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The Tibetan particle re

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Extract

The Tibetan particle re occurs at the end of sentences, where it is either preceded by a or followed by skan (sometimes spelled kan). When preceded by a it has coalesced with it to a final particle which has so far only been observed after verb forms ending in a consonant (including da-drag) which is then repeated before the a (da-re, sa-re, ta-re, etc.).

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright School of Oriental and African Studies 1967

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References

1 London, 1881 (or its various reprints), 533b.

2 Tibetischdeutsches Wrterbuch, Gnadau, 1871, 5523.Google Scholar

3 See below, p. 118, n. 11.

4 Abbreviation of rgya-c'er-rol-pa (Lalitavistara). The quotation is in fact from the Saddharmapuṇdarka. See below, ex. 18.

5 Abbreviation of Padma Thang Yig.

6 See his Grammar of the Tibetan language in English, Calcutta, 1834, 189, p. 105,Google Scholar and also Schmidt, I. J., Grammatik der tibetischen Sprache, St. Petersburg and Leipzig, 1839, 175.Google Scholar

7 TibetanEnglish dictionary, Calcutta, 1902, 1189.Google Scholar

8 Vol. II, Leiden, 1950, 209.

9 Pt. II, Wrterbuch, Wiesbaden, 1955, 74.Google Scholar

10 ho, sirrah.

11 The words nach ausdrcklicher Erklrung seem to refer to explanations by his Tibetan informants.

12 With amazing acumen he suggests the deletion of ma in the example from the Lotus sutra (mistakenly referred to as Lalitavistara). There is in fact no ma in the Tibetan translation. See here below ex. 18.

13 See below, under II and p. 123.

14 cf. his preface.

15 See below, ex. 17.

16 Dutt, N. (ed.), Gilgit manuscripts, III, 4, p. 54,Google Scholar 11. 10 and 13, and Lvi, S., JA, CCXX, jan.mars 1932, 27, 38.Google Scholar

17 To be numbered as 1 in our list of examples.

18 This was translated as follows by S. Lvi, MSS de Gilgit, 38: C'est une maison suspecte; n'y entre pas; n'allons pas par imprudence avoir un accident.

19 Ti(betan) T(ripitaka), XLI 49d8 and 49e12b; 51a5 (gyur-te-re!) and 51a6=N(ar-thang Kanjur), hDul, Ka, 177A7 and 177B1; 182B7 and 183A1. The story of the matricide (and parricide) was translated first by L. Feer from the Tibetan version (Annales du Muse Guimet, v, 1883, 94, etc.)

20 yaṅ-ba = ya-ṅa-ba.

21 Note the remarkable parallel to the above passage in Proverbs V, 89, where a person is warned off a house of ill fame in similar terms: Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house: Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel.

22 I have left Edgerton's emendation of the text without sandhi, as set out by him.

23 Skye-sta-re instead of skyes-sa-re apparently after gyur-ta-re (cf. also ex. 16 and byuṅ-ta-re p. 124, n. 36). The Narthang print and the manuscript Kanjur of the British Museum (Or. 6724, mDo, XXVII, 181A3 cf. Barnett, L., Asia Major, VII, 12, 1931, 15778) have skye-ba-re. Note also that the preceding sentence has daṅ legs-so after the imperative: da yaṅ ṅa-la sems dga-bar gyisla yo-byad ẖdi-la yaṅ sems ma cag-par byos daṅ legs-so (sdhu mamntikecittaṃ prasdaysmc ca pariṣkrc cittaṃ virgaya). See also below, p. 122.Google Scholar

24 Edgerton's emendation. Professor J. C. Wright, to whom I am indebted for going over the Sanskrit versions of my examples, remarks: Speyer's emendation syase, MS syate as passive is preferable.

25 The threat is made by the murderer of ẖCar-ka (Udyin) and addressed to an old woman who has seen his dead body.

26 As was pointed out above, there are quite a number of examples concerned with escape, as might be expected in the case of a chapter entitled Abhiniṣramaṇaparivarta (ch. XV of the Lalitavistara). I limit myself here to two. Example 13 (a) was already quoted by Foucaux in his grammar (see above, p. 118). The emendation in the Sanskrit version (ex. 13 (b)) is Professor Wright's.

27 See above, p. 120.

28 See F. A. Schiefner, Tibetan tales, trans!. by W. R. S. Ralston, new ed., with a preface by C. A. F. Rhys Davids, London, 1926, 41: If you utter a single cry you shall die. I am greatly indebted to Professor H. Franke for making accessible to me Schiefner's original German version (Bull. Acad. Imp. des Sciences de St.-Ptersbourg, Sr. III, Tom. XIV, 1870), where (col. 303) the passage is rendered as: Wenn du einen Laut von dir giebst, bist du des Todes.Google Scholar

29 Note skyes-ta-re (after gyur-to-re?) for skyes-sa-re. skyes-ta-re occurs also in ex. 3, there written Skye-sta-re. Cf. also byuṅ-ta-re, p. 124, n. 36.

30 The verse occurs as one of the final lokas of the story How slanderers and those who listen to them are punished, reprinted in Lobzang Mingyur and E. Denison later, Sir Denison Ross, , Matriculation course in classical Tibetan, Calcutta, 1911, 239.Google Scholar

31 Nobel, , Suvarṇaprabhsottama-Stra. I. Die tibetischen bersetzungen, Leiden, 1944, p. 112, 11. 212.Google Scholar

32 Nobel, , Suvarṇabhisottamastra, Leipzig, 1937, p. 143, 1. 9 (ch. xii, l 63).Google Scholar

33 See above, pp. 117, n. 4, and 118, n. 12.

34 See, e.g., the edition by N. Dutt (Bibl. Indica), Calcutta, 1952, 205 (ch. xiv, l 54).

35 Sacred Books of the East, XXI, 297.

36 In a preceding version of the passage (443B7) Narthang has byuṅ-ta-re (cf. skyes-ta-re in exx. 3 and 16), which was corrupted to gyur-ta-re in the Peking print (Ti. T, XXXIX, 120 a1).

37 Lvi, S., Mahkarmavibhaṅga, Paris, 1932, p. 52, 11. 301 (repeated p. 53, 11. 56).Google Scholar

38 ibid., 1245.

39 The Sanskrit text has asmkam aviditam, p. 52, 1. 18. I have included the later passages as nearer to the Tibetan version.

40 cf. German Dass der nicht entwischt! (see Sanders, D., Wrterbuch der deutschen Sprache, I, Leipzig, 1860, 268, s.v. dass: (5) in scheinbar unabhngigen Stzen elliptisch Dass du dich nicht muckste).Google Scholar

41 See Edgerton, , BHSGD, I, ch. xlii.Google Scholar

42 Tibetischdeutsches Wrterbuch, St. Petersburg, 1841, 307.Google Scholar

43 See Tibetan lexicography and etymological research, Transactions of the Philological Society, 1965, 88.

44 Bod-Hor-gyi brda-yig min-ts'ig don-rum gsal-bar byed-pa mun-sel sgron-me, I, Ulan Bator, 1959, 1195.Google Scholar

45 Kovalevski, O. (Kowalewski), Dictionnairemongolrusse-francais, Kazan, 1846, 1190.Google Scholar

46 Poppe, N., Grammar of written Mongolian, Wiesbaden, 1954, 91, 166.Google Scholar See also Leasing, F. D., Mongolian dictionary, Univ. of California Press, 1960, 118,Google Scholar s.v. boluyuzai =boluyufai: = bolyuzin (older form) dubitative form of bol- What if it will be or become? I am afraid or worried that. Sanzheev, G. D., Sravnitel'naya grammatika mongol' skikh yazykov. Glagol, Moscow, 1964, 111, etc., lists interesting usage in modern dialects.Google Scholar

47 K. Gronbech and J. R. Krueger, An introduction to classical (literary) Mongolian, p. 51,47, e.

48 op. cit., 91.

49 I should like to express my gratitude to Madame M.-R. Guignard of the Service des Manuscrits orientaux de la Bibliothque Nationale for most generously placing at my disposal at short notice the relevant volumes of the Paris copy of the Mongolian Kanjur, so conveniently analysed by Professor L. Ligeti (Catalogue du Ken jur mongol imprim, Budapest, 1942).Google Scholar

50 See HJAS, V, 1941, 391,Google Scholar and BSOAS, X, 4, 1942, 9725.Google Scholar

51 Note, however, in this connexion the alternative reading skye-ba-re in ex. 3.

52 =lta ci mos. Cf. also Chinese chii. In the entry re-skan in the Tibetan-Tibetan dictionary, with a Chinese translation, by dGe-bes Ch'os-Brags, Peking, 1957, 836, yod re-skan is rendered in Chinese as: