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@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@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@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
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