[Buddha-l] Lamas and such

[Dan Lusthaus]

Kate,

> This is more or less my understanding of the word "Lama," too - though the
> definition I was given is "Superior One" rather than "Exalted."

That was the google-translation of 上人 shangren, which means "high/superior 
person" (bla = shang ma = ren). I only lightly touched up the 
google-translation results, if they were totally out to lunch, impossible to 
understand, or misleading (the raw data dump was hilarious and 
incomprehensible).

For fun, paste the following into the google translation machine 
http://translate.google.com/# and see what comes out the other end:

西藏名 Bla-mahi bstan-pa。意謂無上教。指以西藏為中心而盛行之佛教教派。主要傳播於我國藏族、蒙古族等地區，及不丹、錫金，尼泊爾等地。教主為達賴喇嘛、班禪喇嘛。「喇嘛」為西藏語 bla-ma 之音譯，係 bla（上） 
與 ma（人）之複合詞，直譯為上人。「上人」本為佛弟子中有大德行者之尊稱，即是上德之人；內有德智，外有勝行，在人之上，故稱為上人。此與梵語 guru（音譯咕嚕）一詞相當。然至後期，「喇嘛」 
成為西藏男女僧人之通稱。又因在西藏特別尊崇喇嘛，外人遂以「喇嘛教」（Lamaism）呼之。實則西藏僧人既非人人皆為喇嘛，亦不自稱喇嘛教。西藏人稱之為撒蓋耶基確斯（梵 Savs-rgyas-kyi chos），意為佛陀之 
啟示，或佛之宗教；又自稱為南確斯（藏 Nav-chos），意為正統之宗教或內道之宗教，以別於外道之棒教。佛教自印度傳入西藏後，因西藏特殊之地理環境，及與原始棒教結合，遂形成風格特殊之「喇嘛教」，與中土所傳之佛教大異其趣。

Dan