རྒྱན་ and བརྒྱན་, 54. The treatment of these words in the Dicts. seems unsatisfactory. None of the Dicts. give a passive verb རྒྱན་ or བརྒྱན་ ‘being adorned, being decked out, embellished,’ etc. J. has only རྒྱན་ as a subst. ‘ornament, decoration,’ and a verb བརྒྱན་ ‘to adorn, decorate, provide with.’ According to this his own example ཉ་ should not mean, as he says, ‘the letter nya (ཉ་) being provided with an S above it’ (= སྙ་), but rather something like ‘to adorn the letter nya with a sa as a topletter.’
Desg. knows a verb རྒྱན་ or རྒྱན་ (or བྱེད་ or བཀོད་) with the meaning of ‘to adorn,’ with a past tense བརྒྱན་, ‘ornavi, ornatus, orné,’ whatever that means. He and J. quote also a རྒྱན་ ‘adorned,’ in which the རྒྱན་ has clearly a substantival value, like in རྒྱན་, ‘without adornment, unadorned.’
S.v. བརྒྱན་ Desg. says: ‘praet. verbi རྒྱན་, ornatus, et v. act. ornare, orné, orner,’ and he adds བརྒྱན་ or ཆ་ ‘ornament.’ Bell has རྒྱན་ for ornament. But J. knows no བརྒྱན་ or ཆ་ as substantives and refers expressly to the unprefixed རྒྱན་ for the substantives. He further equates རྒྱན་ and རྒྱན་ ‘ornaments’ (plural). Under འདོགས་, ‘to put on,’ we find further རྒྱན་, to put on gay clothes, finery (s.v. རྒྱན་, the same expression is translated as ‘to adorn one’s self,’) and རྒྱན་, ‘beautifully attired’ (Mil.). If these translations are idiomatically true we should expect [[36]](བ) རྐྱན་ to have a wider sense than the English ornament, rather anything beautiful or fine, whether ornaments (in the sense of trinkets) or not. The word adornment would fit better. (Cf. D. tooi, G. Schmuck.)
Desg. gives no example of རྒྱན་ with a clearly active value of the verb ‘to ornament,’ but both in J. and Desg. such examples are given under བརྒྱན་. Desg. gives as synonyms ལེགས་ and མཛེས་ and it is a question whether in these expressions བྱེད་ can have the neuter sense of ‘to act as’ = ‘to be’ (like in རྒྱལ་). S. Ch. D. (who has several misprints in his syns. for རྒྱན་) quotes s.v. འགོད་ (292b) a བརྒྱན་, ‘to arrange ornaments (tastefully); to decorate, adorn, to construct or adjust grammatical forms, sentences, (Zam.).’ This latter use of བརྒྱན་ is evidently the clue to the expression, quoted elsewhere by Desg. and S. Ch. D.: རྒྱན་, अलंकारपण्डित, one versed in rhetoric, a clever orator. The equation རྒྱན་ = བཞག་ (in the modern language, v. Bell, to put, place), given by S. Ch. D. is denied by both my teachers, though confirmed by Desg.; they know of no Tibetan word of this spelling and sound with the meaning bejewelled, adorned, decorated, as is the correct translation of the Sk. equivalent cited, मण्डित. Yet may རྒྱན་ (པ་) perhaps mean ‘an ornamented object’, hence ‘die, dice’; hence again Desg. ‘objets mêlés pour tirer les sorts’, and lastly ‘stake’ (in gambling) and ‘lot’? This first meaning is not in the Dicts. but would settle the question discussed a few lines lower down, and explain those combinations with རྒྱན་ which refer to gambling and divination. In connection with the immediately following articles in S. Ch. D., རྒྱན་༌, ‘one who joins in a wager, gambler’ [one who puts up his jewels, ornaments for [[37]]a stake?], and རྒྱན་ or བཞག་, ‘a dice-rogue, a gamester, one who throws dice,’ etc., it should be ascertained whether there is a Tibetan word with རྒྱན་ which means die, dice, or whether the combinations refer to the staking of ornaments and jewels in gambling.
S.v. བརྒྱན་ S. Ch. D. gives no news, treating this word, however, as a verb, and referring to རྒྱན་ for the subst.
As a result of this little investigation we come to the conclusion that it is legitimate to inquire whether there is not a Tibetan verb རྒྱན་ (more likely than བརྒྱན་) with the passive or neuter sense of ‘being decked out, being ornamented or adorned, showing gaily.’ What would render such a word exactly in English is difficult to see, unless we coin a verb ‘to splendiferate,’ but D. pronken (pronken in vollen luister) comes near to it. Other related words would be: to blaze forth, to shine out, to cut a dash, or else to swagger, to swank, to preen, to strut, or again to be graced with or by, to show forth, etc., but especially ‘to display’ in the technical zoological sense.
An instructive illustration in this matter is furnished by the following two sentences, both with the same meaning: ཐང་, or ཐང་, of which the best idiomatic translation is: O, what a fine picture!; how fine is the painting (drawing) of (in) (this) picture!
But the psychological translation is in the first case: ‘This picture is by-lines-(fine)-displaying’, and in the second case: ‘To this picture there is a by-the-lines-(drawings)-ornamentation (or display).’
རྒྱལ་ see སྒོ་.
རྒྱལ་, 6. According to J., III, also ‘superior, excellent, eminent.’ རྣམ་, ‘most excellent, illustrious.’ This may be the meaning here. Whether there is a connection between the word as used here and the རྒྱལ་ title of the Dalai Lamas may be left undecided. [[38]]