སྔ་འགྱུར་
Transliteration: snga 'gyur
<phrase> "Early Translations". The introduction of Buddhadharma into Tibet with its concomitant translations occurred in two distinct phases, རྙིང་མ་ an old phase and a གསར་མ་ new phase. The two correspond to the སྔ་དར་ earlier and ཕྱི་དར་ later periods of the spread of dharma in Tibet. The early translations were known as སྔ་འགྱུར་ "early / older translations" and the later translations we…
འགྲེམས་པ་
Transliteration: 'grems pa
<verb> v.t. བཀྲམ་པ་/ འགྲེམས་པ་/ དགྲམ་པ་/ ཁྲོམས་/. Intransitive form is གྲམ་པ་ q.v. [Old] Acc. [LGK] this term was revised during the སྐད་གསར་བཅད་ language revisions and meant, when written in new signs, འགྱེད་པ་ q.v. with meaning as follows. 1) The basic meaning is "to spread out all over / evenly across" and "to lay out evenly", "to strew with". E.g., [TC] བྱེ་མ་དགྲམ་པ། "will spread the sa…
ཁྲི་རལ་པ་ཅན་
Transliteration: khri ral pa can
<noun> "(King) Tri Ralpachen". The name of one of the greatest Dharma kings of Tibet. His name lit. means "the throne-holder with the dread locks" which he received because of keeping very long hair. He was the grandson of the great Dharma King ཁྲི་སྲོང་ལྡེ་བཙན་ Trisong Deutsen and the third son of ཁྲི་ལྡེ་སྲོང་བཙན་ King Tridey Songtsen. He was the 41st king of Tibet. Upon ascending the thr…
བསྟན་བཅོས་
Transliteration: bstan bcos
<noun> "Treatise". Translation of the Sanskrit "śhāstra".
A śhāstra in India was a treatise that was intended to be authoritative. Most religious traditions would have their own śhāstras that were the authoritative texts regarding the ways of that tradition. The term is a universal one used in all areas of literary endeavour not just by the Buddhists.
The word śhāstra is derived from "śhāsti"…
འཚལ་བ་
Transliteration: 'tshal ba
I. <verb> v.t. བཙལ་བ་/ འཚལ་བ་/ བཙལ་བ་/ འཚོལ་/. "To do with". E.g., ཕྱག་འཚལ་བ་ "to prostrate", meaning to use the hands in a way that seeks to show respect.
II. <verb> v.i. འཚལ་བ་/ འཚལ་བ་/ འཚལ་བ་//. Acc. [LGK] this term was revised during the སྐད་གསར་བཅད་ language revisions and meant, when written in new signs, ཤེས་པ་ or ཆོག་པ་ or འདོད་པ་ which are three of the five meanings listed in […
འཕག་པ་
Transliteration: 'phag pa
I. <verb> v.t. འཕགས་པ་/ འཕག་པ་/ འཕག་པ་/ འཕོགས་/. Intransitive form is འཕགས་པ་ q.v. "To raise up", "to elevate", and "to lift". E.g., [TC] ལུས་གྱེན་དུ་འཕགས་ནས་ཆུའི་ཕ་གིར་མཆོངས་པ། "he raised himself up and jumped into the river over there"; བྱིའུ་འཕག་བཞིན་དུ་འཕུར་བ། "the baby bird, raising itself up, tried to fly (in reference to a bird that has been hurt by e.g., a slingshot and lifts itself…
ཡང་འཇུག་
Transliteration: yang 'jug
<noun> "Re-suffix" or "post-suffix". Grammar term. According to the rules of Tibetan word construction, མིང་གཞི་ the central letter around which a word is built can have single consonants added to it as prefixes, suffixes, and post-suffixes during the construction of a word. The རྗེས་འཇུག་ are a group of ten consonants selected from the total set of thirty consonants that can be used as suf…
འཕྱོ་བ་
Transliteration: 'phyo ba
<verb> v.i. འཕྱོ་བ་/ འཕྱོ་བ་/ འཕྱོ་བ་//. 1) Acc. [ULS] and [LGK] this term was revised during the སྐད་གསར་བཅད་ language revisions and meant, when written in new signs, ལྡིང་བ་ with meaning as follows. The term is related to འཕྱེ་བ་ q.v. It is used to indicate any kind of movement where a mass moves forward horizontally through some medium. i) "To fly through the air", "to soar in space", "t…
བསམ་གཏན་
Transliteration: bsam gtan
<noun> "Dhyāna", "meditative absorption" or simply "absorption", or "meditation". Translation of the Sanskrit "dhyāna". It is used to mean both "meditative absorption" in particular and also to mean "meditation" in general.
Absorption in specific states of mind through the agency of meditation developed in the human realm creates the cause for and results in births in realms of cyclic existe…
འགྱེད་པ་
Transliteration: 'gyed pa
<verb> v.t. བཀྱེས་པ་/ འགྱེད་པ་/ བཀྱེ་བ་/ ཁྱེས་/. Acc. [ULS] and [LGK] this term was revised during the སྐད་གསར་བཅད་ language revisions and meant, when written in new signs, གཏོང་བ་ q.v. It has the general sense of "to send off / send out", "to distribute". 1) "To provide goods to others". This is the verb used to provide the general sense of providing things in a free or charitable way. It …
བརྣན་པ་
Transliteration: brnan pa
I. <verb> v.t. བརྣན་པ/ བརྣན་པ་/ བརྣན་པ་// and this is also seen: བརྣན་པ/ རྣོན་པ་/ བརྣན་པ་/ རྣོན་/. Acc. [LGK] this term was revised during the སྐད་གསར་བཅད་ language revisions and meant, when written in new signs, ངེས་བཟུང་ "to specify", "to identify", and "to ascertain" but see the following. The verb means to pick something out and draw the attention to it so that the thing is either preci…
འགེབས་པ་
Transliteration: 'gebs pa
<verb> v.t. བཀབ་པ་/ འགེབས་པ་/ དགབ་པ་/ ཁོབ་/. Intransitive form is ཁེབས་པ་ q.v.
[Old] Acc. [ULS] this term was revised during the སྐད་གསར་བཅད་ language revisions and meant, when written in new signs, སྒྲིབ་པ་ "to obscure" in the sense of covering something over deliberately to obscure it from view. This older use of the word is one of two main meanings present in the usage following the langu…
དཀོན་མཆོག་
Transliteration: dkon mchog
<noun> "Jewel". 1) Translation of the Sanskrit "ratna" used when referring to the places of Buddhist refuge: the Buddha, Dharma, Saṅgha.
The Sanskrit term "ratna" has many usages within its general meaning of "rich, precious, valuable", one of them is "jewel" or other "precious stone / substance". The Buddha himself used it to refer to the three places of Buddhist refuge with the simple and …
འཆོས་པ་
Transliteration: 'chos pa
I. [Old] Acc. [LGK] this term was revised during the སྐད་གསར་བཅད་ language revisions and meant, when written in new signs, ཟོས་པ་ "to eat" q.v.
II. <verb> Past of v.t. form II འཆའ་བ་ meaning "to chew on".
III. <verb> v.t. བཅོས་པ་/ འཆོས་པ་/ བཅོས་པ་/ ཆོས་/. This verb is cognate to the verb བཟོ་བ་ q.v. Where བཟོ་བ་ has the meaning "to manufacture" or "to make" from raw materials so that so…
སྤྲུག་པ་
Transliteration: sprug pa
I. <verb> v.t. སྤྲུགས་པ་/ སྤྲུག་པ་/ སྤྲུག་པ་/ སྤྲུགས་/. Meaning "to shake something up and at the same time remove / eliminate by the shaking up". Note the two connotations; many modern translations have used the first meaning and lost the second.
1) <verb> [Old] Acc. [ULS] and [LGK] this term was revised during the སྐད་གསར་བཅད་ language revisions and meant, when written in new signs, …
འདུ་བྱེད་
Transliteration: 'du byed
I. For <verb> see འདུ་བྱེད་པ་.
II. <noun> "Formatives". Translation of the Sanskrit [NDS] "saṃskāra". The term means "that which gathers up a number of things and forms them into an aggregate". In Buddhist terminology it has the specific meaning of those factors of the mind which cause the threefold sequence of i) aggregation into a being which is the taking of a rebirth, ii) subsequen…
ABBREVIATIONS AND MARKERS
PARTS OF SPEECH
A. Tibetan Defined
<consonant letter> = consonant letter
<ཚིག་ grammatical phrase> <verb> = single intertsheg verb
<auxiliary>verb> = a word which is defined as a
ཚིག་གྲོགས་ phrase assistive, not a verb, in Tibetan grammar but which is the equivalent of an English…
གསང་བའི་སྐད་
Transliteration: gsang ba'i skad
<noun> Usually translated as "secret language", this is really "the language of the secret (system)". It is the language used in secret mantra for substances used in ཚོགས་འཁོར་ feast gathering.
གསར་བཅོས་
Transliteration: gsar bcos
<noun> The act of "overhauling". To take something and do it over again afresh, fixing and adjusting it on the way. E.g., [DBT] བཙན་པོ་དེ་ཡིས་བོད་ཡིག་ལ་གསར་བཅོས་གནང་བར་བརྟེན་ "because of this ruler's overhauling of Tibetan literature / letters".
