Dear Matthew,

 

I’ve reread the inscription (checking against Dimitrov’s tables of old Bengali) and now I believe that you can even read su-, so I’d tend to agree with Nataliya’s reading. However, I’m not fully convinced of the –rta ligature, if we want to read -rta, first of all we’d have to expect the usual reduplication of the plosive after repha in Bengali manuscripts, i.e. –rtta, which is not readable in the inscription. Moreover, that aksara does not really look like –ta to me, but again as you say, whoever wrote it did not master the language and script fully.

 

Best wishes,

 

Camillo

 

Dr Camillo A. Formigatti

John Clay Sanskrit Librarian

 

Bodleian Libraries 

The Weston Library

Broad Street, Oxford

OX1 3BG

Email: camillo.formigatti@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Tel. (office): 01865 (2)77208
www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

 

GROW YOUR MIND

in Oxford University’s

Gardens, Libraries and Museums

www.mindgrowing.org

 

From: Matthew Kapstein <mkapstei@uchicago.edu>
Sent: 10 January 2020 12:14
To: Camillo Formigatti <camillo.formigatti@bodleian.ox.ac.uk>; Nataliya Yanchevskaya <markandeia@gmail.com>; indology@list.indology.info
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] help with inscription

 

Thank you,Camillo,

 

I am quite certain that Nataliya’s reading is precisely what was intended in the text, though the su is badly formed and the i in kirtaye partly obliterated.

 

best,

Matthew

 

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From: Camillo Formigatti <camillo.formigatti@bodleian.ox.ac.uk>
Sent: Friday, January 10, 2020 12:41:56 PM
To: Matthew Kapstein <mkapstei@uchicago.edu>; Nataliya Yanchevskaya <markandeia@gmail.com>; indology@list.indology.info <indology@list.indology.info>
Subject: RE: [INDOLOGY] help with inscription

 

Dear Matthew,

 

I believe it reads as follows:

 

[siddham] namaḥ kalki [for kalkī?] vijayat [for vijayet?] ]kīrttaye ||

 

Best wishes,

 

Camillo

 

Dr Camillo A. Formigatti

John Clay Sanskrit Librarian

 

Bodleian Libraries 

The Weston Library

Broad Street, Oxford

OX1 3BG

Email: camillo.formigatti@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Tel. (office): 01865 (2)77208
www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

 

GROW YOUR MIND

in Oxford University’s

Gardens, Libraries and Museums

www.mindgrowing.org

 

From: Matthew Kapstein <mkapstei@uchicago.edu>
Sent: 09 January 2020 13:32
To: Nataliya Yanchevskaya <markandeia@gmail.com>; indology@list.indology.info
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] help with inscription

 

Thank you, Nataliya,

 

Your suggestion seems plausible to me on both paleographical and contextual grounds. Let’s see what others think. 

 

best,

Matthew 

 

From: Nataliya Yanchevskaya <markandeia@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 9, 2020 1:49:39 PM
To: Matthew Kapstein <mkapstei@uchicago.edu>; indology@list.indology.info <indology@list.indology.info>
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] help with inscription

 

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 be

mitra-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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