The Illuminator Dictionary was written from the ground up by Tony Duff. Significant editorial assistance was provided by the Ven. Karma Ozer and Mr. Peter Schaffranek. The dictionary has a number of distinguishing features as follows.
1. Accuracy and clearness of explication of terms
There has been considerable confusion over many Tibetan terms, especially terms of the Buddhist vocabulary. Therefore, many of the terms in this dictionary have extensive commentaries to elucidate their actual meaning.
There are a number of free Tibetan-English dictionaries available at the time of writing; many of them are not dictionaries with clear explanations of the meaning of terms but are merely compilations of terms extracted from various sources. They often provide multiple definitions from many differing sources without defining the meanings of the words or showing which connotations correctly fit and which do not. They also often include mistaken words or definitions and these have then found their way into mistaken translations because so-called translators these days seem to value the fact that these dictionaries are free over their quality and reliability. The Rangjung Yeshe Dictionary has been singled out by academics and trenchantly criticised for these faults. As the person who first prepared that dictionary for electronic distribution, I have seen its enormous faults first-hand and can only concur with the others who criticize it so heavily.
This dictionary takes a much more refined approach. Each entry has been composed by the author on the basis of his extensive study and practice over more than forty years with all of the major traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. It includes portions of translations of various texts as needed.
2. Comprehensive content
The dictionary contains both terms from the ཆོས་སྐད་ dharma vocabulary and from the ཕལ་སྐད་ colloquial vocabulary. Both are given full treatment though some of the dharma terms have very extensive explanations.
• It also has a fairly complete Mahāmudrā and Dzogchen (རྫོགས་པ་ཆེན་པོ་ which is translated as “Great Completion” throughout) vocabularies with it.
• It contains the entire contents of the ལི་ཤིའི་གུར་ཁང་ House of Cloves a rare text written by the Tibetan translator Skyogton Rinchen Tashi in the Fire Monkey year (1476 C.E.). The work is a lexical work (dag yig) which shows the difference between བརྡ་རྙིང་ old and བརྡ་གསར་ new signs; it contains over 1000 terms and is the only explication of its type available. Many of the entries cannot be found in any other dictionary at present.
• It contains the entire contents of the enumeration of dharmas text མདོ་རྒྱུད་དོ་རྒྱུད་བསྟན་བཅོས་དུ་མ་ནས་འབྱུང་བའི་ཆོས་ཀྱི་རྣམ་གྲངས་ཤེས་ལྡན་ཡིད་ཀྱི་དགའ་སྟོན་ཞེས་བྱ་བ། A Festival for Intelligent Minds An Enumeration of Dharmas Taken From Many Sūtras, Tantras, and Śhāstras by དཀོན་མཆོག་འཇིགས་མེད་དབང་པོ་ Konchog Jigmey Wangpo.
• It contains an extensive range of terms connected with secret mantra ritual and commentaries are given where appropriate.
• There is a class of terms belonging to experiential vocabulary (see མྱོང་ཚིག་) which simply do not have equivalents in English. The bulk of these terms refer to various states of mind that are encountered on the path by a practitioner. Many of these terms have been misunderstood, even by translators, so a considerable effort has been made to collect the important ones and provide a clear enough commentary for the reader to be able to understand the particular quality of each term.
3. Verb listings
The verb listings are a major feature of the dictionary. To start with, the verb listings are very complete. Moreover, the verb entries were not made on an ad hoc basis as has happened with all other Tibetan-English dictionaries where entries have been added without checking and many errors in the verb listings have been included. In this dictionary, the verb listings are based on The Great Tibetan-Chinese Dictionary, which is the most reliable of Tibetan dictionaries available. Some additional listings have been added but only after verification that they are authentic.
A further feature of the verb listings is that they clearly and correctly distinguish between transitive and intransitive verb forms. It is quite interesting to look up other Tibetan-English dictionaries and compare entries for two verbs which are exactly the same in meaning except that one is transitive and one intransitive. In many cases the verbs are listed with meanings that do not match! This dictionary always has consistency between transitive and intransitive definitions and the entries for transitive and intransitive forms aways cross-reference the other form.
4. Parts of speech identified
Entries are clearly marked as being nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and so on.
5. Tibetan script and Tibetan transliterated into English versions of the dictionary.
Many of our dictionaries come as two separate dictionaries, with the content being the same but with one dictionary having Tibetan primarily in Tibetan script and the other dictionary having it primarily in Tibetan transliterated into English. The latter form of the dictionary is for those who are not familiar enough with Tibetan script for it to be useful but who can understand Tibetan in transliteration. Regardless of which of the two forms of the dictionary is being viewed, the headwords of every entry are given in both Tibetan script and Tibetan transliterated into English. The transliteration into English follows a modified form of Turrell Wylie’s system; see the section on transliteration (TIBETAN TRANSLITERATION SYSTEM) in the preface.
6. Sanskrit represented using transliteration with diacriticals
The IATS academic system for transliteration of Sanskrit is used. The letters with diacriticals needed for that are fully supported in the software. To type any of those letters, for example as you would need to do in a search, press Ctrl+d and follow the prompts.
Note that the the search system has an option for finding letters with diacriticals as simply the base letter. For example, in the search box with that option turned on, simply type for example an “a” to find both “a” and “ā”. For more information see the section on transliteration (SANSKRIT TRANSLITERATION SYSTEM) in the preface.
7. Dates for persons
Dates for persons are difficult to ascertain reliably in Tibetan and Indian Buddhism for many reasons. The dates for persons where given do not represent an exhaustive investigation of the dates but are culled from relatively authoritative sources so that the reader will have some sense of the person’s times. Padma Karpo Translation Committee also offers a free dictionary of important figures of Tibetan history on its web-site, with each entry containing a significant amount of biographical information.
8. Operating systems
The dictionary is available with software programmed for a variety of operating systems. Details of the various operating systems supported are available on the Padma Karpo Translation Committee web-site: http://www.pktc.org/pktc.
Tony Duff,
Director of Padma Karpo Translation Committee,
October, 2015
Kathmandu,
NEPAL
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The Illuminator Dictionary is available for three operating systems:
• Windows: at the time of writing it was compatible with Windows XP to Windows 10, both 32 and 64 bit versions.
• Macintosh
• Apple iPhone, iPod, and iPad
The Apple iPhone, iPod, and iPad software is delivered with a single version of the dictionary. In this case, the dictionary displays Tibetan language in Tibetan script but allows lookups in transliterated Tibetan for those who find it difficult to type in Tibetan.
The Windows and Macintosh software is delivered with two versions of the dictionary.
1) Non-Transliterated Version
This uses Tibetan script to display Tibetan language. Use the Tibetan keyboards built into the TibetD Reader software to type Tibetan. If you want to see Tibetan script but type Tibetan using Wylie transliteration, use this version of the dictionary, with the Wylie keyboard that is built into the TibetD Reader software.
For serious students of the Tibetan language, it is better to use the non-transliterated version of the dictionary. Learning to read the Tibetan text directly will greatly improve your comprehension of the language. In conjunction with that, you will also increase your comprehension of Tibetan if you learn to type directly in Tibetan, rather than using the Wylie keyboard. Some scholars dispute that. However, it is a fact that, if you apply yourself to thinking of Tibetan on its own terms rather than in terms of English (or another language), your comprehension and ability with the language will increase markedly. Using a Tibetan keyboard forces you to do just that and hence is a good discipline for any serious student of the language.
2) Transliterated Version
This uses Tibetan transliterated into English lettering. This is best for those finding it difficult to type in Tibetan or who prefer to read Tibetan script in transliteration. The transliteration system used in this version is very similar to the Wylie system. It is not quite the same because Wylie's system did not include a system for transliteration of Sanskrit letters introduced into the Tibetan vocabulary and that is needed. Therefore, the transliteration system here uses a system very similar to Wylie's system but with the extensions needed to accommodate Sanskrit. That system is explained in TIBETAN TRANSLITERATION SYSTEM.
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In general, our dictionaries are accessed with the TibetD Reader software designed and programmed by Tony Duff and his Padma Karpo Translation Committee. The software is highly suited to presenting Tibetan and English in electronic form and is especially made to serve the needs of electronic dictionaries.
Several versions of the software are available for various operating systems, such as Windows, Macintosh OSX, Apple iOS and so on. The following applies specifically to the Windows software, though reading it will be useful regardless of the operating system because it describes many of the basis features of the dictionary.
1. How can you learn the software?
2. How to look up a word?
3. You are reluctant to learn to type Tibetan?
4. Moving through the dictionary
5. Multiple and External Dictionary Lookups
6. Learn the shortcuts!
7. Use the Hyperlinks!
8. Using the structure of the dictionary to your advantage
9. Selecting Records
1. How can you learn the software?
First and foremost, the built-in help is a complete book written to be a clear guide to the use of the software. The first several sections of the help documentation are most important because they give you a basic guide to the use of the software, including a complete description of how the navigation keys work.
Second, the help contains extremely detailed instructions on how to type Tibetan. For typing in Tibetan, you have the choice of using a Wylie-style keyboard, one of two standard keyboards for Tibetan, or of customizing one of the standard Tibetan keyboards to suit your own needs. Maps of the two standard Tibetan keyboard layouts are available on the help menu. You can print the maps and keep it with you until you learn the keyboard or you can keep it up on the screen while you are using the dictionary.
Third, understand that the standard Tibetan keyboards are not hard to learn! We made number one of the two standard keyboards to be as easy to learn as possible; you can learn it within half an hour if you try. It can be summed up as follows:
a) All of the consonants are listed in order across the keyboard (ka kha ga nga etcetera), so even if you don’t remember them you can still calculate where they are without looking at the map.
b) The vowels are all placed in the centre of the keyboard in Tibetan order (i u e o).
c) All of the stacked letters are made by first pressing the stack key (letter h) which is at the very centre of the keyboard, then typing the letters of the stack. This includes all of the Sanskrit stacks, too, so there is nothing else to learn for them.
d) Finally, you can access any letter in the Tibetan fonts by using the symbols window Ctrl+w.
Learning to type Tibetan is that simple.
2. How to look up a word?
Train yourself to use the dictionary as follows. There are three main ways to find something:
a) Start by using the headword search feature. To use it, type your word directly into the headword field. As you type each letter, the software will jump to the word that you have typed or the closest thing to it. It will often arrive on the word you are looking for even before you have typed the whole word. If you type the word correctly but it does not come up, then what you typed is not an entry in the dictionary.
The value of the headword search is that it allows you to find any main entry in the dictionary almost immediately. However, the headword search feature only finds words at the headword level. If you type something and do not find it at the headword level, there is still a very good chance that it is somewhere in the dictionary. So the next step is to look through the whole dictionary—everywhere in both headwords and definitions.
b) Use the search feature. Press F2 or Ctrl+F to bring up the search dialogue. You can type any combination of Tibetan, English, and/or text with Sanskrit diacriticals in the search box. You can use the controls of the search box to search in headwords, definitions, or both. There are many other controls too and these are all described in the help section.
For example, to look up a Tibetan word anywhere in the dictionary, type the word in the search box and press the find button.
A big hint for searching is not to type everything but only to type a short string. Especially, do not to type the tsheg normally required in Tibetan text at the very end of the string. Some words will be in the dictionary followed by a character other than a tsheg, so if you always type a tsheg at the end of a Tibetan word, you will sometimes not find words that are in the dictionary.
To repeat a search, do not press F2 or Ctrl+F again. Use F3 to repeat a search. The reason for doing so is that, when you first start a search you can make lots of choices about how to do the search; when you press F2 or Ctrl+F you lose those choices but when you press F3 those choices you made the first time are retained.
Searches are cyclic. That means you can start a search anywhere and the software will search all the way to the bottom of the dictionary and then from the top down to your present position without your having to do anything more.
Any text in the software that has been selected will automatically be copied into the search box. You gain use this as an easy way to put text into the box, especially Tibetan text.
What if you want to go backwards to a previous entry that you have already looked at? Easy, use F4 and Shift+F4 to go forwards and backwards through the last four thousand entries that you have looked at.
c) Finally, there are several other ways to look up text in the dictionary.
Any Tibetan text that appears in the definitions can be used for doing searches or lookups. Select Tibetan or English text a word at a time simply by clicking on it with the mouse (there are keyboard shortcuts too—look up the keyboard shortcuts in help). Once the text is selected, right click on it with the mouse to get a menu of options, including an option to do a direct look up on that word.
Or, once the text is selected, start a search. The selected text will be put straight into the search box and you can use the features of the search box to make an effective search.
You can also paste text into the headword field. As soon as you paste it, the software will do a look up on it! So, for example, you can select some text in a definition field, copy it to the clipboard (Ctrl+C or right mouse menu), and past it into the headword field. If the text is not exactly what you want, you can edit the text in the headword field to get what you want.
3. Are you reluctant to learn to type Tibetan?
a) Use the Wylie keyboard instead of one of the standard Tibetan keyboards.
b) Try using the transliterated version of the dictionary. Or, in the Tibetan script version of the dictionary, take advantage of the fact that all entries also have the headword in transliterated English—use the search feature and type transliterated English instead of Tibetan to find the entry you want.
d) The transliteration scheme used in here is slightly different from Wylie’s system. You can find all the details in the prefatory section called TIBETAN TRANSLITERATION SYSTEM.
4. Moving through the dictionary
a) There are many ways to navigate the dictionary. They are described at length in the early parts of the software help.
b) You have found an entry and now you want to go back to a previous entry: use F4 and Shift+F4 to go forwards and backwards through the last four thousand entries that you have looked at.
c) You want to scroll down through the contents of the dictionary. Put your cursor is in the headword field then press the up or down cursor keys to move up or down one entry at the time. Press the page up or page down keys to move several entries at a time. Or, use the scroll bar to the right side of the panel to move through the dictionary. Or, use the keyboard shortcuts to go to the top or bottom of the dictionary. There are several other possibilities, too.
d) You want to scroll down through the definition of the current entry. First, use the TAB key to jump from the headword field into the definition field or click on the definition field with a mouse. Then use standard keys to move backwards and forwards, up and down throughout the definition.
e) You are in the definition field and want to return to the head field. Either click on the headword field with the mouse or press Ctrl+TAB.
f) You want to see the current entry in the context of previous and succeeding entries in the dictionary. The software defaults to this mode but try pressing F9 a couple of times and you will see how to change the screen.
5. Multiple and External Dictionary Lookups:
a) One of the best features of the TibetD Reader software is the ability to look up any piece of text in one or more dictionaries at a time. This can be done from within a dictionary, text, or word-processing document in one of two ways.
b) Use the external dictionary lookup system as follows (you have to have one or more of our dictionaries installed for this to work). Select the text you want to look up by clicking on or dragging over it with the mouse or using the Shift + cursor keys. Then right click with the mouse (or use the Tools menu) to select the dictionary into which you want to do the lookup. A new window will open with the definition of the word. The window has a variety of controls to let you scroll up and down through nearby entries or do a lookup immediately in yet another dictionary.
While in an external lookup, you can also do hyperlink jumps within the external dictionary and return from those jumps, too. Moreover, the external lookup window can be moved and sized and your preferred size and location can be saved between sessions using the appropriate option under options on the menu. Moreover, you do not have to close the window after each lookup; you can leave it open while you continue to work. As soon as you are ready to do another lookup, simply highlight the desired text and repeat the lookup sequence and the new text will be looked up without closing and re-opening the window. In general, you can look up text very rapidly in several dictionaries at once using this system. You can also gain access to vast amounts of information in the various dictionaries in a very rapid and handy way. Text in the lookup window can be copied and pasted, for example, into our TibetDoc word-processor. Full information on the use of the external lookup system can be found in the help of the TibetD Reader program; look under menu, tools, and then at the external dictionary lookup information.
c) The other way is to open independently as many of our dictionaries you want to use. Select the text you want to look up with the mouse or shift and arrow keys, copy it to the clipboard (Ctrl+c), switch to the other dictionary, and paste the text into the headword box of the other dictionary. The headword lookup will be immediate. Alternatively, paste it into the Search tab’s box and do a search. You can do this with as many dictionaries as you want.
6. Learn the shortcuts!
a) There is a special use of the mouse in TibetD Reader software. You can use it to select text and then look up the text. Put your mouse over a Tibetan word and click once, then twice, and so forth. The word will be selected intertsheg by intertsheg (the correct name in Tibetan grammar for what is often incorrectly called a “syllable”). Now right click with the mouse and look at the possibilities. If you click on the first option, you can look up the word you have highlighted directly in the dictionary!
b) Use the bookmarks to mark your place while you go somewhere else. E.g., mark this spot here by pressing F5, then a number from 1 to 4. Go somewhere else in the dictionary then return to this exact spot by pressing Alt+bookmark numeral just chosen.
7. Use the Hyperlinks!
One of the key features of this dictionary is that it is has copious use of hyperlinks. Anytime you see a coloured entry like this སངས་རྒྱས་ simply click on it to jump to its definition. When you have read the definition, if you wish to return, press F4. Try it now! The system of hyperlinks and returns back through even a sequence of hyperlinks make the dictionary into a very powerful learning tool.
8. Using the structure of the dictionary to your advantage
The Illuminator Dictionary has been put together in a highly ordered way and you can use that to your significant advantage, like this.
a) Many Tibetan words are given in the definitions followed by their English translation. That means there is a dictionary within a dictionary. As you read, when you find some Tibetan, the English following it is the translation. Many times the Tibetan will be hyperlinked so you can jump to the full definition of the word if needed.
b) There are quotations from many different texts in the dictionary. Each quotation is carefully marked with its own marker. All of the markers are listed under REFERENCES CITED. So, for example, if you specifically wanted to find the entries from the very old text called House of Cloves, you would first lookup its marker, which is [LGK]. You would then do a search for that.
c) All of the verbs are marked
. So you can look up just the verbs by looking up that. Likewise, most of the nouns are marked so you can look them up separately, too. Furthermore, all of the verbs are marked as being transitive or intransitive with “v.t.” and “v.i”. Furthermore, each tense form is marked as past, pres. or future, so you can look those up, too.
d) In fact, there are a wide range of abbreviations and markers in use in the dictionary, all of which can be used when searching in order to find specific needs. All of them are listed under ABBREVIATIONS AND MARKERS.
9. Selecting Records
There is a special version of the find feature called the “Select” feature, which you will find on the find menu of the main menu. If you use it, you will get a box that looks exactly like the search box but which says “Select” at the top instead of “Find”. If you type some text in the box to search for then press Enter, the software will find all of the entries that contain the string you searched for and will make them into a small dictionary containing only the words you have searched for which will appear on-screen instead of the main dictionary. This allows you to collect together all the entries containing some particular text.
You can repeat this selection procedure as many times as you want, in order to make specialized mini-dictionaries. For example, you could make a sub-dictionary containing only the verbs or a one containing only the transitive or intransitive verbs. When you are finished with a sub-dictionary, remove it using one of the appropriate items on the search menu.
All of the controls for the select feature are found on the Search menu on the menu bar.
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Tibetan culture created three major dictionaries in the twentieth century that were made to correspond to the style of a Western dictionary. Prior to that, Tibetans did not create or use many dictionaries and the few that were created before that time were usually word lists without alphabetic arrangement. These were not intended as reference works, rather, they were intended as items to be read from cover to cover and absorbed by the reader, with no further reference being required or intended. One well-known such dictionary was actually a sort of story which defined words as part of the story. It is an interesting read but of little use to people from other cultures.
Thus, earlier Tibetan dictionaries are almost useless as reference works, which is why neither there has been no interest in digitising them for computerized use. However, their content for the most part can be found in modern day dictionaries such as this one in a form that does work for people of other cultures.
One Western scholar came to me saying that he wanted to track down the changes in meanings of certain words through the centuries and wanted to see these early dictionaries as part of that research. I pointed out that, unlike with English and other European languages, the meanings of Tibetan words stayed the same over a period of nearly thirteen centuries (650 C.E. to 1950 C.E. roughly stated). This was because the culture was dedicated to preserving spiritual meaning rather than inventing new meanings. As part of that, any given word had a certain value and that was faithfully transmitted down through the centuries. Thus, if you were to read these early word lists, you would find that the definitions in them are no different to what is being used today.
Personally, I went through a period where I hunted down and collected all of the early dictionaries, ever hopeful that I would find something of use in its own right. I had a plan to make as many of these dictionaries available as possible for the use of other translators. However, I found that it was an un-necessary task. The contents of these dictionaries were not really different from the contents of modern dictionaries and their arrangement made them of little use. In the end, I incorporated the content of several important ones into the Illuminator, rather than publishing them separately. So, doing one liberated all, which is an exceptionally bad pun on a famous Tibetan saying གཅིག་ཤེས་ཀུན་གྲོལ་ “knowing one liberates all”, where the word «liberates» also means to decode or decipher. One dictionary, the Illuminator, does it all, so to speak.
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There are two or three, similar schemes for alphabetizing Tibetan words. This dictionary has its entries ordered according to the most common Tibetan alphabetization scheme, which is used in the བོད་རྒྱ་ཚིག་མཛོད་ཆེན་མོ་ The Great Tibetan-Chinese Dictionary. That alphabetization scheme has six levels of ordering the Tibetan words. In order from most to least significant they are as follows.
1) Head words are alphabetized on the basis of their མིང་གཞི་ “name-base” consonants. Alphabetization proceeds in the order of the Tibetan syllables: ཀ་ཁ་ག་ང་ཅ་ཆ་ཇ་ཉ་ཏ་ཐ་ད་ན་པ་ཕ་བ་མ་ཙ་ཚ་ཛ་ཝ་ཞ་ཟ་འ་ཡ་ར་ལ་ཤ་ས་ཧ་ཨ།
2) Next, for a given Tibetan syllable, words using just the bare syllable are presented first, followed by words consisting of the syllable plus a vowel sign. This latter order is in the normal order of the four vowel signs of the Tibetan language: ི ུ ེ ོ (which roughly correspond to the English vowels i u e o respectively). As each vowel sign is presented, any words with suffices are also presented according to the normal, syllabic order of the suffix.
3) Next, the syllable with a sub-scribed letter is presented. The sub-scribed letters are presented in normal syllabic order, and then in accordance with #2.
4) Next, the syllable with a prefix letter is presented. The prefixes are presented in normal syllabic order, and then in accordance with number #2 and #3.
5) Next, the syllable with a superscribed head-letter is presented. The superscribed letters are presented in the normal syllabic order, and then in accordance with #2 to #4.
6) Sanskrit transliterated into Tibetan is alphabetized according to the order of Tibetan syllables as mentioned in #1 to #5 but is also done in the left to right fashion of Sanskrit within a word where necessary. Sanskrit vowels, which include a subscribed ཨ་ཆུང་ achung, and so on are ordered after the end of a normal Tibetan sequence. Thus, the word ཀཱ་ will appear after ཀ་ However, the unusual letter combinations which do not appear in normal Tibetan writing, such as ཀྵ, are ordered as though they were normal Tibetan combinations. So, for instance, the word ཀྵེཏྲ་པཱ་ལ་ would appear in order after the words with ཀླ་ as their name-base and གྷ་ would appear in order after words with གླ་ as their name-base.
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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:
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:
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:
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. v.t. བཤད་པ། འཆད་པ། བཤད་པ། ཤོད།. “To explain” i.e., to expound on something so that it is more clearly …
II. 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. v.t. བསྐངས་པ། སྐོང་བ། བསྐང་བ། སྐོངས། 1) “To satisfy the mind” …
II. 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. v.t. form I བསྐྱོར་བ། སྐྱོར་བ། བསྐྱོར་བ། སྐྱོར།. 1) “To support” …
II. v.t. form II བསྐྱར་བ། སྐྱོར་བ། བསྐྱར་བ། སྐྱོར།. “To repeat” …
III. Form II is …
IV. …
9) Tibetan intransitive verbs can and sometimes do have imperative forms!
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Tibetan verbs are similar to English ones in many ways but there are some differences. In English, if you want to use a dictionary to help with the language, you must know or learn something about the way compound and auxiliary verbs work. Without knowing that, it will be very hard to understand a verb phrase such as “will have gone”. Similarly, in Tibetan, if you want to use a dictionary to help with the language, you must know or learn something about how the Tibetan compound and auxiliary verbs work and these are quite different from English compound and auxiliary verbs.
Tibetan language has simple verbs. These are always a single grammatical name followed by a single phrase assistant. For example, འགྲོ་བ་ is the verb “to go”. It is made of the single grammatical name འགྲོ་ which is a primitive of the language meaning “go” and the phrase assistive བ་. Other examples of simple verbs are ལབ་པ་ “to say”, བྱེད་པ་ “to do”.
Tibetan allows for a type of compound verb. In it, two or more grammatical names are put together to make one verb and the necessary phrase assistive is added to the end.
Tibetan language has auxiliary verbs. However, these are not called verbs. They are called phrase assistives. An explanation of phrase assistives involves a long and difficult explanation. Suffice it to say that a verb is one of the two things just mentioned. Anything that would be an auxiliary verb in English language is not defined as such in Tibetan. These auxiliary verbs are used for two purposes. 1) They make compound tense forms such as “is going”, “will speak”, “has done”. 2) They are used with verbs to provide a specific tense where the tense forms of the verb have the same spelling and hence are otherwise indistinguishable. For example, look at our example simple verb ལབ་པ་ and you will see that past, present, and future tense forms are all spelled the same. The tense either has to be known from context (which it sometimes can be) or something else has to be added to specify the tense. For example, the verb འགྱུར་བ་ is widely used as an assistive that functions as a specific indicator of the past and future tenses. For example, with the verb ལབ་པ་, to make the past tense definite, the past tense form of འགྱུར་བ་ which is གྱུར་པ་ is put together with the verb like this: ལབ་པར་གྱུར་བ་. To make the future tense definite, the future tense form of འགྱུར་བ་ which is འགྱུར་བ་ is put together with the verb like this: ལབ་པར་འགྱུར་བ་. Note how the main verb ལབ་པ་ has a ར་ letter added to the phrase assistive to give ལབ་པར་ which is then joined to the so-called auxiliary verb. There is a small group of verbs that are used for this kind of “auxiliary” purpose.
HINT: adverbial constructions in Tibetan are often (though not always) made by adding a ར་ letter to the phrase assistive at the end of a word that will become the adverb and the whole then has a verb written after it. For example, the adjective / adverb མགྱོགས་པོ་ has the letter ར་ added to become མགྱོགས་པོར་ which then has the needed verb connected after it, for example, མགྱོགས་པོར་འགྲོ་བ་. This is a phrase meaning “to go quickly”. This has a very similar form to the simple verb + auxiliary verb form just shown above. Novices should understand that they need to differentiate the two.
The next possibility with Tibetan verbs enters a very complex subject. There is yet another verb construction that looks like the simple verb + auxiliary verb shown above. However, this construction is different in meaning and the explanation of it is very complex. This kind of construction comes only in the case of a transitive verb situation. For transitive verbs in Tibetan, there is a special possibility, which is that a second verb can be added and the two verbs together provide significant information about the subject and object relationship of the overall sentence. Doing so also provides information about the tenses involved. All simple transitive verbs can be involved as the main verb. However, only a small grouping of transitive verbs can be involved as the second verb.
There are two sides to a transitive verbal action. They are the subject and object. Tibetan grammar further divides each into two. On the side of the subject there is always an agent of the action and possibly a complement, the means by which the agent carries out the action. For example, a wood-cutter is an agent who cuts wood and an axe is the complement, the instrument he uses to do the action. On the side of the object, there is the actual thing which is the place where the action is done. The future tense form of the second verb usually indicates the side of the object of the transitive action. The present tense form of the second verb usually indicates the side of the subject of the action. For example, there is the simple transitive verb གཅོད་པ་ “to cut”. We can make the complex phrase གཅད་པར་བྱ་ and since the second verb is in the future tense, it conveys the meaning that the object side of a transitive action is being mentioned. Since the main verb is in the future tense, it conveys something that will be done. The two together give a noun sense to a verb construct. It means “that which will be cut”. Similarly, we can make the complex phrase གཅོད་པར་བྱེད་ and since the second verb is in the present tense, it conveys the meaning that the subject side of a transitive action is being mentioned. Since the main verb is in the present tense, it conveys something that is being done. The two together give a noun sense to a verb construct. It means “that which is doing the cutting” and comes to mean the complement of the action, the thing actually used to cut. For example, in the case of a woodsman it is the “cutter”, the thing which is the doer of cutting.
There is not space here to write a whole book on the grammar of these types of verbs. The point of this section is that when you see these kinds of constructs in Tibetan, you cannot understand them simply by looking up the component parts in the dictionary. You can possibly use the dictionary to get the meanings of the individual parts but since the sum is greater than the parts, you also have to understand the theory behind the grammar and know the meaning from that. Without that knowledge, you will definitely miss the meaning of these kinds of constructs.
Some people have criticised this dictionary for not including these kinds of forms. For example, there is a listing for གཅོད་པ་ but there is no listing for གཅད་པར་བྱ་, གཅད་བྱ་, གཅོད་པར་བྱེད་, གཅོད་བྱེད་ or any of several other, similar variants that can occur because of transitive verb theory. The reason is simple. These are all structures of the language produced according to the theory of transitive verbs just shown. They are not individual “words” that can easily be defined but are complex structures of the language whose meaning depends both on the rules of grammar and the surrounding context.
A complete set of books on Tibetan grammar, with translations of native grammar texts and complete explanations of the various issues mentioned above is available from Padma Karpo Translation Committee, through their web-site.
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Tibetan language has a unique system for word construction. One of the effects of the system is that correct spellings are pre-determined by a complex set of rules. Thus, all spellings of the morphemes of the language were pre-determined at the time the rules were set down. As a result and unlike in English, new spellings cannot be created according to whim. This unique system and its effects are mostly not understood outside of Tibetan culture.
A seemingly separate issue is that Tibetan publications, until the early 1990’s, were guaranteed to have at least a few and often many spelling mistakes in them. It is important to understand that this is not because the language lacks a system for the proper spelling of words. Rather, it is a direct result of the way that publications were traditionally made. Tibetan literature was usually dictated by an erudite person who knew the spellings but was dictated to a not-so-well educated scribe who then wrote it down with spelling mistakes. Alternatively, something in writing was carved into wood-blocks by not-at-all educated wood-block cutters who then introduced mistakes unknowingly. Furthermore, reproductions of texts were often made by hand and often by people who were not so well educated, with the result that corruptions readily crept into the manuscripts and these only multiplied as further rounds of copies were made over time. This caused a unique facet of Tibetan literary life which was the situation that any important reproduction of a text had to have an accompanying correction process go with it, in order to root out the earlier mistakes. This process over longer periods of time, often also introduced its own mistakes.
Non-Tibetans, not knowing the difficult points of Tibetan grammar have frequently decided that Tibetan language does not have a spelling system despite the fact that it does have an extremely refined system for determining the spelling of words. When they meet the average manuscript with its sprinkling or more of mistakes, their opinion seems to them to be confirmed.
Moreover, this lack of knowledge has become entrenched because nearly every Tibetan-English “dictionary” that has been produced by non-Tibetans is not really a dictionary of the correct spellings of the language, but a listing of Tibetan words that have been found here and there and compiled without regard to whether the spellings of the words picked up like that are correct. Even worse, many of these so-called dictionaries confuse the spellings of words and provide the wrong information for a particular spelling. Sarat Chandra Das’s famous Tibetan-English Dictionary is a case in point. Sarat Chandra Das used an empirical approach to collecting words for his dictionary. If he saw a spelling in print, he included it in his dictionary and then gave a definition for it. This kind of approach could work fairly well with European languages where there are relatively few spelling errors in published books, but not with Tibetan literature where publications often have entrenched spelling errors. The result is that the perfectly precise lexical system that does exist in the Tibetan culture disappears from view and a mistaken system appears in its place.
For example, the word སྔངས་ is given as a main entry in Sarat Chandra Das’s Dictionary. This word has then been dutifully copied, definition and all, word for word into a number of modern Tibetan-English dictionaries, for example into the so-called Rangjung Yeshe dictionary. However, there is no such word in Tibetan, quite literally; such a spelling is not possible by the rules of the རྟགས་ཀྱི་འཇུག་པ་ Application of Gender Signs, Thumi Saṃbhoṭa’s root text on grammar that contains the rules for which spellings in Tibetan are allowed and which not. The correct spelling for the definition given is དངངས་པ་ q.v. This is a flagrant example of a scribe’s error which is then passed on by non-Tibetan people who make dictionaries of the language but who have not studied the Tibetan grammar itself and who then pass on all sorts of errors in their work, whilst spewing claims of how good their work is.
Look at another example. There is the word ལྟེབ་པ་ which is the verb for “to fold over”. Sarat Chandra Das gives ལྡེབ་པ་ with the meaning “to fold”, “to bend over” when in fact, that is the meaning of ལྟེབ་པ་, and on top of that misses altogether the correct meanings for ལྡེབ་པ་! Even worse is that the recent producers of so-called dictionaries have copied this set of errors and parade their works as “dictionaries based on Tibetan” when in fact they are just copies of other people’s mistakes!
I have frequently had users of the Sarat Chandra Das Dictionary and Rangjung Yeshe’s so-called dictionary contact me and tell me that I have to include these incorrect spellings / mis-matched meanings in The Illuminator Dictionary! In other words, we now have the situation where non-Tibetans are using these Tibetan-English dictionaries that have been produced carelessly and on top of that, assuming that, because they have the name “dictionary”, they are correct! And even to the point of insisting that the mistakes contained in them are correct!
It is very important to recognize at the outset that there is a proper system of Tibetan spelling and grammar. It is equally important to understand that many Tibetan-English dictionaries have a substantial number of entries which are mis-spellings at least or complete errors, even.
The whole point of The Illuminator is to present the Tibetan tradition and not a corrupted form of it. To that end, this dictionary has been made exceptionally carefully, giving only correct spellings for words and likewise providing only correct descriptions for those particular spellings. (I have included some common mis-spellings, but always with a note to the effect that they are mis-spellings.)
You simply will not find in the Illuminator Dictionary any of the sloppiness so evident in the other Tibetan-English digital dictionaries available today. Instead, you will find correct statements of the spellings and meanings of Tibetan words, just as you would find in native Tibetan dictionaries. Thus, you can rely on this dictionary for accuracy of meaning, accuracy of spelling, accuracy of representation of the language, and fine definitions, too.
Corruption of the Tibetan spelling system is especially evident with Tibetan verbs. This dictionary has many special features in regard to verbs. One of them is the presentation of correct forms and careful labelling of variant forms; you will find more about this in the prefatory section called DICTIONARY AND VERBS.
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Different methods for representing Tibetan letters using the English alphabet have been employed since the early 1800’s. In the 1940’s Turrell Wylie published an academic paper with a system for transliterating Tibetan into English. His system has been widely adopted and is called “Wylie” transliteration. Unfortunately, other schemes have been invented and persist, so there is no one standard for transliteration.
The Wylie transliteration system for the Tibetan vowels is as follows:
ཨ་ a ཨི་ i ཨུ་ u ཨེ e ཨོ་ o
The Wylie transliteration system for the Tibetan consonants is as follows:
ཀ་ ka ཁ་ kha ག་ ga ང་ nga
ཅ་ ca ཆ་ cha ཇ་ ja ཉ་ nya
ཏ་ ta ཐ་ tha ད་ da ན་ na
པ་ pa ཕ་ pha བ་ ba མ་ ma
ཙ་ tsa ཚ་ tsha ཛ་ dza ཝ་ wa
ཞ་ zha ཟ་ za འ་ 'a ཡ་ ya
ར་ ra ལ་ la ཤ་ sha ས་ sa
ཧ་ ha ཨ་ a
Note how all of the consonants are represented by one to three English consonants followed by a vowel except for the last consonant which is just written as a vowel. The writing of the last consonant, called an achen, with only a single vowel is the one mistake in Wylie’s scheme. By not representing the consonant with one letter followed by a vowel, his system cannot distinguish between ཨཱ་ and ཨའ་, both of which are valid combinations in the Tibetan system. His system results in these two different combinations appearing indistinguishably as a'a. To resolve this, we have done what some others have done and made the transliteration of the achen into “aa”; the first letter always represents the consonant and the second represents the vowel. In this system ཨཱ་ becomes a'a and ཨའ་ becomes aa'a so that there is no ambiguity.
When the vowels are added to a consonant, the vowel letter is changed according to the consonant added. Thus, for the first consonant, letter ཀ་ ka:
ཀི་ ki ཀུ་ ku ཀེ་ ke ཀོ་ ko
Wylie’s system, with the modification given for the achen, makes a system that can accurately represent all grammatically correct forms of written Tibetan. However, Wylie’s system has no means for representing Sanskrit transliterated into Tibetan and has no system for representing punctuation, both of which are needed for representing written Tibetan in English. Thus we have added extensions for Sanskrit transliterated into Tibetan and punctuation.
Our complete system for representing written Tibetan is as follows.
1) The thirty Tibetan consonants without an explicit vowel are as follows:
ཀ་ ka ཁ་ kha ག་ ga ང་ nga
ཅ་ ca ཆ་ cha ཇ་ ja ཉ་ nya
ཏ་ ta ཐ་ tha ད་ da ན་ na
པ་ pa ཕ་ pha བ་ ba མ་ ma
ཙ་ tsa ཚ་ tsha ཛ་ dza ཝ་ wa
ཞ་ zha ཟ་ za འ་ 'a ཡ་ ya
ར་ ra ལ་ la ཤ་ sha ས་ sa
ཧ་ ha ཨ་ aa
For example, the first Tibetan consonant with each of the standard four Tibetan vowels is:
ཀི་ /ki ཀུ་ ku ཀེ་ ke ཀོ་ ko
Note how the last Tibetan consonant is written with each of the vowels:
ཨ་ aa ཨི་ ai ཨུ་ au ཨེ ae ཨོ་ ao
2) The sixteen Sanskrit vowels transliterated into Tibetan then transliterated into English are as follows:
ཨ་ aa ཨཱ་ a'a ཨི་ ai ཨཱི་ a'i ཨུ་ au ཨཱུ་ a'u
རྀ་ rI རཱྀ་ r'I ལྀ་ li ལཱྀ་ l'I
ཨེ ae ཨཻ་ aai ཨོ་ ao ཨཽ་ aau
ཨཾ aM ཨཿ aH
For example:
ཀཱ་ k'a ཀཱི་ k'i ཀཱུ་ k'u ཀྲྀ་ krI ཀྲཱྀ་ kr'I
ཀཻ་ kai ཀཽ་ kau ཀཾ་ kaM ཀཱཾ་ k'aM ཀཿ kaH
ཨཱོཾ་ a'oM ཨཽ་ aau ཨཽཾ་ aauM
3) The application of a སྲོག་མེད་ halanta is shown with the forward slash “/”. And the application of a ྃ chandrabindu is shown with “(M”.
For example:
ཕཊ྄་ phaT/ པྃ་ pa(M
4) The five Sanskrit retroflex letters transliterated into Tibetan are as follows:
ཊ་ Ta ཋ་ Tha ཌ་ Da ཎ་ Na ཥཾ་ Sha ཀྵ་ k+Sha
5) The aspirated Sanskrit consonants transliterated into Tibetan are as follows:
གྷ་ gha ཌྷ་ Dha དྷ་ dha བྷ་ bha ཛྷ་ dzha
6) Ambiguous stacks:
A few very rare but correct Tibetan stacks from བརྡ་རྙིང་ “old orthography” and any compound Sanskrit stacks that would be ambiguously transliterated with the above system are transliterated using a + sign to remove the ambiguity. The plus sign is only used where ambiguity would result.
For example, in old Tibetan:
སྷོ་ is transliterated as “s+ho”
For example in Sanskrit transliterated into Tibetan:
གྒྷ་ “ggha” does not need a plus sign because the transliteration is not ambiguous;
གྙ་ g+nya does need a plus sign because gnya is ambiguous;
ནྱ་ n+ya does need a plus sign because nya is ambiguous (it could be ཉ་ or ནྱ་).
སེངྒེ་ seng+ge does need a plus sign because sengge is ambiguous, etc.
7) Punctuation:
i) Tshegs: Tshegs are represented by a space “ ”.
ii) Shad: Shad are represented by a vertical bar “|”.
iii) Spaces: Spaces are represented by spaces “ ”.
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General
Sanskrit terms are provided in this dictionary as a matter of importance. Much of Tibet’s dharma vocabulary is derived from Sanskrit or related Indian languages. In Sanskrit, the nominative case is the correct way, strictly speaking, to show a noun and, in the nominative case, masculine nouns end in visarga (ḥ); feminine ones end in long a (ā); and neuter nominatives end in aṃ but in a dictionary they are usually given without the final ṃ. Despite this, when Sanskrit is given in an English text, these subtleties are usually abandoned in favour of a more readable wording. For example, skandhamāra is commonly seen but skandhamāraḥ is most correct.
In this dictionary, where possible, I have simply quoted Sanskrit from other, reliable sources. When that is done, the source is always marked immediately before the Sanskrit term, e.g.:
ཀུན་འབྱུང་ “Origin, source”. Translation of the Sanskrit [NDS] “samudaya”.
In that case, the [NDS] prior to the Sanskrit means that it comes from the work [NDS] which (together with all other sources) is listed under ABBREVIATIONS AND MARKERS. Each author quotes Sanskrit differently and not always consistently. For instance, [NDS] sometimes gives nouns with the requisite vowel at the end and sometimes not. Please note that, where there is no attribution provided prior to the term, it means that I have provided the word from my own knowledge and I often quote the word according to the simplified English representation where the nominative ending is not always observed.
Finally, readers not thoroughly familiar with Sanskrit should understand that it is a highly inflected language and because of it, a word in general can often be quoted, quite correctly, in more than one way.
Thus, this dictionary tries to be accurate with regard to Sanskrit but has to bow to the difficulties mentioned above.
Mantra
The dictionary does include some stock phrases from the secret mantra tradition. However, the explanations of the terms of secret mantra are not intended for public distribution—they are secret! Therefore, you will not find many explanations of mantric phrases in here.
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Sanskrit is transliterated into English using the standard IAST system (the system developed and preferred for use in academic circles) as a basis. That system is as follows:
The vowels in order:
a ā i ī u ū ṛ ṝ ḷ ḹ
e ai o au aṃ aḥ
The consonants in order:
ka kha ga gha ṅa
ca cha ja jha ña
ṭa ṭha ḍa ḍha ṇa
ta tha da dha na
pa pha ba bha ma
ya ra la va
śa ṣa sa ha
Three modifications have been introduced to make the Sanskrit more readable: h’s and i’s are added as needed. This system was the invention of Nalanda Translation Committee. It was invented to keep an accurate system for Sanskrit transliteration but to make it more understandable to non-specialists.
In this system, the letters that are rendered differently from the standard IAST system are marked out in the table below in bold. Essentially, 1) the liquid vowels ṛi and so on have an i added to them to approximate the actual pronunciation and make the spelling of words containing them more readable; 2) the two consonants ca and cha have an extra “h” added for the same reasons; and 3) the two types of sha-sounding consonants śa and ṣa have an extra “h” added for the same reasons. Thus for example, the terms ṛddhi, ācārya, and aśvagoṣa in IAST become ṛiddhi, āchārya, and aśhvagoṣha in the system used here
The vowels in order:
a ā i ī u ū ṛi ṝi ḷi ḹi
e ai o au aṃ aḥ
The consonants in order:
ka kha ga gha ṅa
cha chha ja jha ña
ṭa ṭha ḍa ḍha ṇa
ta tha da dha na
pa pha ba bha ma
ya ra la va
śha ṣha sa ha
@@@
PARTS OF SPEECH
A. Tibetan Defined
= consonant letter
<མིང་ grammatical name>
<ཚིག་ grammatical phrase>
<ཚིག་ཕྲད་ phrase connector>
<ཚིག་གྲོགས་ phrase assistive>
= single intertsheg verb
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 linking verb.
phrase> = multi-intertsheg (not the same as compound) verb
= a listing of items belonging to one group. Such listings are called ཆོས་ཀྱི་རྣམ་གྲངས་ enumerations of dharmas / items.
B. English-Defined
= noun
= adjective
= adverb
= pronoun
= personal pronoun
= preposition
= gerund
= conjunction
= any phrase
phrase> = noun phrase
phrase> = adjectival phrase
phrase> = adverbial phrase
= the proper name of something or someone
= exclamation, interjection
= a saying of any kind, including proverbs
ABBREVIATIONS
acc. = according to
altern. = alternative
abbrev. =abbreviation
[Bon] = Bon terminology
cf. = compare with
[Chinese] = Chinese language
[Communist] = Communist Chinese way of talking or Communist terminology
coll. = colloquial, colloquially
[Dialect] = local usage in a particular area
e.g. = for example
etc. = etcetera
[Exp] = མྱོང་ཚིག་ experiential term
freq. = frequently
fut. = future tense
[Hon] = honorific form of a term
i.e. = that is
imp. = imperative
infreq. = infrequently
lit. = literally
[Mngon] = མངོན་བརྗོད་ synonymy (alliteration, metaphor, synonyms, etc.)
[Modern] = new terminology that has been introduced in recent times, which is not part of the classical vocabulary.
[Mongolian] = A term from Mongolia introduced into Tibetan language.
[Non-Hon] = non-honorific form of a term
[Old] = Terms from the original formulation of the language (called བརྡ་རྙིང་ «old signs” prior to the སྐད་གསར་བཅད་ language revisions that affected to the spelling and/or usage of words)
[Onomat] = onomatopœtic term, representing the sound of something.
opp. = opposite
past = past tense
[Poetic] = སྙན་ངག་ poetic usage
pres. = present tense
Pron. = pronounced / pronunciation
q.v. = que vide, i.e., see that entry just mentioned.
sim. = similar in meaning to
[Syn] = synonyms which includes other terms of the same meaning derived from the [Mngon] literature
Tib. = Tibetan
v.i. = intransitive verb
v.t. = transitive verb
[Zhang Zhung] = terminology from ཞང་ཞུང་ Shang Shungonyms which includes other terms of the same meaning derived from the [Mngon] literature
Tib. = Tibetan
v.i. = intransitive verb
v.t. = transitive verb
[Zhang Zhung] = terminology from ཞང་ཞུང་ Shang Shung
@@@
[ADR] = Adeu Rinpoche, various writings, letters, translated by Tony Duff.
[AKR] = Andreas Kretschmar, principal translator to Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, private communication.
[BCA] = བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའི་སྤྱོད་པ་ལ་འཇུག་པ་ Bodhicaryāvatāra by Śhāntideva
[BKN] = བླ་མའི་ཐུགས་སྒྲུབ་བར་ཆད་ཀུན་སེལ་གྱི་སྔོན་འགྲོའི་ཁྲིད་ཡིག་བླ་མེད་བྱང་ཆུབ་སྒྲུབ་པའི་སྒོ་ཆེན་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་བཞུགས་སོ། Accomplishing the Mind of the Guru, Dispeller of All Obstacles’ Written Instructions on the Preliminaries called «The Great Doorway to the Accomplishment of Unsurpassed Enlightenment». From the མཆོག་གླིང་གཏེར་གསར་ Chogling Tersar. The edition used is the new electronic edition published by Chogling Rinpoche using Tony Duff’s TibetD Reader system called the མཆོག་གླིང་ཟབ་གཏེར་ Chogling Zabter.
[BKM] = Any of the texts in the མི་གཡོ་བ་ section of the བླ་མའི་ཐུགས་སྒྲུབ་བར་ཆད་ཀུན་སེལ་ Accomplishing the Mind of the Guru, Dispeller of All Obstacles cycle of the མཆོག་གླིང་གཏེར་གསར་ Chogling Tersar. The edition used is the new electronic edition published by Chogling Rinpoche using Tony Duff’s TibetD Reader system called the མཆོག་གླིང་ཟབ་གཏེར་ Chogling Zabter.
[BYT] = བོད་ཡིག་གི་གནས་དང་བྱེད་རྩོལ་ངོས་འཛིན་ཚུལ་གསར་བུའི་གཏམ་གྱི་མྱུ་གུ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་བཞུགས་སོ། by དབྱངས་ཅན་གྲུབ་པའི་རྡོ་རྗེ་ Yangchen Druppa’i Dorje.
[CHR] = Personal communication from Dr. Charles Ramble at Oxford University who spent many years living in the East.
[CSG] = དྲིན་ཆེན་ཆོས་རྗེའི་སྐྱེས་རབས་རྣམ་ཐར་གསལ་བྱེད་ཤེལ་གྱི་མེ་ལོང་བཞུགས། «The Glass Mirror that Shows Clearly the Life Examples of the Successive Births of the Kind Dharma Lord». A text detailing the histories of the various incarnations of Chagdud Tulku provided by Olover Boldizar.
[CTNJ] = Chos ’gyur gling pa’i gter gsar; zhal gdams snying byang cycle, concerning the bkra shis gter gyi bum pa bzang po, composed by Adeu Rinpoche, translated by Tony Duff.
[DBT] = དེབ་ཐེར་ཀུན་གསལ་མེ་ལོང་། «The Historical Annals, A Mirror that Reveals All», a modern publication (1987) in book form from the Tibetan People’s Publishing House, ISBN 7-223-00005-8 / K 1
[DCM] = བརྡ་དཀྲོལ་གསེར་གྱི་མེ་ལོང་ཞེས་བྱ་བ། «The Decoding Golden Mirror». A modern Tibetan-Tibetan Dictionary with clear definitions of older terms.
[DCW] = རྣམ་ཤེས་ཡེ་ཤེས་འབྱེད་པའི་བསྟན་བཅོས། «The Treatise that Distinguishes Consciousness and Wisdom» by the third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje.
[DDT] = རྣལ་འབྱོར་བཞིའི་བཤད་པ་དོན་དམ་མཛུབ་ཚུགས་སུ་བསྟན་པ་བཞུགས་སོ། «An Explanation of The Four Yogas Points Out the Superfactual», by Kunkhyen Padma Karpo, translated by Tony Duff.
[DGT] = མདོ་རྒྱུད་བསྟན་བཅོས་དུ་མ་ནས་འབྱུང་བའི་ཆོས་ཀྱི་རྣམ་གྲངས་ཤེས་ལྡན་ཡིད་ཀྱི་དགའ་སྟོན་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་བཞུགས་སོ། Konchog Jigmey Wangpo’s «A festival for Intelligent Minds: An Enumeration of Dharmas Taken From Many Sūtras, Tantras, and Śhāstras», translated by Tony Duff.
[DHT] = གནས་ལུགས་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་མཛོད་ «The Precious Treasury of Actuality» by Longchenpa.
[DKS] = དུས་གསུམ་མཁྱེན་པའི་གསུང་འབུམ་ The Collected Works of Dusum Khyenpa
[DJA] = Personal communication from Prof. David Jackson, art historian
[DSM] = བརྡ་དཀྲོལ་གསེར་གྱི་མེ་ལོང་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་བཞུགས་སོ། «The Golden Mirror that Decodes Signs» by Tsanlha ngawang Tshulthrim. Published by Peoples’ Publishing House, 1996, ISBN 7-105-02233-7
[EBD] = «Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary» by F. Edgerton, published by Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, India, 1998 reprint. ISBN: 81-208-0997-1
[EGS] = E. Gene Smith, private communication.
[EHS] = Eric Schmidt.
[FLK] = བཤེས་སྤྲིངས་ཡིག། Nāgārjuna’s suhhṛlleka «Friendly Letter to a King».
[FPR] = ཉམས་རྟོགས་ནོར་བུའི་འབྱུང་གནས་ལྔ་ལྡན་ཁྲིད་ཡིག་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ལྟ་བུ་བཞུགས་སོ། «The Source of the Jewels of Experience and Realization, The Ocean-Like Instructions on the Five Parts» by Drigung Jigten Sumgon, a text on the Five Part Mahāmudrā Instructions of Phagmo Drupa as passed on to Jigten Sumgon. The text is found in the Damngag Dzod.
[GCD] = བརྡ་དག་མིང་ཚིག་གསལ་བ་ A comprehensive dictionary of the Tibetan language by Sog po dge shes chos grags. Obtained from the 1949 Lhasa hor khang gzim zhag blocks.
[GCL] = རི་ཆོས་བསླབ་བྱ་ཉམས་ལེན་དམར་ཁྲིད་གོ་བདེར་བརྗོད་པ་གྲུབ་པའི་བཅུད་ལེན་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་བཞུགས་སོ། «The Alchemy of Accomplishment», The Instructions of Mountain dharma; Innermost Guidance on The Practice Expressed in Easy to Understand Way». By Terton Dudjom Lingpa, from his Collected Works, translated by Tony Duff.
[GCH] = The དགོངས་གཅིག་ of Jigten Sumgon per the major commentary on it དགོངས་གཅིག་འགྲེལ་བ་ཉི་མའི་སྣང་བ་ by Rigdzin Chokyi Dragpa.
[GMD] = གངས་ཅན་མཁས་གྲུབ་རིམ་བྱོན་མིང་མཛོད། A Dictionary Of Accomplished And / Or Learned Beings Who Appeared In The Snowy Land published in 1992 by the People’s Publishing House of Sitron.
[GMM] = རྗེ་བཙུན་ཏིལླི་པས་ནཱ་རོ་པ་ལ་གདམས་པའི་ཕྱག་ཆེན་གངྒ་མ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་བཞུགས་སོ།། Tillipa’s instructions to Naropa on the banks of the Ganges called «Ganges Mahāmudrā», from the Collected Works of All-Knowing Padma Karpo.
[GSB] = From one of the texts included in དྭགས་པོ་པའི་གསུམ་འབུམ་ The Collected Works of Gampopa.
[HNL] = «The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism», Dudjom Rinpoche, translated by Gyurmey Dorje and Matthew Kapstein.
[JKK] = Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo Kabum
[JKE] = ཆོས་ཀྱི་རྣམ་གྲངས་ An Enumeration of Dharmas; an enumeration of dharmas text by Jamgon Kongtrul the first.
[JWL] = སུམ་ཅུ་པའི་སྙིང་པོའི་དོན་གསལ་བྱེད་ལེགས་བཤད་ལྗོན་པའི་དབང་པོ་ «The Fine Explanation Great Living Tree», The Clarifier of the Meaning of The Essence of «The Thirty» by དབྱངས་ཅན་གྲུབ་པའི་རྡོ་རྗེ་ Yangchen Druppa’i Dorje.
[JWP] = ཐོན་མིའི་ལེགས་བཤད་སུམ་ཅུ་པའི་སྙིང་པོ་ལྗོན་པའི་དབང་པོ་ «The Great Living Tree», The Essence of Thonmi’s Fine Explanation, The Thirty» by དབྱངས་ཅན་གྲུབ་པའི་རྡོ་རྗེ་ Yangchen Druppa’i Dorje.
[KBC] = བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའི་སྤྱོད་པ་ལ་འཇུག་པའི་ཚིག་འགྲེལ་འཇམ་དབྱངས་བླ་མའི་ཞལ་ལུང་བདུད་རྩིའི་ཐིག་པ་ «A word by word commentary on the Bodhisatvacaryāvatāra called Drops of Nectar According to the Personal Statements of the Mañjughoṣha-like Teacher». A famous commentary on the Bodhisatvacaryāvatāra by Khenpo Kunphel (1872-1943). Published in Western book form by the Mi Khron Mi Rigs publishing house, 1990, ISBN 7-5409-0405-4/B, 14.
[KCD] = Extracts of the original terma of the དཀོན་མཆོག་སྤྱི་འདུས་ «Summation of the Jewels» treasure revealed by Rigdzin Jatson Nyingpo as seen in various Nyingma liturgies.
[KCG] = Oral teachings from Khenpo Choga. A khenpo with complete training at the famous Dzogchen Shri Singha Insitute of Dzogchen monastery. He escaped from Tibet and lives outside it. He supports the Nyingma perspective.
[KHG] = ཀློང་ཆེན་སྙིང་གི་ཐིག་ལེ་ལས༔ གཅོད་ཡུལ་མཁའ་འགྲོའི་གད་རྒྱངས་བཞུགས༔ «From Longchen Nyingthig: Chod Practice, Sound of the Ḍākiṇīs». Jigmey Lingpa’s practice of Chod in the root volumes of Longchen Nyingthig. Translated by Tony Duff.
[KHN] = Any one of a number of learned Tibetans (khenpo or similar rank) who were regularly consulted to obtain definitive statements about terms.
[KJG] = མཁས་པའི་ཚུལ་ལ་འཇུག་པའི་སྒོ་ཞེས་བྱ་བའི་བསྟན་བཅོས་བཞུགས་སོ།། «Treatise called «The Doorway to Expertise» by Ju Mipham (from his collected works).
[KLC] = བཅོམ་ལྡན་འདས་དུས་ཀྱི་འཁོར་ལོ་ལྷན་སྐྱེས་ཀྱི་རྒྱུན་ཁྱེར་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་ by Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye (from his Collected Works). «The Daily Practice of The Co-Emergent Bhagavat Kālachakra». Translated by Tony Duff, 2002.
[KLZ] = ཀར་གླིང་ཞི་ཁྲོ་ Karling Zhi Thro bardo cycle of texts.
[KPC] = ཆོས་ཀྱི་རྣམ་གྲངས་ཀྱི་བརྗེད་བྱང་། «An Enumeration of Dharmas Memorization List». An enumeration of dharmas by the early and great Tibetan translator Kawa Paltsheg, written in the 9th century C.E., and preserved in the Tibetan Tangyur (Derge Edition used).
[KSM] = རྟགས་འཇུག་དཀའ་གནད་གསལ་བའི་མེ་ལོང་གི་འགྲེལ་པ་རིག་ལམ་གསེར་གྱི་ལྡེ་མིག་ཅེས་བྱ་བ་བཞུགས་སོ།། The Commentary to «The Mirror that Illuminates the Difficult Points of Application of Signs» by དབྱངས་ཅན་གྲུབ་པའི་རྡོ་རྗེ་ Yangchen Druppa’i Dorje.
[KTG] = Khenpo Tsultrim Gyatso. Personal communication or communication via his translator Ari Goldfield.
[KTT] = Kunzang Thugtig cycle of texts, from Chos ’gyur gling pa’i gter sa, translated by Tony Duff.
[KYL] = བོད་ཡིག་གི་གནས་དང་བྱེད་རྩོལ་ངོས་འཛིན་ཚུལ་གསར་བུའི་གཏམ་གྱི་མྱུ་གུ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་བཞུགས་སོ། A New Bud of the Story Of How The Production Places, Producers, And Efforts of Tibetan Letters Are Identified by དབྱངས་ཅན་གྲུབ་པའི་རྡོ་རྗེ་ Yangchen Druppa’i Dorje. From a compilation of grammar texts published by the Sakya Student’s Union, Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, Sarnath-221007 Vārāṇasi, U.P., India.
[KZZ] = ཀུན་བཟང་བླ་མའི་ཞལ་ལུང་ «The Words of My Perfect Guru»; Nyingma ngondro text by Patrul Rinpoche.
[LCJ] = ཀློང་ཆེན་པའི་ཆོས་བྱུང་ «Longchenpa’s History of the Arising of Dharma».
[LDD] = བློ་སྦྱོང་དོན་བདུན་མ་ «The Seven Topics of Mind Training» by Jowo Je Atīśha.
[LGK] = ལི་ཤིའི་གུར་ཁང་ Lishi’i gur khang, «House of Cloves», From a modern Chinese Publication in Lhasa; Accession Number 043141, Santarakshita Library, Tibetan Institute for Higher Studies, Sarnath, India, translated by Tony Duff.
[LKL] = courtesy of Sakya Loppon Karma Lodro
[LMC] = བྱང་ཆུབ་ལམ་རིམ་ཆེན་མོ་ «The Great Stages of the Path to Enlightenment» by Lord Tsongkhapa, translated by Tony Duff.
[LMK] = ལུས་མེད་མཁའ་འགྲོའི་ཆོས་སྡེའི་རྣམ་པར་བཤད་པ་ཆོས་ཀྱི་ཉིང་ཁུ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་བཞུགས་སོ།། «A Complete Explanation Of The Dharma Section Of The Bodiless Ḍākiṇī» by Padma Karpo, translated by Tony Duff.
[LNN] = རྫོགས་པ་ཆེན་པོ་ཀློང་ཆེན་སྙིང་ཐིག་གི་སྔོན་འགྲོའི་ངག་འདོན་ཁྲིགས་སུ་བསྡེབས་པ་རྣམ་མཁྱེན་ལམ་བཟང་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་བཞུགས་སོ།། «Liturgical arrangement made for the Preliminary Practices of the Longchen Nyingthig Great Completion», an arrangement made by Jigmey Thrinley Ozer from the teachings of Jigmey Lingpa. Translated by Tony Duff.
[LOM] = སེང་གེའི་གདོང་ཅན་མའི་སྒྲུབ་ཐབས་ཉུང་འདུས་བདུད་ལས་རྒྱལ་བའི་བཞད་སྒྲ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་བཞུགས་། A Brief sadhana of Siṃhamukha, «The Sounds of Laughter Victorious Over Māra». A text from the tradition of the Golden Dharmas of Glorious Sakya.
[MDR] = སྨན་སྡོང་མཚམས་པ་རིན་པོ་ཆེའི་གསུང་འབུམ་པོད་གཉིས་པ། Mandong Rinpoche’s writings from his Collected works, Vol II. Translated by Tony Duff.
[MGR] = Mingyur Rinpoche (Terton Mingyur Dorje’s 8th incarnation), oral teachings translated by Tony Duff.
[MMA] = Madhyamakavatara by Chandrakīrti.
[MMM] = སྙིང་པོ་དོན་གྱི་མན་ངག་སེམས་ཀྱི་མེ་ལོང་བཞུགས་སོ། «Mirror on Mind, Foremost Instructions on the Heart Meaning» by All-knowing Padma Karpo and translated by Tony Duff.
[MMZ] = ཕྱག་ཆེན་གྱི་ཟིན་བྲིས། «Notes on Mahāmudrā» by All-knowing Padma Karpo and translated by Tony Duff.
[MVP] = «Sanskrit-Tibetan-English Vocabulary». The name of a publication of the Mahāvyutpatti by Alexander Csoma Koros. Reprinted from the first edition and published by Gaurav Publishing House, 1991, New Delhi.
[MWS] = «Myriad Worlds, Buddhist Cosmology in Abhidharma, Kālacakra, and Dzog-chen» by Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye, translated and edited by the International Translation Committee of Kunkhyab Choling founded by the V.V. Kalu Rinpoche. Published by Snow Lion Publication, Ithaca, New York, USA ISBN 1-55939-033-6.
[NDS] = Dharmasaṃgrahaḥ. «The Excellent Collection of Doctrine». A large collection of dharma terms written by Āchārya Nāgārjuna. Book with original Sanskrit, Tibetan and English published by Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, Sarnath, Vārāṇasi, India, 1993.
[NOC] = བརྡ་གསར་རྙིང་གི་རྣམ་གཞག་བློ་གསལ་ཡིད་འཕྲོག། «Presentation of Old and New Terms Clarifying the Intellect and Ravishing the Mind».
[NSN] = ཡུལ་གངས་ཅན་གྱི་བརྡ་སྤྲོད་པའི་བསྟན་བཅོས་སུམ་ཅུ་པ་དང་རྟགས་ཀྱི་འཇུག་པའི་ཚིག་དོན་གྱི་ཆ་ལེགས་པར་རྣམ་པར་བཤད་པའི་སྙིང་པོ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་བཞུགས་སོ།།, «The Elegant Essence of A Thorough Explanation, The Literal Meaning of the Śhāstras of the Snowy Land’s Grammar, The Thirty and Guide to Gender Signs by mkhan po nges don ’jam dbyangs. Tibetan pecha obtained from Traleg Rinpoche. Translated by Tony Duff.
[NTC] = Nālandā Translation Committee Glossary in TibetD electronic format prepared by PKTC.
[OBZ] = Oliver Boldizar, translator from Chagdud Gonpa, private communication.
[OEE] = «An Ocean of Elegant Explanation». The overview text for the three resting up trilogies by Longchen Rabjam, found in the first volume of the trilogy.
[OTT] = སྒྲོལ་མའི་རྒྱུད་ཀྱི་བྱུང་ཁུངས་གསལ་བར་བྱེད་པའི་ལོ་རྒྱུས་གསེར་གྱི་ཕྲེང་བ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ། «A Garland of Gold», The History of the Origins of the Tārā Tantra» by Jonang Tārānatha. A popular text from Tārānatha’s collected works.
[PAM] = ཕྱག་ཆེན་སྨོན་ལམ་ Prayer of Aspiration to Mahāmudrā by the third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje.
[Pek] = Refers to a reprint of the Peking Kangyur and Tangyur as prepared in 1737 under the Qianlong Emperor. A modern photographic reprint of the original edition with a catalogue was made between 1955 and 1961 and published as The Tibetan Tripiṭaka, Peking Edition. Reprinted under the supervision of the Otani University, Kyoto. Edited by Daisetz Suzuki. Tokyo Kyoto, Tibetan Tripiṭaka Research Institute. The contents are: bka' 'gyur, Peking. Vols. 1-45: Vols. 1-11 rgyud; Vols. 12-21 sher phyin; Vols. 22-24 dkon brtsegs; Vols. 25-26 phal chen; Vols. 27-40 mdo sna tshogs; and Vols. 41-45 'dul ba. Both sūtras and tantras are considered to be the direct words of the Buddha [sangs rgyas kyi bka']. bstan 'gyur, Peking. Vols. 46-150: Vol. 46 bstod tshogs; Vols. 46-87 rgyud 'grel; Vols. 88-150 mdo 'grel. Vol. 151 dkar chag. Vol. 152-165 Extra (btsong kha pa / lcang skya). Vol. 165-168 Catalogue.
[PHY] = ཕྱག་ཆེན་སྔོན་འགྲོའི་བསྒོམ་རིམ་གསལ་འདེབས་ངག་འདོན་རྒྱས་སྤེལ་དངོས་གཞིའི་རྩ་ཐོ་དང་བཅས་པ་ཟབ་དོན་རྒྱ་མཚོའི་ལམ་ཚང་བཞུགས་སོ།ཕྱག་ཆེན་སྔོན་འགྲོའི་བསྒོམ་རིམ་གསལ་འདེབས་ངག་འདོན་རྒྱས་སྤེལ་དངོས་གཞིའི་རྩ་ཐོ་དང་བཅས་པ་ཟབ་དོན་རྒྱ་མཚོའི་ལམ་ཚང་བཞུགས་སོ། by Khamtrul Kunga Tenzin, translated by Tony Duff.
[PKN] = ཕྱག་རྒྱ་ཆེན་པོ་ལྔ་ལྡན་གྱི་ཁྲིད་དམིགས་ཡིད་ཀྱི་སྙེ་མ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ། by Kunkhyen Padma Karpo. From his sungbum of collected works.
[PCT] = ཨོ་རྒྱན་པདྨས་མཛད་པའི་བཀའ་ཐང་བསྡུས་པ། «The Condensed Chronicle By Padma»; an condensed autobiography with predictions of the future by Padmasambhava. Revealed as a treasure by Orgyan Lingpa.
[POD] = Practice of Dzogchen, by Tulku Thondup.
[PSN] = དཔལ་གསང་བའི་སྙིང་པོའི་རྒྱུད་ཀྱི་སྤྱི་དོན་ཉུང་ངུའི་ངག་གིས་རྣམ་པར་འབྱེད་པ་རིན་ཆེན་མཛོད་ཀྱི་ལྡེ་མིག་ oral instructions from Khenpo Padma Tsewang.
[PTA] = གནས་ལུགས་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་མཛོད་ «The Precious Treasury of Actuality» by Longchenpa.
[RNG] = རི་ཆོས་ངེས་དོན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་མཐར་ཐུག་ཐུན་མོང་མ་ཡིན་པའི་མན་ངག་ «Ultimate Uncommon Upadeśha «The Mountain Dharma Which is an Ocean of Definitive Meaning» by ཀུན་མཁྱེན་དོལ་པོ་པ་ཤེས་རབ་རྒྱལ་མཚན་ All-knowing Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen. (See རི་ཆོས་ངེས་དོན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་).
[RHW] = «Random House Webster’s Electronic Dictionary and Thesaurus», College Edition, Version 1.5, Published by WordPerfect Corporation, 1994.
[RTZ] = རིན་ཆེན་གཏེར་མཛོད་ Rinchen gter dzod by Jamgon Kongtrul
[RYD] = «Rangjung Yeshe Dictionary» formerly known as the «Concise Dharma Dictionary» from Eric Schmidt at Rangjung Yeshe Publications.
[SCD] = Sarat Chandra Das’s Tibetan-English Dictionary. The new electronic edition produced by Padma Karpo Translation Committee.
[SGC] = ཡུལ་གངས་ཅན་པའི་བརྡ་ཡང་དག་པར་སྦྱོར་བའི་བསྟན་བཅོས་ཀྱི་བྱེ་བྲག་སུམ་ཅུ་པ་དང་རྟགས་ཀྱི་འཇུག་པའི་གཞུང་གི་རྣམ་པར་བཤད་པ་མཁས་པའི་མགུལ་རྒྱན་མུ་ཏིག་ཕྲེང་མཛེས་ཤེས་བྱ་བ་བཞུགས་སོ། «A Beautiful String of Pearls to Adorn the Necks of the Wise, A Thorough Explanation of the Specific Texts The Thirty and Guide to Gender Signs of the Śhāstras that Authentically Set Forth the Signs of the Snowy Land». Usually referred to just as སི་ཏུའི་འགྲེལ་ཆེན་ si tu'i 'grel chen, Situ’s Great Commentary. The eighth Situ Rinpoche’s great commentary on grammar.
[SNT] = ཕྱག་ཆེན་ལྔ་ལྡན་གྱི་ཁྲིད་ཡིག་ཀུན་མཁྱེན་ཆོས་ཀྱི་འབྱུང་གནས་ཀྱིས་མཛད་པ་བཞུགས། «A Written Instruction on Five-Part Mahāmudrā by All-Knowing Chokyi Jungney». By the eighth Situ Rinpoche. Translated by Tony Duff.
[SKD] = ཐེག་པའི་སྒོ་ཀུན་ལས་བཏུས་པ་གསུང་རབ་རིན་པོ་ཆེའི་མཛོད་བསླབ་པ་གསུམ་ལེགས་པར་སྟོན་པའི་བསྟན་བཅོས་ཤེས་བྱ་ཀུན་ཁྱབ་ཅེས་བྱ་བ་བཞུགས་སོ།། «The Treasury which is an Encyclopaedia of Knowledge» by Jamgon Kongtrul the Great. All references given per the electronic edition produced by the Padma Karpo Translation Committee.
[SZL] = ཡུལ་གངས་ཅན་གྱི་སྐད་ཀྱིས་བརྡ་སྤྲོད་པའི་བསྟན་བཅོས་སུམ་ཅུ་པ་དང་རྟགས་ཀྱི་འཇུག་པའི་རྣམ་བཤད་མཁས་མཆོག་སི་ཏུའི་ཞལ་ལུང་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་བཞུགས་སོ།། «The Supremely Learned Situ’s Words, A Thorough Explanation of the Grammar Śhāstras of the Language of the Snowy Land, The Thirty and Application of Gender Signs by Ngulchu Dharmabhadra, from the Collected Works of the author published as part of the US Library of Congress PL40.
[TC] = བོད་རྒྱ་ཚིག་མཛོད་ཆེན་མོ་ The Great Tibetan-Chinese Dictionary, translations by Tony Duff.
[THV] = ལུང་སྟོན་པ་རྩ་བ་སུམ་ཅུ་པ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ། «The Root of Grammar, The Thirty», the root text of grammar by Thumi Saṃbhoṭa, translated by Tony Duff
[TMT] = Tibetan English Dictionary of Modern Tibetan by Melvyn Goldstein, Bibliotheca Himalayica series II, volume 7. Published by Ratna Pustak Bhandar, Kathmandu, Nepal 1983.
[TNR] = Oral instructions of Bengchen Tenga Rinpoche.
[TOE] = The Other Emptiness, unpublished book on Zhantong by Tony Duff.
[TRD] = Tibetan-English Dictionary by Tsepag Rigdzin
[TSD] = ༄༅། །གསང་བ་བླ་ན་མེད་པ་འོད་གསལ་རྡོ་རྗེ་སྙིང་པོའི་གནས་གསུམ་གསལ་བར་བྱེད་པའི་ཚིག་དོན་རིན་པོ་ཆེའི་མཛོད་ཅེས་བྱ་བ་བཞུགས།། «The Precious Treasury of the Words and Meanings which Clarifies the Three topics of the Secret, the Unsurpassed Luminosity Vajra Core». Usually called ཚིག་དོན་མཛོད་. One of the Seven Treasuries of Longchenpa, translations by Tony Duff.
[FEG] = མཁས་པ་ཤྲཱི་རྒྱལ་པོའི་ཁྱད་ཆོས་ «Feature of the Expert Glorious King» by Patrul Rinpoche, translated by Tony Duff. Also known as ཚིགས་གསུམ་གནད་དུ་བརྡེག་པ་ «Three Phrases that Hit the Key Points».
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This is a list of Tibetan numbers from one to one thousand in both numeric and written forms. Note that the spelling of the written forms given in the list is correct; just as English has unusual spellings throughout the number series, so does Tibetan, and the following is a correct representation of all of the numbers and connectors used to make them in the whole series up to one thousand.
The written forms in the list below represent the original written forms as they were standardized at the time of King Ralpachen (9th century C.E.) when the སྐད་གསར་བཅད་ second language revisions were made by royal decree. Subsequently, in the 11th century C.E., during the third language revision, the great translator རིན་ཆེན་བཟང་པོ་ Rinchen Zangpo tried to revise this system in order to remove the oddities in it. However, the new system that he proposed did not stick and the earlier one remained in force.
There are three inconsistencies in the old system and the new system rectified them all. Even though most writers have used and continue to use the older system, the spellings of the newer system are seen, so one has to understand both systems.
The three inconsistencies and the rectifications of them are as follows.
1) In the old system, the spelling of the tens and hundreds numerals does not always match the spelling of the base numerals. For example, the numeral 3 when used as the number three is spelled གསུམ་ but when used as the 3 in thirty and three hundred is spelled as སུམ་. This was rectified by Rinchen Zangpo who declared that all numerals would henceforth be spelled using the base numeral’s spelling. Thus in the new system, the numeral three is always spelled གསུམ་ regardless of whether it refers to three, thirty, or three hundred.
2) In the old system, the spelling of the word for ten in the numbers from twenty to ninety-nine is not always the same as the spelling of the word for ten. The spelling of ten is བཅུ་. In twenty, it changes to ཤུ་, in thirty it changes to ཅུ་, in forty it reverts to བཅུ་, and so on; the variations can be seen in the list below. In the new system, the change to ཤུ་ for twenty is kept because of the need for ease of pronunciation, however after that, from thirty to ninety-nine, it is always spelled like the base བཅུ་.
3) When writing numbers from twenty to nine-nine, a ཚིག་ཕྲད་ connector is always put between the tens and units to distinguish them. In the old system, this connector changes according to the tens value. For example, for the twenties it is རྩ་ for the thirties, སོ་, and so on; the details are in the list below. However, in Rinchen Zangpo’s system, these were made the same; they were all set to the རྩ་ used at the beginning of the range. Thus, in the old system twenty-three would be ཉི་ཤུ་རྩ་གསུམ་ and thirty-three would be སུམ་ཅུ་སོ་གསུམ་ whereas in the new system they would be གཉིས་ཤུ་རྩ་གསུམ་ and གསུམ་བཅུ་རྩ་གསུམ་ respectively.
The numbers below are listed from left to right as:
1) Arabic numeric form
2) Tibetan numeric form
3) Tibetan full written form
4) Standard Tibetan abbrev. form for use in numbering the pages of pecha (དཔེ་ཆ་). Note the presence of a space after the numbers indicating one, two (and so on) hundred, which is the standard method of abbreviating hundreds in pecha numbering. Furthermore, when making pecha, two variations on the number format are permissible:
1) A tsheg is or is not placed at the end of the number. Placing a tsheg there follows the general rule of Tibetan lettering that a letter or word should always be followed by a tsheg however, some scribes prefer the aesthetic of not placing a tsheg at the end of the number. We prefer the first method because it follows the general rules of Tibetan text formatting.
2) The sign ཐམ་པ་ is normally written at the end of numbers which are tens and multiples of ten. It is also correct always to put it after the even hundred numbers. Some writers will leave it off one or both circumstances. The following text has the connector included after all tens and hundreds. We prefer this method since it is the most elegant.
ཀ་ [ka] I. The first of the གསལ་བྱེད་སུམ་ཅུ་ thirty consonants of the Tibetan language. 1) The enunciation of the consonant is defined as having: སྐྱེ་གནས་ place of production = the throat; བྱེད་པ་ producer = the throat; ནང་གི་རྩོལ་བ་ inner effort = inner connection of the throat; and ཕྱིའི་རྩོལ་བ་ outer effort = unaspirated and un-sounded. 2) i) When used as a མིང་གཞི་ name-base, the consonant is defined as a ཕོ་ཡིག་ «male letter» q.v. ii) Due to that definition, when a མིང་མཐའ་ name-ending (i.e., a single-letter ending which is added to another word and becomes part of it) is required, of the three possible choices ཀ་, ཁ་, and ག་, the letter ཀ་ is the one that must be used where a male letter ending is required. A good example is the word གཉིས་; the ending letter is male so གཉིས་ཀ་ is correct not གཉིས་ཁ་ or གཉིས་ག་. However, the old form of the word གཉི་, since it has a female འ་ ending on it (it is invisible but there by the rules of grammar), gets a female name ending and becomes གཉི་ག་ not གཉིས་ཀ་ or གཉིས་ཁ་.
II. <ཚིག་ཕྲད་ phrase connector> Placed following other words to indicate i) the whole set that the word represents, everything associated with that word, e.g., འདི་དེ་གཉིས་ means «the two things, this and that» whereas འདི་དེ་གཉིས་ཀ་ means «the two things, this and that, taken together as a whole». In this usage it is used to form new noun-words, e.g., དཔྱིད་ཀ་ and སྟོང་ཀ་ are the words for spring and autumn respectively. They are formed by taking the word that describes a period of time («pleasant» and «going-empty» respectively) and then adding the connector ཀ་ to connote that period taken as a whole and hence, spring and autumn. ii) It also commonly used to create a new noun that indicates that very thing, the culmination of something, e.g., འགྲོངས་ཀ་ the culmination of the death process which is the actual moment of death itself. The word is created by adding connector ཀ་ to the verb for dying, འགྲོངས་.
III. 1) Meaning the first, the earliest, the primordial one. This usage is like the usage of the first letter of the alphabet in English, a, to indicate the first one, the first of a series, and the one at the beginning point. Just as the Greek letter alpha is placed for this usage in English, so it is suggested that, in some circumstances alpha will be a good way to translate this usage of ཀ་. For example, in རྫོགས་པ་ཆེན་པོ་ Great Completion the term ཀ་དག་ Alpha Purity is a crucial term. It means the purity (དག་) which was there first, before anything else, so it is alpha-purity. 2) Used as an indicator of sequence number, like the English system of A, B, C, for marking volumes of books etcetera in which case it is the «1st».
ཀ་ཀ་ [ka ka] 1) Corrupted form of ཀཱ་ཀ་ q.v. 2) The ཨ་ཅུག་ of a sheep q.v. 3) [Dialect] The clothing of a young child. 4) Slang term for སྐྱག་པ་ faeces.
ཀ་ཀ་ཎི་ལ་ [ka ka Ni la] Mis-spelling of ཀ་ཀ་ནཱི་ལ་ q.v.
ཀ་ཀ་ནའི་ལ་ [ka ka n'i la] The semi-precious stone «amethyst». Note that amethyst is chemically related to the gem stone ཨིནྡྲ་ནཱི་ལ་ «sapphire» q.v. and is therefore said in some Tibetan dictionaries (and Tibetan-English dictionaries literally translating the Tibetan ones) to be a darker form of sapphire. However, the meaning in that case is amethyst, not sapphire.
ཀ་ཀ་མུ་ཁ་ [ka ka mu kha] «Crow-faced». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kakamukha». The original Sanskrit means lit. «crow-faced» but has the meaning that the being concerned has the head of a crow. One of ཕྲ་མེན་བརྒྱད་ the eight Tramens.
ཀ་ཀོ་ལ་ [ka ko la] «Kakola». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kakola». The plant «cardamom» and its seeds. There are two major species of Cardamom, one with larger seed pods and one with smaller ones. This is specifically the species with larger seed pods.
In Tibetan medicine, it is [DGT] called one of སྨན་བཟང་པོ་དྲུག་ the six excellent medicines; the one excellent for the spleen. It is used medicinally to clear cold disease of the spleen.
It is also called ཟླ་བའི་བྱེ་མ་ and ཟླ་བའི་གཞོན་ནུ་མ་.
Note that the spelling is sometimes confused with ཀཱ་ཀོ་ལ་ q.v. and some dictionaries (e.g., [SCD] and [GCD]) then confuse this for the meanings of ཀཱ་ཀོ་ལ་ q.v.
ཀ་ཀཱ་ [ka kA] Translit. of the Sanskrit «kakā». An onomatopoeic name for the crow which is བྱ་རོག་ in Tibetan q.v.
ཀ་རྐ་ཏ་ [ka rka ta] Probable mis-spelling of ཀརྐ་ཊ་ q.v.
ཀ་སྐེ་ [ka ske] «Shaft of a pillar or column».
ཀ་སྐེད་ [ka sked] «Shaft of a pillar or column».
ཀ་བཀྱག་ [ka bkyag] «Pedestal / foot / base of a pillar». The pedestal or other basis at the bottom of a ཀ་བ་ pillar q.v.
ཀ་སྐྱོར་ [ka skyor] «Prop», «stanchion». Name for a post or beam that is pushed up against houses or similar structures or the ཀ་བ་ pillars that support them in order སྐྱོར་བ་ to prop them up. E.g., [TC] ཁང་གོག་ལ་ཀ་སྐྱོར་བརྒྱབ། «the fallen house was shored up with props».
ཀ་ཁ་ [ka kha] The first two consonants of the Tibetan lettering system and equivalent to saying in English «abc» which implies the whole alphabet.
ཀ་ཁ་པ་ [ka kha pa] A student studying the Tibetan ཀ་ཁ་ q.v. i.e., someone learning the Tibetan alphabet.
ཀ་ཁའི་རིམ་པ་ [ka kha'i rim pa] Lit. «ka kha order» meaning Tibetan consonant order which runs in sequence starting with ཀ་ ka then ཁ་ kha and on down to ཨ་ a. The term is roughly equivalent to saying «alphabetic order» or «abc...» in English except that the English alphabet includes the vowels in with the consonants whereas Tibetan ཀ་ཁ་ q.v. order is the order only of the consonants.
Note that there is an «alphabetic» order for the vowels. It is the sequence: consonant with no added vowel (i.e., the natural inbuilt ཨ་ a vowel) followed by ི , ུ , ེ , ོ (called གི་གུ་ gigu, ཞབས་ཀྱུ་ zhabkyu, འགྲེང་བུ་ drengbu, and ན་རོ་ naro). Where a sequence of items numbering more than the consonants needs to be made using the consonants as a numbering system, the vowels and then the vowels and consonants together are used to increase the numbering span up to 30 consonants times 5 vowels =150. There is no set way of doing this, e.g., is can be the plain consonants followed by the consonants plus gigu, and so on, or it can be each consonant with the vowels rotated on it, one by one, and there are other ways to do it, too. Additionally, the Sanskrit consonants and vowels can be included to increase the total of the sequence even further. This system is common e.g., in numbering volumes in a single collection of books.
ཀ་ཁོལ་མ་ [ka khol ma] «Ka to Khol Document». The name given to a document that was composed by སྲོང་བཙན་སྒམ་པོ་ King Songtsen Gampo and concealed under the ཀ་བ་ཤིང་ལོ་ཅན་ leaved pillar of the Jokhang. It was unearthed by ཇོ་བོ་རྗེ་ཨ་ཏི་ཤ་ Atīśha. The document contained a series of chapters from the final testament of the King—from the first ཀ་བ་ ka ba through to the one called ཁོལ་བཏོན་ khol bton hence the name.
ཀ་གིས་ [ka gis] Mis-spelling of ཀག་གིས་ q.v.
ཀ་འགོ་ [ka 'go] 1) «The top of a pillar or column». The top portion of a ཀ་བ་ pillar q.v. Note that this is not the same as the གཞུ་ bow of a pillar; it just refers to the top area of a pillar in general, not to the specific part called the bow. 2) «Shaft collar / ring». The name of the steel band placed at the projecting end of the main shaft of a water wheel e.g., as used in a grain mill. The band is a collar that locks the wheel in place.
ཀ་རྒྱན་ [ka rgyan] «Pillar decoration / ornamentation». The name given to the decoration or decorative designs worked onto the outer surface of a ཀ་བ་ pillar q.v.
ཀ་རྒྱུག་ [ka rgyug] «Tent-pole».
ཀ་སྒྲོགས་ [ka sgrogs] «Cawer». The bird, i.e., a crow, that makes cawing sounds.
ཀ་ཅ་ [ka ca] I. [Old] Acc. [LGK] this and དཀོར་ q.v. were revised during the སྐད་གསར་བཅད་ language revisions and were, when written in new signs, general names for ནོར་, with meaning below.
II. Acc. [DDT], ནོར་དངོས་པོ་སྤྱིའི་མིང་. Acc. [TC] ནོར་རྫས་སྤྱིའི་མིང་. A general name for «goods and possessions constituting one's material wealth». In Tibet, goods and possessions included one's provisions, hence «the physical things that one has of value».
ཀ་ཅི་ [ka ci] Translit. of the Sanskrit «kaci». The name of a fine and smooth, white cloth. Probably in reference to the fine cotton muslin that was well-known as an Indian product and was a major trading commodity in ancient times.
The name is most likely a corruption of the Indian name ཀ་ཤི་ Kaśhi q.v., which is the old name for Vārāṇasi, the home of the finest Indian textiles, including Benares cotton muslin.
ཀ་ཅོག་ཞང་གསུམ་ [ka cog zhang gsum] Mis-spelling of སྐ་ཅོག་ཞང་གསུམ་ q.v.
ཀ་ཆ་ [ka cha] Acc. [GCD] and [TC] same as ཀ་ཅ་ q.v.
ཀ་ཆུག་ [ka chug] [Old] for དེ་ལྟར་ meaning «like that / this / so», «in this way».
ཀ་ཆེན་བཅུ་ [ka chen bcu] «The ten great pillars». See བཤད་བརྒྱུད་འདེགས་པའི་ཀ་ཆེན་བཅུ་ «the ten great pillars who supported the exegetical tradition».
ཀ་ཆེན་བཞི་ [ka chen bzhi] «The four great pillars» an epithet for the four best disciples of མར་པ་ལོ་ཙཱ་བ་ Marpa the translator. They were: 1) རྔོག་ཆོས་སྐུ་རྡོ་རྗེ་ Ngog Choku Dorje; 2) མཚུར་སྟོན་དབང་གི་རྡོ་རྗེ་ Tsurton Wanggi Dorje; 3) མེས་སྟོན་ཚོན་པོ་ Meton Tsonpo; and 4) མི་ལ་རས་པ་ Milarepa q.v.
ཀ་གཉིས་པ་ [ka gnyis pa] «Two ka's». Acc. [GCD] another term for a བྱ་རོག་ raven. The name is derived from the fact that ravens (and crows) tend to caw twice at a time. For example, their more common names are ཀ་ཀ་ and ཀྭ་ཀྭ་ for that reason.
ཀ་ཊོ་ར་ [ka To ra] Translit. of the Sanskrit «kaṭora».
I. A general name for a metal vessel such as a basin or bowl. Acc. [GCD] it is ཟངས་སྣོད་གཞོང་པ་ i.e., a copper bowl / basin however this indicates the prevalence of copper as the material for bowls in the author's time; [TC] gives more correctly as ཟངས་རག་སོགས་ལས་བཟོས་པའི་གཞོང་པ། «a bowl / basin made of copper, brass, etc.»
II. [LGK] says that this, having the Tibetan equivalent སྣོད་ «container», by corruption becomes ཀ་ཏོ་ར་ q.v., which is then sometimes mistaken as an བརྡ་རྙིང་ old sign of the Tibetan language.
ཀ་ཏ་པུར་ [ka ta pur] Corrupted form of ཀཏྤཱུ་ར་ q.v.
ཀ་ཏ་པུར་འཛག་ [ka ta pur 'dzag] phrase> [Mngon] «Dripping camphor». [GCD] gives an epithet for the moon.
ཀ་ཏ་བུ་ར་ [ka ta bu ra] Corrupted form of ཀཏྤཱུ་ར་ q.v.
ཀ་ཏ་ཡ་ན་ [ka ta ya na] Mis-spelling of ཀ་ཏྱཱ་ཡ་ན་ q.v.
ཀ་ཏ་རུ་ [ka ta ru] Translit. of the Sanskrit «kataru». Translated into Tibetan with རེའུ་མིག་ q.v.
ཀ་ཏན་ [ka tan] «Cotton». Corrupted form of the English meaning cotton cloth, not cotton thread. [GCD] gives as རས་དཀར་པོ་ཞིག་ལའང་ meaning «another name for white (cotton) cloth».
ཀ་ཏའི་བུ་ནོག་ཅན་ [ka ta'i bu nog can] Mis-spelling of ཀ་ཏྱཱའི་བུ་ནོག་ཅན་ q.v.
ཀ་ཏའི་བུ་མོ་ [ka ta'i bu mo] Acc. [GCD] same as ཀ་ཏྱཱའི་བུ་མོ་ q.v.
ཀ་ཏི་ [ka ti] Translit. of the Sanskrit «kati», a term that was never translated into Tibetan. 1) The name of a རྩ་ channel that runs from the heart centre directly to the eyes. The channel is not mentioned anywhere except in རྫོགས་པ་ཆེན་པོ་ Great Completion literature, where it is of crucial importance in the མན་ངག་གི་སྡེ་ Upadeśha section teachings of ཐོད་རྒལ་ Direct Crossing. The channel is said to be smooth, pipe-like, and clear, like crystal. 2) The name of a bird.
ཀ་ཏི་ཤེལ་གྱི་སྦུ་གུ་ཅན་ [ka ti shel gyi sbu gu can] phrase> «Kati crystal tube». A རྫོགས་པ་ཆེན་པོ་ Great Completion term. The name of a special channel not mentioned in other tantras. See ཀ་ཏི་ kati.
ཀ་ཏི་ཤེལ་གྱི་རྩ་ [ka ti shel gyi rtsa] phrase> «Kati crystal channel», «Kati crystal nāḍī». See ཀ་ཏི་ kati.
ཀ་ཏི་གསེར་གྱི་རྩ་ [ka ti gser gyi rtsa] phrase> «Kati golden channel», «Kati golden nāḍī». See ཀ་ཏི་ kati.
ཀ་ཏི་གསེར་གྱི་རྩ་ཆེན་ [ka ti gser gyi rtsa chen] phrase> «The great golden channel of Kati», «the great golden nāḍī of Kati». See ཀ་ཏི་ kati.
ཀ་ཏུ་ [ka tu] Probable mis-spelling of ཀེ་ཏུ་ q.v.
ཀ་ཏོ་ར་ [ka to ra] Corrupted form of ཀ་ཊོ་ར་ q.v.
ཀ་ཏྱ་ཡ་ན་ [ka tya ya na] Mis-spelling of ཀ་ཏྱཱ་ཡ་ན་ q.v.
ཀ་ཏྱ་བུ་མོ་ [ka tya bu mo] Mis-spelling of ཀ་ཏྱཱའི་བུ་མོ་ q.v.
ཀ་ཏྱཱ་ཡ་ན་ [ka tyA ya na] Translit. of the Sanskrit «katyāyana» (some sources e.g., [MVP] give as kātyāyana). Indian name of a person which in Buddhist literature usually refers to one of two well-known people in Buddhist history: 1) Kahuda Katyāyana; see ཀ་ཏྱཱ་ཡ་ན་ནོག་ཅན་; 2) Mahā Katyāyana, see ཀ་ཏྱཱ་ཡ་ན་ཆེན་པོ་. Note that both people are also referred to with the name ཀ་ཏྱཱའི་བུ་ Katyāputra q.v.
ཀ་ཏྱཱ་ཡ་ན་ཆེན་པོ་ [ka tyA ya na chen po] «Great Katyāyana». Translit. + translation of the Sanskrit «mahā katyāyana». The name of an arhat who was in the retinue of the ten closest ཉན་ཐོས་ śhrāvaka disciples of the buddha. He was regarded as foremost in terms of knowing the Vinaya and was the first lineage holder of the teachings after the buddha passed away (the first of the སྟོན་པའི་གཏད་རབས་བདུན་ seven successors). There were a number of disciples and non-disciples at the time called Katyāyana so he was called «The Great Katyāyana» to distinguish him from the others. Also known as ཀ་ཏྱཱ་ཡ་ན་ Katyāyana, ཀ་ཏྱཱའི་བུ་ Katyāputra, and ཀ་ཏྱཱའི་བུ་ཆེན་པོ་ Mahā Katyāputra.
ཀ་ཏྱཱ་ཡ་ན་ནོག་ཅན་ [ka tyA ya na nog can] «The Hunch-backed Katyāyana» or «Katyāyana the Hunchback». Translation of the Sanskrit «kahuda katyāyana». Name of a Indian person of the Buddha's time who was one of the six heretic teachers (མུ་སྟེགས་པའི་སྟོན་པ་དྲུག་ q.v.) had their own religious systems and followers. He and the others all disagreed with the Buddha and taught their teachings in opposition to the Buddha's teaching. His particular tenet was that he did not assert anything at all. Also known as ཀ་ཏྱཱ་ཡ་ན་ Katyāyana and ཀ་ཏྱཱའི་བུ་ and Katyāputra.
ཀ་ཏྱཱའི་བུ་ [ka tyA'i bu] «Katyā's Son» or «Son of Katyā». Translation of the Sanskrit «katyāputra». An alternative name for two persons well-known in Buddhist history who were usually called ཀ་ཏྱཱ་ཡ་ན་ q.v.
ཀ་ཏྱཱའི་བུ་ཆེན་པོ་ [ka tyA'i bu chen po] «Great Son of Katyā». Translation of the Sanskrit «mahākatyāputra». An epithet of the ཀ་ཏྱཱའི་བུ་ Katyāyana who was one of the Buddha's main disciples, ཀ་ཏྱཱ་ཡ་ན་ཆེན་པོ་ q.v. He was the greatest of several people around at the time, all of whom were called «Son of Katyā».
ཀ་ཏྱཱའི་བུ་ནོག་ཅན་ [ka tyA'i bu nog can] «The Hunch-backed Son of Katyā». From the Sanskrit «kahudakatyāputra». An epithet of the Kahuda Katyāyana who was one of མུ་སྟེགས་པའི་སྟོན་པ་དྲུག་ the six founding teachers of the Tīrthika q.v.
ཀ་ཏྱཱའི་བུ་མོ་ [ka tyA'i bu mo] «Daughter of Katyā». From the Sanskrit «katyāputrī». Acc. [GCD] an epithet of the goddess ཨུ་མ་ Uma, i.e., Parvati, wife of the great Indian god Śhiva.
ཀ་རྟི་ཀ་ [ka rti ka] Corruption of ཀརྟི་ཀ་ q.v.
ཀ་སྟེགས་ [ka stegs] «Pedestal (of a pillar)», «pillar support». The supportive portion at the base of a ཀ་བ་ pillar q.v. [GCD] gives as ཀ་བ་འདེགས་བྱེད་གདན་ལྟ་བུ་ «the support for a pillar which sits underneath it».
ཀ་བསྟོད་ [ka bstod] «Alphabetical praise». A praise (e.g., to the buddhas) ཀ་རྩོམ་ composed in alphabetic style q.v.
ཀ་ཐམ་ [ka tham] «Ka tham». Acc. [GCD] སྣོད་སྤྱད་ཅིག་ i.e., the name of a particular type of utility vessel.
ཀ་ཐོ་ [ka tho] «Alphabetic listing». 1) Acc. [GCD] ཀ་ཁ་རིམ་བཞིན་བཀོད་པའི་ཐོ་ཡིག་ meaning any kind of listing made in alphabetical order. Note that an index is usually called a དཀར་ཆག་ and these might or might not be in alphabetical listing; the use of ཀ་ཐོ་ would imply alphabetic listing but not indexing. 2) Any kind of list where the consonants of the alphabet are used instead of numerals to number the entries of the list instead. It is very common in Tibetan literature to used letters instead numbers in this way.
ཀ་ཐོག་ [ka thog] See ཀ་ཐོག་དགོན་.
ཀ་ཐོག་དགོན་ [ka thog dgon] «Kathok Gonpa». A gonpa in the སི་ཁྲོན་ district of the Derge region of Kham [East Tibet]. Founded by the younger brother of Phagmo Drupa, Kadampa Desheg, in 1159. Also spelled ཀཿཐོག. By the end of the nineteenth century there were six principal Nyingma gonpas in Kham. Kathok Gonpa was the first of them and is regarded as the «mother» of the other five, all of the dharma lineages that were brought to Kathok having gone off to the other five as they developed later.
ཀ་དག་ [ka dag] Abbrev. of ཀ་ནས་དག་པ་ q.v.
I. Meaning «pure from the ground up, pure from the beginning».
II. «Alpha purity». A unique རྫོགས་པ་ཆེན་པོ་ Great Completion term meaning ཀ་ནས་དག་པ་ and referring to the purity that has been there in the essence of mind from the first, i.e., primordial purity. Here, the letter ཀ་ has the meaning གདོད་མ་ as is explained in the oral instructions of the system and also per the possible definition for ཀ་ given in the native Tibetan dictionary called དག་ཡིག་ལེགས་བཤད་ཚིག་གཏེར་.
The most common translations, «primordial purity» and «original purity» more accurately translate the commonly used terms ཡེ་དག་ and གདོད་མའི་དག་པ་ respectively. Another translator suggests «essential purity» which at least does not translate other Tibetan terms and does capture the meaning intended. However, there is a further, deeper problem with translating this term with words that belong to other terms, such as those just given. This term is one of the key terms of the ཁྲེགས་ཆོད་ Thorough Cut path of the མན་ངག་གི་སྡེ་ Upadeśha section of རྫོགས་པ་ཆེན་པོ་ Great Completion teachings. In Tibetan, when this term is seen in writing, one immediately knows it as distinct from these other terms and especially, knows that it is the unique terminology of the Great Completion teachings. Therefore, it is imperative that the term be translated in a way that makes it distinct. The Tibetan ཀ་དག་ literally translated is equivalent to saying «a-pure» in English. In English, when the sense of the first letter of the alphabet as «the first», «the beginning» is required, it is usual to use the Greek «alpha» which is the origin of the letter «a». Therefore, it not only makes sense to translate it as «alpha pure» but meaning-wise it is also perfectly correct to do so. The main argument that has been put up against this is that it sounds «odd» on the ears. But that is not a sufficient argument; amongst other things it shows a lack of understanding of both Tibetan and English languages and how they operate.
Now as for the term itself, in the Great Completion teachings, it is said that, by practising the Thorough Cut teachings correctly, the practitioner cuts through the solidity of confusion to the purity of mind that has been there from the very beginning i.e., to the alpha purity that exists in the mindstream. Because of this, the teaching as a whole is sometimes called ཀ་དག་ཁྲེགས་ཆོད་ «Alpha-Purity Thorough Cut».
The term is mainly a path term of Thorough Cut, being used to refer to the alpha-purity of mind that is reached during the practice of Thorough Cut. In these teachings it can be used to mean primarily the ངོ་བོ་སྟོང་པ་ empty essence of the essence of mind, though sometimes it refers to both ཀ་དག་ and ལྷུན་གྲུབ་.
Again, in this usage it is similar in meaning to ཡེ་དག་, དང་པོ་ནས་དག་པ་, and གདོད་ནས་དག་པ་ but is a particular technical term of the tradition that is unique and which needs to be distinguished from these more generic terms.
ཀ་དག་ཀློང་ [ka dag klong] Abbrev. of ཀ་དག་གི་ཀློང་ q.v.
ཀ་དག་ཁྲེགས་ཆོད་ [ka dag khregs chod] «Alpha-purity Thorough Cut». A longer name for the practice of ཁྲེགས་ཆོད་ Thorough Cut given because the practitioner ཁྲེགས་ཆོད་ decisively cuts through into ཀ་དག་ alpha purity q.v. See also ཀ་དག་རང་བྱུང་རང་ཤར་ «Alpha Purity, Self-arising/Self-Shining Forth».
ཀ་དག་གི་ཀློང་ [ka dag gi klong] phrase> «Alpha purity's space» meaning the experienced space of alpha purity.
ཀ་དག་གི་སྤྱི་གཞི་ [ka dag gi spyi gzhi] phrase> «Alpha purity's general ground». A རྫོགས་པ་ཆེན་པོ་ Great Completion term. In Great Completion texts that explain the nature of the ground, such as [TSD], it is stated that the ground itself can be the ཀ་དག་གི་འཁྲུལ་གཞི་ ground of confusion and also the ཀ་དག་གི་གྲོལ་གཞི་ ground of liberation from that confusion. [TSD] says, གཞི་སྣང་དུ་ཤར་དུས་གྲོལ་འཁྲུལ་གཉིས་ཀའི་གཞི་བྱེད་པའི་ཆ་ནས་སྤྱི་གཞི་ཟེར་ལ། «when the ground shines forth into appearance, from the factor of functioning as the ground of both liberation and confusion, it is called «the common ground»...». [TSD] makes the point that there are not three grounds but that one ground can be seen in various ways and hence has these various names.
ཀ་དག་གི་གཞི་ [ka dag gi gzhi] «Alpha purity, the ground». Ground term. The term གཞི་ ground here refers to ground of གཞི་ལམ་འབྲས་བུ་ ground, path, and fruition. According to the ཁྲེགས་ཆོད་ Thorough Cut system q.v., the ground of sentient beings is ཀ་དག་ alpha purity.
ཀ་དག་གི་ཡེ་གཞི་ [ka dag gi ye gzhi] «Alpha purity, the primordial ground». Same meaning as ཀ་དག་གི་གཞི་ q.v. but with the additional sense that alpha purity is the ཡེ་གནས་པའི་གཞི་ ground that has always existed in the mind-streams of sentient beings.
ཀ་དག་གི་རིག་པ་ [ka dag gi rig pa] «Alpha purity's rigpa». Path term. The རིག་པ་ rigpa that is experienced by a practitioner on the ཁྲེགས་ཆོད་ Thorough Cut path is the knowing aspect of ཀ་དག་གི་གཞི་ alpha purity which is the ground of the practitioner, according to that system. When this rigpa is finalized by practice, it becomes the fruition of this path, ཀ་དག་ཆོས་ཀྱི་སྐུ་ alpha purity's dharmakāya.
ཀ་དག་གི་ལམ་ [ka dag gi lam] «Alpha purity's path». The ལམ་ path followed by a practitioner on the ཁྲེགས་ཆོད་ Thorough Cut path is based on ཀ་དག་གི་ཡེ་གཞི་ alpha purity which is the primordial ground of the practitioner, according to that system.
ཀ་དག་ཆེན་པོ་ [ka dag chen po] phrase> «The great alpha purity». A རྫོགས་པ་ཆེན་པོ་ Great Completion term. See under གཞི་ཀ་དག་ཆེན་པོ་ for explanation.
ཀ་དག་ཆོས་ཀྱི་སྐུ་ [ka dag chos kyi sku] «Alpha purity's dharmakāya». Fruition term. The term refers to the ཆོས་ཀྱི་སྐུ་ dharmakāya that is the fruition specifically of a practitioner on the ཁྲེགས་ཆོད་ Thorough Cut path. This fruition is present to begin with as ཀ་དག་གི་གཞི་ the ground which is alpha purity and is developed by practising the path which is ཀ་དག་གི་རིག་པ་ the rigpa of alpha purity. In this system, rigpa is dharmakāya but not fully seen. When rigpa has all obscurations removed, it becomes the fruition, which in this path based on alpha purity, is called alpha purity's dharmakāya.
ཀ་དག་ཆོས་སྐུའི་རིག་པ་ [ka dag chos sku'i rig pa] «Rigpa of the alpha purity dharmakāya». Path term. The term ཀ་དག་ཆོས་ཀྱི་སྐུ་ alpha purity (style of) dharmakāya refers to the fruition specifically of a practitioner on the ཁྲེགས་ཆོད་ Thorough Cut path. The term རིག་པ་ rigpa refers to that fruition as it appears to the practitioner who knows it and works with it on the path. Practically speaking, the whole term conveys the sense of rigpa which is the practitioner's handle in the Thorough Cut path to the fruition, dharmakāya».
ཀ་དག་སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་ [ka dag stong pa nyid] «Alpha purity emptiness» meaning the སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་ emptiness that is connected with ཀ་དག་ alpha purity in particular. The ཁྲེགས་ཆོད་ Thorough Cut path uses the special terminology «alpha purity» to refer to the ground state of sentient beings; this is where emptiness is found, in this system, hence the name.
ཀ་དག་ཡེ་གཞི་ [ka dag ye gzhi] Abbrev. of ཀ་དག་གི་ཡེ་གཞི་ q.v.
ཀ་དག་རང་བྱུང་རང་ཤར་ [ka dag rang byung rang shar] «Alpha Purity, Self-arising/Self-Shining Forth». An epithet of རྫོགས་པ་ཆེན་པོ་ Great Completion which describes the reality in the words of that system, especially using the terminology of the ཁྲེགས་ཆོད་ Thorough Cut system. See རྫོགས་པ་ཆེན་པོ་ཀ་དག་རང་བྱུང་རང་ཤར་ for a full explanation.
ཀ་དག་ལྷུན་གྲུབ་ [ka dag lhun grub] «Alpha purity and spontaneous existence». A term used in རྫོགས་པ་ཆེན་པོ་ Great Completion to refer to the two main parts of the innermost system of practice by referring to the fundamental realities that each one accesses. The two parts of the innermost system of practice are ཁྲེགས་ཆོད་ Thorough Cut and ཐོད་རྒལ་ Direct Crossing. Terminology of the Thorough Cut is built around the ཀ་དག་ alpha purity that the practitioner cuts through to; terminology of the Direct Crossing is built around the ལྷུན་གྲུབ་ full, self-existing reality of spontaneous existence that a practitioner accesses.
ཀ་དམ་པ་ [ka dam pa] «Kadampa». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kadam». 1) The name of a tree that gives rise to a flower also of the same name. 2) The name of a type of water-bird called ཆུ་བྱ་མཐིང་རིལ་ or ཆུ་སྐྱར་ in Tibetan.
ཀ་དམ་པ་བདེ་གཤེགས་ [ka dam pa bde gshegs] «Kadampa Deshek» [1122-1192]. The founder of ཀ་ཐོག་དགོན་ Kathok Gonpa q.v.
ཀ་དམ་པའི་མེ་ཏོག་ [ka dam pa'i me tog] phrase> «Kadampa flower» see ཀ་དམ་པ་ Kadampa q.v.
ཀ་དར་ [ka dar] «White scarf». The name for a ཁ་བཏགས་ white scarf tied to a ཀ་བ་ pillar (or other vertical object, such as a tree). It was a practice in Tibet to tie a scarf to an upright like this as part of making an auspicious connection. It would be tied there after making a prayer in the place or as a sign of wishing that there be a good connection with the place in the future.
ཀ་གདན་ [ka gdan] Acc. [GCD] same as ཀ་སྟེགས་ q.v.
ཀ་གདུང་ [ka gdung] «Pillars and joists / beams». Abbrev. of ཀ་བ་ and གདུང་ q.v.
ཀ་བདར་ [ka bdar] The act of arranging or positioning each of several things into its own respective position within the group. E.g., ཐེག་དགུའི་ལྟ་བ་ཤན་འབྱེད་ཀ་བདར་བྱས། འབྲས་བུ་ཡོངས་རྫོགས་ཆེན་པོ་ཚོམ་བུར་བཀོད། «the views of the nine vehicles are separately distinguished and positioned then the full fruitions are set out individually».
ཀ་དྲུའི་བུ་ [ka dru'i bu] «Son of Kadru». Acc. [GCD] the name of a certain ཀླུ་ nāga.
ཀ་སྡེ་ [ka sde] «The ka group». 1) The name given to the first of the eight sections of the གསལ་བྱེད་ consonants of the Tibetan lettering set. The group consists of the letters: ཀ་ཁ་ག་ང་། ka, kha, ga, and nga. 2) From the Sanskrit «ka varga». The name of the first section of the five sections of contact consonants in the Sanskrit lettering set. It consists of letters: ཀ་ཁ་ག་གྷ་ང་། ka, kha, ga, gha, and nga.
ཀ་ཎ་ཡ་ [ka Na ya] «Kaṇaya». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kaṇaya». The name of a weapon. A spear with a ring forged at the throwing end and with rope attached to the ring. Thus the spear could be thrown and retrieved.
ཀ་ན་ཀ་ [ka na ka] «Gold». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kanaka». One of several Sanskrit words for «gold». Translated into Tibetan with 1) གསེར་ the general name for gold or 2) ས་ལེ་སྦྲམ་ the name for the best quality of gold.
ཀ་ན་ཀ་མུ་ནི་ [ka na ka mu ni] «Kanakamuni». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kanakamuni». Translated into Tibetan with གསེར་ཐུབ་ q.v.
ཀ་ནི་ཀ་ [ka ni ka] «Kanika». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kanika»; term was never translated into Tibetan. The name of a king of ancient India. Late in life he took refuge in the Buddha's teaching and erected many monasteries and stūpas. He became a student of སློབ་དཔོན་རྟ་དབྱངས་ Āchārya Aśhvaghoṣha q.v.
ཀ་ནས་དག་པ་ [ka nas dag pa] I. «Pure from the beginning» in the sense of pure from the ground up. E.g., [GCD] gives as རྩ་བ་ནས་དག་པ་ pure from its very root.
II. 1) General meaning of «that which is pure from the beginning». 2) Specialized terminology usually of the tantras. [GCD] gives the general definition ཆོས་ཀྱི་དབྱིངས་སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་ཀྱི་དོན་དུ་གསུངས་ i.e., it is taught to have the meaning of dharmadhātu emptiness. This usage appears most freq. in the ཕྱག་རྒྱ་ཆེན་པོ་ Mahāmudrā and རྫོགས་པ་ཆེན་པོ་ Great Completion system. In those systems it refers to dharmadhātu not as the expanse of all ཆོས་ཅན་ itemized dharmas per se but as the expanse of ཆོས་ཉིད་ dharmadhātu containing all of the dharmas with an emphasis on the fact that all of those dharmas have been empty from the beginning. In those traditions the term is usually abbrev. to ཀ་དག་ alpha purity q.v. for further entries and information.
ཀ་པ་ [ka pa] «A», «the first one». The first one in a series where the numbering is done in alphabetic order. E.g., དཔེ་ཆ་ཀ་པ་ «pecha number A».
ཀ་པ་ལ་ [ka pa la] Mis-spelling of ཀ་པཱ་ལ་ q.v.
ཀ་པཱ་ལ་ [ka pA la] «Kapāla». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kapāla». Translated into Tibetan with ཐོད་པ་ q.v. 1) «Skull». The མིའི་ཐོད་རུས་ upper portion of a human skull-bone in general. 2) «Skull-cup». In the system of secret mantra, the upper portion of the skull is made into the shape of a large cup which is used in the practices of that system.
ཀ་པཱ་ལི་ [ka pA li] Sometimes seen instead of ཀ་པཱ་ལ་ «kapāla» q.v.
ཀ་པི་ལ་ [ka pi la] Translit. of the Sanskrit «kapila». Translated into Tibetan with སེར་སྐྱ་ q.v.
ཀ་དཔེ་ [ka dpe] «Lettering Book», «Letter Primer». The name given to books that show the letters of the alphabet clearly so that beginners can learn them. It is not a «primer» in the English sense where primer refers to books with the simplest of English for beginners. In the Tibetan system, a beginner first learns the individual letters and their compound forms then goes on to learn how to read words made from them. The Tibetan lettering system is considerably more complex than the English one so beginners spend much more time on learning the letters. The first book they use is thus specifically about the letter forms in all of their variety. This type of book has many large examples of letters in it.
ཀ་ཕྲེང་ [ka phreng] «Ka string». Translation of the Sanskrit grammatical term ཀཱ་ལི་ «kāli» q.v. for important notes. It means «the string of consonants starting with the (first consonant) letter ka» and is used to mean the གསལ་བྱེད་ consonants of the Tibetan alphabet taken as a group. The related term for the vowels taken as a group is ཨ་ཕྲེང་ «a string» q.v.
ཀ་འཕན་ [ka 'phan] «Pillar hanging», «pendant», «chevron». The ornamental hangings that are sewn of brocade or other fine cloth and hung on the ཀ་བ་ pillars / columns of Tibetan structures for decoration.
ཀ་འཕྲེང་ [ka 'phreng] Altern. spelling of ཀ་ཕྲེང་ q.v.
ཀ་བ་ [ka ba] «Pillar», «column», «post». Tibetan buildings were usually constructed by placing pillars inside a room as the main supports. Since this was the ubiquitous style of Tibetan buildings, the concept of «pillar» pervades Tibetan mentality and literature e.g., ཀ་བུམ་ «pillars and pots» are the usual examples of things and of words used to describe things.
The parts of a pillar and its related structural supports are: ཀ་བ་ meaning the whole pillar; the ཀ་སྟེགས་ or ཀ་གདན་ or other names meaning the pedestal of the pillar; the ཀ་བྲེ་ meaning the «shaft» of the pillar; the གཞུ་ meaning the «bow» at the top of the pillar that bears the weight of the beams that support the ceiling. The beams sitting on the bow and supporting the ceiling are the གདུང་མ་ joists (a term that covers all supported beams and rafters in general). E.g., [GCD] gives the definition of a pillar as ཁང་པའི་གདུང་མ་འདེགས་བྱེད་ཤིང་ a beam of wood that holds up the joists of a building. In larger rooms, the joists were of two kinds, called ལྕམ་དྲལ་ main beams and rafters q.v.
The size of a room or a building that consisted of a large room was usually described by mentioning the number of pillars used to hold it up. E.g., «a four pillar shrine-room» was a moderately large room; a ten pillar assembly hall was a very large hall, by Tibetan standards. See e.g., ཀ་མང་མ་ «many-pillared» and ཀ་མིག་ «pillar area».
ཀ་བ་ཅན་ [ka ba can] phrase> 1) A building that has pillars as part of its structure. 2) Any structure that has pillars / columns.
ཀ་བ་བུམ་པ་ཅན་ [ka ba bum pa can] «Vase Pillar». The name of one of four special pillars in the Jokhang in Lhasa. The temple was built by སྲོང་བཙན་སྒམ་པོ་ King Songtsen Gampo. Each pillar has a unique capital—this one has a vase. Each had something buried beneath it by the king—this had a prayer for the flourishing of dharma that was made by the king. See also ཀ་བ་སྦྲུལ་མགོ་ཅན་, ཀ་བ་ཤིང་ལོ་ཅན་, and ཀ་བ་སེང་མགོ་ཅན་.
ཀ་བ་སྦྲུལ་མགོ་ཅན་ [ka ba sbrul mgo can] «Snake-headed Pillar». The name of one of four special pillars in the Jokhang in Lhasa. The temple was built by སྲོང་བཙན་སྒམ་པོ་ King Songtsen Gampo. Each pillar has a unique capital—this one has a vase. Each had something buried beneath it by the king—this had powerful mantras underneath it. See also ཀ་བ་བུམ་པ་ཅན་, ཀ་བ་ཤིང་ལོ་ཅན་, and ཀ་བ་སེང་མགོ་ཅན་.
ཀ་བ་ལི་ [ka ba li] «Kavali». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kavali». Acc. [GCD] ཤོ་ཀ་ལིའམ་དཔེ་ཆ་འཇོག་སྣོད་ i.e., «a case for either printed pages or text». The case would be made of wood and be shaped like a དཔེ་ཆ་ Tibetan text.
ཀ་བ་ཤིང་ལོ་ཅན་ [ka ba shing lo can] «Leaved Pillar». The name of one of four special pillars in the Jokhang in Lhasa. The temple was built by སྲོང་བཙན་སྒམ་པོ་ King Songtsen Gampo. Each pillar has a unique capital—this one has a design of leaves. Each had something buried beneath it by the king—this had valuables underneath it. See also ཀ་བ་བུམ་པ་ཅན་, ཀ་བ་སྦྲུལ་མགོ་ཅན་, and ཀ་བ་སེང་མགོ་ཅན་.
ཀ་བ་སེང་མགོ་ཅན་ [ka ba seng mgo can] «Lion-headed Pillar». The name of one of four special pillars in the Jokhang in Lhasa. The temple was built by སྲོང་བཙན་སྒམ་པོ་ King Songtsen Gampo. Each pillar has a unique capital—this one has a lion's head. Each had something buried beneath it by the king—this had a prayer for the flourishing of livestock that was made by the king. See also ཀ་བ་བུམ་པ་ཅན་, ཀ་བ་སྦྲུལ་མགོ་ཅན་, and ཀ་བ་ཤིང་ལོ་ཅན་.
ཀ་བའི་བྲེ་ [ka ba'i bre] See the usual abbrev. ཀ་བྲེ་.
ཀ་བུམ་ [ka bum] Abbrev. of ཀ་བ་ and བུམ་པ་ «pillars and pots».
ཀ་བེ་ཀོ་བེ་ [ka be ko be] «Stiff» meaning gone hard and not supple any longer e.g., like leather that has become old and hard.
ཀ་བྲེ་ [ka bre] phrase> «The shaft of a pillar / column». The actual shaft of the ཀ་བ་ pillar used to hold up Tibetan buildings q.v. Note that this is not the «capital» of a pillar as [RYD] mistakenly gives. The term lit. means «the bulk of the pillar» which is the shaft itself.
ཀ་དབྲག་ [ka dbrag] phrase> The open «space between pillars» meaning the intervening space between two pillars. It is not the middle part of a column as one dictionary mistakenly gives; that is the ཀ་བྲེ་ q.v.
ཀ་རབའུ་ར་ [ka rb'u ra] Transliteration of the Sanskrit ཀ་རྦཱུ་ར་ «karbūra» q.v. [MWS] gives five meanings. One refers to a bright yellow pigment used by artists and made from arsenic trisulphide. The related term ཀ་རྦཱུ་རཾ་ is an epithet for gold.
ཀ་རྦུ་རི་ [ka rbu ri] Corruption of the Sanskrit ཀ་རྦཱུ་ར་ «karbūra» q.v.
ཀ་མ་རུ་པ་ [ka ma ru pa] From the Sanskrit «kamaru». 1) The name of the white, hard rock «alabaster». 2) The name of the hard, multi-coloured rock «marble». 3) For the town «Kamarupa» ([SCD] gives as Kāmarūpa), the name of a town / region which in ancient India was in the area of East of Bengal and the Western part of Assam.
ཀ་མ་ལ་ [ka ma la] I. «Kamala». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kamala»; never translated into Tibetan. The name of a flower. [GCD] gives the general comment that it is ཆུའི་རྒྱན་མེ་ཏོག་པདྨ་ i.e., «the flower that ornaments waters, the lotus». [TC] gives specifically that it is the blue, eight-petalled lotus.
II. «Kamala». Translit. of the Mongolian «kamala». [TC] gives that it is the name of a Mongolian king of the fourteenth century A.D., called ཐའི་ཏིང་ཡེ་སོན་ཐེ་མུར་ Tha'i Ting Yeson The Mur.
ཀ་མ་ལ་གུཔྟ་ [ka ma la gupta] «Kamalagupta». The name of one of the early translators of the Kangyur and Tangyur.
ཀ་མ་ལ་ཅན་ [ka ma la can] Lit. «having kamala» i.e., «having lotuses»; see ཀ་མ་ལ་. 1) Acc. [GCD] ཁྱབ་འཇུག་ཆུང་མ་ i.e., the wife of the god of the Indian pantheon, Viṣhṇu who is Lakṣhmi. 2) Meaning «having lotuses». E.g., a poetic way of referring to a river or body of water.
ཀ་མ་ལ་ཤི་ལ་ [ka ma la shi la] Mis-spelling of ཀ་མ་ལ་ཤཱི་ལ་ q.v.
ཀ་མ་ལ་ཤའི་ལ་ [ka ma la sh'i la] «Kamalaśhīla». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kamalaśhīla». An Indian disciple of སློབ་དཔོན་ཞི་བ་འཚོ་ Āchārya Śhāntarakṣhita. Both master and student were masters of the Svatāntrika Madhyamaka view and both were རང་རྒྱུད་ཤར་གསུམ་གྱི་སློབ་དཔོན་གསུམ་ principal figures involved in putting forth that view. Kamalaśhīla was one of the སློབ་དཔོན་ཆེན་པོ་ལྔ་ five great masters that visited Tibet in the 8th century A.D. at the request of the Tibetan king of the time, ཁྲི་སྲོང་ལྡེ་བཙན་ King Trisong Deutsen. At the King's request he and a Chinese monk Ha-Shang engaged in debate with the idea that the system of the winner of the debate would become the system of Buddhism followed in Tibet. Kamalaśhīla won the debate and the Indian style of Buddhism prevailed in Tibet because of it. Amongst other things Kamalaśhīla is well-known for his text on meditation called དབུ་མའི་སྒོམ་རིམ་གསུམ་ «Stages of Meditation on the Middle Way in Three Parts».
ཀ་མང་ [ka mang] [GCD] gives as equivalent to ཀ་དཔེ་ q.v.
ཀ་མང་མ་ [ka mang ma] phrase> Lit. «many pillared» used to refer to a house / building with many pillars / columns. It was common in Tibet to measure the size of a building by stating the number of ཀ་བ་ pillars per room. A room / house / hall of many pillars was a large room. See also ཀ་མིག་, the area of room that is supported per pillar.
ཀ་མད་སུམ་ཅུ་ [ka mad sum cu] phrase> «The thirty starting with ka»; meaning «the Tibetan consonant set which starts at letter ཀ་ ka and has 29 letters beneath it, making thirty in all». Used in Tibetan grammar to indicate the consonant set of the Tibetan letter set, གསལ་བྱེད་སུམ་ཅུ་ «the thirty consonants» q.v.
ཀ་མལ་ [ka mal] Abbrev. of ཀ་མ་ལ་ q.v. E.g., ཀ་མལ་ལས་འཁྲུངས་པད་མ་རྒྱལ་པོ། «King born from a Kamala flower».
ཀ་མིག་ [ka mig] phrase> «Pillar area». It was common in Tibet to measure the size of a building by stating the number of ཀ་བ་ pillars per room. This term means «the floor space provided per pillar supporting a room».
ཀ་མེད་ [ka med] «Powerless». 1) In coll. one person who sees another facing some difficulty which they cannot help alleviate will say «ཀ་མེད་» to the other person indicating kindly concern for the fact that the other person is stuck with their suffering; the English equivalent would be something like, «I am sorry, there is nothing I can do!» In this usage, it is never used by oneself in reference to oneself. 2) Generally and in classical literature, it is also used in the more direct sense that «one is powerless regarding something», «one has no choice not to», «one is forced to do something because the situation demands it», «one cannot help but...», etc. For example, in [SKD]: «Nāgārjuna stated his position that way so, those who declare that they are the ones who follow him have ཀ་མེད་ no choice but to assert as I am saying that he does.»
ཀ་རྩོམ་ [ka rtsom] phrase> «Alphabetic composition». The name for verse where each line contains, in order, a letter of the Tibetan alphabet in alphabetic order. The writing of such poetry is considered a sign of great literary erudition. The ultimate form is where the first word of each line contains the next letter of the alphabet from the one of the previous line.
ཀ་གཞུ་ [ka gzhu] «Pillar and bow» or «pillar and capital». Abbrev. of ཀ་བ་ and གཞུ་ meaning the actual pillar and the large, thick, bow-shaped capital which functions as the support for the roof beams. The bow in Tibetan architecture has a particular style. Thus the term does not mean «pillar» and «ornament on top» but means column and structure on top which is a further support for the roof beams.
ཀ་ཡིག་ [ka yig] phrase> «Letter ka»; the consonant letter ཀ་ ka.
ཀ་ཡེ་ [ka ye] Altern. spelling of ཀྭ་ཡེ་ q.v.
ཀ་ར་ [ka ra] 1) «Sugar». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kara». Acc. [GCD] same as ཀ་ར་དཀར་པོ་ q.v. «white sugar» however, ཀ་ར་ by itself refers to sugar generally, starting with all of the non-refined versions thereof, whereas ཀ་ར་དཀར་པོ་ is specifically white, refined sugar. 2) «Tentpole». A pole or post used to hold up a tent.
ཀ་ར་དཀར་པོ་ [ka ra dkar po] «White sugar». Acc. [GCD] ཤེལ་ཀ་ར་དང་བྱེ་མ་ཀ་ར་ལྟ་བུ་ i.e., like ཤེལ་ཀ་ར་ or བྱེ་མ་ཀ་ར་ which are general names for sugar.
ཀ་ར་ཤིང་ [ka ra shing] The plant «sugar-cane». See ཀ་ར་ sugar and ཤིང་ tree-type plant. From the Sanskrit name for sugar mixed with the Tibetan name for tree. The name in Tibetan is བུ་རམ་ཤིང་ q.v.
ཀ་ར་ཧ་རི་ [ka ra ha ri] Translit. of the Sanskrit «karahari». Translated into Tibetan with བུ་རམ་ q.v.
ཀ་རཉྫ་ [ka rany+dza] Translit. of the Sanskrit «karañja». Translated into Tibetan with ལག་པའི་ཐལ་སྦྱོར་. The name of a ཤིང་སྨན་ tree-derived medicinal substance.
ཀ་རཎྜ་ [ka raNDa] Translit. of the Sanskrit «karaṇḍa»; never translated into Tibetan. The name of a particular type of duck that has a very sweet cry.
ཀ་རན་དཧ་ [ka ran dha] Mis-spelling of ཀ་རཎྜ་ q.v.
ཀ་རི་ཀ་ [ka ri ka] Mis-spelling of ཀཱ་རི་ཀཱ་ q.v.
ཀ་ལ་ [ka la] I. Translit. of the Sanskrit «kala». Translated into Tibetan with ནག་པོ་ black. Some dictionaries confuse this with the Sanskrit «kāla» meaning དུས་ time.
II. The letter ཀ་ ka with the la-equivalent phrase-connector ལ་ added to it, which puts the letter ka into the second, fourth, or seventh རྣམ་དབྱེ་ grammatical case. See the cases for possible meanings. E.g., གཉིས་ཀ་ལ་ཡོད། «both have it» which is an example of the seventh case.
ཀ་ལ་ཐིང་ཀ་ [ka la thing ka] Mistaken for ཀ་ལ་བིངྐ་ q.v. Alternatively, it can be seen as a mixture of Sanskrit and Tibetan, where the kala refers to the pleasing cry of the bird and the ཐིང་ཀ་ could be a corruption of མཐིང་ག་ referring to the bird's very dark blue colour.
ཀ་ལ་པིང་ཀ་ [ka la ping ka] Corruption of ཀ་ལ་བིངྐ་ q.v.
ཀ་ལ་པིངྐ་ [ka la ping+ka] Corruption of ཀ་ལ་བིངྐ་ q.v.
ཀ་ལ་བིངྐ་ [ka la bing+ka] Translit. of the Sanskrit «kalaviṅga». Acc. [MWS] the name of the Indian Cuckoo, however, it is very important to note that [MWS] under other entries names the Indian Cuckoo as the Keorl. The Keorl is a common cuckoo of India which is correctly identified as Eudynamys scolopacea where the Indian Cuckoo is correctly identified as Cuculus mircopterus.
This name was not translated into Tibetan but was used directly in Tibetan texts, where it is seen mainly in the sūtras of the Buddha. It is the name of a bird found at least in Northern India in the regions travelled by the Buddha; in the དཀོན་མཆོག་བརྩེགས་པའི་མདོ་ «Stack of Jewels Sūtra» the buddha identifies it as a bird with སྐད་གཟི་བརྗིད་ཆེན་པོ་ meaning not a «beautiful» song as is seen in a number of dictionaries but a most striking song.
Some Tibetan dictionaries have identified it in English as «the sparrow» and that has been copied thoughtlessly into a variety of other dictionaries. Learned Tibetans universally agree that, in terms of the bird mentioned in the Buddha's sūtras, it is definitely not the cuckoo.
It should be noted that «kala» means having a sweet or pleasant song for a bird and this is used in a number of words to indicate what [MWS] usually calls the Indian Cuckoo but which he specifically identifies as the Keorl as mentioned above. [SCD] claims that it is the Indian Cuckoo but, as with [MWS], this most likely refers to the specific cuckoo found in India called the Keorl. [TC] claims that it is a bird that lives around bodies of water but this would not be the cuckoo and learned Tibetans feel that this is completely in error.
The author has personally investigated this on the northern plains of India. It is universally agreed amongst Tibetans living there that it refers to a member of the Cuckoo family. It is not the common cuckoo that makes the «cuck-koo» sound; that is called ཁུ་བྱུག་ q.v. in Tibetan and has several other names in Sanskrit different to this one. There are three other birds of the cuckoo family that live in the area and are the most likely candidates. One is the real Indian Cuckoo, Cuculus mircopterus. It has a four-part cry that is melodious though not very striking. I do not think that this is the bird. One possibility is the cuckoo which is known throughout India and Nepal as the «Keorl» or Keorlie» after the sound of its cry. It is a bird about the size of a crow, with a long tail, and with a very dark blue colour. It hides in the tops of trees. This is the bird that [MWS] identifies, even though he calls it in a number of places the «Indian Cuckoo». Since [SCD] also calls it the Indian Cuckoo, it seems mostly likely that at that time (mid to late 19th century) the Indian Cuckoo was the name for the Keorl amongst the British. A third possibility is the Hawk Cuckoo, Hierococcyx sparverioides, which the British named «Brainfever Bird» because of its crazed-cry. It is similar to the Keorl but has a brown front, like a hawk. It is never mistaken for the Indian Cuckoo. The Keorl and Brainfever bird have similar cries. Both are very, very striking. Both have a crazed quality to them, with the cry being repeated again and again each time at a higher note until sounding like a madman's screech. Of the two, the Keorl overall has the louder and more pleasing cry. In sum, after much research, it seems most likely that the name Kalapingka refers to the bird commonly called the Keorl.
ཀ་ལ་བིངྒ་ [ka la bing+ga] Corruption of ཀ་ལ་བིངྐ་ q.v.
ཀ་ལ་ཤ།་ [ka la sh/] Translit. of the Sanskrit «kalaśh». The name of a particular type of vessel used for holding water. The vessel is smallish, from six inches to about one foot high. It has a flared base, bulging belly, long spout, and is open at the top. It is probably the progenitor of the Tibetan བུམ་པ་ which has a very similar shape. The difference is that the Tibetan form has a curved spout where the Indian / Nepalese version has a longer spout that sticks straight out from the vessel. The vessel has been used for millennia as the basic water container inside a house or building. People on the Indian sub-continent still keep one beside them in the house as their source of drinking water. It is also kept in temples and so on as the holder for water for ablutions, as is done with a Tibetan བུམ་པ་.
Although the term བུམ་པ་ is usually translated as «vase» or «pot», the kalash is really a «water pitcher».
ཀ་ལཱ་པ་ [ka lA pa] «Kalāpa». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kalāpa». 1) Lit. meaning the accumulation of various items. 2) The name of the capital of the Kingdom of Śhambhala. 3) Abbrev. of ཀ་ལཱ་པ་བྱཱ་ཀ་ར་ཎ་ «Kalāpa Grammar» q.v.
ཀ་ལཱ་པ་བྱཱ་ཀ་ར་ཎ་ [ka lA pa byA ka ra Na] «Kalāpa Grammar». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kalāpa vyākaraṇa». The name of one of the eight principal Sanskrit grammars of ancient India. The text was composed by བདུན་པའི་གོ་ཆ་ Āchārya Saptavarma. It is counted as one of the three Sanskrit grammars most well known in Tibet; see སྒྲ་ཀ་ཙན་དབྱངས་གསུམ་ «The three grammars of Kalāpa, Chandra, and Sarasvati». It also counted as one of the སྒྲ་མདོ་བཞི་ four Sanskrit grammars most well-known in Tibet q.v.
ཀ་ལི་ [ka li] 1) «Skull». Derived from Sanskrit and sim. to ཀ་པཱ་ལི་ q.v. 2) Sometimes mistakenly for ཀཱ་ལི་ «kāli» q.v.
ཀ་ལི་ཀ་ [ka li ka] «Kalika». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kalika». Translated into Tibetan with ཙམ་པ་ཀ་ q.v. Some dictionaries give this as the magnolia flower but that is not correct.
ཀ་ཤི་ [ka shi] «Kaśhi». 1) Corrupted form of the original Sanskrit «kāśhī», ཀཱ་ཤཱི་ q.v. 2) Acc. [TC] the name of a particular type of deer.
ཀ་ཤི་ཀ་ [ka shi ka] Corrupted form of the original Sanskrit «kāśhīka», ཀཱ་ཤཱི་ཀ་ q.v.
ཀ་ཤི་ཀ་ཕྲ་མོ་ [ka shi ka phra mo] «Fine kashika» meaning very fine ཀ་ཤི་ཀ་ kashika cloth q.v.
ཀ་ཤུ་ཀ་ [ka shu ka] «Kaśhuka». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kaśhuka». The name of a black stone which is rubbed against gold in order to determine the quality of the gold.
ཀ་ཤུབས་ [ka shubs] «Pillar cover». Cloths used to cover and decorate a pillar.
ཀཱ་ཀ་ [kA ka] Translit. of the Sanskrit «kāka». The Sanskrit term is a word for the bird «crow» derived from the «caw caw» sound of the crow. The term is used to mean 1) «cawer» i.e., the crow itself and also the 2) the «caw caw» or «cawing» of the བྱ་རོག་ crow. The term is freq. corrupted to ཀ་ཀ་ in Tibetan.
ཀཱ་ཀོ་ལ་ [kA ko la] «Kākola». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kākola». Note that the spelling is sometimes confused with that of ཀ་ཀོ་ལ་ q.v. and some dictionaries (e.g., [SCD] and [GCD] then confuse the meanings. 1) One kind of very large raven. 2) A poisonous plant substance called བོང་ང་ནག་པོ་ in Tibetan q.v.
ཀཱངྐ་ [kAng+ka] «Kāngka». This is the correct spelling of what Tibetans write in corrupted form as ཀང་ཀ་ q.v.
ཀཱ་ཏྱཱ་ཡ་ན་ [kA tyA ya na] [MVP] gives as the spelling of the person called «Kātyāyana». See ཀ་ཏྱཱ་ཡ་ན་.
ཀཱ་ཏྱཱའི་བུ་ཆེན་པོ་ [kA tyA'i bu chen po] [MVP] gives as the spelling of the person called «Kātyāputra». See ཀ་ཏྱཱའི་བུ་.
ཀཱ་ཡ་ [kA ya] «Kāya». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kāya». Translated into Tibetan with སྐུ་ q.v. Kāya does mean «body» in Sanskrit but it also has the meaning «collection», «assemblage». Tibetan commentaries point out that both meanings are applicable when speaking of kāya and སྐུ་. Sometimes mis-spelled as ཀ་ཡ་ and ཀཱ་ཡཱ་.
ཀཱ་རི་ཀཱ་ [kA ri kA] «Kārikā». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kārikā». Translated into Tibetan with ཚིག་ལེའུར་བྱས་པ་ q.v.
ཀཱ་ལ་ཙ་ཀྲ་ [kA la tsa kra] «Kālachakra». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kālachakra». Translated into Tibetan with དུས་ཀྱི་འཁོར་ལོ་ q.v.
ཀཱ་ལི་ [kA li] «Kāli» or «ka string». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kāli». The Sanskrit grammatical term used to refer to the consonant section of the Sanskrit alphabet. The related term for the vowels is ཨཱ་ལི་ āli q.v. The term means the «ka string» where ka is the first consonant of the Sanskrit consonant set and «string» is the other consonants, which are written as a string of letters after it to make the set. The term is often used in Tibetan grammar texts to refer to the Tibetan གསལ་བྱེད་ consonant set, which also starts with the Tibetan consonant letter ཀ་ «ka» and has the other consonants written in a string after it. The term ཀཱ་ལི་ translates literally into Tibetan as ཀ་ཕྲེང་ «ka string».
Note that, because this is sometimes visualized as a circular garland of letters in Buddhist rituals, it has been translated regularly as «garland». However, that is not the meaning of the original Sanskrit. It means a string, one after the other, making a set and the Tibetan ཕྲེང་བ་ translating it in this case means exactly «string».
ཀཱ་ཤི་ཀ་ [kA shi ka] «Kāśhika». Corruption of ཀཱ་ཤཱི་ཀ་ q.v.
ཀཱ་ཤའི་ [kA sh'i] «Kāśhī». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kāśhī». The name originally refers to the race of people of North India. The placed they lived in was known at first as the place of the Kāśhī and later as གསལ་ལྡན་ Vārāṇasii (the British called it Benares). The town has a very, very long history of producing and selling the finest cloths because of which there is a general name ཀཱ་ཤཱི་ཀ་ Kāśhīka q.v. for the fine cloths from the place. The term is usually corrupted to ཀ་ཤི་ in Tibetan.
ཀཱ་ཤའི་ཀ་ [kA sh'i ka] «Kāśhīka». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kāśhīka». A general term for the very fine textiles that came from (and still do come from) the place in North India originally inhabited by the ཀཱ་ཤཱི་ Kāśhī tribe q.v. and which later became known as Vārāṇasii.
Some dictionaries give as «cotton» or the especially fine «muslin» cloth that Vārāṇasi was and is known for. The muslin was and is regularly worn by Indians in the hot summer heat of the northern plains. Others give as the fine linen that also comes from there. However, Vārāṇasi is famous for a wide variety of textiles, including cotton, linen, silks and brocades made from the silks and the term was a general term for fine cloths of any or all of these types coming from the place of the Kashis. The term is usually corrupted to ཀ་ཤི་ཀ་ in Tibetan.
ཀཱ་ཤཡ་པ་ [kA shya pa] «Kāśhyapa». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kāśhyapa». Translated into Tibetan with འོད་སྲུང་ q.v.
ཀའི་རྟེ་ཙི་ [k'i rte tsi] Translit. of the Sanskrit «kīrteci». The name of the ཁྱབ་འཇུག་གི་འཇུག་པ་བཅུ་ «ten incarnations of Viṣhṇu» q.v.
ཀཿཐོག་དགོན་ [kaHthog dgon] See ཀ་ཐོག་དགོན་.
ཀཀྞི་སྒོ་བཞི་ [kakNi sgo bzhi] A stupa with four doors below the terraces, one door on each of the four sides. The doors can be used as entrances.
ཀག་ [kag] 1) Seen as a mis-spelling of སྐག་ q.v. 2) Used with a sense of སྐག་ to mean a specific difficulty or obstacle of some kind, usually in terms that are directly translated into English with «difficult» e.g., in དཀའ་ལས་ཁག་པོ་. 3) [Old] Glossed as གློ་བུར་ in various texts that give old terms and meaning «all of a sudden». Usually seen in the adv. form e.g., [TC] ཀག་གིས་ལངས་པ། «got up all of a sudden» or «happened all of a sudden»; ཀག་སྟེ་ཡོང་བ། «arrived suddenly» but with the same sense as the English «arrived unexpectedly».
ཀག་གིས་ [kag gis] [Old] meaning གློ་བུར་ with the sense of «all of a sudden» q.v.
ཀང་ཀ་ [kang ka] «The Kangka (bird)». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kāngka». It has a black head and white back and feeds on corpses. It is also called དུར་བྱ་ «charnel ground bird».
ཀྞྜ་ཀ་རི་ [kaNDa ka ri] «Kaṇḍakari». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kaṇḍakari». The name of a tree and the ཤིང་སྨན་ tree-derived medicinal substance from it. The tree has thorns on it.
ཀཏ་པུ་ར་ [kat pu ra] Corrupted form of ཀཏྤཱུ་ར་ q.v.
ཀཏྤཱུ་ར་ [katp'u ra] «Camphor». Translit. of the Sanskrit «katpūra». The Sanskrit term was corrupted to the Tibetan forms ག་པུར་ and ག་བུར་. The substance «camphor» is one of the ཕྱིའི་རྩ་བ་སྨན་བརྒྱད་ eight outer principal medicines q.v.
ཀན་ [kan] 1) «Kan» [Chinese] The name in Chinese medicine of one of the veins of the human wrist that is pressed on in order to do pulse diagnosis. Usually referred to as ཀན་རྩ་ «the Kan vein». 2) Derived from meaning 1), གུང་མོ་ the middle finger of the hand. 3) [Dialect] meaning «over there», «yonder» and with the sense of it being pointed out. E.g., [TC] རི་འགོ་ཀན་ལ་དར་དམར་ཚུགས། «erected a red flag at the bottom of the hill over there» or «...at the bottom of the far hill», «at the base of the hill, over yonder».
ཀན་ད་ཤམ་མ་ཀ་ [kan da sham ma ka] Incorrect spelling of ཐམ་ག་ q.v. (According to the rules of letter gender, the མིང་མཐའ་ name-ending after letter མ་ has to be a female ending which is ག་ not ཀ་).
ཀབ་ཀོབ་ [kab kob] Abbrev. of ཀ་བེ་ཀོ་བེ་ q.v.
ཀམ་ཀུམ་ [kam kum] Abbrev. of ཀམ་མི་ཀུམ་མི་ q.v.
ཀམ་པ་ [kam pa] «Kampa». Derived from the Indian name. One of several names for the ཧོར་ཟླ་དང་པོ་ first month of the Tibetan calendar.
ཀམ་མི་ཀུམ་མི་ [kam mi kum mi] «Shrivelled», «dried and wrinkled», «shrunken»; a term applied to skins and fabrics that have dried up, contracted, and become wrinkled in the process.
ཀམ་མེ་ཀོམ་མེ་ [kam me kom me] «Blinking», «blinking and blinking», «blinking a lot». A term that describes the eyes «blinking» open and shut repeatedly.
ཀའང་ [ka'ng] The name-ending ཀ་ with the ornament འང་ joined into it q.v. Equivalent to ཀ་ཡང་.
ཀའམ་ [ka'm] The name-ending ཀ་ with the connector འམ་ joined into it q.v. Equivalent to ཀ་འམ་.
ཀར་ [kar] «Acute», «intense», «deep and acute / intense». A term for anything that is happening very strongly from deep down. Often used in the form ཀར་ཀར་ to emphasize the acute sense. E.g., [TC] ནད་ཟུག་ཀར་གྱིས་ལངས། «(deep,) acute pain erupted»; ཁོང་ཁྲོ་ཀར་ཀར་དུ་ལངས། «his anger was deep and intense».
ཀར་ཀ་ཏ་ [kar ka ta] Mis-spelling of ཀརྐ་ཊ་ q.v.
ཀར་ཀ་ཊ་ [kar ka Ta] Mis-spelling of ཀརྐ་ཊ་ q.v.
ཀར་ཀ་ཏའི་ཁྱིམ་ [kar ka ta'i khyim] Mis-spelling of ཀརྐ་ཊའི་ཁྱིམ་ q.v.
ཀར་ཀར་ [kar kar] Intensified form of ཀར་ q.v. for meaning.
ཀར་བརྒྱུད་ [kar brgyud] 1) Mis-spelling of བཀའ་བརྒྱུད་ q.v. 2) Mis-spelling of དཀར་བརྒྱུད་ q.v.
ཀར་ཏི་ཀ་ [kar ti ka] See ཀརྟི་ཀ་ q.v.
ཀར་ཤ་པ་ཎི་ [kar sha pa Ni] Corrupted form of ཀརྴ་པ་ཎི་ q.v.
ཀར་ཤ་པ་ན་ [kar sha pa na] Corrupted form of ཀརྴ་པ་ན་ q.v.
ཀར་སྲས་ཀོང་སྤྲུལ་ [kar sras kong sprul] «Karsay Kongtrul». [1904-1953] One of the subsequent emanations of Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thayay. His dharma name was འཇམ་དབྱངས་མཁྱེན་བརྩེའི་འོད་ཟེར་ Jamyang Khyentse Ozer.
ཀརྐ་ཏ་ [karka ta] Mis-spelling of ཀརྐ་ཊ་ q.v.
ཀརྐ་ཊ་ [karka Ta] «Crab» or «Cancer (the crab)». Translit. of the Sanskrit «karkaṭa». The name of the animal of the fourth house of the sun's zodiac, which is the crab. Note that some Tibetan dictionaries e.g., [TC] give this as སྦལ་པ་ «frog» but that is mistaken, the term refers to the crab as the sign of the fourth house. [GCD] correctly gives སྡིག་སྲིན་ which refers to the crab in this case.
ཀརྐ་ཊའི་ཁྱིམ་ [karka Ta'i khyim] «The house / mansion of the crab / cancer». Note that the term ཀརྐ་ཊ་ is a translit. of the Sanskrit «karkaṭa» q.v. The fourth of སྐར་ཁྱིམ་བཅུ་གཉིས་ the twelve houses of the sun's zodiac.
ཀརྐོ་ཊ་ [karko Ta] «Karkoṭa». Translit. of the Sanskrit «karkoṭa». The name of one of the ཀླུ་ཆེན་བརྒྱད་ eight great nāgas q.v.
ཀརྞི་སྒོ་བཞི་ [karNi sgo bzhi] Same as ཀཀྞི་སྒོ་བཞི་ q.v.
ཀརྟི་ཀ་ [karti ka] «Kartika». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kartika». There are other spellings too, such as ཀཱརྟི་ཀ་ kārtika.
In the ancient Indian way of thinking, stars and constellations in the sky were the appearances seen by humans of various gods. One such god / constellation was called «Kartika». The constellation has six bright stars in it. Thus, the Tibetan name for the constellation is སྨིན་དྲུག་ «Six Brights» q.v. (the Tibetan name is not a translation of the Indian one). The constellation is the same as the one called «The Pleiades» in English.
In Indian mythology, Kartika the god is the youthful son of ལྷ་དབང་ཕྱུག་ཆེན་པོ་ Mahādevendra or Mahādeva. Kartika has six heads (hence his appearance as six bright stars) so he is also called གདོང་དྲུག་པ་ «Six-faced one». Given that he has six heads, he is also called བཅུ་གཉིས་མིག་ལྡན་ «Twelve-eyed». He is also said to have had six nurses, hence he is also called མ་དྲུག་བུ་ «Son with six mothers». He is an army general of the gods hence he is also called ལྷའི་དམག་དཔོན་ «General of the Gods».
The constellation Kartika rises with the full moon in the ཧོར་ཟླ་བཅུ་པ་ tenth Tibetan lunar month hence that month is also called Kartika.
ཀརྨ་ [karma] Translit. of the Sanskrit «karma». Translation equivalents were officially set at 1) ལས་ and 2) འཕྲིན་ལས་ q.v.
Karma is a derived from the root of the verb «to do». It generally means «action», «activity». However, it has special meanings. 1) In general Buddhism, it refers to action done with ignorance which implants a seed for future experience in cyclic existence. 2) In Sanskrit grammar it is the name given to «the object» of a transitive verb. I.e., it is the place where the «work» of the verb is done. The Tibetan term for the object where a transitive action is done is བྱ་བའི་ཡུལ་ site of the action, however, the Tibetan grammars also use the Sanskrit term karma, brought into their language as ལས་. 3) In Buddhist tantra, it refers to i) «the karma» family, one of the five families of conquerors; and to ii) «the four karmas», ལས་བཞི་ q.v.; and to iii) «server», «assistant», «worker» i.e., someone who has a «work» position at a secret mantra ceremony, such as the shrine-master and other assistants. 4) «Karmapa». It is an epithet of a line of incarnate lamas who head one of the four major traditions of Buddhism in Tibet. These lamas are usually called ཀརྨ་པ་ «Karmapa» q.v.
ཀརྨ་ཀམ་ཚང་ [karma kam tshang] «Karma Kamtsang». Lit. «the family of kaṃ». One name of the ཀརྨ་བཀའ་བརྒྱུད་ Karma Kagyu school q.v. The name originated when ཀརྨ་པ་རང་བྱུང་རྡོ་རྗེ་ Karmapa Rangjung Dorje went to East Tibet. While meditating there, the tamarisk shrubs on the mountain took the shape of a ཀརྨ་ཀཾ་, the initial of Karmapa. The story is retold in Born in Tibet, p.89, by Chogyam Trungpa.
ཀརྨ་བཀའ་བརྒྱུད་ [karma bka' brgyud] «Karma Kagyu». The name of a branch of the བཀའ་བརྒྱུད་ tradition of Tibetan Buddhism; it is one of great of the བཀའ་བརྒྱུད་ཆེ་བཞི་ཆུང་བརྒྱད་ «The Four Greater and Eight Lesser Kagyu Schools». The tradition originated with དུས་གསུམ་མཁྱེན་པ་ Dusum Khyenpa who was one of the main disciples of སྒམ་པོ་པ་ Gampopa.
ཀརྨ་གླིང་པ་ [karma gling pa] «Karma Lingpa». [14th century] One of the ཆོས་བདག་གླིང་པ་བརྒྱད་ dharma-owning, eight Lingpas.
ཀརྨ་ངེས་དོན་བསྟན་རྒྱས་ [karma nges don bstan rgyas] «Karma Ngedon Tangyay». The ordained name of སྨན་སྡོང་མཚམས་པ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་ q.v.
ཀརྨ་ཆགས་མེད་ [karma chags med] «Karma Chagmey». The name of the a very famous line of Karma Kagyu practitioners [1613-1678]. The first one was known as Karma Chagmey Rāga Asyas.
ཀརྨ་པ་ [karma pa] «Karmapa». The name given to the hierarchs of the Karma Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism. They are usually referred to as རྒྱལ་བ་ཀརྨ་པ་ «The Conqueror Karmapa» in recognition of their realization. The name is derived from the complete epithet ཀརྨ་ཕྲིན་ལས་པ་ «The One of Enlightened Activity». The first Karmapa was one of the heart disciples of སྒམ་པོ་པ་ Gampopa; his name was དུས་གསུམ་མཁྱེན་པ་ Dusum Khyenpa q.v. The Karmapa's are considered to be later manifestations of བྲམ་ཟེ་ཆེན་པོ་ས་ར་ཧ་ the great Brahmin, Saraha.
ཀརྨ་པ་ཆོས་གྲགས་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ [karma pa chos grags rgya mtsho] «Karmapa Chodrak Gyatso». The name of the seventh ཀརྨ་པ་ Karmapa. He was especially famous for his texts on logic.
ཀརྨ་པ་ཆོས་དབྱིངས་རྡོ་རྗེ་ [karma pa chos dbyings rdo rje] «Karmapa Choying Dorje». [1604-1674] The tenth Karmapa.
ཀརྨ་པ་ཐེག་མཆོག་རྡོ་རྗེ་ [karma pa theg mchog rdo rje] «Karmapa Thegchok Dorje». [1797-1867] The name of the fourteenth ཀརྨ་པ་ Karmapa.
ཀརྨ་པ་མཐོང་བ་དོན་ལྡན་ [karma pa mthong ba don ldan] «Karmapa Thongwa Dondan». The name of the sixth ཀརྨ་པ་ Karmapa.
ཀརྨ་པ་དུས་གསུམ་མཁྱེན་པ་ [karma pa dus gsum mkhyen pa] «Karmapa Dusum Khyenpa». [1110-1193]. The name of the first ཀརྨ་པ་ Karmapa. The name means «Karmapa, Knower of the Three Times». He was also known as དབུ་བསྲེ་ grey hair and was one of the three «men of Kham» who were great yogis and the principal yogin disciples of Gampopa. Dusum Khyenpa later became known as Karmapa and became the first of a long line of incarnations. He founded Tsurphu Monastery in Tolung which became the seat of the Karmapas and the Karma Kagyu lineage in Tibet and also Karma Gon in Riwoche.
ཀརྨ་པ་དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པ་ [karma pa de bzhin gshegs pa] «Karmapa Deshin Shekpa». [1384-1415]. The name of the fifth ཀརྨ་པ་ Karmapa.
ཀརྨ་པ་བདུད་འདུལ་རྡོ་རྗེ་ [karma pa bdud 'dul rdo rje] «Karmapa Duddul Dorje». [1733-1797]. The name of the thirteenth ཀརྨ་པ་ Karmapa.
ཀརྨ་པ་མི་བསྐྱོད་རྡོ་རྗེ་ [karma pa mi bskyod rdo rje] «Karmapa Mikyo Dorje». [1507-1554]. The name of the eighth ཀརྨ་པ་ Karmapa. He was the principal guru of the great Kagyu guru Pawo Tsuklag Trengwa. He is known as one of the great authors of the Kagyu tradition.
ཀརྨ་པ་རང་བྱུང་རྡོ་རྗེ་ [karma pa rang byung rdo rje] «Karmapa Rangjung Dorje». [1284-1339]. The name of the third ཀརྨ་པ་ Karmapa. He was a disciple of Urgyenpa Rinchen Pal. He is known for his treatises on the nature of mind.
ཀརྨ་པ་རང་བྱུང་རིག་པའི་རྡོ་རྗེ་ [karma pa rang byung rig pa'i rdo rje] Karmapa Rangjung Rigpay Dorje». [1924-1981] The sixteenth Karmapa.
ཀརྨ་པ་རོལ་པའི་རྡོ་རྗེ་ [karma pa rol pa'i rdo rje] «Karmapa Rolpa'i Dorje». The name of the fourth ཀརྨ་པ་ Karmapa.
ཀརྨ་པཀྵི་ [karma pak+Shi] «Karma Pakshi». The name of the second ཀརྨ་པ་ Karmapa q.v.
ཀརྨ་ཕྲིན་ལས་ [karma phrin las] «Karma Trinley» is the name of a line of incarnate lamas of the ཀརྨ་བཀའ་བརྒྱུད་ Karma Kagyu Lineage q.v. They are recognized as great scholars of the lineage.
ཀརྨ་ཕྲིན་ལས་པ་ [karma phrin las pa] «The man of enlightened activity». 1) The full name from which the name ཀརྨ་པ་ is derived. Referring to the Gyalwa Karmapa. 2) The name of a line of Kagyu tulkus who were renowned as great scholars.
ཀརྨ་མ་ལེ་ [karma ma le] «Karma Ma Le». The name of a tantra. See འཕྲིན་ལས་ཀྱི་རྒྱུད་ཀརྨ་མ་ལེ་ for details.
ཀརྨ་རབས་བརྒྱད་ [karma rabs brgyad] «The eight Karma successors». This means the first eight ཀརྨ་པ་ Karmapas.
[DGT] gives them as: 1) ཀརྨ་དུས་གསུམ་མཁྱེན་པ་ «Karma Dusum Khyenpa»; 2) ཀརྨ་པཀྵི་ «Karma Pakshi»; 3) ཀརྨ་རང་བྱུང་རྡོ་རྗེ་ «Karma Rangjung Dorje»; 4) ཀརྨ་རོལ་པའི་རྡོ་རྗེ་ «Karma Rolpa'i Dorje»; 5) ཀརྨ་དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པ་ «Karma Dezhin Shegpa»; 6) ཀརྨ་མཐོང་བ་དོན་ལྡན་ «Karma Thongwa Dondan»; 7) ཀརྨ་ཆོས་གྲགས་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ «Karma Chodrag Gyamtso»; 8) ཀརྨ་མི་བསྐྱོད་རྡོ་རྗེ་ «Karma Mikyo Dorje».
Many non-Tibetans will be used to these names being given as Karmapa. However, it is part of Tibetan culture that these people are known as the ཀརྨ་ people with the names as listed above. See ཀརྨ་པ་དུས་གསུམ་མཁྱེན་པ་ «Karmapa Dusum Khyenpa»; ཀརྨ་པཀྵི་ «Karma Pakshi»; 3) ཀརྨ་པ་རང་བྱུང་རྡོ་རྗེ་ «Karmapa Rangjung Dorje»; 4) ཀརྨ་པ་རོལ་པའི་རྡོ་རྗེ་ «Karmapa Rolpa'i Dorje»; 5) ཀརྨ་པ་དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པ་ «Karmapa Dezhin Shegpa»; 6) ཀརྨ་པ་མཐོང་བ་དོན་ལྡན་ «Karmapa Thongwa Dondan»; 7) ཀརྨ་པ་ཆོས་གྲགས་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ «Karmapa Chodrag Gyamtso»; 8) ཀརྨ་པ་མི་བསྐྱོད་རྡོ་རྗེ་ «Karmapa Mikyo Dorje».
ཀརྨ་རིན་ཆེན་དར་རྒྱས་ [karma rin chen dar rgyas] «Karma Rinchen Dargyay». The name of a lama from the 19th Century in Tibet. He was a contemporary of the first Chogyur Lingpa who held the lineage of Chogyur Lingpa. He wrote many commentaries on and arranged many the termas of Chogyur Lingpa into liturgies. He is also known as མཁན་པོ་ཀརྨ་རིན་ཆེན་ «Khenpo Karma Rinchen» and ཀརྨའི་མཁན་པོ་ «Karma'i Khenpo».
ཀརཤ་པ་ཎི་ [karsha pa Ni] «Karśhapaṇi». Translit. of the Sanskrit «karśhapaṇi»; never translated into Tibetan. The name of a particular two-armed form of སྤྱན་རས་གཟིགས་ Avalokiteśhvara.
ཀརཤ་པ་ན་ [karsha pa na] «Karśhapana». Translit. of the Sanskrit «karśhapana»; never translated into Tibetan. The name of a silver coin of ancient India. [TC] gives that it was the equivalent in value to one ཞོ་ or ཊམ་ q.v.
ཀལ་པ་ [kal pa] Corrupted form of ཀལྤ་ q.v.
ཀལྤ་ [kalpa] «Kalpa». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kalpa». Translated into Tibetan with བསྐལ་པ་ q.v. [LGK] says that the translated form is sometimes mistakenly taken as an བརྡ་རྙིང་ old sign of Tibetan language.
ཀསྨིར་ [kasmira] «Kashmir». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kasmir». The name of a place which, in ancient India, was considered the land of the Muslims. Translated into Tibetan with ཁ་ཆེ་ which refers to both the land and people.
ཀཱརྟི་ཀ་ [kArti ka] «Kārtika». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kārtika». Altern. spelling of ཀརྟི་ཀ་ q.v.
ཀི་གུ་ [ki gu] Probable mis-spelling of གི་གུ་ q.v.
ཀིངྐ་ར་ [king+ka ra] «Kingkara». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kingkara». [LGK] says that this means ཅི་བགྱི་ q.v. and has Tibetan equivalents ལས་བྱེད་ «worker / underling» or ཕོ་ཉ་ «messenger / attendant» or གཡོག་ «servant» and that after corruption is commonly known as གིང་པ་ (neuter meaning both are included) གིང་ཕོ་ (male) and གིང་མོ་ (female).
ཀི་ལ་ [ki la] «Kila». Corrupted translit. of the Sanskrit «kila». Translated into Tibetan with ཕུར་པ་ q.v.
ཀི་ལ་ཡ་ [ki la ya] «Kilaya». Corrupted translit. of the Sanskrit «kīlaya». Used in secret mantra language to mean the yidam རྡོ་རྗེ་ཕུར་པ་ Vajrakīlaya q.v.
ཀི་ལི་ཀི་སྒྲོགས་ [ki li ki sgrogs] Abbrev. of ཀི་ལི་ཀི་ལཱའི་སྒྲོགས་ q.v.
ཀི་ལི་ཀི་ལཱའི་སྒྲོགས་ [ki li ki lA'i sgrogs] «Kilikilārava». Lit. «Giving off sounds of Kili Kili!». From the Sanskrit «kilikilārava». The name of one of དུར་ཁྲོད་བརྒྱད་ the eight charnel grounds q.v.
ཀིང་ [king] Abbrev. of ཀིངྐ་ར་ q.v. See also གིང་ which is a corruption of this abbrev.
ཀིང་ཀ་ར་ [king ka ra] Same as ཀིངྐ་ར་ q.v.
ཀིམ་པ་ཀ་ [kim pa ka] Corrupted form of ཀིམྤཱ་ཀ་ q.v.
ཀིམཔཱ་ཀ་ [kimpA ka] «Kimpaka». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kimpāka». The name of the fruit body of a plant which is very attractive to the eye and pleasant tasting but which is poisonous once ingested. [SCD] gives that the plant is «a cucurbitaceous plant Trichosanthes palmata; also possibly Cucumis colocynthis». The fruit is probably a gourd or melon. It is used as ཤིང་སྨན་ a medicinal substance q.v. and [TC] gives its particular qualities. It has a particularly bad taste so is used in literature as an example of something that is attractive but of very bad taste., from Nāgārjuna's Letter to a Friend: འདོད་པ་རྣམས་ནི་ཕུང་བ་བསྐྱེད་པ་སྟེ། །རྒྱལ་བའི་དབང་པོས་ཀིམ་པའི་འབྲས་འདྲར་གསུངས། «Desires caused you to be dragged down; the leader of conquerors said that it is like the Kimpaka's fruit».
ཀུ་ཀུ་ར་ཙ་ [ku ku ra tsa] «Kukurāja». Lit. «Dog King». Mistaken translit. of the Sanskrit «kukurāja». The name of one of the Buddhist mahāsiddhas of ancient India. He was one of the gurus of མར་པ་ལོ་ཙཱ་བ་ Marpa the Translator. He is also one of the gurus in the མ་ཧཱ་ཡོ་ག་ Mahāyoga lineage. Also known in Tibetan as ཀུ་ཀུ་རི་པ་ «Dog man». He derives his name from the fact that he surrounded himself with bitch dogs, who were all said to be emanations of the protectors of Vajrayoginī.
ཀུ་ཀུ་རི་པ་ [ku ku ri pa] Lit. «Dog-man». From the Sanskrit «kukkuri». See ཀུ་ཀུ་ར་ཙ་ «kukurāja».
ཀུ་སྒྲ་ [ku sgra] [GCD] gives as དོན་མེད་ཆུའི་སྒྲ་ལྟ་བུ་ i.e., «meaningless noise like the sound of water» and says that it is the same as ཀུ་ཅོ་ཆེ་ and ཀུ་ཅོ་འདོན་པ་. See ཀུ་ཅོ་ for explanation.
ཀུ་ཅོ་ [ku co] «Noise», «roar», «clamour», etc. This term refers to «noise» with the additional two connotations that the noise could be: 1) non-human noise, e.g., the noise of a river; or 2) could be the noisiness of people as in the general clamour of a crowd or the specific noisiness of people gibbering / gossiping to each other without restraint in a place where they should not. The term is like the English «noise» where there is the sense of un-restrained production of sound. It is slightly pejorative. Note that the term ཅ་ཅོ་ refers more specifically to noise made by humans. There are many English words that can be used according to context e.g., «clamour of the marketplace», «burbling of the brook», «crashing of waves», etc.
ཀུ་ཅོ་སྒྲོག་པ་ [ku co sgrog pa] I. phrase> v.t. see སྒྲོག་པ་ for tense forms. «To make a noise»; see ཀུ་ཅོ་ for the correct sense of «noise».
II. phrase> per the verb.
ཀུ་ཅོ་ཆེ་ [ku co che] phrase> A loud or great form of ཀུ་ཅོ་ «noise» q.v. E.g., «loud noise», «a great noise», «very noisy», etc.
ཀུ་ཅོ་འདོན་པ་ [ku co 'don pa] I. phrase> v.t. see འདོན་པ་ for tense forms. «To make a noise», «to give off any kind of noise / sound», «to be noisy». See ཀུ་ཅོ་ for the correct sense of «noise».
II. phrase>phrase> [GCD] gives that this is the same as ཀུ་སྒྲ་ and ཀུ་ཅོ་ཆེ་ q.v.
ཀུ་བེ་ར་ [ku be ra] «Kuvera». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kubera». In ancient Indian history, the son of རྣམ་ཐོས་སྲས་ Vaiśhravaṇa q.v. In Buddhist ritual, he is regarded as an aspect of Vaiśhravaṇa and is supplicated as a source of wealth.
ཀུ་མཱ་ར་ [ku mA ra] «Kumāra». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kumāra». Translated into Tibetan with གཞོན་ནུ་ q.v.
ཀུ་མཱ་ར་ཛི་བ་ [ku mA ra dzi ba] «Kumārajiva». Translit. of the Sanskrit «kumārajiva». The name of Indian master who translated numerous Buddhist sūtras into Chinese. He was born in the fourth century A.D.
ཀུ་མུ་ད་ [ku mu da] An Altern. spelling of ཀུ་མུད་ q.v.
ཀུ་མུ་དའི་གཉེན་ [ku mu da'i gnyen] Same as ཀུ་མུད་གཉེན་ q.v.
ཀུ་མུ་དའི་ [ku mu d'i] [GCD] gives as ཟླ་བའི་འོད་ཟེར་ i.e., «moonlight».
ཀུ་མུཏ་ [ku mut] Mis-spelling of ཀུ་མུད་ q.v.
ཀུ་མུད་ [ku mud] «Kumud». This name is believed to be a corruption of the Sanskrit ཀུནྡ་ Kunda. It is said in Buddhist scriptures to be a white flower that grows in or near water and blossoms at night, and induces extreme hallucinations if eatent. This fits exactly with the Datura plant—which it is generally regarded to be. It is a member of the Lily family, grows close to streams, has a very large, white, trumpet-like flower that opens into a wide blossom at night, especially in the moon-light, because of which it is also known as the «moon lily». It is exceptionally hallucinogenic and kills in small doses.
The name is also freq. spelled ཀུ་མུ་ད་. [GCD] gives ཨུཏྤལ་དཀར་པོའི་མིང་ i.e., «another name for the white ཨུཏྤལ་ Utpala lotus (flower)» but this would be a mistake made by Tibetan authors who do not know the Datura plant.
This flower is very white, so is also used as an example of being very white.
ཀུ་མུད་དགའ་ [ku mud dga'] phrase> [Mngon] «Lover of the Kumud (flower)». The name of a bird. [GCD] gives as ཙ་ཀོ་ར་ཀ་.
ཀུ་མུད་དགྲ་ [ku mud dgra] phrase> [Mngon] «Enemy of the Kumud». A metaphor for the sun, because daylight causes the ཀུ་མུད་ Kumud flower to close during the day. [GCD] A cognate term is ཀུ་མུད་གཉེན་ q.v.
ཀུ་མུད་གཉེན་ [ku mud gnyen] phrase> [Mngon] «Friend of the Kumud». A metaphor for the ཟླ་བ་ moon, because the light of the moon causes the ཀུ་མུད་ Kumud flower to blossom at night. [GCD] A cognate term is ཀུ་མུད་དགྲ་ «Enemy of the Kumud» q.v.
ཀུ་མུད་ཕན་ [ku mud phan] phrase> [Mngon] «Helper of the Kumud». A metaphor for «moonlight», because the light of the moon causes the ཀུ་མུད་ Kumud flower to open at night. [GCD] A cognate term is ཀུ་མུད་གཉེན་ q.v.
ཀུ་མུད་བཞད་དུས་ [ku mud bzhad dus] phrase> [Mngon] Lit. «time when the Kumud (flowers) open» which is a metaphor for «night time» since the ཀུ་མུད་ Kumud flower only opens at night. E.g., [GCD] gives མཚན་མོའི་དུས་ i.e., «night time».
ཀུ་མུད་ཟས་ཅན་ [ku mud zas can] phrase> [Mngon] Lit. «having food of the Kumud (flower)». [GCD] gives as (the bird) ཙ་ཀོ་ར་ཀོ་.
ཀུ་མུད་ལོ་མ་ [ku mud lo ma] phrase> [Mngon] Lit. «leaved with Kumud (flowers).» 1) [GCD] gives as དཔག་བསམ་ཤིང་ i.e., the wish-fulfilling tree. 2) [TC] gives as ཤིང་ཡོངས་འདུ་ས་བརྟོལ།.