gzhi gsum

[Stephen Hodge]

Dear Matthew,

Thanks for your Vinaya suggestion ~ though, of course it does not fit as you 
yourself mention.

> As Stein pointed out (Tibetica Antiqua I),
> the conventions adopted in Tibetan translations
>from Chinese are sometimes quite different from
>the "standard" Tibetan Buddhist vocabulary.

Very true, but this is not a translation from Chinese at all ~ I am not 
working with the secondary translation into Tibetan, of Dharmaksema's 
"extended" Chinese text, even though that happens to be popular with Tibetan 
writers.  Actually the parallel Chinese versions by Faxian and Dharmaskema 
of the Indic text of the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana-sutra, each ultimately 
based on the same ancestral South Indian text as the Tibetan text, are 
unhelpful since they have in most cases converted the "gzhi gsum" into a 
simple "san bao" (Three Jewels).  As for possible Skt candidates, it is a 
probably a toss up between "vastu" or "bhaava" for "gzhi".

I am interested because it seems an unusual expression, and I wondered 
whether it might be a idiosyncratic term of choice among whichever 
Mahasanghika sub-group produced the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana-sutra in the 
first place. This is not unimportant since the Mahayana 
Mahaparinirvana-sutra spends quite a bit of time discussing the Three Jewels 
in the guise of these "gzhi gsum" (and never "dkon mchog gsum"), when they 
are eventually subsumed into the buddha-dhaatu and thus interiorized as a 
personal, internal refuge.

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge