Gold Digging Ants of Herodotus, Part 1

You must have heard the story before. It’s been told for nearly two and a half millennia. People have been arguing for their own views about it since at least the Greek historian Herodotus. The story about the ants — or are those really ants? — he described as digging up gold for the benefit of human prospectors has fascinated a lot of people a lot of times for various reasons. Unfortunately the classic 1870 study by Danish professor Frederic Schiern (1816-1882), in its shortened English translation by Anna Childers, only exists in a version with cracked up letters that won’t scan well. That’s why I resolved to use my own eyesight and keyboard muscles to type it out. My source is The Indian Antiquary, August 1875, pages 225-232. Please forgive me if I’ve made transcription errors of my own (the notes in particular have some terribly unclear letters), although I did double-check and did my best, copying every last jot and tittle as is.* This is only the half of it. There is a brief and I hope representative bibliography at the end for your reading pleasure.**

(*But if you notice inaccuracies in my transcription, please do drop a note in the comments section and I’ll try to fix them.  **This is not a bibliography of the works mentioned by Schiern. He was writing back in the day when abbreviated references were enough.)

THE TRADITION OF THE GOLD-DIGGING ANTS.*

by Frederic Schiern, Professor of History at the University of Copenhagen. Translated by Anna M.H. Childers.

HERODOTUS is the earliest Greek writer who mentions gold-digging ants. Omitting irrelevant matter, the following is the account he gives of them:—

“Besides these there are Indians of another tribe, who border on the city of Kaspatyrus and the country of Paktyika: these people dwell northward of all the rest of the Indians, and follow nearly the same mode of life as the Baktrians. They are more warlike than any of the other tribes, and from them the men are sent forth who go to procure the gold. For it is in this part of India that the sandy desert lies. Here in this desert there live amid the sand great ants, in size somewhat less than dogs, but bigger than foxes. The Persian king has a number of them, which have been caught by the hunters in the land whereof we are speaking. These ants make their dwellings underground, and, like the Greek ants, which they very much resemble in shape, throw up sand-heaps as they burrow. Now the sand which they throw up is full of gold. The Indians when they go into the desert to collect this sand take three camels and harness them together, a female in the middle, and a male on either side in a leading-rein. The rider sits on the female, and they are particular to choose for the purpose one that has just dropped her young: for their female camels can run as fast as horses, while they bear burdens very much better . . . .  When, then, the Indians reach the place where the gold is, they fill their bags with the sand and ride away at their best speed: the ants, however, scenting them, as the Persians say, rush forth in pursuit. Now these animals are so swift, they declare, that there is nothing in the world like them: if it were not, therefore, that the Indians get a start while the ants are mustering, not a single gold-gatherer could escape. During the flight the male camels, which are not so fleet as the females, grow tired, and begin to drag first one and then the other: but the females recollect the young which they have left behind, and never give way or flag. Such, according to the Persians, is the manner in which the Indians get the greater part of their gold: some is dug out of the earth, but of this the supply is more scanty.”†

*Professor Schiern's essay was published in the Verhandl. Kgl. Dänischen Gesellsch. der Wissensch. for 1870, and was also printed separately as a pamphlet in Danish, German, and French. My translation is from the French version, which is considerably abridged, and therefore more suited to the pages of the Antiquary. I have slightly condensed the text in a few places. I take this opportunity of pointing out that Professor Schiern is not the first who has supposed the gold-digging ants to be Tibetan miners, as Pall Mall Gazette of March 16, 1869, written by Sir Henry Rawlinson :— 

“Now then for the first time we have an explanation of the circumstances under which so large a quantity of gold is, as is well known to be the case, exported to the west from Khoten, and finds its way into India from Tibet; and it is probable that the search for gold in this region has been going on from a very remote antiquity, since no one can read the Pandit's account of the Tibetan miners, ‘living in tents some seven or eight feet below the surface of the ground, and collecting the excavated earth in heaps previous to washing the gold out of the soil,’ without being reminded of the description which Herodotus gives of the ‘ants in the land of the Indians bordering on Kaspatyrus (or Kaspapyrus for Kaśyapura or Kāśmīr), which made their dwellings underground, and threw up sand-heaps as they burrowed, the sand which they threw up being full of gold.’ Professor Wilson indeed long ago, and before it was known there were any miners actually at work in Tibet, suggested this explanation of the story in Herodotus, on the mere ground that the grains of gold, collected in that country were called pipilika or ant-gold.”

To Professor Schiern is, however, unquestionably due the merit of an independent discovery, and above all of the lucid and laborious exposition of the evidence in favour of his theory.—A.M.H.C. 

†Herodotus, iii 102, 105. I take the translation from Rawlinson.—A.M.H.C.

Such is the story of the gold-digging ants as told by the far-travelled Herodotus, “the Humboldt of his time,” who had come to Susa for the preparation of his magnificent history, a work scarcely less valuable from a geographical and ethnological than from a historical point of view. The story, for the truth of which Herodotus was compelled to rely entirely upon the statements of the Persians, we find repeated by a great many later Greek and Roman authors.[1] How deeply the legend had taken root among the ancient Greeks may best be seen from the narrative of Harpokration, who records the sarcasms of the comic poets relative to a fruitless expedition against the gold-digging ants undertaken by the Athenians with troops of all arms, and provisions for three days. “It was rumoured among the Athenians one day,” he says, “that a mound of gold-dust had been seen on Mount Hymettus guarded by the warlike ants: whereupon they armed themselves and set out against the foe, but returned to Athens after much expenditure of labour to no purpose, they said mockingly to

[1] Cont. Strabo, II.1; XV.1; Arrian. de Exped. Alexandr. V.4; Indica, 5; Dio Chrysostom, Orat. XXXV.; Philostrat. de l'Iti Apollonii Tyan, VI.1; Clem Alex. Poed, II.12; Allian, de Nat.An. XV.14; Harpokrat. n.t. khrusuthoein(?); Themist. Orat. XXVII; Heliodor. X.26; Tzets. Chil XII.330-340; Pseudo Callisth. II.29; Schol ad Sophoel. Antig. v.1025.

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[p. 226]
each-other, ‘So you thought you were going to smelt gold!’”

The gold-digging ants of the Indians are mentioned in the writings of the Middle Ages and in those of the Arabian authors, and the tradition of them survived among the Turks as late as the sixteenth century. None of the authorities throw any doubt upon the truth of the tradition except Strabo, who treats the whole story as a fiction, and Albertus Magnus, who in quoting it adds, “sed hoc non satis est probatum per experimentum.”

The advent of criticism did not at once dispel the belief in this fable. So late as the end of the last century we find the learned Academician Larcher, in his French translation of Herodotus,[1] cautioning his readers against hastily rejecting the narrative of the Greek historian; and two years later, in 1788, Major James Rennel, while admitting the exaggerations of the story, gives it none the less as his opinion that the formidable adversaries of the Indians were termites or white ants.[2] In the 19th century when people at length ceased to look upon these bellicose gold-diggers as really ants, the opinion began to prevail that there had simply been a confusion between the names of the ant and of some animal of larger size. In connection with this view, or even excluding the hypothesis of a confusion of names, it was also supposed that a certain resemblance between the ant and some larger animal had given rise to the fable, or at least contributed to maintain it. The idea of resemblance was especially grounded on the larger animal's mode of digging its burrow, or excavating the earth with any other object. This animal has been variously identified with the corsac or Tartary fox, the hyena, the jackal, the hamster (Mus cricetus) and the marmot.[3] The theory that the auriferous earth cast up by burrowing animals guided the Indian gold-seekers, and originated the tradition of the gold-digging ants, is curiously confirmed by an observation of Alexander von Humboldt: “I have often been struck,” he says, “by seeing ants in the basaltic districts of the highlands of Mexico carrying along shining grains of hyalith, which I was able to pick out of the anthills.”[4] But the supposed similarity which has led to classifying as ants animals widely different from them is not limited to their mode of excavation or throwing up the earth, for an attempt has also been made to extend it to their shape and general appearance. This was done long ago by Jacob Gronovius in his interpretation of the ancient narrative,[5] and even in our own time Xivrey expresses himself still more plainly to the same effect.[6]

The hypothesis of a confusion of names had to be entirely abandoned when Wilson pointed out that the ancient Sanskrit literature of India itself mentions these ants. In a remarkable passage of the great Indian epic, the Mahâbhârata, we have an enumeration of the treasures sent by the Northern tribes to king Yudhisthira, one of the sons of Pâṇḍu, and among them are lumps of paipilika gold, so called because it was collected by ants (pipîlikîs).[7] Apart from this fact, it must be admitted that the burrowing habits of foxes, jackals and hyenas hardly afford a plausible pretext for confounding them with ants : it would be more natural to make comparisons of this sort with certain rodents such as marmots, but even those who adopt this solution make no attempt to ignore its weak points. Thus Lassen writes: “The accounts of their prodigious swiftness, their pursuit and destruction of gold-seekers and their camels, must be looked upon as purely imaginary, since they (marmots) are slow in their movements and of a gentle disposition.”[8] In the same way Peschel makes the following admission : “It has not been hitherto explained on what grounds such remarkable speed and ferocity should be attributed to these ants, while marmots are represented as peace-loving crea-

[1] Tome III, p. 339.
[2] Memoir of a Map of Hindostan, Int. p. xxix.
[3] Conf. Link. Die Urwelt und das Alterthum (Berlin 1821-22), I, 258; Ritter, Die Erdkunde, III, 659; Humboldt, Kosmos, II, 176; Wahl, Erdbeschreibung von Ostindien (Hamburg 1805-7), II, 185, 486; Wilford, Asiat. Res. XIV, 467. Kruse [?], Indiens alte Geschichte (Leipzig, 1856), p. 39; Heeren, [illeg.] über die Politik, I, 1, 348; Vigne, Travels in Kashmir ¶c, 1f, 287; Peschel, Der Ursprung und die Verbreitung einiger geographischen Mythen in Mittelalter, II, 265; Lassen, Ind.Alt, I, 50, 1022; Cunningham, Ladak, p. 232.
[4] Kosmos, II, 422. Compare the story of the diamond anthill in the case of Rahery [Rubery?] n. Sampson.—Ed.
[5] Worte in den Anmerkungen zu Tschuckes Ausgabe von Pomponius Mela (Leipzig, 1806), III, 3, 245.
[6] Traditions tératologiques, pp. 265, 267.
[7] Wilson, Ariana Antiqua, p. 135, and Jour. R. As.Soc. (1843) vol. VII, p. 148
[8] Ind. Alt. I, 1922.

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[p. 227]
tures.”[1] In short, as regards those writers who have endeavoured to explain the confusion of names by a certain external resemblance, suffice it to say that they have themselves despaired of finding an animal that would satisfy the conditions of their theory. Xivrey naïvely attributes this difficulty to the auri sacra fames, holding that a race of gold-digging animals may have really existed, and gradually disappeared before the incursions of man.[2]

We now come to a wholly different solution of the question. So long ago as the year 1819 Malte-Brun wrote : “May we not also suppose that an Indian tribe really bore the name of ants?”[3] It is by following up the clue thus afforded by our learned countryman that we may hope to arrive at a solution of this question. But it will be necessary in the first place to determine, in what direction we are to look for the dwelling-place of the gold-digging ants, by taking as our starting-point the places mentioned by Herodotus. According to the Greek historian, the Indians who went in search of the gold lived in the neighbourhood of the city of Kaspatyrus (Κασπατυρος) and of Paktyike (η Πακτυικη χωρη). Now the inhabitants of Paktyike are none other than the Afghans, who in the west call themselves Pashtun and in the east Pakhtun,[4] a name idéntical with that given to them by Herodotus. As to the second locality, instead of Kaspatyrus, the name given in most editions of Herodotus, the Codex Sancroftianus, preserved in Emanuel College, Cambridge, give that of Kaspapyrus (Κασπαπυρος), a reading found also in Stephanus Byzantinus, and clearly pointing to the ancient name of the capital of Kâśmîr, Kâśyapapura, contracted to Kâśyapura.

We are thus brought to Kâśmîr. We have in our own times seen how the Sikhs, the present masters of Kâśmîr, took possession of large portions of Tibet, namely, of Ladak or Central Tibet in 1831, and of Balti or Little Tibet in 1840. But we know that in former times the Subâhdârs, or governors of Kâśmîr under the Great Mughul, and earlier yet the kings, both Muhammadan and Hindu, of independent Kâśmîr, likewise strove to extend their conquests in the same direction. And hence we may well suppose that it was to Tibet that the Indians of Herodotus repaired when they left their native Kâśmîr in search of gold. This supposition is confirmed by the fact that Strabo and the elder Pliny expressly mention the Dards as those who robbed the ants of their treasures.[5] For the Dards are not an extinct race. According to the accounts of modern travellers, they consist of several wild and predatory tribes dwelling among the mountains on the north-west frontier of Kâśmîr, and by the banks of the Indus : [6] they are the Daradas of Sanskrit literature. They understand Pushtu, the language of the Afghans,[7] but their native tongue is a Sanskritic idiom. Even at the present day they carry on their marauding profession in Little and Central Tibet, and it is chiefly on this account that the picturesque vale of Huzara, which has at all times belonged to Little Tibet, remains in great part waste, in spite of its natural fertility.[8] Mir Izzet Ullah, the travelling companion of Moorcroft, who visited Tibet in 1812, writes as follows in his Journal:—“The houses of this country from Matayin to this place are all wrecked and deserted. Last year a great number of the inhabitants were carried off by bands of Dards, an independent tribe who live in the mountains three or four days’ march north of Diriras, and speak Pashtu and Dáradi. The prisoners made by them in these raids are sold for slaves.”[9]

AElian, who makes the river Kampylinus the limit of the ant country,[10] throws no light upon the question of Tibet, for it is impossible to gather from the text whether or not the Kampylinus denotes a branch of the Indus. But Tibet is indicated with tolerable certainty in the remarkable passage of the Mahâbhârata above referred to, as well as in the statements of Herodotus, Strabo, and Pliny. For among the north-

[1] Der Ursprung und Verbreitung einiger geographischen Mythen im Mittelalter, in Deutsch Vierteljahrschrift, II. 266.
[2] Trad. tératologiques, p. 267.
[3] Mémoire sur l'Inde septentrionale, in Nouvelles Annales des Voyages (Paris, 1819), II. 382.
[4] Hindustanicè Pathân.—Ed.
[5] Strabo, XV. 1; Pliny, Hist. Nat. VI. 22; XI. 36.
[6] Vigne, Travels, II. 300 ; Leitner, Dardistan, II. 31-34.
[7] Vigne, Travels, II. 268.
[8] Moorcroft and xxxx [the notes are illegible here in my copy]

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[p. 228]

-ern tribes who brought to king Yudhishṭhira the paipîlika gold the Khaśas are expressly mentioned ; and not only are the Khaśas frequently alluded to in the Kâśmîrian chronicle Râja Taraṅgiṇî, which locates them in the neighbourhood of the city of Kâśmîr,[1] but they are even known at the present day under the name of Khasiyas, as a people speaking one of the Indian languages, and dwelling on the borders of Tibet.[2] In the passage relating to the tribute brought to the king by the Khaśas and other northern tribes, the Mahâbhârata also speaks of “sweet honey made from the flowers of Himavat,” and of “fine black châmaras , and others that were white and brilliant as the moon.” Now Himavat is only another name for the Himâlaya, and châmara is the name of the fans or fly-flaps which in India kings only are allowed to use, and which are made from the tail of the Yak or Tibetan ox (Bos grunniens).[3] 

[1] Troyer's transl. II. 321 ff. ; Neumann, Geschichte des englischen Reiches in Asien (Leipzig, 1837), I. 209 ; Lassen, Ind' Alt. I. 1820 ; Huc, Souvenirs d'un voyage dans la Tartarie, &c 264-66, 311, 321, 381.[2] Hodgson in Jour. As. Soc. Beng. (1848) XVII. 546 ; Lassen, Ind. Alt. I. 24, 67, 459, 473=74, 646, 1020-1021.
[3] 



TO BE CONTINUED!  We’ll start up again at p. 228, the first full paragraph.

Herodotus, one of the world's earliest history book writers.

BRUNIALTI, A. “La tradizione delle formiche che scavano l'oro e il minator del Tibet” [The Tradition of Ants that Dig Gold and the Minator of Tibet], Bol. Soc. Geog. Ital., vol. 40 (1874), pp. 370-6.  Not seen. 

CARDELL, MONIQUE L. “Herodotus and the Gold Digging Ants, A Voyage across Time and Space,” a paper in docx format from the internet (now try this link). 

FRANCKE, AUGUST HERMANN “Two Ant Stories from the Ancient Kingdom of Western Tibet (A Contribution to the Question of the Gold-Digging Ants),” Asia Major, vol. 1 (1924), pp. 67-75.  With patience, you may be able to download the volume here.

JEAN-BAPTISTE, PATRICK “L'historien grec Herodotus a-t-il dit la verite? L'or des marmottes” [Did the Greek Historian Herodotus Tell the Truth?  The Marmots’ Gold], Sciences et avenir, no. 656 (2001), pp. 74-75. 

KARSAI, GY. “Die Geschichte von den goldgrabenden Ameisen” [The Story of the Gold-Digging Ants], Annales Universitatis Budapestinensis, Sectio Classica, vol. 5-6 (1977-8), pp. 61-72. 

KARTTUNEN, KLAUS India in Early Greek Literature, Studia Orientalia series no. 65 (Helsinki 1989), especially the section “Gold-Digging Ants” on pp. 171-176. 

LAUFER, BERTHOLD “Die Sage von den goldgrabenden Ameisen” [The Legend of the Gold-Digging Ants], T'oung Pao, vol. 9 (1908), pp. 429-452. 

McCARTNEY, EUGENE S. “The Gold-Digging Ants,” Classical Journal, vol. 49 (1954), p. 234. For this you need JSTOR and an academic subscription.

PEISSEL, MICHEL The Ants' Gold: The Discovery of the Greek El Dorado in the Himalayas, Harvill Press (London 1984). On the author’s very eventful life, try looking here.

PUSKAS, ILDIKO “On An Ethnographical Topos in the Classical Literature (The Gold-Digging Ants),” Annales Universitaris Budapestinensis, Sectio classica, vol. 5-6 (1977-78), pp. 73-87.

REGENOS, G.W. “A Note on Herodotus III, 102,” The Classical Journal, vol. 34, no. 7 (April 1939), pp. 425-426. 

RIZVI, JANET “Lost Kingdoms of the Gold-Digging Ants” [a review of Michel Peissel's book L'or des fourmis: La découvete de l'Eldorado grec au Tibet], India International Centre Quarterly, vol. 15, no. 2 (Summer 1988), pp. 131-147. 

SCHIERN, FREDERIC “The Tradition of the Gold-Digging Ants,” tr. by Anna M.H. Childers, Indian Antiquary, vol. 4 (August 1875), pp. 225-232. Idem., Über den Ursprung der Sage von den goldgrabenden Ameisen (Copenhagen/Leipzig 1883).  Try this link.  Same title in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, vol. 6 (1874), 98-101, although this is actually a review by Felix Liebrecht. Many want the ants to be some other larger animal, but Schiern wants them to be a group of humans instead. If you go read Francke, it may sway you back in favor of the antness of the ants, hard telling.

SHARMA, ARVIND “The Story of the Gold-Digging Ants: Greek Rationality or Rationalization?” From the internet; try here. 

I think Arvind Sharma is on to something: Not only later classical Greek authors, but modern classicists as well, have been gripped by the urge to “save” the rationalism of Herodotus, and the Greeks as a whole, from what looks like a fantastically irrational story. Rationalists feel duty-bound to defend what must be perceived by us all as the origins of our European-Aristotelian rationalism. And to do this they see themselves entirely justified in using whatever reasonable-enough-sounding rationalization works for them. True, E.R. Dodds did write that book on The Greeks and the Irrational.

SIMONS, MARLISE “Himalayas Offer Clue to Legend of Gold-Digging ‘Ants’.” New York Times (November 25, 1996).  Try here. 

THOMAS, DANA “An Explorer’s Answer to the Tale of Furry, Gold-Digging Ants,” The Washington Post (December 16, 1996).  Try here. 

WARSH, DAVID “Found: Mountain Mouse Ants,” Aramco World (September 1997). Look here. Also reprinted on the internet at www.silk-road.com.

§   §   §

In fact there are any number of internet pieces on the subject, just try cutting and pasting the words

Herodotus and the Gold Digging Ants

into the Schmoogle box and see what pops up.  Like this, for instance.

The Flood that Backfired, & the Tangut Refugees

A Tangut Tangka
Below is a donor couple, the man holds an incense burner

This is hardly the first time we’ve spoken of Tanguts. You might remember we once blogged on evidence of the Tangut ties of Padampa and his spiritual descendents.* I’m walking on air these days, since an unbelievable source for the history of Tibet and the Western Xia has suddenly popped up. This is the biography of Tishirepa by his Tangut-born disciple Repakarpo. Let me assure you it is chocked full of fascinating information about the life of a court-appointed Tibetan ritual master’s activities in Tangut Land. The proud but few experts in Tangut studies will particularly crave to know everything that is in it. Part of what makes it most fascinating, its frequent first-person narration, also creates difficulties. It’s somewhat colloquial and a challenge getting used to the cadences of the syntax, a style of Tibetan we moderns are bound to find strange.** It is further complicated by being located in a somewhat alien environment that was even then disappearing from the face of the earth, person and place names were transcribed back and forth between very different languages. Here the Tibetanists require the help of Tangutists, Mongolists and Sinologists.

(*See The Tangut Connection, and for more interesting discussion see the articles of Sun Penghao listed below. **Bear in mind the text was put together by a non-native speaker of Tibetan. Tangut and Tibetan may be distantly related, but the two languages were never going to be mutually intelligible.)

We find that Tishirepa very often tells his prophetic dreams, but immediately before and after them he also narrates the events of his day matter-of-factly, in a somewhat glib manner, without a lot of descriptions or adjectives. We can’t dismiss what he says just because we might not think dreams can be taken serious as prophecies or signs as most people did believe in the past, and many in fact still do today. We didn’t have such excellent and contemporary sources on the events in Tangut Land from the Tibetan side before, but now we have something, so I’m asking you, How would it hurt you to stop complaining about the difficulties and try to overcome them?

Today I’m just going to translate one brief paragraph. That should be enough of a taste of it to awaken somebody’s appetite to study the entire text in detail, since I’m not about to do it.

Repakarpo’s biography of Tishirepa, at page 304:  

Then on the first day of the third moon the fortress was surrounded by water, which made people anxious. In the evening of 17th day of the 7th moon prior to this I had dreamed it was surrounded by water, but then I dreamed that things turned out well.  But then in the evening of the 15th day the water supply of the fortress overflowed. Just as [the fortress] was about to be breached (?), a way was shown to stop the water, so it did not destroy the fort from within. Later that evening Tsangsoba and I together made tormas and hurled them into the water. Then on midnight of the 6th day the water spilled outward, and much of the Mongol encampment was swept away. On the 14th they made a gift of the king's own daughter and held negotiations. They went back to their own country. On the 17th the Tibetan lama teachers requested a timeout (?tshe-ka) and went each to his own monastery. I, too, went to the Gzing-gha Monastery of Ling-chu.* In those times I had one evening a dream in which the Precious Taglungthangpa was giving teachings and said, “The inhabitant of the center has a lotus ground.”

(*Ling-cu or Ling-chu has sometimes been taken as a Tibetan form of the name of the city of Liangzhou, but Sperling believes it transcribes the name of a different Tangut city, Lingzhou. For its location see this Wiki page. It is just over the river from Yinchuan, so this means Tishirepa didn't go far away.)

Here is the Tibetan text in Wylie transcription:

de nas zla ba gsum pa'i tshes gcig la mkhar chus bskor / blo ma bde bar byung / sngar zla ba bdun pa'i tshes bcu bdun gyi nub mo chus bskor ba rmis nas / de nas bde bar byung bar rmis / de nas tshes bco lnga'i nub mo mkhar gyi chu khung nang du brdol bas / chod la khad du yod pa'i dus su chu 'gog pa'i thabs bstan pas chu khog nas mkhar ma zhig / phyir de dgong mo rtsang so ba dang nged gnyis kyis / gtor ma byas nas chu la 'phangs pas / tshes drug gi nam phyed na chu phyir bo nas / hor gyi dmag ra mang po phyags / tshes bcu bzhi la rgyal po'i bu mo byin nas 'dum byas / khong rang gi yul du phyir song / tshes bcu bdun la bod kyi bla ma dge ba'i bshes gnyen rnams / tshe ka zhus nas rang rang so so'i dgon par song / nged kyang ling chu'i gzing gha dgon du song nas / de'i dus su nub cig rmi lam du rin po che stag lung thang pas / dbus pa padmo'i sa gzhi yod // ces bya ba'i chos bstan gsungs.

The mysterious words received in a dream about the lotus ground I understand to be prophetic in the sense of saying that the “center” (Central Tibet) would be the safer option. Overall, this seems to be the same as the story from Chinese language sources, but our eye-witness Tishirepa saw things differently. According to him, the city’s own water source welled up and overflowed — nothing here about the river water being diverted through Mongol dam and dike building. Yet we are left to wonder why to begin with water surrounded the city. When the water later spilled out of the city to flood the Mongol camp we are meant to understand that this was due to a torma ritual performed by the Tibetans. Admittedly there are problems in the reading of the passage that may allow it to be read differently, and bluntly stated, I have probably made mistakes. But this is the kind of material historians need to do their job, and I think they ought to go to work on it.

Tishirepa says the Mongols “went back to their own country.” This is an overly hopeful statement. I think what really happened is they retreated to higher ground to regroup and rethink strategy. The Mongols kept coming back until 1226 when they finally defeated the Tanguts. We know from their later campaigns in other parts of the world that the Mongols did not in the least appreciate it when people refused to give in to their awesome military power, and they simply could not stand the effort invested in lengthy siege warfare, so in the end they punished and made examples of the resisters by slaughtering them one and all. The only Tangut survivors fled to Tibet and Tibet's eastern borderlands. Tishirepa and his disciple Repakarpo were among them. That’s why they could tell the story of the tragic events they witnessed firsthand.

At the Tangut Royal Tombs. I believe these eerily unearthly monumental figures are protectors.
Photo by Andrew West - see this blog entry at Babelstone CC BY-SA 3.0

Read these today or tomorrow:

Wikipedia has what turns out to be a very creditable page called "Mongol Conquest of Western Xia."

“One of their first endeavors at siege warfare, the Mongols lacked the proper equipment and experience to take the city. They arrived at the city in May, but by October were still unsuccessful at breaking through. Genghis attempted to flood the capital by diverting the river and its network of irrigation canals into the city, and by January 1210 the walls of Yinchuan were nearly breached. However, the dike used to divert the river broke, and the ensuing flood wiped out the Mongol camp, forcing the Mongols to take higher ground.”

Ruth Dunnell, “Translating History from Tangut Buddhist Texts,” Asia Major, third series, vol. 22, part 1 (2009), pp. 41-78. There is quite a lot of discussion here about who the Dishi actually were. The same author has a number of articles on Tanguts that deserve attention.

H.H. Howorth, “The Northern Frontagers of China, Part VI: Hia or Tangut,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, new series vol. 15, no. 4 (October 1883), pp. 438-482, at p. 472:

“... after which the Mongols crossed the Yellow River and attacked Chung sing, the Calatia of Marco Polo, and now called Ning hia, which was the capital of the empire of Hia. Finding the city too stong, Chinghis tried to turn the waters of the river into the town; but the current burst the artificial banks which he had erected, and flooded his own camp so destructively that he was obliged to raise the siege. Thereupon he determined to gain his end by peaceful means, and sent an envoy into the city to invite the King to treat with him. To this the King agreed, and in token of his friendship he sent Chinghis his daughter to wife.”

Rob Linrothe, “Xia Renzong and the Patronage of Tangut Buddhist Art: The Stūpa and Usnīsavijayā Cult,” Journal of Sung-Yuan Studies, vol. 28 (1998), pp. 91-123. This essay mostly concerns a slightly earlier period, but it does demonstrate the Vajrayāna interests of the Tangut royalty.

H. Desmond Martin, “The Mongol Wars with Hsi-hsia (1205-27),” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1942), pp. 195-228, with maps. It has this to say, on p. 201, about the flooding incident of 1210, entirely based on Chinese language sources:

“The enemy at his gates, Li An-chuan took personal command and directed the defence with such energy that by the end of October the Mongols had not gained a single foothold on the walls. But there then occurred a catastrophe that nearly brought the capital to its knees. Seeing that the autumnal rains had swollen the Huang Ho, Chinghiz Khan ordered the construction of a great dyke to turn the river into the city, and the waters entering Chung-hsing, took a fearful toll of life and property. 

“Faced with this predicament, Li An-ch'uan sent in November to beg the Chin for help. Many Chin ministers and high officers urged that troops be dispatched to break the leaguer, for they pointed out that the conquest of Hsi Hsia would certainly be followed by an attack upon their empire. But the new emperor Yüng-chi (1209 1213) regarded both contestants as enemies and turned a deaf ear to the Tangut cry for succour. The siege dragged on until January, 1210, when the walls of the city were on the point of collapse. Then suddenly the pent up waters of the river burst their outer dykes, and spreading over the surrounding plain, forced the Mongols to retire to higher ground.”

Adrienne Mayor, “Rivers as Weapons in Ancient War.” Learn about some historical instances of weaponized water here at “Wonders and Marvels.”

Mi-nyag Ras-pa-dkar-po (1198-1262), Bla ma rin po che 'gro ba'i mgon po ti shri ras pa'i rnam par thar pa, contained in the series entitled Lo paṇ rnam thar phyogs bsgrigs, Krung-go'i Shes-rig Dpe-skrun-khang (Beijing 2018), vol. 7, pp. 255-365. This is the biography of Tishirepa (1164-1236). Note that this volume 7 has its own distinct cover title: Lam yig phyogs bsgrigs.

Kirill Solonin, “Local Literatures: Tangut/Xixia,” Brill Encyclopedia of Buddhism, vol. 1, pp. 844-859. Especially valuable as a survey of surviving writings in Tangut including translations from other languages, and for its bibliography. Other works of the same author should have been listed here, although they haven’t been. And if there is any chance you might be contemplating learning Tangut language, try this link. And don’t be too discouraged, because as you will learn when you watch it, “Compared to Tibetan, Tangut is relatively easy.”  "A very simple language in fact." Well, I can never tell when he’s not joking, and this might not be an example.

Elliot Sperling, “Further Remarks Apropos of the 'Ba'-rom-pa and the Tanguts,” Acta Orientalia Hungarica, vol. 57, no. 1 (2004), pp. 1-26. I believe this article is the only one to take notice of the Tibetan-language flooding account (at pp. 17-20). Of course this mid-15th century history translated by Elliot, the Lho rong chos 'byung, even if it did made direct use of our 13th-century biography, is nonetheless a secondary source compared to the Repakarpo. I only wish Elliot could still be around to hear the news , he would have been so excited.  Although the Lho rong chos 'byung preserves the first-person nature of the account, it abbreviates and leaves out quite a lot, as you can see in Elliot's translation of it:

“...I had a dream that the Xia citadel was surrounded by Mongols. In the first month of the Horse Year [January 17-February 25, 1210] the Mongols surrounded the Xia citadel. Shri Phug-pa, Rtsang-po-pa and I, we three, took steps to repulse the troops. On the 1st day of the third month [March 27, 1210] the citadel was surrounded by water. We did a gtor-ma and on the 6th [April 1, 1210] at midnight the water fell back and many Mongol troops were swept away. On the 14th [April 9, 1210], using the king's daughter, peace was made...”

— Elliot besides his brilliance dealing with languages both old and new had a famously acute sense of humor, and I'm sure he felt no need to point out that the backwash took place on April Fools Day.

Elliot Sperling, “Rtsa-mi Lo-tsâ-ba Sangs-rgyas Grags-pa and the Tangut Background to Early Mongol-Tibetan Relations,” contained in: Per Kvaerne, ed., Tibetan Studies, The Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture (Oslo 1994), pp. 801-825.

Elliot Sperling, “The Szechwan-Tibet Frontier in the Fifteenth Century,” Ming Studies, no. 26 (Fall 1988) 37-55. This is important for evidence of Tangut migration and eventual integration into the Tibetan population.  In Tibetan, the name for both the original Tanguts and their later descendants is Mi-nyag (མི་ཉག).

Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt, “The Tangut Royal Tombs near Yinchuan,” Muqarnas, vol. 10 (1993), pp. 369-381.

Shen Weirong, “A Preliminary Investigation into the Tangut Background of the Mongol Adoption of Tibetan Tantric Buddhism,” contained in: Orna Almogi, ed., Contributions to Tibetan Buddhist Literature, International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies (Halle 2008), pp. 315-350.  This article emphasizes significant Sakya connections with the Tangut court. Our source is all about the Kagyü connections, and during the time of Tishirepa the awareness of different subschools of the Kagyü was only just getting started. His biography has important information about a struggle between the Taglung and Drikung sub-schools that started in around 1209 in an argument about books that escalated. After his return to Tibet from Tangut land Tishirepa tried to mediate peace between the two sides.

Sun Penghao, “Four Texts Related to Pha dam pa sangs rgyas in the Chinese Translation of the Tangut Kingdom of Xia,” contained in: Shen Weirong, ed., History through Textual Criticism (Beijing 2012), pp. 85-97.

Sun Penghao, “Pha-dam-pa Sangs-rgyas in Tangut Xia: Notes on Khara-khoto Chinese Manuscript TK329,” contained in: Tsuguhito Takeuchi, et al., eds., Current Issues and Progress in Tibetan Studies, Research Institute of Foreign Studies (Kobe 2013), pp. 505-521.

Andrew West, Western Xia Tombs Revisited. Totally worth visiting.

Assignment: Go study Tangut art at the site of the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.  Notice especially this one that is identified as a Dishi or Guoshi.

It could just be me, but I’ve been there and found it so awesomely hideous it had best be dismantled. You’ll have to go to the link if you want to see it since I won’t put any photo of it here on my blog: 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6079991/Genghis-Khan-statue-Mongolia-sees-tourists-anniversary-death-800-years-ago.html#i-f5a6c44417858606

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A note on ethnonyms:  Tibetans always call the Tangut country and nation and language by the name Mi-nyag (spelling variant: Me-nyag). The Tanguts called themselves something like "Mi-nia," and their state the "Great Xia" (Chinese sources call them Xixia, or Western Xia, in an effort to disambiguate which Xia is meant). This "Xia" (once upon a time not so long ago transcribed as "Hsia") is represented in Tibetan sources as 'Ga' or Gha (འགའ་ or གྷ་), and later on as Sga and sometimes Rga (སྒ་ and རྒ་). There were a number of famous persons in later Tibetan history who belonged to this clan called Sga, including teachers of both Sakya and Bön schools, and I believe they are all supposed to be descendants of Tangut families who escaped the Mongols and emigrated to Tibet.  I'm sure you know of it, but I won’t go into the problem of historical [mis]usages of the ethnonym "Tangut," a category where even Tibetans have sometimes found themselves placed.

—  Oh, and I think the right name of the other Dishi (in the present text it is sometimes spelled De-zhi, and that word is the same as the Ti-shi or Ti-shri in Tishirepa; the "repa" means cotton-clad, just like in Milarepa), or Imperial Preceptor, had the name Tsangsoba, and not Tsangpopa. The 'p' and 's' are close enough to be confused in Tibetan cursive script. To my mind, he was likely from a place called Tsangso (Gtsang-so) in La-stod region rather than from the Tsangpo (Gtsang-po) River. 

I'm not too sure, but this is supposed to be a wall painting of an imperial preceptor
of the Tanguts depicted in Yulin Cave no. 29. 
If there were five points in his hat, I'd say it could be Tishirepa.

* * *

This blog I solemnly dedicate to the memory of Elliot Sperling (1951-2017). There is so much more he was meant to do in this world.

Quingentenary of the Ganden Podrang Nearly Passes Unobserved

Ganden Phodang, the building, as it exists today at Drepung Monastery in Lhasa

It’s one of those mysteries in the history of history making why some major events get memorialized over the course of time with centennial observances, while others are overlooked.* A case in point: Even though the year 2018 is probably already over as you read this, it would be a pity if 2019 arrived before anyone thought to recall a significant development in Tibetan history that occurred in 1518, just 500 years ago. You heard me right, but allow me to explain.

(*To be sure, the idea of a centennial never occurred in earlier centuries in Tibet, where time was marked not by 100-year, but by 60-year cycles. But we’re not back there right now, we’re in the 21st century world, where things are seen a little different by us all.)

Well, with the deadline rapidly approaching, I’ll squeeze in a few words about why the restoration to the Gelugpa monasteries of a major annual festival and the presentation of a ‘palace’ to the Second Dalai Lama ought to be recalled half a millennium later. In a true sense, the past hasn’t even really passed, since the results of those events carry on in what is done and thought today, even given the twists and turns that occurred in the interval. I’m told dull-minded people do exist, and they along with certain politicians are the ones who when it suits them assert that the past counts for nothing for us in the present. I’d say the supposed irrelevance of history is just an artefact of our lack of attention to it, or an excuse for a more general apathy or antipathy.

The Zhang dictionary describes the events very succinctly:

"[In 1519] the Victor Gendun Gyatso was head of the assembly of the Mönlam.  This was the year the Great Mönlam was reinstituted in accordance with the earlier traditions of Sera, Drepung and Ganden."   

༼ rgyal ba dge 'dun rgya mtshos smon lam gyi tshogs dbu mdzad / 'di lo nas se 'bras dga' gsum slar yang sngar rgyun ltar smon lam chen mo tshugs ༽ 

"The Nedong ruler Tashi Dragpa offered the Blue Stone House (Rdo-khang Sngon-mo) of Drepung Monastery to the Victor Gendun Gyatso, and its name was changed to Ganden Podrang."   

༼ sne gdong mi dbang bkra shis grags pas 'bras spungs rdo khang sngon mo rgyal ba dge 'dun rgya mtshor phul ming dga' ldan pho brang du bsgyur ༽

From 1498 up to and including the year 1517, Gelugpa monks were not allowed to participate in the annual observances that follow the Tibetan New Year, even though this “Great Prayer Festival”* had been instituted by none other than Tsongkhapa himself in 1409 CE, the same year he founded Ganden Monastery. At first the school was called Gandenpa, after the name of the monastery. This -pa construction in Tibetan would have us understand that Gandenpa just means [an] inhabitant[s] of Ganden. I believe the Ganden in Ganden Phodrang, too, is meant as a reference to Ganden Monastery, even if not entirely sure of it.**  

(*Mönlam isn’t well served by the translation prayer since that might imply a petitionary type of prayer. It’s more like a prayer of hope, an aspiration for a distant but achievable goal of the most positive kind, particularly Complete Enlightenment.) (**Ganden is also the Tibetan translation of Sanskrit Tuṣita, a paradise for the Future Buddha. I’d like to go into this another time, but the prominent New England professors Leonard W.J. van der Kuijp and Georges Dreyfus have drawn some interesting conclusions about the emergence of the name and early institution of the Gelugpa School that go against the grain of the usual conceptions. It may be needful to say that institutions scarcely ever sprout up fully grown at the fiat of a single Great Person with a singularity of purpose, but that’s how institutions often come to portray themselves later on, perhaps a result of efforts to promote unity within their ranks.)

The Victor Gendun Gyatso (1476-1542) would today be called  the Second Dalai Lama even though the title “Dalai Lama” was first awarded in the year 1578 CE, thirty-six years after His death.

So, to keep things short since I’m writing against the clock: I always tell people I’m stuck in the 12th century. There is truth in this, I freely admit. It could explain why I’ve found myself clueless to fathom the shock on people’s faces when you tell them that the Gelugpa school and more particularly the Dalai Lamas haven’t always ruled Tibet from the beginning of time.* 

(*Someone should also inform them of a much broader truth, which is that nothing in the present world was or is inevitable, that there have been forces at work in the past that helped bring about, and other forces that very well could have prevented, today’s institutions. We live, as we always have lived, in a permanent state of precariousness.)

Those shocked faces reveal an assumption, that Tibet remained always the way it was at the verge of the 1950’s. For them it was a culture wedded to immutability from time immemorial, so stuck in place as to be practically lifeless. But pay attention while I say that rule by the Ganden Podrang, the same name that was given to a building five centuries ago and the name that would eventually be found on Tibet-minted coins and currency notes, only effectively began in 1642, when the Fifth Dalai Lama rose to power with the indispensable backing of Mongolian patrons. 

I would say that I hate to disillusion people, but I neither love nor hate it. Buddhism is always there poised and ready to raise in us the consciousness that whatever gets put together through combinations of conditions is bound to come apart eventually. For readers of Tibetan, I can just remind you, འདུས་བྱས་ཐམས་ཅད་མི་རྟག་པའོ།། Eternity never happens. Contingencies happen.

Who could be better to quote than His Holiness the present Fourteenth Dalai Lama, who has often in recent years suggested, to the shock and dismay of many of his closest followers and admirers, that He may be the last Dalai Lama, that it depends on how the institution continues to serve the Tibetan people. But then we have to underline how He emphasized on the same occasion that Tibetan Buddhism will in any case continue. I wanted to quote His words directly, but every single news story from the early-to-mid 2010’s seems to paraphrase and mis-hear as much as it quotes, so I’m waiting on a more authoritative source, if you could be so kind as to suggest one.

I know a lot of people haven’t been keeping up with the news, thinking the Dalai Lama still rules just as before. In His 2015 CNN interview by Amanpour, He said, as transcribed by myself:

“In 2011 I totally retired from political responsibility, not only myself retired but also [the] four-century-old tradition [of the] Dalai Lama institution, particularly being head of both spiritual and temporal. That formally, voluntarily, happily ended.”

Clearly, important changes have already taken place. As far as the future roles of the Dalai Lamas are concerned, just as in the past, there are forces at work pushing this way and that. How things will play out in the end is anybody’s guess. No historian can know the outcome in advance, and it’s first and foremost the fools and political prophets who claim to have that kind of knowledge.

Meanwhile, I think we should all join the Tibetan community around the world on the last day of 2018 by celebrating the long life of His Holiness. Every single Tibetan I’ve met inside or outside Tibet thinks the world of Him. And Gallup released a poll of Americans showing His Holiness still ranking highly—one of the top ten—among the most admired men. There are precious few humans with the ability to engage and inspire humanity in humans as He does. So if it is up to me we will end the old year and open the new with hopes for the best of all possible futures for Him and for all us sentient beings in the years ahead. That’s my Mönlam.

§   §   §

Read when and if you like:

There is a fairly good Wikipedia article on the Ganden Podrang that I recommend for those who feel need of an introduction to the subject.

Matthew T. Kapstein, The Tibetans, Blackwell Publishing (Oxford 2006), pp. 130-131.

Vincent Lemire, Jerusalem 1900: The Holy City in the Age of Possibilities, University of Chicago Press (Chicago 2018), particularly the section entitled “The Causes of Forgetting,” on pp. 7-10. Putting the many differences aside, it may be worthwhile to ponder why the Ottoman Empire, which lasted through roughly the same centuries as the Ganden Podrang, is also drably painted as dreadfully stagnant and unproductive. I see it as a failure of the historical imagination, which cannot find the life in these periods because of cultural and ideological presuppositions and biases.* Our lack of interest does not translate into the absence of events.

(*And, although I don’t intend to go into it right now, in both the Ottoman and Ganden Podrang cases, [1] the difficulty of access to sources due to limitations placed on their access or [2] our difficulties in reading and interpreting them.)

Pankaj Mishra, “The Last Dalai Lama?” The New York Times (December 1, 2015). You might not be able to procure it without a digital subscription to the newspaper, but go ahead and try. I suggest taking time to read the whole long essay, since it does have an important message about the variety of points of view available among exiles in India.

Glenn H. Mullin, The Second Dalai Lama: His Life and Teachings, Snow Lion (Ithaca 2005). Previously published under the interesting title Mystical Verses of a Mad Dalai Lama. There is a section on the reestablishment of the Great Prayer Festival on pp. 94-98.  Besides this work by G.M. I know of only a couple of studies and translations connected to the Second Dalai Lama, which is a pity. He wrote about a lot of fascinating subjects in fields of poetics, alchemy, philosophy, Buddhism and the Vajra Vehicle.

Hugh Richardson,  Ceremonies of the Lhasa Year, Serindia (London 1993), pp. 11-59. This is still by far the best account of the events in Lhasa during the first month of the Tibetan-style year, which include among other things the observance of the Great Prayer. It is illustrated with black-and-white photographs.

Tsepon Wangchuk Deden Shakabpa, One Hundred Thousand Moons: An Advanced Political History of Tibet, translated by Derek F. Maher, Brill (Leiden 2010), vol. 1, pp. 269, 295. An excerpt follows: 

“In 1518, the Nedong King Tashi Drakpa offered his home at Drepung Monastery to the second Dalai Lama Gendün Gyatso. Renamed Ganden Podrang, it served as a sort of monastic estate of the Dalai Lamas. When the Fifth Dalai Lama came to political power in 1642, he named his government after this institution.”

Turrell V. Wylie, “Monastic Patronage in Fifteenth-Century Tibet,” contained in: Gray Tuttle and Kurtis R. Schaeffer, The Tibetan History Reader, Columbia University Press (New York 2013), pp. 266-277, especially p. 271.

Zhang Yisun (1893-1983), et al., Bod rgya tshig mdzod chen mo, Mi rigs Dpe skrun khang (Beijing 1985),  in the chronological table in the back of its third and final volume. This has been reprinted several times, in 3, 2 or just one volume. By now every serious student of Tibetan knows and uses it in one form or another. If you like or need an introduction to this and other important lexical resources, look at this earlier blog.

§ § §

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”  

—Wm. Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun.

And I want to add, quoting from who knows who:  

A little more knowledge is always a great thing.

A Tibetan banknote. The legend in the two yellow fields can be translated, “100-Srang currency note of the heavens-appointed Ganden Podrang, victorious over all directions, in both religious and political affairs.” From its serial number we may know that it was printed in around 1958. I apologize that the photograph is not reproduced here in the correct scale or dimensions. The printed field ought to measure 18.25 by 11.85 centimeters.

NEW YEAR postscript:

Have a look at the biography of the Second Dalai Lama by Miranda Adams, posted at The Treasury of Lives website ten years ago. The site has grown impressively in depth and coverage in recent years, and it relies on donations. That was a subtle hint.

Oh, and it came to my attention, since I was paying attention, that Martin A. Mills has written an essay entitled “The Last Gift of the God-King: Narrating the Dalai Lama’s Resignation,” for a new book entitled Tibetan Subjectivities on the Global Stage, edited by Shelly Bhoil and Enrique Galvan-Alvarez, and published by Lexington Books (Lanham 2018?). It has several quotes from His Holiness I wish I had used, especially in this one, dated March 19, 2011, that you can find at the link he supplied. I think also well done and relevant is an article by Emmi Okada, “Constructing the Secular: The Changing Relationship between Religion and Politics in the Tibetan Exile Community,” Himalaya, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies, vol. 36, no. 1 (May 2016), pp. 80-95, perhaps available online (try here). There are other interesting things to read, just do a Schmoogle search for “Dalai Lama retirement.”

For the Tibeto-logically obsessed:  In case you tried getting to Tibetan Vocabulary when it wasn't entirely there, you can try again, this time with success. Click here to find the Tibetan Vocabulary.  The URL remains unchanged, but click on the links called "Continuation" and "Bibliographical Key" in order to see all three parts of it.

Tibetan Vocabulary or TibVocab

I must apologize. I know according to my own rules I am supposed to post something here every month or so. Ease up on me though. It’s not as if I signed a binding contract. I reckon myself free apart from the dictates of my own conscience. That’s the beauty of retirement. It gives a fellow lots of time to do all that work he’s been putting off for years. I know, I haven’t finished putting up all of TPNI yet, and already I’m starting to put up something else. 

I suppose my problem is that all of a sudden I discovered that free websites are now available that no longer limit the size of ordinary text files. That means the sky is the limit, I suppose. In actual practice what I get are “error” messages every time I try to add another big piece of text. Still, after some initial confusion and struggles against the machine, it seems to work just fine.

It’s true that a version of “TibVocab” has been available to the world for years now at THLIB, as part of their much-used “Tibetan-English Translation Tool,”  I say much-used because 21st-century students of Tibetan written language can scarcely move without it. But there is one particular inadequacy in the way TibVocab is presented there. I had intended to produce a word index, with the references supplied, and often with citations from the literature, especially in case of problematic terms that still haven’t been defined adequately. I do appreciate all the serious work that went into getting it up there, but in the dictionary tool there is no place to put a key to bibliographical references, so it simply disappeared. One large part of TibVocab's reason for existence vanished into thin air.

One more thing, TibVocab has expanded during the years that passed since it segued into the Dictionary Tool. That means when you go to the link I will supply presently, you will have a significantly better chance of finding that word you’re  looking for.

For more about what TibVocab is and isn’t you can read the introduction at the website itself. I can’t promise anything for tomorrow, but as of today, I have only gotten started with the initial letter KA. I know that in coming days I’ll be testing the limits of what ‘full capacity’ can mean in a free website, but I’ve got the time. And I’m developing the patience.

So if you like, go visit it now by clicking with all your might on THIS LINK, or just double-click on the banner you see up above at the very top of this blog entry. Once you get there, feel free to make a bookmark.

A free tip:  If you would like to limit your search to main entries, as you might, just add a bullet [•] immediately before the word you would like to find.

If you do on an odd chance come across a very unusual word such as mu-yad (or dmu-yad) I recommend that you look in TibVocab, of course, but I’m not saying you should stop there. Go ahead and do a word search in TBRC's repository of scanned Tibetan texts.* It immediately locates any Tibetan word within a corpus of over a million pages of text. You aren’t all that likely to find a definition using this method, but what you will find are a number of usages in various contexts that could help a lot in your efforts to divine meanings.**

*Come to think of it mu-yad wasn't such a good choice for an example after all.  Having gone to TBRC I see that only one result pops up, and not a very illuminating one at that. Since Tibetans didn't often have reason to speak of deserts, I'd say try searching for mya-ngam (with the final 'm') instead. And after the experiment do read Joanna Bialek's “The Tibetan Fiery Way to Nirvana: Reflections on Old Tibetan mya ngan,” Rocznik Orientalistyczny, vol. 70, no. 2 (2017), pp. 60-96. Or use a TBRC search to try and figure out which celestial display is indicated by dgu-tshigs or dgu-tshigs skya-mo. What does star arrow (skar-mda') mean? You got the idea even before I got to telling about it.

**I seldom make appeals for anything at Tibetologic, but seeing that many of us are in the middle of the holiday season, do think about making a donation to TBRC just because they are doing the work of gods and would make excellent use of the offerings. Without TBRC 21st-century Tibetologicians cannot thrive, let alone be of good cheer.

§   §   §

Progress (?):

December 22, 2018:  All my struggles with the letter tsha trying to get it up there have failed repeatedly. It seems my idea that limitless space was available for single documents wasn't correct. Wondering if I should open a new free website or what? Well, 2/3rds of it is up there. I may have to come up with some other solution. Meanwhile, for people in the Christmas world, Merry Christmas and/or happy holiday of your choice. In any case be happy.


Success!

January 5, 2019:  At last, success! Now, even though the document is divided into two parts (with the bibliography as a 3rd part), they have been linked almost seamlessly. Starting at this address (the very same link supplied before) I think anyone can figure out what's going on:

https://sites.google.com/view/tibvocab/home

And feel free to download (or cut-and-paste) the content to your own laptop, where you can find out how to combine the three files into one if you like. That way you won't be forced to rely on unstable internet connections. Forever free!