[INDOLOGY] Fwd: aja as ajaya?

Sat Aug 27 00:25:52 UTC 2016

Dear Madhav and all,

The lack of a syllable in this pāda certainly makes *ajaya* for *aja* a
simple and obvious fix for the problem. I recall an early Vedic scholar (I
have forgotten who) writing that the very fact that an emendation is
obvious is good reason not to make the emendation, because it would have
also been obvious to the whole line of Sanskrit pandits who transmitted the
text, yet who did not make the emendation. We seem to have the same
situation here. I originally did not make the obvious emendation because
all eight Sanskrit manuscripts unanimously agreed in having *aja* here.
Then came confirmation of this by the occurrence of *aja* in the prose
commentary on 1.27, three times. Then two more old palm-leaf Sanskrit
manuscripts became available to me, also having *aja*. Most recently, Tsa
mi’s early Tibetan translation became available, having the transliterated
*aja*. Not a single source has *ajaya*. So I am obliged to conclude that
*aja* is the actual form of the name.

Unlike the Vedic texts with their long history, the Kālacakra texts only
appeared in India about a thousand years ago. There was no time for a
corruption to occur in the transmission of the text and then become
established in the tradition. The early translators all lived within the
first few generations after the Kālacakra texts appeared in India. Two of
the palm-leaf Sanskrit manuscripts we have are old enough to have been
brought to Tibet, presumably by the early translators. The question, then,
is whether the *ajaya* meaning for *aja* is a mistake, like the *abja*
meaning most likely is, or whether the name *aja* was actually understood
in the meaning of *ajaya*.

We know that *aja* cannot be derived from the root *ji* in accordance with
the rules of Sanskrit grammar. No evidence has so far surfaced that *aja*
ever had the *ajaya* meaning in a Prakrit or vernacular, presumably of
northeast India. The evidence of the early translators is inconsistent,
some taking *aja* in the meaning of *ajaya*, and some not. Somanātha,
working with the Tibetan translator 'Bro, apparently did (we have only the
later revision of his translation by Shong ston), while Tsa mi did not. Yet
both are reported to have been co-disciples of the same Kālacakra teacher,
and they lived only a few generations after the texts appeared in India. So
who do we trust? It seems to me that we need more evidence to decide this
question.

Best regards,

David Reigle

Colorado, U.S.A.

On Thu, Aug 25, 2016 at 9:07 PM, Madhav Deshpande <mmdesh at umich.edu> wrote:

> Forgot to send it to Indology list.
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Madhav Deshpande <mmdesh at umich.edu>
> Date: Thu, Aug 25, 2016 at 1:52 PM
> Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] aja as ajaya?
> To: David and Nancy Reigle <dnreigle at gmail.com>
>
>
> Hello David,
>
>      I don't know any Tibetan, but the Sanskrit lines "samudravijayo 'jaḥ
> | kalkī dvādaśamaḥ sūryo" that you have quoted make me think that the
> first part of your quotation is metrically deficient.  It has only seven
> syllables, in stead of the required eight syllables for a quarter of an
> Anuṣṭubh verse.  To make this line metrically regular with eight syllables,
> the probable correction would read: samudravijayo 'jayaḥ", giving you the
> reading "ajaya".  This original was probably corrupted to "samudravijayo '
> jaḥ".  Just a suggestion.
>
> Madhav Deshpande
>
> On Thu, Aug 25, 2016 at 1:31 PM, David and Nancy Reigle <
> dnreigle at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Dear Jonathan,
>>
>> Thank you for the good suggestion that perhaps *chu skyes*,
>> “water-born,” is based on **abja*. I would regard this as certain, that
>> the Tibetan translator was thinking of *abja*. Whether *abja* rather
>> than *aja* was found in Bhadrabodhi’s Sanskrit manuscript, however, is
>> another question. In this pioneering translation, the Tibetan translator
>> Gyi jo first made a draft translation, and then this was divided among his
>> students, the junior translators, to complete (see Cyrus Stearns, *The
>> Buddha from Dölpo*, 2010 ed., p. 327 note 98). Since this possibly
>> tentative translation, *chu skyes*, is the only evidence we have for
>> *abja*, against much other evidence, I must doubt whether *abja* was
>> actually in the Sanskrit manuscript. It seems more likely that the Tibetan
>> translator simply confused the two words, and mistook the meaning of
>> *abja* for the meaning of *aja*.
>>
>>
>> Regarding *nyi ma'i*, “of the sun,” what caused me to call this
>> “incomprehensible” is the fact that this genitive occurs at the end of the
>> Tibetan pāda, and with nothing for it to go with: rgya mtsho rnam rgyal nyi
>> ma'i | snyigs can nyi ma bcu gnyis pa'o |, corresponding to: samudravijayo
>> 'jaḥ | kalkī dvādaśamaḥ sūryo |. The Tibetan pāda is short one syllable,
>> which is obviously needed after *nyi ma'i*, but was apparently omitted
>> by scribal error. So the Tibetan translator did take this name as something
>> pertaining to the sun, whether he read it as *jaya* or as *aja*. As for
>> what the word missing in this Tibetan translation might be, “[something] of
>> the sun”: V. S. Apte’s Sanskrit dictionary gives as meaning #9 “A vehicle
>> of the sun,” and Monier-Williams gives “beam of the sun (Pūshan),” but
>> neither with a source reference.
>>
>>
>> (Thank you for your kind words.)
>>
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>>
>> David Reigle
>>
>> Colorado, U.S.A.
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Aug 25, 2016 at 12:59 AM, Jonathan Silk <kauzeya at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> 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_Tan
>>>>> tra_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
>>> 2311 BZ Leiden
>>> The Netherlands
>>>
>>> copies of my publications may be found at
>>> http://www.buddhismandsocialjustice.com/silk_publications.html
>>>
>>
>>
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