[Buddha-l] Re: Query on Non-Local Consciousness

[Stephen Hodge]

Dan Lusthaus wrote:

> That he would translate aama as 生 (life,
> produce, arise, birth, etc.) then becomes the problem.

Dear Dan,
Why ?  A quick visit to any decent dictionary will tell you that "raw", 
"uncooked" etc is a quite common meaning of 生 which thus fits aama 
perfectly -- I am surprised you are not aware of this.  Oddly enough, the 
Japanese kun-yomi is "nama" -- almost aama !

Perhaps you are confused by the immediately following 而 but you should also 
be aware that this is not used here in the normal sense it has in the 
classical language, conjoining two verbs.  I am not sure when it started, 
whether pre-Sui or not -- I think Kumarajiva might use it, but  而 also came 
to be widely used as a topic marker in Buddhist translation texts, which can 
be either grammatical subject, or as here, object.  This use has largely 
gone unremarked, but I think Hanyu Dacidian mentions it.

Hence, there does not seem to be anything especially problematic about this 
phrase.

> All in all, a very perplexing passage in both languages (which, I suspect,
> the Tibetan attempted to gloss away).
No, the Tibetan is quite straightforward -- it translates the Sanskrit 
fairly literally.

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge