordained monk Blo-gros-nyi-ma, also known as the Yogin Tshul-khrims-rgyal-mtshan, and further described as my own root Lama. I haven’t been able to make a definitive identification of the root Lama yet. What we can know is that the author belonged to the 17th century and a Nyingma milieu, and even if it isn't so sure, he likely lived and worked in the eastern parts of the plateau we normally know as Khams. In any case our single available manuscript was scanned in Khams, in a particular monastery within the modern county called Kardze.

 

° ° °

A-lag-sha Ngag-dbang-bstan-dar (1754-1840), Gangs can gyi brda' gsar rnying las brtsams pa'i brda' yig blo gsal mgrin rgyan. A 52-folio woodblock print listed as part of the collection of the Oriental Institute, St. Petersburg, nos. B6744/27, B8922/4. It is also findable in his Collected Works, vol. 2 [KHA] (New Delhi 1971).

A-myes-zhabs Ngag-dbang-kun-dga’-bsod-nams (1597-1659), Gsar rnying brda'i rnam dbye legs par bshad pa gsung rab kun la lta ba'i sgron me. The text is available (see BDRC).

Blo-bzang-bsam-’grub (1820-1882), Dpe chos rin chen spungs pa'i btus ming shes rab kyi mig gsal byed kyi sgron me. Woodblock print in 28 folios. Vocabulary from the Dpe chos, an early Kadampa work. The author’s name is given in the colophon as Sngags-rams-pa Chos-rje Lcam-sring-skyabs. Its poetic title could be translated, Lamp that Lights Up the Eye of Insight. A distinct New-Old Glossary by this same Mongolian author, Gangs can bod kyi brda gsar rnying las brtsams pa'i brda yig blo gsal mgul rgyan, in 66 folios, is listed in Materials for a History of Tibetan Literature, no. 10164. I have no idea about its present availability.

Blo-gros-rgya-mtsho and Bkra-shis-dngos-grub, Brda rnying tshig mdzod gsar bsgrigs, Bod ljongs mi rigs dpe skrun khang (Lhasa 2011), in 381 small-format pages. This is a modern-day compilation of various works of the Old-New Glossaries genre. I’ve always found the Btsan-lha dictionary more useful.

Btsan-lha Ngag-dbang-tshul-khrims, Brda dkrol gser gyi me long, Mi rigs dpe skrun khang (Beijing 1997). The great virtue of this dictionary is that it combines a large number of early Old-New Glossaries (along with still other lexicographical genres). It lists their titles at the end of the volume, at pp. 1040-1063. Although the author is surely quite advanced in age by now, I understand he has been working on a much expanded version, something students of early Tibet would be right to anticipate. Meanwhile the 1997 edition has gotten more and more difficult to find.

Cathy Cantwell, “Reincarnation and Personal Identity in the Lives of Tibetan Masters: Linking the Revelations of Three Lamas of the Dudjom Tradition,” a 32-page essay, apparently only available as a draft on the internet at this URL. On its 19th unnumbered page, you can see a very rare instance of a mention of our author, only here he is author of a biographical work on Bdud-’dul-rdo-rje:

“A much longer list of the previous incarnations of Düdül Dorje is given in a namthar (rnam thar, ‘hagiography’) compiled by Takrepa Künzang Pema Loden (Stag ras pa kun bzang padma blo ldan, 1997), apparently a direct student of Düdül Dorjeʼs.” 

Chos-ldan-rgya-mtsho, Brda gsar rnying gi rnam gzhag legs par ston pa'i reg gzigs gsar bu'i nyer mkho. Listed in Btsan-lha, no. 1052, but I suspect confusion with the work by Rje-drung Lhun-grub-blo-ldan, q.v.

Co-ne Grags-pa-bshad-sgrub (1675-1748), Snyan ngag mngon brjod brda gsar rnying gi rnam gzhag mdor bsdus blo gsal yid 'phrog. A woodblock print in 12 folios. Signed “shākya'i dge slong bshad sgrub ming can.” Composed at G.yar khral. Oriental Institute, St. Petersburg, nos. B5660/2, B8487/23. See Leonard van der Kuijp's article about bam po in Journal of Tibetology, at p. 120, where he comments that this work cannot be found in its author’s collected works.

Dalai Lama VII Skal-bzang-rgya-mtsho (1708-1757), Tā go shrī dge slong shes rab rgya mtsho'i dogs sel dris lan dang brda gsar rnying gi brda chad 'ga' zhig gi dris lan. Listed in Btsan-lha’s dictionary, p. 1052. Answers to inquiries about archaic vocabulary items.

Dbus-pa Blo-gsal (ca. 1265-1355), Brda gsar rnying gi rnam par dbye ba. For the Otani University manuscript, click here. This is the same one used in the studies by Mimaki, q.v. Other editions have since become available, just search for them in BDRC.

Auguste Desgodins (1826-1913), Dictionnaire thibétain-latin-francais par les missionnaires du Thibet, Imprimerie de la Société des Missions Étrangères (Hong Kong 1899). Look here, although I was unable to make the .tif files open on my computer. Perhaps you will have better luck? You might also try here. As I said, there doesn’t seem to be any direct mention of the Seven Horses in this publication, but either it or another book like it is alluded to on p. vi: “nous indiquons par (A. = R. ancien égale récent), les mots qui ne se trouvent guère que dans la langue sacrée ancienne...” Oh, and notice that the Bibliothèque Nationale de France has this interesting page about Desgodins with lists of his publications and letters. Their own Gallica website offers what appears to be a superior scan of the dictionary, click here to get started (the download button is findable on the right side of the window; it is very slow, but worth the wait).

Dngul-chu Ngag-dbang-rdo-rje (1720-1803), Brda gsar rnying gi khyad par bstan pa gsar bu'i blo gros skyed byed. A work in 6 folios. This has been published a number of times in various formats, just do a search for it at BDRC.

Gnya’-gong Dkon-mchog-tshe-brtan, Bod kyi brda rnying yig cha rtsa chen bdams bsgrigs rnams kyi tshig don kun nas khrol bar byas pa rab gsal me long, Kan su’u mi rigs dpe skrun khang (Lanzhou 2001). This work is unlike the others, [1] in the first place because it studies a number of works, listing their vocabulary items separately, and [2] because it intends to explain the old terminology to be found in Dunhuang documents (documents unknown to post-imperial Tibet up until the 20th century) along with stele inscriptions of imperial times (inscriptions in large part available, and to some degree known to and studied by Tibetans in past centuries).

Kun-bzang-rdo-rje, ed., Chos skad brda gsar rnying gi rnam gzhag sbrang rtsi'i bum pa, Rdzong kha gong 'phel lhan tshogs (Thimphu 2011), in 159 pages.

Berthold Laufer, “Bird Divination among the Tibetans (Notes on Document Pelliot No. 3530, with a Study of Tibetan Phonology of the Ninth Century),” T'oung Pao, series 2, vol. 15 (2014), pp. 1-110. As part of a very useful discussion of Old-New Glossaries, he has these words on p. 65:

“There is, further, a work under the title Bod yul-gyi skad gsar rñiṅ-gi rnam-par dbye-ba rta bdun snaṅ-ba, which has been carefully utilized in the “Dictionaire thibétain-latin-français par les Missionnaires catholiques du Thibet” (Hongkong, 1899).” (The footnote attached to this passage is also of considerable interest.)

Berthold Laufer, “Loan-Words in Tibetan,’ contained in: Hartmut Walravens, ed., Sino-Tibetan Studies: Selected Papers on the Art, Folklore History, Linguistics and Prehistory of Sciences in China and Tibet, Aditya Prakashan (New Delhi 1987), vol. 2, pp. 483-643 [originally published in 1916], at pp. 523-524, or pp. 443-444 in the original 1916 publication. 

After posting the blog, but on the very same day, I noticed Laufer, back in 1916, made a translation of the passage about Chinese loanwords from the Clove Canopy that I had translated on the basis of the shorter corresponding passage in Seven Horses, so it’s interesting to compare them, even if I won’t do that here and now.

Mimaki Katsumi, “dBus pa blo gsal no "Shin Kyu Goi Shu" — Kôtei bon Shokô [The brDa gsar rñiṅ gi rnam par dbye ba of dBus pa blo gsal — A First Attempt at a Critical Edition],” contained in: Asian Languages and General Linguistics: Festschrift for Prof. Tatsuo Nishida on the Occasion of His 60th Birthday (Tokyo 1990), pp. 17-54. This contains a critical text edition in Roman transcription (with numbers inserted so that one may first locate words in Mimaki's alphabetic index, and then locate them in the critical text edition).

Mimaki Katsumi, “Index to Two brDa gsar rñiṅ Treatises: The Works of dBus pa blo gsal and lCaṅ skya Rol pa'i rdo rje,” contained in a special issue of the Bulletin of the Narita Institute for Buddhist Studies (Naritasan Bukkyôkenkyûjo kiyô), vol. 15, no. 2 (1992), pp. 479-503.

Mimaki Katsumi, “Two Minor Works Ascribed to dBus pa Blo gsal,” contained in S. Ihara and Z. Yamaguchi, eds., Tibetan Studies, Naritasan Shinshoji (Narita 1992), vol. 2, pp. 591-598. Discussion about an existing text, at Otani University, of his Brda gsar rnying gi rnam par dbye ba, as well as his Rtags kyi 'jug pa'i 'grel pa.

Nel-pa Paṇḍi-ta, Sngon gyi gtam me tog gi phreng ba, "a 13th century source on the history of Tibetan kings and rulers by Ne'u Paṇḍi-ta Grags-pa-smon-lam-blo-gros, with other rare historical texts from the library of Burmiok Athing," T.D. Densapa, LTWA (Dharamsala 1985).

Nel-pa is at times credited with the statement that Bonpos “like the sky” (gnam-la dga'). However, this one edition of the text I have at hand reads, at p. 14 line 1: gnam las babs par smra ba ni / bon pos lhad bcug par yin no. “This saying that they [the books, etc.] fell [onto the palace roof of the Tibetan Emperor Lha Tho-tho-ri Gnyan-btsan] from the sky is to be explained as an interpolation by the Bonpos.” I should go check the German of Helga Uebach’s translation and see how she understood it. Here it is on her p. 87: “Das Gerede des Vom-Himmel-Kommens ist eine Verfälschung seitens der Bon-po.” I suppose “falsification” suits the tone of it well enough. Just try doing a Googlebook search for “gnam la dga’” and you will see there is a problem of quote attribution by earlier writings in both Tibetan and English that needs fixing. Right now I think those words like the sky were first pronounced much later on, in the mid-16th century history the Scholars’ Feast, but I’ll put that difficult discussion on hold for another time, another blog. Finding the truth of the matter is one thing, but tracing back the sources of error can be even more laborious and challenging (and somehow revealing on occasion).

Ngag-dbang-chos-dar, Brda gsar rnying, Mtsho sngon mi rigs dpe skrun khang (Xining 1980), in 217 pp. A modern work, based on the Gangs can gyi brda gsar rnying las brtsams pa'i brda yig blo gsal mgrin rgyan by A-lag-sha Ngag-dbang-bstan-dar, q.v.

Rje-drung Lhun-grub-blo-ldan (19th century), Brda' gsar rnying gi rnam gzhag legs par ston pa gsar bu'i nyer mkho, Pleasure of Elegant Sayings Press (Sarnath 1966), in 118 pp. For a scan of a beautiful woodblock print in 37 folios, click here. The statement naming the author is found in the woodblock’s colophon at folio 36 recto, line 5. Perhaps this has to do with the similarly titled text by Chos-ldan-rgya-mtsho, q.v.

Rnam-rgyal-tshe-ring, Bod yig brda rnying tshig mdzod, Krung go'i bod rig pa dpe skrun khang (Beijing 2001), in 678 pages. A Tibetan-Tibetan-Chinese dictionary, the preface is written in Chinese. It doesn’t seem to state what its sources were, but you do notice an uncommonly strong emphasis on Old Tibetan words from Dunhuang documents.

Ulrike Roesler, “Der dPe chos rin chen spuṅs pa'i btus miṅ — eine Quelle zur tibetisch mongolischen Lexographie und Schriftkunde,” contained in: D. Dimitrov, U. Roesler and R. Steiner, eds., Śikhisamuccayah: Indian and Tibetan Studies, Collectanea Marpurgensia Indologica et Tibetica, Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien, Universität Wien (Vienna 2002), pp. 151-173. This is a study of the work by Blo-bzang-bsam-’grub, listed above.

Skyogs-ston Lo-tsā-ba Rin-chen-bkra-shis (student of Zha-lu Lo-tsā-ba), Brda gsar rnying gi rnam gzhag li shi'i gur khang (=Bod kyi skad las gsar rnying gi brda'i khyad par ston pa legs par bshad pa li shi'i gur khang), ed. by Mgon-po-rgyal-mtshan, Mi rigs dpe skrun khang (Beijing 1981, 1982). It must have been written in 1476 (the preface wrongly states 1136, and still other dates have been put forward). This is by far the most-mentioned work of the genre, and has been republished numerous times. The advantage of this edition is that it first gives the text in its original form, then once again with the vocabulary items rearranged in Tibetan alphabetic order. If you would prefer a searchable unicode version of it, click here.

Sman-rgyal Sangs-rgyas-rin-chen, Gsar rnying brda'i legs bshad bai ḍūrya yi gur khang gi don gsal nyi ma. Listed in Btsan-lha, p. 1062.

Manfred Taube, “Zu einigen Texten der tibetischen Brda'-gsar-rñiṅ-Literatur,” Asienwissenschaftliche Beitrage (Berlin 1978), pp. 160-201. This isn’t available to me at the moment.

Zhabs-drung Chos-rje Ngag-dbang-tshe-ring (=Wa-ghin-da, fl. 1840), Brda gsar rnying gi rnam bzhag. Listed in Materials for a History of Tibetan Literature, no. 6618.

Zhe-chen Padma-dri-med-legs-pa'i-blo-gros (1901?-1960), Brda gsar rnying gi bye brag rtogs byed. Listed in Btsan-lha, p. 1052.

§   §   §

PS (December 31, 2023, Happy New Year!):

I just found that Padma-blo-ldan's glossary called the Light of Seven Horses, exists in the form of an 18-folio manuscript posted this year in the digital scan version of Nebesky-Wojkowitz’s Tibetan collection. Just go to this URL

https://hav.univie.ac.at/collections/nebesky/node/573/

and see it for yourself.