Three Traditions of Ten Powers: In Buddhism, Judaism, Islam

From one of several old Kabbalistic ‘Tree’
parchments in the outstanding collection of
William Gross of Tel Aviv

This mystical monogram, looking a little like a labyrinth, is made up of the first letters of the names of the ten Sephirot of Kabbala or Kabbalah. If you read Hebrew letters some, you will see the 'm' of Malkut [‘Kingship’] at the center, with the 'k' of Keter [‘Crown’] circling  — and significantly, extending out beyond — the other nine.

I had a kind of transcendental uplift (well, at the very least it made me rise above some common assumptions) when I was looking at it, although it wasn’t the first time I’d seen something very similar as an illustration in a book somewhere. Maybe the difference was this time I was seeing it in a very old parchment page, an actual touchable one and not a virtual one, at the head of a long scroll of one of those amazingly opaque, complicated albeit overwhelmingly intriguing (which is to say, if I may, “mystical”) Kabbalistic diagrams called simply Ilanot, which is as much as to say, Trees.

Now if I say that material objects can bear psychic imprints from their past owners, you'll accuse me of the rankest occultism (well, I’d think it would have more to do with contact relics of saints, really), but if I tell you that this monogram turned into another one in my mind, you’ll probably start questioning my mental lucidity. I can hear you now. ‘Aren’t you letting this letter permutation stuff get to you? Maybe you should take a break, brave the record low winter temperatures outside instead of sitting all day in that stuffy apartment breathing book dust. A little fresh cold air may do wonders for a person in your condition.’

Well, to summarize a long story into a single tableau, here is what I saw it turning into:

OK, I agree that the visual similarity doesn’t necessarily overwhelm you in one fell swoop. But try to look beyond the surfaces. Each is a 'monogram' that combines ten letters identified with ten elements, closely bound up with each other, that somehow encapsulate whole realms of the universe, bringing macrocosm and microcosm together in one complex but integrated and encyclopedic system of science. Each of the ten letters stands for a cosmic element or principle that extends through different levels or orders of being.

The origin of the name rnam bcu dbang ldan (namchu wangden) — this being the Tibetan name of what you see just above — is locatable in the Reciting the Names of Mañjuśrī, a passage that has been translated (by Gavin Kilty) like this,

  
“Ten powers of ten meanings, the mighty one of ten powers,
  the all-pervading master, accomplishing the wishes of all,
  the great and powerful in ten aspects.”




The Great Commentary, in its comments on Chapter 1, verse 5, says (also in Gavin's translation):

“Haṃ kṣa ma la wa ra ya is the assembly of the worlds and the vajra body. In space the letter ya, the mandala of air. On top of that the ra fire mandala. On top of that the wa water mandala. On top of that the la earth mandala. On top of that the ma Meru. That is the fifth. Above that the kṣa lotus of animate beings. On top of that the formless worlds ha. From the ha the visarga is the sun, the drop is the moon, and the nāda is the sign of the one-pointed vajra.”

For more on the colors and letters of this monogram, look here.  And here.

I’ve left this blog entry adrift in draft limbo for months now, half expecting some sudden revelation that would tie everything together for myself in a way that would be convincing to some other people. I think I’ll give up on that for the moment and just suggest that there may well be a way of establishing historical linkages between these things sometime in the future. My general hunch is that the ten categories, an Aristotelian idea to be briefly exposed here in just a minute was pre-ordained by the importance the number ten held for the Pythagoreans before him. This idea was then later taken up and transformed by the neo-Platonic teacher-student series of Plotinus > Porphyry >  Iamblichus. The ideas of all these just-mentioned people were especially influential in the Middle East and subsequently entered in various mixes into the Ikhwan al-Safa' in Iraq,* into Kabalah as it was emerging in Spain, into some streams of Sufism, as well as into the Kālacakra Tantra.** Well, I only ask you to accept the possibility that a chain of influences somewhat like this could have taken place, and that it could eventually be proven one way or another. I leave myself open to criticism from every quarter. I expect it.

(*I meant to say more about the ten categories in Islam, but for now I would just like to point out that the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity has an 11th chapter in the section on mathematical-philosophical subjects entirely devoted to them. The Brethren believed the ten powers covered all of existence. I think a translation of this section may have been published already, but I can't find a reference to it. But wait, I think I found it. Look here. Some may fault me for not getting into a comparison of the contents of the ten, but I will save this for later. At the moment I'm intent only on looking at the container, not the contents.)

(**All these things were occurring within the same basic time-frame, the 10th to 11th centuries more or less, long before the Mongol Conquest, in a time when the main avenues of knowledge transfer between India and Spain were in Islamic hands. It is now well known that some of the early Spanish Kabbalists were deeply influenced by the Ikhwan (their Epistles dating to around 980). One conduit for this Islam-to-Kabbalah influence, including the ten categories, would have been Ibn al-Sid al-Batalyawsi [1052-1126], who wrote in Arabic although some of his works were translated into Hebrew. His Book of Imaginary Circles was translated into Hebrew no fewer than three times! See  under the name Eliyahu in the readings list below.)  (I make a note to myself with a resolve to someday look into the book called Microcosmus by Joseph ibn Saddiq, aka Tsaddik aka Zaddiq aka Zaddik, dates 1075-1149.)  

A Window in Tsfat

- - -

I will try to keep this short and to the point, since it is a topic that has occasioned much ink spillage over many centuries, and I by no means regard myself as the one to give it full or adequate treatment.* Aristotle elaborated his “ten categories” in his book called, well, Categories.  They are more precisely to be understood as genera, or the most general of possible categories.  Initially it may strike one as amusing that some medieval thinkers call them “predicaments” ...  but this is because they have to do with predicates...   Predicates, as in the things predicated to nouns to make sentences, are really the very thing Aristotle was talking about. To get into a predicament means to be at the receiving end of the verbal sticks of the sentence.  Aristotle was answering the question, What would be a minimal yet general set that would cover the types of things one might meaningfully say about something or another?

(*To get a sense of the widely divergent ways of understanding them by the our contemporary scholastics, have a look at footnote five in this book.)

To follow one version of the Greek in its English translation (Gren-Eklund), we have these:  1. being or existence, 2. how much, 3. what kind, 4. related to what, 5. where, 6. when, 7. to lie, 8. to have or to be in a state, 9. to do, and 10. be affected.  


These largely verbal and interrogative expressions (which is more as it should be, I'd venture to suggest) were nominalized in the Latin translation to mean 1. substance, 2. quantity, 3. quality, 4. relation, 5. place, 6. time, 7. position, 8. condition, 9. active form of action, 10. passive form of action.

Apparently, Aristotle’s “ten categories” are directly applied (by him) to the actual rather than the potential (two hugely distinct concepts in his way of thinking).

However, later interpreters at least, took them to apply to the potential as well.  I’m thinking this may be how the categories became powers. But then, I think by “powers” we must understand potency or potential for movement, activity and change. To reason from the contrary, if a noun has nothing predicated of it, like when we encounter the bare word, like “grape” or “sobriety,” it’s doing nothing at all, is serving no purpose, goes nowhere. We haven’t produced a meaningful statement. At best we could blurt these out as one-word answers to simple questions.* 

(*In this case, perhaps, “What is your favorite soda flavor?” and “What do you hope to gain from going to AA meetings?”)

In any case, the “ten genera” idea itself did not remain static, but was transformed in particular by two Platonists of high historic significance: Plotinus (ca. 204-270 CE) and more importantly his most prominent disciple Porphyry (b. ca. 233 CE) who wrote what was often regarded as an introduction to Aristotle's Categories. This became perhaps the most influential text for instruction in logic in both the Islamic and European medieval worlds.


As I said, and I repeat: It isn’t in my present plan to go as far as to conclude anything, just to make some suggestive juxtapositions. I think that is enough of an assignment for me at the moment. Or were you expecting me to do more for you? You know I would try and help you more if I could. I hope I could at least get you thinking along these lines. Is it too difficult to imagine that the histories of logic (together with grammar) and esoteric spirituality could have been intertangled in ways we have previously overlooked?

§  §  §

It's possible to get along just fine, people.
Really it is.  Encountering people where
they are.  Encounter, not confrontation.

Far too much to read:

Thomas Block, Shalom/Salaam: A Story of a Mystical Fraternity, Fons Vitae (Louisville 2010). The same author's shorter and perhaps more accessible article “The Question of Sufi Influence on the Early Kabbalah” may be encountered online at tomblock.com, which is definitely worth a visit. I think the book overly belabors its point that Kabbalah owes much to its historical encounter with Islam and Sufism, but that could just be me. The author is so thoroughly convinced his readers will be overly resistant, it makes me feel I am not his intended reader. (I recommend turning to the works of Paul Fenton listed in his bibliography.)

George Perrigo Conger (1884-1960), Theories of Macrocosms and Microcosms in the History of Philosophy, Columbia University Press (New York 1922). Available for free in digital archives, this has surely been one of the most-consulted general works on its subject. As an alternative general study, there is the independently written and in some ways preferable essay by Rudolf Allers, “Microcosmus: From Anaximandros to Paracelsus,” Traditio, vol. 2 (1944), pp. 319-407. Allers is best known to history for being a breakaway disciple of Sigmund Freud and for his book on Freudian psychology entitled The Successful Error. He also wrote a book called Self Improvement we may want to look into.


Gunilla Gren-Eklund, “The Meanings of Words and the Categories of Things: Indian and Aristotelian,” Orientalia Suecana, vol. 48 (1999), pp. 43-48. It was reading this article that first got me thinking about this subject.

Ayala Eliyahu, “The Cosmic Circle of Ibn al-Sid al-Batalyawsi: The Representation of a Humanistic World View.” Unpublished paper delivered at the conference “Text & Image in Religious Cosmography,” given at the University of Haifa in July 2011. Note, too, that Batalyawsi has been much mentioned in recent writings of the well-known Kabbalah scholar Moshe Idel, especially his Ascensions on High in Jewish Mysticism.


Ronald C. Kiener, “Jewish Ismā'īlism in Twelfth-Century Yemen: R. Nethanel ben al-Fayyūmī,” The Jewish Quarterly Review, vol. 74, no. 3 (January 1984), pp. 249-266.


Gavin Kilty, tr., Khedrup Norsang Gyatso [Mkhas-grub Nor-bzang-rgya-mtsho], 1423-1513 CE], Ornament of Stainless Light: An Exposition of the Kālacakra Tantra, Library of Tibetan Classics no. 14, Wisdom (Boston 2004), at p. 327.

Cyrill von Korvin‑Krasinski, “Die zehn Kategorien des Aristoteles im Licht der altasiatischen Seinsstufen symbolik,” Symbolon, vol. 4 (1964), pp. 119‑148.  

This appears to be quite relevant to the subject of our blog, written by a person well known for his early study of Tibetan medicine, also author of a book entitled Mikrokosmos und Makrokosmos in religionsgeschichtlicher Sicht. The article is not available to me. I’ve never seen it, have you? I guess it’s possible that it has the same ideas I thought I came up with 40-odd years later.

J.N. Mattock, “al-Maḳūlāt.” Contained in:  Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs; Brill (Leiden 2011). I could fortunately use the online version.

John Newman, “A Brief History of the Kalachakra,” contained in: Geshe Lhundup Sopa, R. Jackson and J. Newman, The Wheel of Time: The Kalachakra in Context (Madison 1985), pp. 51-90.  Also available online, and especially recommended as an introduction for readers looking for some more background.

John Newman, “Islam in the Kālacakra Tantra,” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, vol. 21, no. 2 (1998), pp. 311-371.


John Newman, “The Daśākāravaśin in the Kālacakra Tantra,” a paper presented at the American Academy of Religion's annual meeting (November 25, 1991).  An unpublished draft of the paper on the very subject of the Ten Powers (or is this the right name for them?) courtesy of the author. I haven’t gotten around to making use of this yet, perhaps in a future blog.

Giacomella Orofino, “Apropos of Some Foreign Elements in the Kālacakratantra,” contained in: Helmut Krasser, Michael T. Much, Ernst Steinkellner, Helmut Tauscher, eds., Tibetan Studies I and II: Proceedings of the 7th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Graz 1995, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Wien 1997), vol. 2, pp. 717‑724. 

The most interesting thing for myself in this fascinating (if perhaps difficult to procure) essay is the part about the “active intellect” of Islamic philosophy popping up in the Kālacakra (although in a negative context, and even misconstrued at times in Tibetan as byis-pa’i blo, which means ‘childish mind,’ rather than byas-pa’i blo or byed-pa’i blo, the ‘mind that made’ or ‘mind that makes’...).  The 'Aql fa'al, or active intellect is especially emphasized in philosophical currents of Isma'ili and related groups that were active in the 9th-10th century when the Kālacakra system was in formation.

Paul E. Walker, Early Philosophical Shiism, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge 1993), p. 103. Al-Sijistani was active between 930's and 970's:

“Nature arises within soul and this process al-Sijistani describes as “gushing” (inbijas). Since soul contains two contrary dispositions: motion and repose; in what she produces, these create a further pair: form and matter. Matter passively accepts the alternation in it of forms. Thus matter is inert and form constantly changing. The result of the union of form and matter is physical being which may also be defined as the world of substance and the nine accidents, or in other words the ten categories listed by Aristotle: substance (jawhar), quantity (kammiya), quality (kayfiya), relation (mudaf), time (zaman), place (makan), possession (jida), position (nusba), affection (maful), and action (fafil). Al-Sijistani mentions the categories in this order and calls them as a whole the “world of nature” (Calam al-tabl'a).”

This nicely displays the set of ten as very active and universal forces in cosmogenesis, not just cosmology. That’s why I quote it here.


Steven M. Wasserstrom, “Sefer Yeṣira and Early Islam: A Reappraisal,” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy, vol. 3 (1993), pp. 1-30.  Idem., “Further Thoughts on the Origins of Sefer Yeṣira,” Aleph, vol. 2 (2002), pp. 201-221.

Analysis of the syllables e and vam (evam being the first word of every Buddhist scripture),
seen on either side of the Ten Powers monogram depicted earlier on.
From “Illusion Web,” available at Digital Himalalaya.

A couple of updates (September 16, 2023)

The Korvin-Krasinski article at last fell into my hands, but turns out it is not about the subject I imagined it should have been.

On the Ten Powers, see the detailed analysis in this page entitled “Kålacakra Monogram.” (updated in 2014).

The idea that Porphyry’s tree was a visual/intellectual conduit for the Kabbalistic trees (ilanot) achieves remarkably sophisticated validation in a new book The Kabbalistic Tree, by J.H. Chajes, The Pennsylvania State University Press (University Park 2022). Since it is unlikely you will have immediate access to the book, I can recommend a brilliant, lucid and brief lecture on the subject by the same author, just click on this title:

“Le Sefer Yetsirah et l’arbre de la sagesse” (the lecture is in English with French subtitles).

Dragon Year Losar eCard Greetings

This is that time of year when a lot of people are out on the internet using their search engines to locate sources of Losar e-cards. I know it’s true. Never mind how. But I would like to take this opportunity to invite you to look at some of the rest of Tibeto-logic while you are here. I've put up blogs about the Tibetan New Year (Lo-gsar) a couple of times in the past. In 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and now this. So as you see, it’s become a bit of a tradition. Well, as traditions go, Losar eCards, not to mention Losar cards of any kind, are not very old ones. Most of you probably already know my philosophy about Losar e-cards, which is that they are so much nicer if you give your card a personal touch, even better if you do the artwork yourself (just do something artistic and when it’s done, scan it or make a digital photo so you can then attach it), and best if you don’t overdo the photoshop possibilities like I did. If you want to see what it looked like before I pushed a blue button maybe I shouldn’t have, look just below. If you want to use one of these, be my guest. Just slide it off the blog and onto an open email, then drop it. That should work. But I suggest doing an image search for “dragon” to see if anything out there inspires you. There is a lot of fantastic dragon art to be found.*

(*but please don‘t send your friends e-photos of dragons printed on human skin... You know, tattoos. They may get wrong ideas. But I don’t really know your friends, now, do I?  Try this color-your-own dragon at Himalayan Art. Have a look at these very impressive dragon artworks, but perhaps these are more fit for use, well, some of them at least.)

I doubt anyone has noticed yet, but Tibeto-logic has been up and growing for several years now. It has visitors from all over the world. Even readers from the Peoples Republic have been showing up again of late (they aren’t supposed to, I understand). The first post was in August 2006, and the number of posts has climbed to more or less one hundred by now. I’m not sure what number this one will be exactly.  Number 98 or 99, I think. I’m aware that some of the blog entries are rather technically Tibetological, and if that is not exactly your cup of tea, I must apologize for them. Some may find it curious to learn that Tibeto-logic’s by far most frequently read blog is one with the title, “The Monkey and the Croc/Turtle.”* The reason for its popularity, I gradually came to understand, was because school children in the Philippines are sometimes required to write about this story, since it was once studied in a brief publication by José Rizal (1861-1896), a national hero of theirs. He compared the Japanese and Philippine versions, and concluded that the Philippine was more original. I sort of wonder how many cut-and-paste versions of this blog have been slapped on the teachers' desks on “assignment due” date.

(*The 2nd most-read blog is one on the Tibetan Olympics of 1695.)

Oh, and Losar is officially slated for the 22nd of February to the best of my knowledge (there are places that celebrate it at different dates for different reasons). So there’s still plenty of time to get your card ready. Just don’t put it off too long, you hear me?

(*Were you wondering about the poster? It’s been on my wall since around the mid-1980's, after a time in Kathmandu. It’s right up there above me at this very moment watching over what’s going on down here. To tell the truth, it doesn’t look like the Tibetan world has much to celebrate, and if you don’t know why, it means you haven’t been following the news. I’m of the opinion that Losar ought to be observed, even when it can’t be celebrated.)

•     •     •

New Works on the Works of Lama Zhang

Zhang Yudragpa: Detail of a tapestry portrait

Today’s small blog effort, I feel it is fair to warn you, is likely to be of limited interest to all but the most dyed-in-the-wool Tibeto-logical specialists.  Even then, I don’t have a whole lot of time to sit and chat. There are so many things on my plate, I hope you’ll excuse me if I excuse myself so I can dig in, or should I say bite the bullet, in the hope of completing one or another of my several assignments, at least. Don’t even say the word ‘deadline’ within earshot if you know what’s good for you. I’m not in the mood to hear it. I suppose you might even get a particularly nasty reaction if you’re not careful. Be forewarned.

Enough of these idle threats with nothing to back them up. If you find yourself curious to find out a little bit about the man this fuss is all about, look at Lama Zhang's biography in Treasury of Lives. For now I’m just going to list some outstanding new works about Zhang Rinpoche* and his Works that have appeared since the turn of the millennium. Then I will announce the first public release of a bibliographical survey of his Works that I’ve been working on for quite some time now. I’m thinking a couple of you will find it of interest, and among those, one or two will find it useful for some good purpose or another. Those numbers sound more than adequate to me.

(*The full and usual form of the name of the initiator of the lineage of the Tselpa Kagyü [Tshal-pa Bka'-brgyud] is properly spelled using the Wylie system as Zhang G.yu-brag-pa Brtson-’grus-grags-pa [1123-1193 CE], and as far as I’m concerned that’s the name that he ought to be remembered by in history, although you may prefer a phoneticized version, like Zhang Yudragpa Tsondrüdragpa or the like. There are hundreds of variations on his name, many of them of his own making. Still, if we want to keep things short and simple, I see no reason why we shouldn’t speak of him as either Lama Zhang or Zhang Rinpoche, do you?)

 Here is the list —

1.  Karl-Heinz Everding, Der Gung thang dkar chag: Die Geschichte des tibetischen Herrschergeschlechtes von Tshal Gung thang und der Tshal pa bKa’ brgyud pa-Schule, VGH Wissenschaftsverlag (Bonn 2000). This publication contains Romanization and German translation of a Tibetan Guidebook on the history and holy objects contained in the monastery of Tsel Gungtang that was composed by the Dge-lugs-pa author ’Jog-ri-ba Ngag-dbang-bstan-’dzin-’phrin-las-rnam-rgyal (b. 1748) in the year 1782 at a time when Gung-thang was under the administration of Sera Monastery.  To read a little more about this publication, press here.

2.    Per K. Sørensen & Guntram Hazod, in cooperation with Tsering Gyalpo, Rulers on the Celestial Plain: Ecclesiastic and Secular Hegemony in Medieval Tibet, a Study of Tshal Gung-thang, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Vienna 2007), in 2 volumes with 1011 pages! This contains an English translation of the same Guidebook by ’Jog-ri, but in addition to that it contains such a wealth of information in its introduction and multiple appendices — not to mention the many maps and great color photographs — that it may take Tibetology many decades to begin to absorb it all, let alone catch up. For a review by Bryan Cuevas, look here.

3.    Carl S. Yamamoto, Vision and Violence: Lama Zhang and the Dialectics of Political Authority and Religious Charisma in Twelfth-Century Central Tibet, doctoral dissertation, Department of Religious Studies, University of Virginia (May 2009). Although a work of high academic standards, it will certainly be published as a book very soon, and when it is I imagine many will find it to be the most accessible book yet on the subject of Zhang Rinpoche.  For an abstract, look here.

The newest book on Lama Zhang

4.    Gra-bzhi Mig-dmar-tshe-ring (b. 1983), Tshal Gung-thang Gtsug-lag-khang-gi Dkar-chag Skyid-chu'i Rang-mdangs, Bod-ljongs Mi-dmangs Dpe-skrun-khang (Lhasa 2011), in 383 pages. I suppose the title could be translated “The Kyichu River's Inherent Glow: Guide to the Temple of Tsel Gungtang,” although it is much much more than a guidebook, with so much information about the temple and monastery during more than eight centuries of its existence. It pleases me very much to know that someone in Tibet is interested in doing this work. It has some small color illustrations and among these perhaps the most worthy of notice are the before-and-after photos of Zhang Rinpoche's funerary chorten, now reduced to a pile of rubble. You can see it in the following old photo; it's the larger chorten on your right. Lama Zhang had just finished building its lower steps when he died in 1193.

Tsel Gungtang, negative of photo by Hugh Richardson

So, I would like to suggest that those who want to go to the web version of the catalog of Zhang Rinpoche’s works, try going here (a link at the bottom of each file will lead you to the next). Or if you are impatient and want to immediately download the complete catalog in a Word file, all you need to do is click the link just given, which ought to transport you to Dropbox (I hope someone will let me know if this works OK, since it’s my first experiment with this mode of file distribution; the file is supposed to truly exist there, even now, in something that takes the form of a cloud, ready to be precipitated down onto your personal machinery). The download should be quick. It's only about 265 pages long. I wanted to put up the Gung-thang Dkar-chag, but haven’t succeeded yet.* For now, I’ll just say: Good luck and gods’ speed, until we find the time to blog again.

(*Oh, wait a minute.  Try here.)

A modern (or restored?) representation of Lama Zhang,
Tsel Gungtang Monastery

~   ~   ~

The frontispiece is from a very old fabric artwork that was preserved in the Potala Palace and is apparently now in the museum near the Norbu Lingka in Lhasa. It has an inscription on the back that has been and will be the subject of much discussion, but it does identify the main subject (“Dpal-ldan G.yu-brag-pa”), leaving no doubt that it is meant to represent Lama Zhang. This artwork may date from around the 15th century, but at the same time it may be a very faithful copy of an earlier artwork (perhaps a painting) dating much closer to the time of Lama Zhang. The details remain to be worked out. It has by now been published a number of times, but perhaps best is Bod-kyi Thang-ga at p. 62 (the catalog entry in this book says it was woven in the time of the late Sung).

Yes, there is a heaven.  If you are the sort of person who derives enjoyment from looking at listings of Wylie-transcribed Tibetan titles in Gsung-'bum-s and Bka'-'bum-s, you can find quite a few of them here.  If you are that sort of person, you are my sort of person.

- - -

And one more thing.  If you’d like to read an English translation of what may very well be Zhang Rinpoche’s most famous literary work, try to get to the Dropbox download HERE.  I've also put up a never-before published Tibetan script edition of the original work.  If the link isn’t working, you can complain. Please do.

- - -

Postscript (Feb. 11, 2013):  If you would like to hear Carl Yamamoto talk about his book (that was meanwhile published for only 178 USD), there is an hour-long interview in the form of a Podcast (available through iTunes) in the series "New Books in Buddhist Studies."  I haven't found a way to make a direct link, but you ought to be able to locate it with an internet search.  (Perhaps you will have to sign up with iTunes, but before going to that extreme try this link.)

Two Proto-Berlitz Phrasebooks

Source:  HERE.

Sometimes when you are reading two books at the same time you can find yourself faced with some interesting juxtapositions, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t venture to say my two examples of early phrasebooks are entirely identical or parallel, but they do demonstrate a certain level of human commonality that probably doesn’t especially need to be pointed out to anyone, although I suppose there could be exceptions...

There is an especially long and richly detailed biography (for so it calls itself) of what may be the city holy for more people in the world than any other, although I’m not completely sure about that. I’m talking about Simon Sebag Montefiore's book Jerusalem, the Biography. Near the middle of the book, reached only after weeks of bedtime reading, I came across an amusing passage about a pilgrim, a German knight (Ritter) of the Rhineland named Arnold von Harff. He made for himself lists of handy words and phrases in  various languages, including both Arabic and Hebrew. I guess it’s clear he hoped these phrases would help him, as well as others, to better communicate with the local inhabitants of the countries he visited. Here are some phrases that leave only a little doubt what kind of business he was hoping to conduct:

"How much will you give me?
I will give you a gulden.
Are you a Jew?
Woman, let me sleep with you tonight.
Good madam, I am already in your bed."

This Herr von Harff was one pilgrim with plenty of pluck, and not just middling-to-average pickup lines. Among his other accomplishments (and quite apart from his evident heteronormalcy and Judaeophobia), he managed to go up on the — then as now Islamic — Noble Sanctuary (Haram as-Sharif) in disguise, making him look like a kind of proto-Sir Richard Burton.

Meanwhile, moving to the other end of the Eurasian world and back half a millennium further in human history, we learn from Sam van Schaik and Imre Galambos's even newer book Manuscripts and Travellers that there exists, until this day, a bilingual Sanskrit and Khotanese phrasebook for pilgrims on their way to China. You can almost hear the interrogating tone of the immigration officer:

"And where are you going now?


I am going to China.


What business do you have in China?


I’m going to see the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī .


When are you coming back?


I’m going to China, then I’ll return."

I’ll skip over some of the rest of the dialogue, in order not to spoil it for you. There is mention of a Tibetan monk suspected by a border official of being a liar. The following three lines may or may not be about him, but it does seem so:

“He is dear to many women.
He goes about a lot.
He makes love...


Bring a bowl! The Tibetan teacher has become ill.”

It’s evident that Tibetan monks, or at the very least traveling facsimiles of Tibetan monks, had developed a shady reputation in late-10th-century Khotan. Well, to judge from this phrasebook, which may have had humorous intent as well... At least one of these Tibetan monks seems to have had problems keeping down Khotanese road food, perhaps a common enough predicament after all.

No need to mention the notoriety 

of medieval European appetites 

set loose in the Outremer 

on their way to the Holy Sepulcher.

Of course, the Central Asia traveler’s assumed destination was the place most holy to the bodhisattva of wisdom and learning Mañjuśrī. It seemed like everyone wanted to go to Wutai Shan in those earlier days. Vairocanavajra went there, as did Padampa Sanggyé before him. I hope to go some day as well.

Mañjuśrī holding the Ruyi scepter,
seen in Taipei, June 2011.
Notice the lion.

Sources:

Robert Elsie, Texts and Documents of Albanian History. This online essay is more concerned with the early documentation of Albanian language, but it does have a nice brief discussion of the phrasebook of Arnold of Harff, that included “words and phrases in Croatian, Albanian, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish, Hungarian, Basque and Breton.” Of course von Harff was not the originator of the genre; there were Latin-Greek bilingual phrasebooks in the time of the Roman Empire, as I seem to recall from somewhere.

Kelly Lynne Maynard, I want to buy it in the Albanian Glossary of Arnold von Harff, Transactions of the Philological Society, vol. 107, no. 2 (2009), pp. 231-252.  Try to access it here.  Still more articles can be located that have to do with von Harff if you will only search for them.  There are also translations of his journal that are more and less available.

Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jerusalem, the Biography, Alfred A. Knopf (New York 2011), at p. 298.

Sam van Schaik and Imre Galambos, Manuscripts and Travellers: The Sino-Tibetan Documents of a Tenth-century Buddhist Pilgrim, De Gruyter (Berlin 2012), at pages 141-3.

Here is something about a 10th-century German phrasebook, although mostly about one from the time of World War II. Here is an amusing piece about Berlitz phrasebooks, but by far the most amusing phrasebook incident ever is one I once read in a book by “Australian photojournalist” Sorrel Wilby, shortly before I closed the covers of the book forever (I think the book still exists in a sibling library in central Michigan). Her Journey across Tibet is not something I could ever bring myself to recommend. Sorry Sorrel, but if this is any consolation, it could just be me. We have to take that into account.


Not running a commercial operation here, I didn’t really intend to make an advertisement for Berlitz, and in fact my favorite phrasebook is one they didn’t publish:  Wicked Italian for the Traveler by Howard Tomb, Workman Publishing (NY 1989). There are lots of usable gems there, but try this one out the next time you unexpectedly find yourself in Italy. First the phonetic version, which you should pronounce aloud, within hearing of your loved ones, particularly if you have never studied Italian before:


    Eel pro-FOND-oh mee-STAIR-oh dee cho key sty dee-CHEND-oh me een-FWOKE-ah eel KWORE-ay.


    Il profondo mistero di ciò che stai dicendo mi infuoca il cuore.*

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Happy New Year/Sylvester to everyone who has ever read Tibeto-logic, and equally to everyone who never has! And if you see our old friend Arno, tell him I’m sorry, I hope he’ll forgive me, and Please come back. I’ve been at this for over five years now, and will, before many more months have gone by, reach the 100th blog entry. Trying to think of something special to do for numero 100 besides just more of the same-old same-old...  Any ideas? Should I redecorate? Or is that too superficial?


˙ǝɹıɟ uo ʇɹɐǝɥ ʎɯ sʇǝs pıɐs ʇsnɾ noʎ ɹǝʌǝʇɐɥʍ ɟo ʎɹǝʇsʎɯ punoɟoɹd ǝɥʇ*

Happy 2012 (it's not the end of the world, you know, although it may be the end of the world you know...).

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Postscript (January 2, 2012)


I forgot to say anything about Tibetan-language phrasebooks. So here's my collection of Lonely Planets. Someone told me there have been five, which must mean I’m missing one, but actually, to follow what it says inside the books, there have only been four editions up to and including the one of 2008. Is there a new one I haven’t heard about?

1st edition, October 1987 — by Melvyn G. Goldstein, with the help of Gelek Rinpoche & Trinley Dorje	2nd edition, June 1996 — by Sandup Tsering & Melvyn C. Goldstein
3rd edition, May 2002 — by Sandup Tsering	4th edition, February 2008 — by "Phrasebooks" & Sandup Tsering.

Someday somebody will write a history of Tibetan language learning that will include these things.

Has anyone noticed any good or passably good Tibetan phrasebooks on-line?  This one is very interesting, a little awkward to use just because it’s so technologically advanced it takes my primitive machine a long time to maneuver from one phrase list to the other.