Dear Matthew,
It seems that the first syllable with a ligature is -lki; the part after "vijaya" is probably "sa" (but "su" would make more sense – hard to see though).
The whole thing looks like: namaḥ kalki-vijaya-sukīrtaye ("sa" and "ta" are written almost like in Bengali, as well as "e" in "ye").
Is it possible in this case?
Just my two cents, I hope a specialist in paleography will do better.
Best wishes,
Nataliya
On Thu, Jan 9, 2020 at 6:29 AM Matthew Kapstein via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:
_______________________________________________Dear friends,
I am wondering if some of those who are better paleographers than I might help me to read this. It comes from a Tibetan manuscript and so may not make coherent sense, as it is a Tibetan attempt to write Sanskrit.
What I see is:na maḥ ka? chche? vi ja ya bhā? [or tā?] pā dā ya//
The three syllables marked with interrogation are the ones that are giving me trouble. It is a line of homage addressed perhaps to a teacher named lha mthong lo tsA ba bshes gnyen rnam rgyal, whose proper name, in a calque back translation into Sanskrit, would bemitra-vijaya. His title lha mthong lo tsA ba ("translator from Lha mthong") would not normally be put into Sanskrit, but there's no fixed rule that it should not. However, the identification is not certain and, in any case, Tibetan teachers typically had several variant names.
thanks in advance for your suggestions,Matthew
Matthew Kapstein
Directeur d'études,
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes
Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies,
The University of Chicago
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