Thank you very much, Dan, Heiner, and Matthew, for your replies. Dan, what the Dharmamitra.org site came up with is truly amazing. I had no idea that such a research tool existed. It greatly helped to explain why the various Tibetan translations of jagr
ī and pl
īhan are so mutually contradictory.
There is no doubt that jagr
ī is the correct word. We have very old palm-leaf manuscripts from near the time the
Kālacakra-tantra and its
Vimalaprabhā commentary were written, circa 1025-1040 CE, and they all agree on this spelling. This word must have been taken from some medical text then available.
The first Tibetan translation made, by Gyijo, as revised shortly thereafter by rMa lotsawa, translated jagr
ī as mcher pa, "spleen." The Rwa translation translated jagr
ī as skran, "tumor." The 'Bro translation as revised by Shong ston translated jagr
ī as dmu chu, "edema," and the Jonang revision of the Shong ston revision left this unchanged. The Sarnath Sanskrit edition of the
Vimalaprabhā put yak
ṛt in parentheses after jagr
ī, thus thinking it means "liver."
The first Tibetan translation made, by Gyijo, as revised shortly thereafter by rMa lotsawa, translated pl
īhan, "spleen," as mchin pa, "liver." The Rwa translation translated pl
īhan as mchin nad, "liver disease." The 'Bro translation as revised by Shong ston translated pl
īhan as skran, "tumor," and the Jonang revision of the Shong ston revision left this unchanged. None of the four available Tibetan translations took pl
īhan as "spleen."
The
Vimalaprabhā commentary has:
jagrī-plīhārṣa-rogān api jalodar
ā
d
ī
ni, which seems to gloss jagr
ī as jalodara, "edema" (literally, "water belly"). There is no other occurrence of the word
jagrī in the
Kālacakra-tantra or
Vimalaprabhā.
It would be very helpful to find what medical text the term
jagrī was taken from.
With thanks and best regards,
David Reigle
Colorado, U.S.A.