1. The Spellings, Tense Forms, and Definitions of Verbs
Tibetan verb theory is complex in its own right. However, that complexity is compounded by spelling variations that existed in Tibet. And it is compounded even further by the fact that the bulk of Tibetan manuscripts were mostly prepared by scribes who were not great scholars and often did not know of the rules surrounding verbs and their spelling. As a result, Tibetan literature abounds with variations in the ways of writing verbs and their tenses, many of which are mistaken.
Earlier compilers of Tibetan-English dictionaries often did their work by looking through Tibetan texts and assuming that the spellings of verbs and their tenses were correct or at least worthy of an entry in the dictionary. Because of this, every non-native Tibetan dictionary produced up to the time of beginning this dictionary (1998) includes large numbers of spelling errors, especially of verbs. For example, Sarat Chandra Das’s Tibetan-English Dictionary is an excellent dictionary but has many errors in its listing of verbs.
Native Tibetan dictionaries usually do not have this fault; the verb listings in them follow the correct spellings of Tibetan verbs, noting alternative forms here and there. For example, the Great Tibetan-Chinese Dictionary, which is regarded as one of the foremost Tibetan dictionaries available, was not created in the empirical fashion of non-native dictionaries discussed just above. It was created by native Tibetan scholars who set down the correct spellings of verbs according to their own grammatical tradition. Those scholars also included many of the common variants which are accepted as correct spellings. However, they did not include mistaken spellings the way that Sarat Chandra Das and so forth have done in their dictionaries.
One of the important features of the Illuminator Tibetan-English Dictionary is that it contains the most complete and reliable listing of Tibetan verbs available in one place.
To achieve this we began by creating correctly-spelled listings of verbs. We did this by relying on the spellings of the listings of verbs given in the Great Tibetan-Chinese Dictionary and some other ancient Tibetan dictionaries which correctly lay out the details of verbs.
We continued by developing the English definitions for each verb in close association with various Tibetan scholars. The categories of meaning in our verb definitions often follow the categories given in The Great Tibetan-Chinese Dictionary, since those are correct. However, there are cases where the demands of a Tibetan-English dictionary meant that additional categories or a different ordering of categories was needed and they were added accordingly.
To get a base set of examples for all the verbs and their various meanings, we started by translating all the verb examples in The Great Tibetan-Chinese Dictionary. However, we would like to state that the rumour that has gone around that the verb definitions contained in The Illuminator are merely a translation of the verb contents of The Great Tibetan-Chinese Dictionary is completely mistaken. As mentioned above, we used that dictionary as a basis for obtaining a reliable and complete listing of Tibetan verbs and their spellings, and we also used the examples as a basis for our the examples in The Illuminator. However, the verb definitions in The Illuminator go far beyond the definitions found the The Great Tibetan-Chinese Dictionary.
After we had done the basic work of creating correctly spelled verbs with a set of examples, we went on to expand each definition greatly and to add many improvements to the verb definitions.
We added extensive information on the meanings of verbs to the point that the verb definitions in The Illuminator are by far the most complete and extensive available. We also added many more examples, both our own and from other sources. In particular, there are many examples from a very wide range of texts of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. We made the listings of tense forms clearer, marked every verb as transitive or intransitive, and also added hyperlinks connecting each transitive form to its intransitive form and vice versa. We added information on opposites. We added pointers to similar verbs where possible. Moreover, we went to some trouble to differentiate the meanings of several groups of verbs which always to be translated with one term in English, but which in fact have different meanings, for example, the several verbs for “to fear / be afraid” (see སྐྲག་པ་).
All in all, we are very pleased with the result of our work. For the first time, a complete collection of Tibetan verbs, correctly laid out and spelled according to the Tibetan grammatical tradition has been assembled and reliable translations of the meanings provided.
2. The Layout of Verb Definitions in this Dictionary
1) Just as verbs in English are listed by their infinitive forms (to go, to do, etcetera) so verbs in Tibetan are listed by their present forms (which effectively becomes the infinitive tense in Tibetan grammatical usage). Therefore, in Tibetan grammar and following that in this dictionary, the complete entry for any verb is shown under the present tense form of the verb. Every tense form other than the present form of a verb has a brief definition showing what tense it is (in Tibetan grammar there are present, past, future, and possibly imperative tenses). The definition also has a hyperlink to the present tense form, which then contains the main definition for the verb. For example, the entry for the verb form ཀླུབས་ gives:
<verb> Imp. of v.t. ཀླུབ་པ་ q.v.
In other words, it is the imperative form of the transitive verb whose present form is ཀླུབ་པ་. By clicking on the coloured text the dictionary will jump to the present form where the main definition will be found. Some entries have more information, indicating that there are other meanings for that word as well.2) Once the present tense form of a verb has been located, the verb is first shown as being either a ཐ་དད་པ་ transitive or ཐ་མི་དད་པ་ intransitive verb. Transitive verbs are shown with “v.t.”, intransitive ones with “v.i.” E.g., the listing for the verb རྐོ་བ་ starts out by showing that it is a verb of the transitive type:
<verb> v.t.
3) Following that, a complete table of the tense forms is given for the verb. The tenses are shown separated by a slash and a space. Tibetan verbs have only three tenses for simple verbs: past, present, and future. In addition to these, an imperative mood (not tense) is available for some verbs. The custom in Tibetan literature is to list simple verbs in the order: present, past, future. If a listing includes the imperative mood, the imperative is listed last, after the future tense. Since English speakers are not used to that ordering and it would cause confusion to give it that way, the tenses have been put in their English order, with each tense separated by a forward slash, like this: past འདས་པ། present ད་ལྟ་བ། future མ་འོངས་པ། imperative སྐུལ་ཚིག. Using the verb རྐོ་བ་ again as an example:
<verb> v.t. བརྐོས་པ། རྐོ་བ། བརྐོ་བ། རྐོས།
In other words: past = བརྐོས་པ་, present = རྐོ་བ་, future = བརྐོ་བ་, and imperative = རྐོས་.4) Following that the definition of the verb is given. Where there are multiple meanings for a verb, these are marked off numerically with 1) and so on and the definitions placed within. For any given meaning, the definition is given first, usually in quotation marks. It is important to read the longer definitions because Tibetan verbs often have a set of connotations not contained in a similar English verb. Following the definitions, there are examples. The examples always have a marker to show the source; if there is no maker, it means that we have provided the definition from our own knowledge. For example E.g., [ZGT] means that the following example comes from the source [ZGT]. The sources can be found from their abbreviated form in the list given in the REFERENCES CITED section.
5) Some Tibetan verbs have both transitive and intransitive forms with the same spelling of the present tense. In that case a listing for each form will be found together under the present tense. For example, the verb འཆད་པ་ has both transitive and intransitive forms:
I. <verb> v.t. བཤད་པ། འཆད་པ། བཤད་པ། ཤོད།. “To explain” i.e., to expound on something so that it is more clearly …
II. <verb> v.i. ཆད་པ། འཆད་པ། འཆད་པ།།. “For the continuity of something to be cut off, stopped” …
6) Some Tibetan verbs have both transitive and intransitive forms with different spellings of the present tense. For example, the verb with present tense སྒྲུབ་པ་ is the transitive form and འགྲུབ་པ་ is the intransitive form. Where possible, this dictionary cross-references these forms.
7) Some Tibetan verbs have two transitive or intransitive forms with the same spelling of the present tense. In this case, each set of forms are listed separately under the present tense. E.g., the verb སྐོང་བ་་ has two forms of the transitive:
I. <verb> v.t. བསྐངས་པ། སྐོང་བ། བསྐང་བ། སྐོངས། 1) “To satisfy the mind” …
II. <verb> v.t. བསྐོངས་པ། སྐོང་བ། བསྐོང་བ། སྐོངས།. “To summon up” …
8) Some Tibetan verbs also function as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs. If these meanings exist, they are shown underneath the verb definitions. E.g., for the word སྐྱོར་བ་ there are two transitive verb forms, an adverbial form, and an adjectival form.
I. <verb> v.t. form I བསྐྱོར་བ། སྐྱོར་བ། བསྐྱོར་བ། སྐྱོར།. 1) “To support” …
II. <verb> v.t. form II བསྐྱར་བ། སྐྱོར་བ། བསྐྱར་བ། སྐྱོར།. “To repeat” …
III. <adv> Form II is …
IV. <adj> …
9) Tibetan intransitive verbs can and sometimes do have imperative forms!