ལམ་, 31. ‘The high, elevated road,’ has a religious connotation, the proper road that leads to heaven after death, the ‘narrow’ road of Christianity. See below.
ལམ་, 48. The straight road (metaphorically), the road of righteousness, of straightness of mind. Cf. S. Ch. D. s.v. དྲང་, p. 649a. The meaning of this expression and that of ལམ་, in line 31 (see above), are quite different. The other is the highroad (towards heaven), the road of a high standard of moral conduct.
ལམ་, 9. ‘Steps on the path,’ ‘degrees of advance,’ ‘steps towards perfection,’ is the short title of many mystical writings and especially of one by Tsoṅ kʽa pa, to which the words may allude here without specially designating it. In this place the meaning does not seem to be a specific work but merely ‘(religious) instructions, teaching in general.’ The ལམ་ are here, according to my oral information, to be taken as the two halves or divisions of the Kandjur which is commonly divided into མདོ་ and སྔགས་, sūtra and tantra (or mantra, or dhāraṇī). In this division the རྒྱུད་ or tantra section is called སྔགས་, whilst all the rest, properly subdivided [[71]]in six divisions, is taken together as མདོ་, of which the real མདོ་ or sūtra-division (the 5th in sequence in the Kandjur) is only one. Concerning Tsoṅ kʽa pa’s study of the ‘Sūtras and Tantras’ see S. Ch. D., ‘Contributions, etc. on Tibet,’ VI, in J.A.S.B., 1882, Vol. LI, Part I, no. 1, p. 53. J., s.v. བསྟན་, quotes a བསྟན་: ‘with Urgyan Padma, etc., the same as mdoi and sṅags kyi lam, v. mdo extr.’ This is seemingly the same as our expression.
ལུས་, 42. J. has = སེམས་, ‘beings, creatures,’ but may not the idea rather be all embodied creatures; with the etymological sense still potent in connection with the Buddhist reincarnation theory? S. Ch. D. gives a ལུས་ = གྲོང་ = ‘town, city,’ which seems rather to point to the meaning ‘man’ for ལུས་. My informants don’t feel quite certain whether to include the five other classes of beings (including animals) amongst the ལུས་, but are somewhat inclined to interpret the word as མི་, ‘man,’ in general.
ཤ་ see ཀྱུ་.
ཤར་, title, 1. The author writes his poem in a place to the west of a snow-capped mountain, to the east of which the Galdan monastery is situated. See notes on འབྲོག་, དགེ་ and གངས་. Which mountain or mountain chain is meant must be left undecided, even if granting that modern cartography could show it if identified. Local tradition, however, would most likely be able to point out a particular mountain.
ཤེས་ see མཁྱེན་.
ཤོས་ see རིན་. [[72]]
གཤགས་ see གཤགས་.
གཤགས་, 38. This expression cannot yet be explained with certainty. It may be taken here to mean, literally, ‘to send out (distribute, give, put forward) justice, right,’ but the exact idiomatic value of the phrase remains to be determined. It is not in the Dicts., and unknown to my informants. We may take the possible values of the expression as three, viz.: 1. གཤགས་ = རྩོད་ = གཤགས་ = ‘to dispute, argue, contend with words.’ This seems the same expression as S. Ch. D.’s ཁ་ ‘to hold controversy,’ p. 1248. (Perhaps also ‘to challenge, to be challenged to dispute.’) 2. = ལན་ ‘to be defeated in argument, in dispute, to be silenced in dispute.’