[INDOLOGY] aja as ajaya?

Thu Aug 25 06:59:27 UTC 2016

Just a random idea:
perhaps chu skyes is based on *abja.
Also, at least in some lists (but I admit this is a very problematic
"possibility") jaya is a name for the sun...
Thanks for your interesting questions!

(May I just add here that since my student days I've appreciated the
materials you've made available from a place I had never before heard of,
Talent Oregon? Until it got water damaged by a warehouse that was anything
but 'state of the art' [despite their claim...] I had a lovely reprint, in
library binding, of an old publication on the Madhyāntavibhāga and several
other things from you, for which I take the opportunity to publicly thank
you :)

Jonathan

On Wed, Aug 24, 2016 at 4:33 AM, David and Nancy Reigle <dnreigle at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Getting the names of the kings of Śambhala correct is very important for
> the Jonang order of Tibetan Buddhism, which has specialized in the
> Kālacakra/Śambhala teachings. So the Jonangpa lama Khentrul Rinpoche asked
> me if I could check with other Sanskritists to confirm that the name *aja*
> cannot mean “inconquerable” or “unconquered” in accordance with the rules
> of Sanskrit grammar. Since the many learned Sanskritists on this list have
> not responded with a way to derive this meaning in the three days since the
> question was posted, I take this as confirmed. This is a difficult problem,
> because a thousand years ago two different Indian Sanskrit pandits, working
> with two different Tibetan translators, apparently did take *aja* in this
> meaning. Unlike with the name *harivikrama*, we cannot trace how the
> error with *aja* arose (if it is an error).
>
>
> The case of *harivikrama* is comparatively simple. This name occurs with
> another name in this anuṣṭubh pāda: śrīpalo harivikramaḥ. Sanskrit verses
> had to be translated into Tibetan verses with a fixed number of syllables,
> seven for a pāda in the śloka or anuṣṭubh meter. So the eight syllables of
> this anuṣṭubh pāda were translated into these seven Tibetan syllables: dpal
> skyong seng ge rnam par gnon. Because the number of Tibetan syllables was
> limited by the meter, the syllables giving necessary grammatical
> information were omitted, leaving no way to know where the names divide. At
> some point, annotations were added, dividing this pāda into three names
> rather than two. So the Tibetan tradition got two kings, *hari* and
> *vikrama*, for one, *harivikrama*. All eight Sanskrit manuscripts that I
> used 31 years ago have *harivikramaḥ* (not *harir vikramaḥ*), as do the
> two that have become available to me since then. These ten include six old
> palm-leaf manuscripts, two of which had been used in Tibet, as seen by the
> Tibetan handwriting on their opening leaves.
>
>
> The case of *aja* is more complex. Even though the pāda of the śloka that
> *ajaḥ* occurs in lacks a syllable, samudravijayo 'jaḥ, all ten Sanskrit
> manuscripts have *ajaḥ*, not *ajayaḥ*. This name occurs again in prose in
> the *Vimalaprabhā* commentary on 1.27, three times, so the form *aja* is
> there confirmed. Yet the canonical Tibetan translation by the Indian pandit
> Somanātha and the Tibetan translator 'Bro Shes rab grags, revised by
> Shong ston, has *rgyal dka'*. Similarly, the Tibetan translation by the
> Indian pandit Samantaśrī and the Tibetan translator Rwa Chos rab has *ma
> pham pa*, as reported by Bu ston in his annotated edition of the
> *Vimalaprabhā*. Both mean “unconquerable” or “unconquered.” Here we do
> not have an error that is traceable to the transmission process, as we do
> with *harivikrama*, but rather a discrepancy in the translation itself.
>
>
> In the last few years two other old Tibetan translations of the
> *Vimalaprabhā* that had recently been recovered were published, and part
> of a third. The translation by Tsa mi Sangs rgyas grags, said to be the
> only Tibetan ever to become abbot of Nālandā university in India, has
> transliterated the name into Tibetan characters (*a dza*) rather than
> translated it. The first ever Tibetan translation, by the Indian pandit
> Bhadrabodhi and the Tibetan translator Gyi jo Zla ba'i 'od zer and his
> students, has the incomprehensible *nyi ma'i*, “of the sun,” at the end
> of the pāda in the list of kings (probably a scribal error in the one
> manuscript we have), and *chu skyes*, “water-born,” in the three
> occurrences in the commentary on 1.27. A third translation, of which we
> have only the first chapter (so we do not know who made it), has *rgyal
> ba*, “conqueror,” in the list of kings (probably a scribal error for *rgyal
> dka'* in the one manuscript we have), and *rgyal dka'*, “unconquerable,”
> in the three occurrences at 1.27.
>
>
> The question now is whether the name *aja* could stand for *ajaya* in
> some Prakrit or even vernacular language, probably from northeastern India.
> If we reject Gyi jo’s *chu skyes*, “water-born,” as an erroneous
> translation, a simple mistake, we are left with figuring out how three
> translators took *aja* as “unconquerable” or “unconquered.” Is this, too,
> just an erroneous translation? Significantly, Tsa mi did not translate the
> name but only transliterated it. This indicates that he did not take it as
> “unconquerable” or “unconquered,” but neither did he take it as “unborn,”
> as we might have expected. My apologies for the long post, but this is
> important to me and to Khentrul Rinpoche, and I wanted to provide enough
> background information to possibly lead to a solution to this problem.
>
>
> Best regards,
>
>
> David Reigle
>
> Colorado, U.S.A.
>
>
>
> On Sat, Aug 20, 2016 at 9:51 PM, David and Nancy Reigle <
> dnreigle at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> A question to all,
>>
>>
>> The name *aja* occurs in a listing of the kings of Śambhala quoted in
>> the *Vimalaprabhā* commentary on the *Kālacakra-tantra*. As the name of
>> a bodhisattva king I have not taken *aja* in its meaning “goat,” but
>> rather in its meaning “unborn.” However, two different pairs of early
>> translators have translated it into Tibetan as “unconquerable” or
>> “unconquered” (*rgyal dka’*, *ma pham pa*), as if the word was *ajaya*
>> (or *ajita*) rather than *aja*. This, of course, is a more appropriate
>> meaning for the name of a king; but the form *aja* is unanimously
>> confirmed in multiple witnesses and also in a different location in the
>> *Vimalaprabhā*. So the question is: Is there any way to derive *aja*
>> from the root *ji*, “to conquer,” rather than from the root *jan*, “to
>> be born,” in accordance with the rules of Sanskrit grammar, whether the
>> *Aṣṭādhyāyī* of Pāṇini, the *Cāndra-vyākaraṇa*, the *Kātantra*, the
>> *Sārasvata-vyākaraṇa*, or any other Sanskrit grammar?
>>
>>
>> Details: The full listing can be found in “The Lost Kālacakra Mūla Tantra
>> on the Kings of Śambhala,” where *ajaḥ* occurs in the verse that I have
>> arbitrarily numbered 17 for convenience of reference:
>> https://www.academia.edu/6423778/The_Lost_Kalacakra_Mula_
>> Tantra_on_the_Kings_of_Sambhala.
>>
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>>
>> David Reigle
>>
>> Colorado, U.S.A.
>>
>
>
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-- 
J. Silk
Leiden University
Leiden University Institute for Area Studies, LIAS
Matthias de Vrieshof 3, Room 0.05b
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The Netherlands

copies of my publications may be found at
http://www.buddhismandsocialjustice.com/silk_publications.html

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