བླ་ (ན་) མེད་ (པ་), 52. Sk. अनुत्तर, unsurpassed, unexcelled, unrivalled, supreme, incomparable, most high, highest. Not specially entered in J. but illustrated by an example s.v. བླ་. [[61]]Altogether absent in Desg. S. Ch. D. བླ་, ‘to those who are supreme, or to the followers of the Anuttara school.’ A curious entry! See S. Ch. D. also s.v. བླ་.
བླ་, 3. Here perhaps better ‘teacher’ than ‘priest’ or ‘superior.’ The word may be here equally well taken in the singular as in the plural, but the latter is perhaps more likely.
བླ་, see བླ་.
བློ་, 47. ‘Straight, upright, righteous mind.’ J.’s entry is a little vague. I think he takes ཐུགས་ in his example ཐུགས་ as an indication that གཟུ་ is also a honorific form. That, however, is not the case. Compare also the quotation from Cs. in S. Ch. D., གཟུ་ ‘to be impartial and straightforward, to be on the side of honesty.’ I don’t find this example in Schmidt. Desg. ‘straight, upright, (élevé,) just, honest.’ According to the above the word is an adj. and the translation of the passage becomes ‘whether you persevere in a straight (righteous) mind.’ The verb གནས་ has then to be taken as ‘to hold, adhere to, persevere in (an opinion, etc.).’ If however, we should find that གཟུ་ can also be sbst. ‘righteousness,’ ‘straightness,’ (not in any Dict.), then གནས་ would have the other meaning of ‘to dwell, reside’ and the phrase would have to be rendered ‘whether the mind (continues to) dwell(s) in righteousness.’ S. Ch. D. renders ཐུགས་ as ‘honest mind,’ but the sense honest versus dishonest seems not quite applicable in our passage. J. is vague here. My informants gave the above definition ‘straight, upright’ as their own but felt afterwards vague about this example which, though they had framed it, they could not vouch for: མི་, ‘see whether the man keeps straight or not.’ The framer honestly confessed that whilst we were discussing the word he had been influenced by S. Ch. D.’s Dict. in coining the sentence; a [[62]]confession so instructive for idiom-verifiers that I think it worth while to record it here.
Finally, Desg. supports S. Ch.’s second meaning ‘witness’ for གཟུ་. He, however, does not give S. Ch.’s form གཟུ་. The ordinary word for witness is, of course, དཔང་ (པོ་). It is characteristic of S. Ch. D. that he copies J.’s extract from Sch. under གཟུ་ ‘witness, mediator,’ but then immediately adds his own individual interpretation which not only is likely to be correct, but which also nullifies and contradicts the previous entry which he copied immediately above. He himself says, ‘an honest and truthful witness.’ It often occurs that S. Ch. D. brings modifications, extensions and even corrections to J.’s statements, but at the same time he copies J. far too slavishly and so contradicts himself in the pages of his own dictionary. Whether meanings like ‘reliable, straightforward, correct, proper,’ etc., have to be attached to གཟུ་ is as yet uncertain.
བློ་, 8. In Sk. Sumatikīrti. According to the Sk. dictionaries the primary sense of ‘sumati’ is ‘benevolence.’ In present-day Tibetan བློ་ is rather ‘good-natured, kindhearted,’ as against དྲིན་ ‘benevolent.’ So the Tibetan name has to be rendered as Good-nature-fame, or Famous good-nature, the personal name of Tsoṅ kʽa pa.
དབང་ (མ་) སོང་, 22. (Not) fallen under the power (of).…
དབྱངས་, 54 and colophon. This word seems here hardly to mean ‘song, singing tune,’ but rather ‘melody, melodiousness, sweetness,’ etc. This tallies to a certain extent with Csoma’s translation of the title of list LXI (p. 86) of the Mahāvyutpatti, ‘Names of the 60 sorts (or divisions) of melody or melodious voices (or vocal sound).’ I take it that this list refers to what is mentioned here in our text. How these 60 branches of melody are exactly to be understood I have not been able to ascertain. The opinions of Pʽun Tsʽogs on the point are as follows. The Buddha’s voice had such a [[63]]variety of (magic?) qualities, sixty in number, that they made him understood by all beings, whatever their own languages. The Buddha was in this way simultaneously understood by men, devas, nāgas, etc. In proffering this explanation Pʽun Tsʽogs takes ཡན་ to mean rather ‘kind’ than ‘branch.’ As an alternative he suggests that དབྱངས་ is an adjective synonymous with རིང་༌, ‘high’ (as applied to voice or rather tone) [or perhaps long, lengthened?] and that then དབྱངས་ would mean a ‘variety’ of tones or modulations. I myself am inclined to think that if the Mahāvyutpatti list is not referred to, we have here to do with some scholastic scheme of rhetorics, though if so understood the exact value of དབྱངས་ is not clear and certainly not sufficiently defined in the Dicts.
(Cf. S. Ch. D. s.v. ཟབ་ (p. 1092a), ཟབ་ = मन्द्र, मन्द्रक, ‘a deep voice, a musical tone.’ See also གདུང་.)
དབྱིངས་ see སྤྲོས་.